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.

Image is of the USS Abraham Lincoln arriving at Thailand, looking worn after a very long deployment to the Arabian Sea.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleTo start briefly with Iran, there's been two significant developments over the last week. First is that Iran is now beginning to put into practice its policy that allows preemptive strikes - a policy which was authorized by the previous Khamenei a while before his death but has so far gone unused - to strike at Kuwait, Qatar, and Jordan without a corresponding American aggression immediately beforehand. The second development is that Iran is now taking a firmer stand against the US Navy in the waters of the Arabian Sea, beginning by testing anti-ship ballistic missiles against the US fleet - so far without confirmed hits as of me writing this sentence - as it is obviously disadvantageous for Iran to simply not do anything against the blockade even with US logistics under strain. The US has attempted to dissuade these new strikes by striking Iranian oil tankers, to which Iran has responded by striking oil tankers aligned with the West. This is very much not a shooting war that the US wants to get into as oil stockpiles continue to decline and diesel prices are at all-time highs (though if adjusted for inflation, we still have a little more time before we hit absolute highs). The overall picture is of an Iran growing in confidence.

There's also been some encouraging news out of Yemen, where Ansarallah has been conducting a ground offensive weaken the enemy occupation of the western coast, including some breathtakingly precise drone-drop operations combined with using recon drones to guide ballistic missiles at enemy formations. As far as I'm aware, the blockade of the Bab el-Mandeb to Saudi tankers has been very successful, although stopping Saudi tankers from heading north towards Suez has been understandably trickier. I suppose if push comes to shove, they can continue to strike the very immobile coastal oil facilities rather than trying to hit moving ships at a great distance.

The news out of Russia/Ukraine has been quite miserable for particularly Ukrainian civilians over the past month or two, with Ukrainian strikes on Russian civilian logistics and warehouses being met with much greater Russian responses on Ukrainian civilian logistics and warehouses. Ukrainian ports are now effectively blockaded, making exporting agricultural products in the same quantities as before essentially impossible, and within the cities including Kiev, food suppliers are scrambling to find smaller warehouses to place goods in so that they aren't as easily destroyed like the larger warehouses have been. I find it sincerely upsetting that the war has progressed to this point, though it's always worth noting that, first, Ukraine had a few opportunities to sign pretty good negotiating terms with Russia; and second, in comparison, Western wars begin at the step of making a conflict about hurting civilians, even to the extent of it being a detriment to strategic goals by not solely hitting military targets (most famously in Gaza, but also e.g. during Obama's term by bombing weddings and hospitals).

I will confess to not being as up-to-date on the situation in Europe, and especially Germany, in regards to the Ukraine War as I would like, but as a general statement, nothing I've seen over the last few years has demonstrated to me that Europe is capable of fielding a conventional force which would provide a formidable, let alone existential, threat to Russia at this stage. There's been lots of embarrassing stories about European missile, drone, and shell production being well below standards in both quality and quantity. My thoughts are now that I think the age of the US/NATO posing an existential conventional threat to China, Russia, and probably Iran (and perhaps others like the DPRK?) is now conclusively over, with Western bases proven to be indefensible with existing missile defence programs, their logistics very vulnerable to disruption, and their aircraft not being safe to use over airspace at least as well-protected as Iran's. The US can still do cataclysmic, nation-destroying damage to smaller, less defended countries like those in Latin America and Africa, but for the anti-US squad in Eurasia, the vast majority of the threat from the US is now a combination of financial/debt offensives and covert intelligence. We still have a long way to go on both those fronts, however - a minimum of a decade or two, I believe, even with Trump's inadvertently anti-imperialist accelerationism.

Lastly for this preamble, the annual SCO summit took place on September 1st in Bishkek, with the leaders of China, Russia, Iran, India, Türkiye, Pakistan, and others in attendance. A lot of the usual statements were made: down with hegemonies, down with militarising space, down with unilateral sanctions, up with local currency exchanges, up with cooperation, up with peace, etc etc. The big proclamation this time around was the Bishkek Declaration, which reiterated all those points I just mentioned. Overall, it's one of those documents where the content is mostly cool and indirectly jabs a lot at the US, but I find that paper is a generally ineffective barrier of protection against bombs and missiles, which is a pretty major avenue of... let's say, "international communication" in the current day. And I would like to see some real contenders to the World Bank and IMF taking shape soon if we're gonna truly start fighting hegemonism, but I digress.


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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[–] 81 points 10 hours ago (8 children)

I normally try to avoid Falklands posting on Hexbear, but this is such a funny development that I couldn't resist.


Israeli ministers call for sanctions on Britain over Falkland Islands

Smotrich, Israel's finance minister, called for the expulsion of the British ambassador to Israel and said: "We will not be a trampled doormat of an antisemitic government, in a country conquered by radical Islam, trying to save itself from economic and social decline by attacking Jews and the State of Israel. The British Mandate in the Land of Israel is over."

Ben Gvir wrote: "It's time for the state of Israel to publicly recognize that the Malvinas Islands [the Argentine name for the Falkland Islands] are Argentine territory under occupation, which the British violently steal from the Argentine people.

Ben Gvir added: "I call upon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to recognise Argentina's sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands and to impose sanctions on Great Britain as long as the occupation continues."

The comments by Ben Gvir and Smotrich are understood to come in response to Britain's plans to unveil a raft of policies targeting Israeli settlements on Tuesday, including a trade ban.

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  • [–] 20 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

    Didn't the british colonize the falklands before argentina even stepped foot on it? The island didn't have a native population either iirc so I think i'm actually on the UK's side for once

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  • [–] 6 points 2 hours ago

    The reason I said the first bit, is because the Falklands are one of those incredibly niche topics that can wedge Hexbear hard lol. In disputes between the UK and a colonized country, it's like, 99% of the time the UK is in the wrong. However, in this case, it's kind of that 1% for me. But that's such an uncommon thing to hand to the British, that it inflames the topic.


    The island was uninhabited before European colonization. There was at one point a Spanish port there, but it was actually abandoned by them, and there was no permanent population on the island. Since like the mid 1800's the UK has control of the island. There aren't really any colonized people's on the island, so that axis of analysis doesn't hit anything.

    There is the argument that it could be a colonial outpost, a launching point for other imperialism. But that doesn't really seem to play out either. It used to be a somewhat useful naval port, but the opening of the Panama canal made it entirely pointless. Naval traffic started bypassing it entirely.

    We can see that reflected in the military usage of the island. Namely, that it hasn't been. There is an RAF base on the island, but it was built after the Falklands war, once Argentina had invaded and occupied it. Before the war, there was just a garrison with about 60 people on it. It was not a meaningful outpost of imperialism. Just a contingent of marines guarding the sheep as tensions rose with Argentina.

    The people on the island have also voted to be British citizens and not to join Argentina, which again makes sense, as there were no meaningful populations of people on the island before British settling of the island.

    At this point, I think it's right to just respect the self-determination of the people on the island.

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  • [–] 27 points 6 hours ago* (3 children)

    It's a colonial outpost to project power. It shouldn't be British territory and we'll never be rid of colonialism or imperialist interference around the world without settling these outposts. The simplest way to do that is handing them over to the local power.

    This is the position of the UN decolonial commission and pretty much every single global south country recognises it as the malvinas islands rather than the falklands. It is pretty much inevitable that it will eventually go to Argentina.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 minutes ago

    Possible solutions

    • The Andorra solution: The islands becomes independent. The president of Argentina and the bishop of Lincoln becomes co-pronces and has to work it out amongst themselves. The people lives off smuggling.
    • The two-state solution: Argentinians gets an ancestral homeland in the Falklands to keep them safe from anti-Argentinian persecution, the British population gets a Bantustan on the island
    • Shared custody: Argentina and Britain gets the islands every other week. The islanders act out every day custody changes.
    • Nobody gets them: Neither Britain nor Argentina have been able to figure out these islands so we give them to someone who are not constantly causing trouble. I suggest Laos, they never bother anyone
    • Libertarian Utopia: The Falklands are renamed Galt's Gulch and no state has them. There are no laws, no state, no government and no women. An influx of crypto bros and ebebopedophiles from all over the world creates an economic boom. Everybody dies of dysentery and bear attacks within six month and the islands sinks into the sea.
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  • [–] 5 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

    How would this happen while the vast majority of Falklanders would rather stay part of the UK? I thought the UK is also in the red in terms of how much it costs to keep the Falklands vs its benefits

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  • [–] 2 points 35 minutes ago

    They're considered a transplanted population so they would be repatriated to their home country probably. My assumption is that argentina would offer them citizenship or repatriation though.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 hours ago

    The UN isn't cool enough to call for a first world country ceding colonial territory. Their position since the 60s has been "Work it out peacefully amongst yourselves please and thank you". The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2065 quite obviously did not demand an end to British possession of the Falklands, as evidenced by the text in it, the fact that it is non binding, and the fact that the UK didn't vote against it.

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  • [–] 61 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

    lol the royal air force has flown actual missile interception sorties for "israel" and this is the thanks they get.

    what does argentina even bring to the table? I guess it's the traditional place for fascists to flee to when shit hits the fan

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  • [–] 47 points 9 hours ago (1 child)

    I guess it's the traditional place for fascists to flee to when shit hits the fan

    Miami chuckling in the background

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  • [–] 38 points 9 hours ago (1 child)

    any place that gets an influx of bitter "Israeli" war criminal exiles is going to be ruined, so quarantining them in already-ruined Miami wouldn't be the worst thing

    and don't let them leave when the sea swallows it up

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  • [–] 14 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

    realizing I might have just advocated for turning Miami into a slowly sinking open-air prison for gusanos and war criminals reminiscent of a certain strip in a certain entity and, y'know what? I'm ok with that, at least these inmates would deserve it

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  • [–] 33 points 9 hours ago*

    "It's time for the state of Israel to publicly recognize that the Malvinas Islands [the Argentine name for the Falkland Islands] are Argentine territory under occupation, which the British violently steal from the Argentine people.

    Pot calls the kettle black.

    Also did I imagine that Milei threatened to take some sort of action against an Israeli oil company operationibg in the Malvinas? Pretty sure none of this is going to become anything significant, but for now itslet-them-fight

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  • [–] 31 points 9 hours ago (1 child)

    I just re listened to season 6 blowback.

    I dunno I have some hope this will end.

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  • [–] 22 points 9 hours ago* (1 child)

    Did that season have a connection to the Falklands? I listened to the main part, but don’t remember one. Did I miss a bonus episode?

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  • [–] 27 points 9 hours ago

    No.

    It centered around the Angola wars but a lot of it was south Africa doing all sorts of arrogant actions not only to the region around them but also toward their benefactors in the west.

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