Image is of a protest in San Diego against ICE.
On January 7th, 37-year-old Renee Good was murdered by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. While a considerable amount of the discussion online has been about the direction her wheels were turning and things like that, truthfully, I think it's just fundamentally bad to shoot a person to death with a gun if you happen to be a state mercenary enforcing an incredibly racist federal policy, regardless of the circumstances.
The murder has since prompted a wave of vigils and protests, not only in Minneapolis, but also in virtually every major city in the country. The demands are justice for Good in particular, and the abolition of ICE in general, to avenge its many victims. The Trump administration has done all they can to inflame the situation, designating Good a "domestic terrorist" and saying that the agent who shot her will be immune from prosecution.
Protests and resistance to this administration's policies have, encouragingly, had an element of international solidarity - not only are flags from countries throughout Latin America (and also Palestine) present, but speakers in protests have even been actively condemning the recent imperialist actions against Venezuela. For it is, of course, one joint struggle. The imperial boomerang always returns - and in the modern day, it returns rapidly.
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
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 Israel's 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:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
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.
Going by syria livemap and the syria / syrian civil war subreddit the SAA is rolling through the SDF west of the Euphrates, with some arab SDF troops and a few key local tribes turning against the SDF as well.
What seemed like an American-backed ceasefire agreement requiring the SDF retreat from Deir Hazer (which controls Euphrates water that goes towards Aleppo) broke down without much delay. Mind you, I can't find any info on this, seems like people online are just inferring the existence of an agreement (based on the Americans coming into Deir Hafer and then leaving it) and using that as part of a narrative, blaming either the SDF or the SAA of breaking said agreement.
Damascus' troops went on to announce an offensive towards Raqqa. Taking Raqqa fully seems like a problematic thing, the SAA would have to actually ford the river. And once they do, I'd imagine the SDF position would be extremely untenable with even more arab majority areas ready to flip.
Edit: Damascus is now attacking Tabqa while the US/CENTCOM urges that they stop. Which I take as tacit approval and more of a face saving statement at this point.
2017 me is so goddamn vindicated, I ate so much shit from the "geopolitics knowers" for pointing out the obvious that if you treat every Arab in northern Syria as a potential ISIS recruit, then they're gonna shoot your racist ass the first chance they get, it's almost like American backed "left wing" ethnic sectarianism without cross ethnic class solidarity doesn't fuckin work on a fundamental level
I think it is a catch-22 that the SDF can't escape from. One thing the SDF stresses time and again is the idea that it is not the kurdish ethnic army and that there are arabs part of its coalition. Problem is, are people like Barzani negotiating in the name of the kurdish minority or the arabs in SDF's ranks? Northwestern Syria isn't Northern Iraq. Every province the SDF controls either has a syrian arab supermajority or, in the case of Hasakah, a syrian arab plurality, a significant kurdish population and various other groups.
The SDF can't retreat to Kurdish majority areas of Syria because that's, what, the Qamishli Mountains? They can't negotiate themselves as an autonomous bloc similar to the KRG in Iraq because, again, most people in their territory aren't kurds they are syrian arabs. They can't stand on their own against Turkey+Damascus without US and, worse, Israeli support. They can't trust that there's goodwill in Damascus because even if all the multi-ethnic liberal overtures are in earnest, it is clear that the situation is much more dangerous amongst the rank and file. So, in the end, the SDF's situation only worsens long term. Meanwhile no Syrian government can tolerate all that territory and all the oil money to be controlled by the US/SDF, even Assad only did it under duress.
Jolani gangs moving towards Al-Tabqah
Map of the area
No please don’t do it :)
Videos of people in civilian clothing killed by the SDF. Not posting screenshots for obvious reasons https://t.me/nayaforiraq/46762
“The QSD militias said in a statement: The news about the entry of armed fighters from Damascus factions into the city of Tabqa is not true. Our forces are still in their positions, and the city of Mansoura has been completely swept of any cells that attempted to undermine security”
Defending or reinforcing Tabqa and Mansoura seems like a crazy idea at this point unless they are trying to buy time to shore up defensive positions around Raqqa proper. That said, the idea that the SDF still has forces in Tabqa doesn't really contradict the notion that the SAA are moving against Tabqa. But of course, the SDF can't just let the SAA say 'we've entered Tabqa' without a counter claim. That would only feed fears elsewhere.
Between defections, sleeper cells and tribals leaders flipping this way and the next we have a situation that is developing too quickly. At one point you hear about Mansoura and other eastern Raqqa villages 'celebrating the arrival of the Damascus forces', the next you have the SDF reasserting control. This same thing is happening in Suweidyia Kabira right now, only the people claiming that 'the SDF was expelled by the locals' also add that the SDF is 'ready to move in at any moment'.
That said, I can't imagine this situation won't settle down for another status quo around the SDF holding the governorates east of the Euphrates and another almost year of negotiations between the SDF and Damascus. Edit: turns out I was wrong.
Nevermind
“ Jolani's gangs announce full control over the city of Tabqa and the Euphrates Dam in eastern Syria.”
https://t.me/nayaforiraq/46787
It does appear that there were dispersed defensive positions out in the desert that delayed the takeover for a while.
This video alleges showing SDF retreating from Al Taqba
https://t.me/jharnous/10487
Outside right now but will respond d later
Not a single bullet from either group against the US or israel.
Hmm
The only way Syria can unify is under a shared hostility to the zionist enemy. Until or unless some form of resistance to zionism emerges, Syria is doomed to remain a fractured hellscape ruled by terrorist gangs.
SDF and HTS fight. More Syrians die. Its depressing.
Death to America, death to israel. No one is safe until those goals are achieved
When you say SAA it's the jihadists or Basharist remnants?
People either call the Damascus government the STG (transition government) or the SAA (arab army) and my brain just went with the most common one. From what I understand, if there are any Assad remnants involved in this struggle (along the Euphrates, nowhere near the coast) they are vacillating between staying with the SDF or flipping towards Damascus.
im sure raqqas population remembers how things went the last time al nusra entered their city.
As far as we can tell, the STG forces have just entered Raqqa and it was mostly due to tribal forces flipping towards them in Deir Ezzor and Raqqa itself. Up until a given moment Damascus was doing plausible deniability and only supplying the tribal forces. It really does seem that the main component that is going on here is that the SDF's endgame of becoming a defacto independent state was untenable even after the Israeli invasion. Most people in their territory are syrian arabs and very much willing to flip towards Damascus.