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 a map of the approximate state of play of the military situation in Yemen, with the main focus being to cut off PLC access to Taizz (in the north of the salient). This map is from @bonzerbarry on Twitter (I would link to him directly but xcancel is down), who I recommend for coverage of the situation in the Middle East in general, and Yemen in particular.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleAs I said in last week's preamble, it remains comically unclear what's truly happening in the strait. The main data point supporting oil tanker movements in the Strait being sufficient for oil flows to be completely restored are a few "independent trackers" including the big kahuna, Kpler, reporting on mostly recovered oil flows. The main data points that contradict this are: 1) satellite evidence of increasing strikes on tankers by Iran, as well as Ansarallah strikes on Saudi oil infrastructure; 2) a 1000% increase in the cost to hire a supertanker out of Hormuz compared to pre-war; 3) elevated and/or rising crack spreads; 4) elevated and/or rising diesel and gas costs in various countries around the world; 5) the new 40M SPR release by the US and the EU emergency diesel release as they bend the knee to the threat by the US to ban diesel exports; 6) PetroChina banning October export cargos to try and prevent domestic supplies from falling further; 7) Russia maintaining their diesel export ban; 8) refineries in India and the US literally exploding from the overwork (and some are now being forced into ~month-long maintenance periods); and 9) bond yields continuing to skyrocket across the Western world to heights unseen since the 2008 Great Recession or even before. So who can truly say?

Anyway. Trump has threatened a return to striking Iran after the midterms, with the aircraft carrier out in the Pacific heading for West Asia (perhaps replacing the USS George Washington? I've gotten mixed news), as well as a new amphibious landing ship which is likely going to relieve the one already present in-theater. The H.W. Bush has been found all the way off in Thailand, meaning that either there will be two or even just one aircraft carrier in the region surrounding Iran soon. As stated by many people many times before, the capacity for large strikes equal to the one in early March no longer exists, with the Navy forced hundreds of miles further away than during the first half of the year in response to Iran's anti-ship missiles, and most bases in the region no longer safely operable with the ongoing interceptor famine. Trump has had trouble articulating exactly why a return to missile strikes would be necessary if Iran has indeed lost control of the Strait of Hormuz and if the blockade on Iran is working, with the only constant being the talismanic phrase "Iran must not acquire a nuclear weapon." Araghchi recently remarked that Iran is prepared for a "doomsday war", which demonstrates that if Trump is bluffing to intimidate Iran, then it's just as unlikely to work as all the myriad other times. Iran is also dramatically expanding its number of battalions, and says they are advancing their missile technology to be able to hit targets further away, as well as moving targets at sea (a genuinely massive challenge for all militaries, not just Iran). The number of US troops soon to be in theater is an order of magnitude less than would be required to occupy a portion of Iranian territory for an extended period, and the threat to destroy the region's fossil fuel infrastructure if Iran's is hit is only more impactful now that global inventories have dwindled.

Ansarallah continues to make gains in their offensive, and are, as of me writing this, cutting off PLC access to the major city of Taiz, attacking the salient there from numerous directions, including both sides of the neck. The Saudi response to the rout of their mercenary groups in Yemen has been a lot of floundering. It's hard for me to personally say to what extent their airstrikes are effective, but it certainly hasn't stopped the advances, and Ansarallah's capacity to respond to them by destroying their critical infrastructure has put them in a major bind. They've recently unveiled a plan to the media to conduct an offensive to retake the Red Sea coast or even all of Ansarallah's territory, though everybody who's been watching the Ukraine War knows that preannouncing your offensives is a bad omen for their actual effectiveness. Not because your enemy will know you're coming, per se - they'd know regardless due to their intel of your mobilizations - but because it indicates that you care more about the optics of being seen to be "doing something soon" than actually conducting a well-planned and well-provisioned offensive. There's also reports that the Zionists are becoming increasingly involved in trying to help the Saudis repel Ansarallah, which is a telling indicator of the value of the recent Mecca Agreement.

As I mentioned in last week's preamble, Brazil's first round has come and gone, and my sense of foreboding was largely vindicated. Polls before the election described a tight race with Lula out in front by 1 or 2 percentage points; this was, incidentally, the same lead by which Lula defeated Bolsonaro 1.0 years ago. Exit polls described a similar state of play. The actual results were the reverse situation, with Bolsonaro 2.0 out in front by 1 or 2 percentage points (47% to 45%). This avoids the catastrophe of a first round victory for Bolsonaro, and the disaster of something unsalvageable like a 49-42 lead, but is still decidedly in the L column for Lula's chances without some major last-minute cavalry coming for the second round on October 25th. The impression I've gotten is that Lula's poor performance is due to the combination of the very recent corruption scandal as a short term influence, the general economic malaise caused by the economic shockwaves of the Iran War as a medium term influence, and the lukewarm social and economic development made during Lula's term as a long term influence. Regardless of the ultimate outcome, escaping the cycle of socdem-comprador-socdem-comprador is the challenge of the current era, particularly in Latin America, and especially when the US is retrenching into Latin America as they gradually withdraw or are kicked out of Afro-Eurasia.


Last week's thread 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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[–] 79 points 9 hours ago (23 children)
  • [–] 72 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

    listen I know it's banal

    but HOLY SHIT it is wild that this man is president, like we've all gotten used to it but this is truly bonkers

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  • [–] 50 points 8 hours ago* (2 children)

    Yeah my pattern is now that I tune out American domestic politics as white noise but then twice a year I have a moment of clarity and spiral for an afternoon.

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  • [–] 41 points 8 hours ago (17 children)

    If Iran wanted to somehow blow up an entire city in the US (which like how would they ever do this) they would target either New York, San Fran, or Seattle. Those are the seats of power. Banking and tech. LA and San Diego are meaningless targets

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  • [–] 32 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (5 children)

    This is so very wrong, and because I don't want to dox myself, you'll all get snark instead.

    We must remember: "When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense." https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_11.htm from OPPOSE BOOK WORSHIP - Mao Tse-tung

    Just in the SDCity Limits https://www.sandiego.gov/veterans/military-installations

    Incl SDCounty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Military_facilities_in_San_Diego_County,_California

    San Diego is the home of the 7th Fleet, SEALs training, 1 of 2 Marine Corps boot camp sites (that exist).

    NASCO Shipyards (you know them things the US don't have many of atm) are right near said Fleet's base, Naval Station Point Loma, is where the submarines live. Some of yall just come on here and post whatever sometimes lol.

    Not to mention all the military families and troops in SD he just told to essentially die. SD City only started voting for Democrats in the 00' and the County in the 10's (lowkey republicans can still get elected, the colonizers in SD are virulent racists among other things)

    Also the bear no longer works on TOR cuz of that fingerprinting anti-bot thing. Boo. Mull Browser still works, but this will mean I'm much less inclined to log in for the time being.

    (Stop running colonized people off this site, the road to socialism is painted black. We're missing the comrade @AlHouthi4President's perspective on Yemen rn.) (not tryna start a newsmega struggle or w/e.)

    *edited, one day I'll learn to format like the pros on this site. *edited again!, I do not claim this fk colony and more than it claims me lol *edited to correct an acronym

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  • [–] 7 points 3 hours ago (1 child)

    Also the bear no longer works on TOR cuz of that fingerprinting anti-bot thing.

    Hi comrade, just wondering if you can provide any further details on this or help me troubleshoot it? The goal in using anubis is not to block any real users, only to stop the basic scrapers which do the most damage to the site's reliability. Out-of-the-box tor browser is able to load and pass anubis checks for me, and I know some people who use the site via tor daily, so if there's anything we can figure out to make it work for you, I'm here to try!

    more details/ideasAre you using tor browser from the actual tor project? any extensions or settings that might be different than standard? or is it a community app like Onion Browser or Orbot or something? Feel free to reply via DM if you don't want to share details here.

    Also, even if we can't figure out why your tor-browser isn't able to pass anubis checks, or it's something intractable, there are (intentionally) ways around it. https://hexbear.net/login does not use anubis, and once signed in users do not receive anubis prompts. That is the first thing I'd try, if you don't mind signing in each time...

    You could also:

    • browse using a lemmy app or self hosted UI, and use "tor vpn" on mobile or another tor proxying tool on desktop to route HB traffic.
    • browse read-only via diethex.net, which doesn't even require javascript (it is run by a user, not an official HB site, but if you are using tor it hardly matters)
    • set a cookie manually (inconvenient with tor browser, but reach out if you are interested)

    We're missing the comrade @AlHouthi4President's perspective on Yemen rn.

    agreed wholeheartedly :(

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  • [–] 12 points 4 hours ago

    Yeah, San Francisco is the actual meaningless target if anything. Bombing San Diego is basically just bombing multiple military bases, which is what Iran would actually do if they had the capacity to do so.

    Hell, even Trump saying that Iran would bomb Los Angeles makes some sense since a lot of shipping and freight forwarding stuff goes through LA and that's where all the Iranian gusanos live.

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  • [–] 32 points 6 hours ago (4 children)

    Idk, the ports of LA and Long Beach account for about 40% of all container imports to the US, hit them right in the treats.

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  • [–] 8 points 4 hours ago (3 children)
  • [–] 2 points 9 minutes ago

    My numbers could have been out of date, its just what I remember reading in an article once. If we go by the numbers in this graphic instead, LA and Long Beach make up 9,908 TEUS of imports out of 29,561 shown, or just about 33.5%.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 hours ago

    Alternatively, they could try targeting the other type of power: refineries and oil reserves. But that's a lot more distributed, but more dense in places like Texas and Lousiana. And Texas is also the biggest in terms of oil/gas fields. And Houston is one of the biggest ports.

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  • [–] 18 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

    Colorado Springs, Charlotte, Salt Lake City even Indianapolis would be more important than LA or San Diego.

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