Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.
Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.
Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).
Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.
I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran’s leadership must - if they haven’t already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. 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.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
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.
The goal of the Chinese revolution is primarily to increase and uphold the living standards of its population. As evidenced by the failure of the soviet union, having a lot of allies isnt a guarantee for the continued survival of your revolution. The actions of the PRC must be analysed through this lens. Even interventionism in other countries affairs is rare in Chinese history no matter the ruling school of thought.
China almost never interfere in the affairs of countries that doesn’t share a border with it in its 5000 year history. This was true during every single dynasty outside of like Yuan due to Mongol shenanigans. Pakistan lost an entire chuck of land as the newly independent state Bangladesh, and China didn’t do anything except send angry letters and vetoed Bangladesh’s acceptance into the UN. This was all under Mao by the way for the people who want to blame everything on DengismTM. I guess that would make Mao a Dengist too.
The construction of what is currently China itself evolved over a long period of wars, conquests, and genocides by various parties. China has not really been just one thing, and if one tries to think of it that eay it has still invaded and conquered neighbors during every period.
Under the CPC, China has not itself done invasions on any large scale, nor large bombing campaigns and so on like the imperialists. However, as part of the Sino-Soviet split it materially and substantially backed up truly awful anticommunists and opportunists, part of why the Vietnamese public harbored negative sentiment towards China for so long. Imagine if China provided support to Iran on par with what it provided Pol Pot or even the Mujahideen.
It’s important to understand China as not essentialist in anti-intervention, but taking a conscious course, adopting a strategy, on purpose, that is not about refusing tactics but instead is about geopolitical positioning. Part of their PR is to say they do not meddle - but of course they meddled a lot just 30-40 years ago, cozying up with imperialists to stick it to the soviets. It is good that they no longer do such things, but how much of that is a consequence of the end of the USSR? When Filipino Maoists raise frustrations with China supporting the feds that kill and imprison them, is it simply non-interventionism and supporting existing governments or is it a larger strategy of being friendly to imperialists in order to build its own position (which is still a defensible position in its own way)?
This is important to wrestle with because it helps to frame how one handles their own position in organizing against capital, particularly in the imperial core, and how one engages with diaspora communitied that often have frustrations with China based on personal experience. The bad things did happen, and they still happen, but one must also oppose sinophobia and the anticommunism/capitalist-jacketing that seeps into anti-China rhetoric. One should not understand a country of over a billion as being simply good or evil or even, in this case, just communistic or capitalist. It is a project with strategies negotiated by sophisticated people and with substantial harms and downsides that impact others’ struggles as well as upsides and boons that support others’ struggles (China-Iranian trade is essential to Iran).
The operative word is “borders.” China throughout the centuries has done plenty to interfere in the affairs of its neighbors (Imjin War, the Sui dynasty attempting to invade Korea 4 times which caused it to collapse, various Chinese invasions of Vietnam, fostering division among the Turkic Khaganate). I’m talking more in the lines of the Crusades where a bunch of French and German knights traveled across Europe to conquer the Levant.
My experience with the Chinese diaspora is that it largely suffers the same issues as other diaspora (labor aristocrat/petty bourgeois which expresses itself through the so-called model minority, alienated from their roots which expresses itself among 2nd+ generation as “too Asian for Americans and too American for Asians,” colorism and white-worship in general, lack of solidarity with non-Chinese diaspora and POC in general especially if their skin color is darker on account of colorism).
China doesn’t share a border with Cambodia and its border with Afghanistan is miniscule.
Historically, China has had varying borders. Something like the genocide of Dzungars was expansionist (but also responding to repeated raids and attacks) by the Qing dynasty, with whom they did not share a border until they expanded into what is now inner Mongolia.
The Levant is closer to Italy than Kashgar is to Beijing.
Of course, in modern times, the extent and distances of “meddling” is qualitatively different between China and the imperialists. Just not comparable. But it’s not historically accurate to say that China just doesn’t or hasn’t meddled or engaged in long-ranging warfare, at least if we are going by the various dynasties up to today.
Re: diaspora, I don’t really mean Chinese diaspora, as that is not generally a group with relevant stories of being frustrated by China working against their revolutionary projects. But the Vietnamese, Filipino, and Cambodian diasporas have such members.
‘China almost never interfere in the affairs of countries that doesn’t share a border with it in its 5000 year history’ this can be applied to any country or civilization ever. international affairs didn’t really exist back. i don’t think they were criticising dengism or anything
Nah, Western Europeans were raising crusader armies to intervene in the Levant for the sake of Christian pilgrims and to stick it to the Saracens. At least, that was the official reason given by the pope. Obviously, the real reason is colonization. And sticking it to the Saracens.
I mean, Maoist China did give training and help Guerillas around the world, but tbh basically every AES state did that. Even Albania had it’s own proxies.
The Horse will never lose its dominace on the Battlefield - Look at the 6000 year History.
I feel like this is just the Iran strategy with its regional allies but amplified up and if Iran gave even less support and aid to its allies than China gives to theirs. Like, the rationale inside Iran might have been (I don’t know one way or another): “Well, if we supply our allies - Hezbollah, Ansarallah, Iraqi groups, Hamas to a certain extent - then they can weaken Israel for us and fight them off and we don’t have to do as much fighting, so we won’t even need nukes, and we can develop back here and build weapons and survive and develop and by [some unspecified future year] we’ll be ready and strong enough to take regional power.”
And then Israel starts bombing the shit out of everybody and then after all that they start bombing the shit out of Iran too, and suddenly it’s like “Oh shit, it sure would have been nice if, in this situation, we had allies to fight alongside us and strike Israel at closer range than we can, because now we’re alone while Hamas is fully focussed on resisting genocide, Hezbollah is hibernating and trying to endure Lebanon’s fucked up domestic situation, and Ansarallah, bless 'em, has been doing all they can but can only do so much.”
And in a decade or whatever, if Russia falls (quite unlikely) and Iran falls (more possible, idk what the odds are though), China might end up in a similar situation where, gee, they sure wish they had allies to exert global pressure and give them intelligence and ports and airports and supply goods to them over land, I wonder where those guys went?
yeah … china should ignore the world … the world then will surely ignore china … Just let the World suround you , little china … then close your Eyes … becase if you can no see them , they surely can not see you …and its better if you dont see … and with these close eyes you can then dream of a future that does contain all the roads not taken…
The non-intervention arguments makes no sense, especially when it part takes in global trade while your enemy is attacking your global supply chain and potential export dumping ground
Ussr refused to shoot itself in the foot. Look how that turned out. We can not allow China to make the same mistake. China must shoot itself in the foot over and over again, trust me this is how revolution survives
not really following here , but with the shooting … its very very easy actually … you shoot on what shoots at you . If you dont . .the Person Shooting at you or your Friend has no incentiv to stop shooting. And no matter how bad he aims , he will hit eventually.
The problem with this strategy is that China doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It exists in a world where the dominant hegemonic power is constantly looking for ways to isolate and destroy them and their anti-imperialist allies. At some stage you have to respond before it’s too late or risk being totally surrounded and have no allies to rely on. CPC politicans love talking about multipolarity, but as long as the US Empire is allowed to do whatever the fuck it wants, a true multipolar world will not take shape.