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.
preamble
After 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.
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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.
Yeah this is definitely some of his work. Interestingly enough whoever wrote this has a better grasp on leftist theory than almost any chud I've encountered. They're a true believer and they know our theories, it's warped in parts for their goals and propaganda but they know what the differences are well enough to do the warping.
I'm reading the intro, and you were not kidding.
Flipping through the document, they definitely did their homework. They namedrop a lot of orgs like the BAP, the DFLP, and the Jericho movement.
It's also funny how they call Assata Assata instead of using her legal name, which is what the US state has always done. Mainstream news articles were still calling her by her legal name in 2013: https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/02/us/fbi-terrorist-chesimard https://www.npr.org/2013/05/07/181914429/fbi-most-wanted-terrorists-list-who-is-assata-shakur. It's a further weird juxtaposition when they still call Kwame Ture his legal name.
I think this particular Shakur-Carmichael shibboleth points to an older ex-radical or someone who dipped their toes in radical spaces in the late 80s when her autobiography was released. Current radicals say Shakur-Ture and the US state department has traditionally said Chesimard-Carmichael.
I'm about 60 pages in at the moment, picking it up on and off while doing some other things. It's quite interesting in the sense of seeing a doc where the US demonstrates actually understanding their enemy. I think there's a lot of elements of the specter of communism in it though, they attribute far far too much to Cuban intelligence and visits to Havana that are for the most part just friendly hellos between comrades and not exchanges of resources or training camps. This however I think is intended to manufacture consent, not just within the general population, they don't need that, but they need to make the case to the US government, its employees, its military members, its officers and managers and leaders, that fighting Cuba is worthwhile. That is who this is aimed at manufacturing consent to. The goal is to get sign-on internally within the administration and it's various branches for what they're planning to do, not just to Cuba but to the left in America.
But yeah, whoever wrote it is intimately familiar with leftist theory and understands marxists very well... Then chooses evil.
The whole report just reminds me of the way COIN manuals talk about leftists and leftist ideology. They sprinkle a bunch of anti-communist crap and view it from a pro-imperialist point of view, but the broad view is mostly accurate.
Another interesting part of the report is them alleging that Russian and Chinese intelligence have established bases in Cuba.
Perhaps this is all true, perhaps this is just to manufacture consent for state department people going, "Who gives a shit about Cuba? Russia/China is more important."
Found another fun part invoking Soros conspiracism:
ouroboros of consent manufacturing
Yeah I think the goal here is basically directed internally, they're convincing their own team to get on the same page for the attack on Cuba. They're going through with it and this is preparation. There will be department heads handing this thing out and asking their teams to read it.
Evil is knowledge of morality and the choice to reject it.
What are the chances this is some Hitchens-like ex-trotskyite?
I don't know but they cite some really forgotten shit like during 18 months between 1970 and 1971 there were 2500 bombings by various militant groups on US soil that everyone has just about forgotten about. It's a level of depth of knowledge that goes beyond the usual imperialist so you're probably right, Trot-to-Neocon.
I do like this part though:
Trot to neocon pipeline strikes again

written by: Clarence Thomas oh shit