On December 4th, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and the DRC’s Felix Tshisekedi signed the Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity (pictured above). Trump boasted that he was settling a war that had gone on for decades, and remarked, idiosyncratically, “[…] and now they’re going to spend a lot of time hugging, holding hands […]”
A few days later, the M23 militia (backed by Rwanda) advanced into Uvira, a city near the DRC’s eastern border with Burundi and a major commercial and strategic location in the region. Burundi, although a small country, is a significant ally to the DRC and has sent thousands of soldiers to aid them during conflicts; this offensive by M23 aims to cut off a direct route between the two, though they do still share quite a long border over Lake Tanganyika. Tens of thousands of civilians (possibly up to 200,000) fled as M23 approached.
Signed almost simultaneously with the Accords was a Strategic Partnership Agreement between the DRC and the United States, which effectively threw open its critical minerals in the east to American exploitation. These minerals include tin, tungsten, and tantalum, which is vital for many industries. The irony is that M23 has been taking territory in the eastern DRC in order to transport these very minerals to Rwanda and onwards to global supply chains. Signing the Accord was, therefore, a remarkably pointless endeavour for everybody involved. Burundi and the DRC have complained, calling for sanctions on Rwanda, and appeasing to Trump’s pride, calling this a “slap in the face to the United States”, though I doubt the US is ultimately all that bothered about it one way or another.
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
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.
Alright folks, vibe check, we think it’s going to be tonight that the air strikes on Venezuela start? Trump’s got some “big announcement” but it could very well be something as innocuous as “the big data centre I’m building under my ballroom in the White House is going to be spectacular” as much as a “I am authorizing a nuclear strike on Caracas.” All the military assets for strikes are certainly in place, as many users have covered over the past few weeks, and Trump and co have done a “good job” disengaging in both Europe and Asia to the best of their abilities to ensure nothing crazy happens whilst they’re off gallivanting in Latin America.
I think at least air strikes. There’s part of me that thinks back on the Iran debacle and still believes these people are afraid of really starting an actual war they could be perceived as losing, so maybe they try to just blow up shit from the air, Yemen style, ruin a bunch of people’s Christmas and overall lives for no reason.
Ground troops feels like a real commitment that this guy might balk at.
I agree, there is close to zero chance Trump is going to commit to a ground invasion. What would that even accomplish? Not that air strikes will accomplish much either, but at least it’ll be difficult to spin as “losing” when you see stuff blow up. When a ground invasion gets stuck in the jungle and the front line doesn’t move for weeks, hard to spin that as anything other than a loss. Plus, as far as I’m aware I don’t think the military buildup in the Caribbean is anything close to what would be needed for an actual invasion, just airstrikes.
If Venezuela hits back, I think Trump would escalate to a ‘special force’ that would get cloobered. Then come the nukes.
The craziest thing is that if Venezuela does manage to fight back, the US will accuse them of doing unprovoked aggression & war crimes against the US and escalate the situation and the US allies like the EU will probably send their own troops as well.
Yea when Venezuela defends itself from the US blowing up it’s boats the US will just go “see they are defending drug runners it’s a cartel government” and the rest of the West will just run with it
Yea, the Libya model is much more likely than the Iraq model here.
The RETVRN to Tradition guys are going to have a field day with the return of slave markets in Venezuela, huh. Let’s hope the Libya model from the aggressors won’t translate to the consequences of those strikes in Venezuela.
Biden promised to “confront Maduro” in 2020, started imposing extra sanctions on them, but then everything got delayed because of Ukraine and Gaza.
Neither Trump or Biden put much effort into funding and arming actual terrorist forces on the ground like Obama did in Libya. So I guess there will just be lots of bombing and if that doesn’t force Maduro to leave, they will just continue bombing.
Well on the last point, I think it’s much harder to fund and arm terrorists in Venezuela than Libya. Socialism has had a long time to take root amongst would-be-compradors, and the shambolic “opposition” to the socialists has only made matters worse. I know some Venezuelans in the US that don’t particularly like Maduro, but even they make Juan Guaido jokes and think Machado is a bloodthirsty sicko.
Or the Gulf war Iraq model, bomb the shit out of them, embargo them, then come back in 10 years to finish the job.
It’s difficult, if not impossible to say when. Trump may try out this “naval blockade” thing for a while, or he may go for airstrikes, or even airstikes plus limited amphibious assault and paratrooper operations, and/or some special forces operations to capture Maduro. Not enough ground forces for a full on invasion.
If we see the F-22s flying out, I think that would be a clear sign action is imminent. By far the most expensive fighter for the US Air Force to operate, and the one they use for top cover. They deployed 10 for the strikes on Iran, and the airstikes happened within a few days of F-22s flying out. Another sign would be the specialist F-35 unit from Vermont actually making the move over to Puerto Rico, not just logistics, but the F-35s themselves. They specialise in suppressing air defences.
I think that the US wants to do what they did in Panama with Bush Sr, capture the leader of the country and install their own.
Interesting, didn’t realise that about the F-22. Is its range not far enough with mid-air refueling to reach Venezuela and back from the continental US?
Yeah the F-22s could fly out of the continental US with mid air refueling. Long mission for a fighter pilot, but possible. But we might see some movement at the F-22 bases before they deploy, like with Iran. Or maybe not. But they are very expensive to operate, the US won’t waste money flying combat ready F-22s around, so if there’s movement there, that would be a big sign. They’re not really needed, but the US military is all about overkill. And the squadrons will be begging to deploy on the off chance they can get an air to air kill that’s not a balloon.
Just going on OSINT and fed account vibes I think we’re not there yet, they start buzzing right before things happen as they kick in to do realtime narrative manipulation and injection. They’re all quiet right now.
I could be wrong but my money is on nothing happening other than continued fishing boat murders
I think they’re in no rush. They know they have no popular support for war and no strategic plan, but they also know they need to take down Venezuela. Doing so is critical for the persistence of American capitalism.
What they’re doing right now is just sanctions on steroids, I suspect that’s all trump has interest in. I think even he understands this isn’t a war that would make him look good or victorious.