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 Iran's President, Pezeshkian, holding up an image mid-speech at the UN memorializing the girls and teachers killed by an American missile strike on the Minab school.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleThe two big international events of the last week have been the UN summit in New York, where Pezeshkian among many others gave various speeches, and the visit by Xi Jinping and various Chinese figures to the US. While it's important to never fully discount the wider diplomatic angle of the conflicts raging around the world, by this point it should be clear to most people that the fundamental disagreements are too acute to be solved or even ameliorated with words, and there are no countries in the "international community" to "convince" to come over to your side through expert oratory and rhetoric. There is now only the language of explosives, blockades, and sanctions. Pezeshkian in particular gave a reasonably good speech, but I still believe that personally flying to the country that has committed so many crimes against his own country and its allies was not the correct move, and should have been left to Araghchi. And the difference between the US's and China's material interests are separated by too wide a canyon to be bridged by words promising cooperation and partnership.

Over in Yemen, the Saudis have intensified airstrikes on Ansarallah, which continues to make slow but steady territorial gains, particularly around Taizz, and have also repelled Saudi assaults from the north. These Saudi airstrikes have hit some military infrastructure, but also a lot of civilian infrastructure, including explicitly humanitarian buildings like those supplying food. To me, this doesn't seem strategically or tactically effective, especially with so much of your own oil infrastructure in ballistic missile range, but I suppose there's not many options left for the Saudi regime. Meanwhile, the situation in Hormuz flared up on the weekend, with a record(?) number of missiles fired at ships trying to traverse the Omani route. In related news, there's been a recent tick up in sailor and marine casualties admitted by the US, indicating either that Iran scored a significant hit on a US naval vessel during its anti-ship ballistic missile strikes (and those ships have now retreated much further away, which is a data point in favour of that hypothesis, but otherwise we have no visual evidence), or that US military personnel are taking a major role in attempting to move oil through Iran's blockade by manning at least some of the tankers.

Claims that oil transits out of the Middle East have returned almost to normalcy can be trivially contradicted by third grade mathematics and the evidence of our senses: namely, increasing worldwide shortages and growing considerations for rationing diesel and other such oil products. Indeed, the potential for shortages has now risen to the extent that Trump briefly suggested an diesel export ban. However, I'll admit that the situation in Hormuz has become much harder to follow for everybody involved than it was in March and April. Nowadays, some vessels are moving through Iran's prearranged passage, there is undeniably quite a bit of oil getting out through ports that don't need to go through Hormuz like Fujairah, and meanwhile, there are theories and rumors of widely varying degrees of dubiousness of temporary arrangements of Iran not firing on vessels traversing the Omani route in exchange for such-and-such hypothetical benefits, perhaps even including Iranian oil getting mixed into some of the vessels. And on top of all of that, you have to take into account China's curious moves in the oil markets, which have substantially influenced supplies and prices since March.

In that environment, it's hard not to have at least an iota of sympathy for the tanker trackers of the world who are trying to get some concrete information while everybody makes unsupported claims. The aforementioned intensified Iranian strikes on the Omani route are a data point in favour of ships getting through when they shouldn't - otherwise, they'd have nothing to be striking, unless they're just providing enrichment and employment to any divers trying to disarm naval mines - and so we'll just have to see whether Iran will allow the current situation of a slightly leaky Hormuz to continue for reasons unknown to us, or now truly drop the hammer on illegal strait transits to put pressure on the US. The other big new item lately around Iran has been some of their airlines being sanctioned, which several countries in the region seem to be obeying, while others around the world, like China, aren't intimidated. This been of particular significance in regards to Iraq, where there have been major protests about reopening flights between Iran and Iraq, and we'll have to see where that goes next.

Perhaps little of major significance will occur in the war until the midterms are over. Nothing I've seen so far indicates to me that Democrats will put up a serious opposition to Trump's war efforts except in very particular and isolated cases, and so from a purely non-domestic, geopolitical perspective, I expect the midterm results to change nothing. Political "gridlock" and "lame duck periods" exist as illusory excuses for the general population to prevent positive things from occurring domestically; they are not hurdles that exist in reality when the American bourgeoisie all agree on a course of action, such as attempting (now in vain) to stop Iran, Russia, and China. Slightly more interesting will be the results of the Zionist elections, but only slightly. On the one hand, it would be satisfying to see the current party lose power, but on the other, it has been their sheer incompetence that has, over just a few years, led the occupation into the greatest crisis of their short history. Nothing about their domestic or foreign policy seems likely to change, as they have dug themselves too deep into the hole now. Also coming up is the Brazilian elections, where Lula is once again facing off against another Bolsonaro. I wish him the best, but I worry that the margin of victory for a non-comprador party outside the West now needs to be pretty damn high to overcome foreign voter suppression efforts and accusations of election fraud by pro-US organizations, and the current margins in the polls are not terribly encouraging by that measure.


Last week's thread is here.

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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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[–] 40 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

https://archive.ph/l68LZ

Ukraine Has an F-16 Emergency

Maintenance delays in Belgium are grounding its best defense against Russia’s jet drones.

more

Ukraine’s air-defense vulnerabilities are becoming critical, and a shortage of Patriot interceptors isn’t the only problem. F-16 fighter jets are the best way to counter Russia’s new jet-powered drones that are now pounding Ukrainian civilians night and often day. But Ukraine relies on Western help to maintain its fighter-jet fleet, and delays have left most of its F-16 fleet out of commission. So far this month Russia has launched about 2,000 jet-powered drones at Ukraine, compared to some 350 in June. These new drones fly up to 375 miles an hour—too fast for the interceptor drones Ukraine has used to counter earlier Shahed models. Ukraine intercepts 55% of Russia’s jet drones, compared to more than 90% of older Shaheds. Yet jet drones are the kind of target F-16s excel at taking down, and at a typical cost of $25,000 or less. Ukraine’s F-16 aces have shot down some 2,500 drones of all types and some 650 cruise missiles. But after 300 hours of flying time, F-16s require what’s known as “phase inspection” to keep the engine, avionics, hydraulics, fuel lines and other systems in working order.

The U.S. awarded Sabena Aerospace Engineering, a Belgian company, a contract of up to some $235.5 million for maintenance of Ukraine’s F-16s, though subcontractors perform some of the work. Phase inspection generally takes two to six weeks in the U.S., but it’s “taking as long as 40 weeks in Belgium,” says retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery. Another Western source tells us that more than half of Ukraine’s F-16s are currently in maintenance limbo, and at the current pace of use and maintenance Kyiv will exhaust the rest by the end of the year. A Ukrainian air force spokesman declined to comment. Sabena declined to respond to our specific questions, citing “operational security considerations and the sensitive nature of ongoing military support activities.” Fighter jets deployed in combat can require more upkeep than those flown in peacetime, and a shortage of specific components may also contribute to delays. But whatever the cause, this is “a sustainment failure that is becoming an air-defense crisis,” says retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that Belgium would transfer three F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine by the end of 2026, and other Western partners could lend more. It’s worth looking at how Ukraine can do more maintenance in-country and whether facilities in Romania can shoulder some of the upkeep.

Ukraine is testing alternatives to intercept jet drones, but they will take months to implement at scale. Meantime, “unless Ukraine gets the ability to kill jet-powered drones and cruise missiles, its very limited remaining air defense missiles will be exhausted,” says Yuriy Sak, a former adviser to Ukraine’s Defense and Strategic Industries ministries. Cities and civilians are getting pummeled, and so is energy infrastructure ahead of winter. Ukraine’s defense-industrial base is also vulnerable. There’s a warning here for the U.S. The Government Accountability Office warned this spring of growing delays for maintenance for American military aircraft. Lt. Gen. Linda Hurry said this month that the U.S. Air Force has “a $14 billion hole in supply” for aircraft parts, according to Defense News. Ukraine’s air-defense emergency illustrates how maintenance capacity is combat power in a war.

well, good thing the US didn't just run a whole bunch of airframes ragged against Iran! matt-jokerfied

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