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A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.

An image of Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, c. February, where Iranian strikes have caused substantial damage and several US soldier deaths and casualties.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleAfter an uncertain beginning to this second major period of hostilities, we can now see the overall plan for either side.

For the Americans, their fire has been primarily focussed on southern Iran, where they have been attempting to break Iran's control of Hormuz by a steady campaign of striking both military and civilian sites. Additionally, it looks like the US is attempting to shape the battlefield around Bandas Abbas and Qeshm Island for some kind of incursion, as we have seen bridges and tunnels in the vicinity struck by missiles. The key word there is "attempting", because there are several things wrong with this plan both tactically and strategically.

Tactically, Iran has demonstrated the ability to very quickly get their transportation infrastructure repaired, and the US simply isn't firing volleys in the required amounts - and towards the right targets (they're using several missiles on purely civilian targets, like fishing boats) - to meaningfully degrade Iranian control of even this sector of the coastline. Additionally, an amphibious assault on Qeshm Island in the style of the WW2 Pacific theater is essentially impossible unless Iran, for whatever reason, allowed it. The gauntlet that any ship holding Marines would have to run to get to the island precludes this, let alone also transporting heavy weaponry and materiel for resupply. Using helicopter-borne troops or paratroopers would be much more feasible, but runs into even greater logistical problems if the US wanted to do anything there other than a brief skirmish before withdrawing. Strategically, even if the US waved a magic wand and took Qeshm Island, it's unclear what this would do to fulfill war aims. The most obvious intention would be to trade it back to Iran in return for a major Iranian concession, but what if you take the island, you call up Iran saying "Alright, let's get this deal running! First, I want no Hormuz tolls--" and Iran just... hung up, and kept firing drones and missiles and artillery at your forces on the island until they either all died or were forced to retreat? It's not a tenable position to hold, and Iran's capabilities to affect shipping in Hormuz are obviously not all concentrated on one single island.

So, what is Iran's strategy? It's what one analyst (Amerikanets) has termed "debasification". If the first phase of the war from late February to mid-April was focussed primarily on generally destroying and disrupting the US's military infrastructure in the region, what this second phase has planned is something more like a region-wide missile advance. Starting from the Gulf states and their US bases, the plan is to push back American planes and soldiers to further and further afield bases and thereby make sorties against Iran take much more time, fuel, and use more resupply planes. Iranian strikes are, as of me writing this, concentrated on Jordan, where a recent Iranian strike caused the first admission of soldier deaths in quite some time. The Iranian goal is clearly to push back all US planes to at least the Zionist entity, by which point, unless they are withdrawn further back all the way to Europe, the planes will all be so concentrated on so few bases that it will become a physical impossibility to get them all scrambled before Iranian strikes hit. Compared to the US's strategy, Iran's is immediately bearing fruit, with US strikes already very limited in intensity compared to the first phase of the war months ago. The irony of the US breaking off negotiations - again! - to pursue a new strategy that already looks to be profoundly failing is truly some inspired stuff; the genocidal architects of American imperium in the mid-20th century are rolling in their graves.


Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on the Zionists' destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.


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[-] Tervell@hexbear.net 65 points 2 days ago

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/marco-rubio-tells-diplomats-play-down-talk-american-tech-kill-switch-2026-07-22/ (seems to be unarchivable)

Marco Rubio tells diplomats to play down talk of American tech 'kill switch'

  • Rubio's July 16 cable told diplomats to sell foreign partners on American AI products
  • Talking points urged diplomats to portray attempts to build rival 'sovereign AI' systems as wasteful
  • Cable follows sudden placement of restrictions on Anthropic AI models that spread alarm across Europe

more

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio ​has asked diplomats to push back against talk of a "kill switch" in American technology products following the White House's short-lived decision to keep foreigners from ‌America's most advanced AI models, according to a recent cable reviewed by Reuters. The talking points, which were circulated worldwide, show how U.S. diplomats are trying to deal with the international backlash from the Trump administration's efforts to control how and to whom American AI companies release their models. The White House referred questions to the State Department, which in turn pointed Reuters to an editorial from U.S. Under Secretary of State for ​Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg that decried "autarkist measures" which aimed to push American technology aside in favor of native AI solutions, a trend he described as "backward and counterproductive." Rubio's missive ​follows the Trump administration's June 12 move to block foreign nationals from Anthropic's most advanced models, Mythos and Fable, on national security ⁠grounds, prompting the AI company to abruptly suspend access to the models globally. Asian tech executives seized on the disruption to tout their own alternatives and European lawmakers redoubled their calls for ​digital independence from the United States. Although the ban was lifted later the same month, the fallout lingers. Combined with Trump's June 2 executive order, which asked AI companies to voluntarily submit their models ​to 30 days of cybersecurity testing ahead of their release, it signaled a new appetite from the U.S. government to police AI companies' products -- and potentially yank them even from the hands of allies at a moment's notice. European lawmaker Christophe Grudler said the episode showed that "the U.S. holds a real ‘kill-switch’ over essential technologies and that they are more than willing to use it." Aura Salla, a member of the European People's ​Party, the European Parliament's biggest political group, said that the continent "cannot keep building its tech stack on access that can be switched off overnight by a foreign government."

The State Department cable, ​dated July 16, did not mention Anthropic by name or refer specifically to last month's ban or Trump's executive order, but it provided American diplomats with talking points aimed at countering the arguments that ‌have sprung ⁠up in their wake. "Pausing narrow uses or requiring a 30-day testing window prior to the release of a highly potent new technology is not a 'Kill Switch'," the cable said. "There is no government 'magic button.' This narrative is exaggerated and doesn't capture the nuances of U.S. technology policy."

lol, "nuances of US policy"

AMERICAN AI SALES PITCH

Rubio's cable pushed diplomats to fight "so-called 'digital sovereignty'" initiatives, which it defined as efforts to restrict American tech firms' access to foreign markets, subject them to localization requirements, charge them "network usage fees," or force them to follow local rules around issues such as content moderation. Rubio ​had already instructed American diplomats to oppose similar ​data sovereignty measures earlier this year, Reuters previously ⁠reported. The cable also discussed how to counter "AI sovereignty" arguments, instructing American diplomats to advertise American AI products as the best tools available and describe efforts to build rival AI systems from the ground up as a waste of time and resources. "American AI companies can build large, ​independent AI infrastructure, with secure and robust supply chains that minimize backdoor risk," the cable said. "They build it. It's yours."

Edward Fishman, ​director of the Maurice R. ⁠Greenberg Center for Geoeconomics at the Council on Foreign Relations, said he sympathized with the safety considerations that prompted the U.S. government to first impose restrictions on Anthropic's models, which can turbocharge complex hacking operations. But Fishman said the Trump administration's habit of wielding coercive economic tools such as tariffs and sanctions against friend and foe alike made the State Department's pitch a tough sell. European partners ⁠in particular ​were concerned that if their businesses became "ultra reliant on U.S. frontier AI models like those made by Anthropic ​and OpenAI, that the U.S. could use that as an economic weapon against them down the road," he said. Salla, the European lawmaker, told Reuters that the Trump administration's repeated threats against countries like Denmark had generated an atmosphere of ​mistrust that no amount of rhetoric could dispel. "They have not shown us any indication that they are reliable partners," she said.

[-] SoyViking@hexbear.net 32 points 2 days ago

My "Don't worry about the kill switch" t-shirt is raising a lot of questions already answered by the t-shirt.

this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2026
144 points (100.0% liked)

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