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.
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.
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.
Everyone, while this is not news, If you’ve been following my posts over the past few months, you can see that I’ve been covering the US military buildup in the Middle East against Iran quite extensively. Seeing it all come to fruition after ringing the alarm bell for months, it’s nightmarish, I’m feeling sick honestly. Everyone in Iran that uses this website, please stay safe.
imo you’re one of the best regular posters on these threads. good, publicly available military analysis is almost exclusively the domain of chuds (or at least people who are not actively anti-imperialist) and so your presence in these threads is both unique and very valuable.
You’re really the bearer of bad news, but that’s a valuable role so that we don’t get blinded by random Telegram claims. You and I got so much shit for going against the flow a few months ago when Syria heated up, and now sadly similar negative prophecies are coming true.
The thing is I don’t want what I’m saying to be true, but at the same time I’m not going to make up stories about how everything is fine, as many in the “alt media” space do. I’m going to report on what I think is true, regardless of what’s happening.
Unfortunately since the start of Russia-Ukraine war, there has been an entire cottage industry of “alt media” that thrived in selling a particular narrative (in most cases in diametrical opposition to their NAFO counterparts) with half truths mixed in it, fantastical speculations and omissions in others.
Some people were realizing that you can gather a lot of audience simply by telling them what they want to hear, instead of presenting and interpreting real world issues in their full complexities. You can literally see cognitive dissonance in action when they double down even more firmly on their takes even when proven wrong. Somebody must be playing 5D chess, it seems.
pepe escobar is a prime example of this kind of vibes based alt media personality with no material (or materiel) analysis
I hate that fucking crank.
Still remember when he said that a Russian plane shot down an Israeli F-35 carrying out an “EMP nuke” over Iran. At least I think it was him.
It was 100% him.
And when asked for proof, said it will come out in due time. Lmao is due time eternity or what
Welcome back, Cassandra
cassandra’s curse is the hex on hexbear
The thing is I don’t want it to be like this, I was more “optimistic” if you want to say that in the past. But I also can’t ignore what I’m seeing, and I’d think it would be dishonest to ignore what I’m seeing and pretend it’s all fine.
Anyone who reads Marx and pays attention to the world quickly becomes Cassandra.
The most sickening part of it all was how the non-west can’t talk about it, can’t talk about how the U.S. was loading up a rifle and pointing it at Iran for the past months, you’re crazy and the U.S. is just protecting itself or international peace and democracy or I guess this time women rights by bombing women
Your posts are so valuable because often, you say things that I don’t want to be true (and I know you don’t either), but the facts point to a particular reality taking shape. We must of course maintain that revolutionary optimism but also not ignore material reality. Thank you for all you contribute.
Please take care of yourself. Your work is greatly appreciated, but don’t overstretch yourself and don’t hesitate to take a brake if you need one.
You’ve done a great job being a voice of reason here. Not bowing because others are afraid that critique could lead to doomerism.
Thanks for all you do comrade!
I find it really hard to see this all play out and be powerless to stop it. That said, having other users on this site help me sift through all the bullshit and trying to be informed on it as possible has helped me a lot.