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.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli 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 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.

  • Kieselguhr [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    55·
    9 hours ago

    visited reddit-logo

    Because they’ve taken out a large portion of Iran’s launchers. Combine that with much of their leadership being dead or in hiding (including the Supreme Leader), you’re getting very weak responses at this point.

    I honestly don’t know what the point is now in launching. If I’m the rocket guy, I’m fucking right off to the house and waiting for the new regime to take over. maybe-later-honey

    That was enough

      • tocopherol [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        33·
        8 hours ago

        I saw NYT or some article saying like “Iran’s assault has slowed since the beginning, likely indicating they are nearly out of missiles.” It’s like the Ukraine war, “Russia didn’t take Kyiv in 3 days like they planned so they are about to collapse and retreat.”

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      51·
      8 hours ago

      okay, look, I know we all can’t remember anything anymore and the present is eternal and history began yesterday, but please god, you people were saying the exact same fucking shit about Yemen vis-a-vis Prosperity Guardian

      Ansarallah was not destroyed, and they still have the ability to fire missiles at Israel and do so regularly, and the US navy fled that battle with their tails tucked between their legs

      what makes you believe things will go any better with a country that isn’t under blockade, controls their whole territory and associated resources, and has a military orders of magnitude stronger? but sure, here we go again, Iran is about to learn about why Americans don’t have free healthcare

      edit: The failure of Prosperity Guardian has gotta be the most “…well, anyway” I’ve ever seen on behalf of the US media and military. Like, just an abject failure to achieve meaningful results after a prolonged bombing campaign where every month they declared Ansarallah’s ability to fire missiles and drones to be “severely degraded” or whatever. And this was within the same overall conflict that we’re in now, not like a military exercise two decades ago. But we’re just pretending it never happened? No lessons to be learned? No analysis to be done about what a war with Iran might be like based on what the US experienced off the coast of Yemen?

      I feel like I’ve been teleported to the early 2000s but with “Iran” replacing “Iraq”. It’s just like “Oh yeah, obviously we’re gonna win and take out all their nuclear sites and destroy every missile launcher and overthrow the regime. No, the real question is how many our soldiers will develop PTSD from bombing children in this conflict. That’s the only metric at play here.”

      • carpoftruth [any, any]@hexbear.netMEnglish
        6·
        6 hours ago

        I feel like I’ve been teleported to the early 2000s but with “Iran” replacing “Iraq”.

        this shit isn’t actually rocket science to predict, it follows obvious patterns. I remember hunter S thompson correctly calling the long arc of the next 20 years of the GWOT literally the day after 9/11. he could do that because he paid attention while the invasion of vietnam unfolded.

        The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now – with somebody – and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.

        We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows? Not even the Generals in what remains of the Pentagon or the New York papers calling for WAR seem to know who did it or where to look for them.

        This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed – for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now. He will declare a National Security Emergency and clamp down Hard on Everybody, no matter where they live or why. If the guilty won’t hold up their hands and confess, he and the Generals will ferret them out by force.

    • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      47·
      9 hours ago

      Geopolitical analysis by Air Bud

      Its not their fault they are heavily propagandized and kept ignorant. My wife for example is a commie but not as terminally online as me and had no idea Israel had bombed Tehran and that Iran had hit Tel Aviv with missiles until I brought it up like two days ago.

      US media hasn’t even been leading with the story. It was below the chud shooting in Minnesota or whatever which like sure it’s interesting but hardly the headline right now

    • sewer_rat_420 [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      16·
      8 hours ago

      Coward ass fucks. You think people would’ve joined the IRGC to desert less then a week into this? Leaving their post to let more of their countryfolk die? People need to stop slurping up silly hasbara as fact