more like thucydideez nuts, gottem

A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like “in Minecraft”) and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is of a satellite image from MizarVision, a Chinese firm that has recently shown pride in being sanctioned for showing uncensored images of the Middle East. The West is not allowing up-to-date satellite imagery of the region to hide destruction.


As always, my weekly summary/preamble is in spoilers below.

preamble

Military news remained relatively subdued last week, with the main front continuing to be the Lebanon border. With dozens of vehicles destroyed and many more Zionist casualties, they are now desperately searching for a solution to the FPV drone threat, with certain analysts characterizing the whole situation as the entity stumbling foot-first into a bear trap (hence the megathread title). Unfortunately for them, two better and more resourceful militaries have spent the last year or two also searching for a solution and have generally failed - with anti-drone strategies consisting mainly of 1) build your own cheap drones designed to physically intercept their cheap drones and 2) separate your forces up rather than conducting large frontal assaults WW2-style and accept that you’re gonna have to fight for many months to gain substantial ground. This also explains why they’re so eager to kickstart a civil war in Lebanon, although as I’ve stated before, I don’t personally know whether that would be a silver bullet given how the Lebanese army has been deliberately not allowed to become a threatening force due to Zionist fears, and indeed, I don’t know how many Lebanese citizens and soldiers would fight against the only force in their country fighting against an army trying to annex their territory and which murders hundreds of people at a time in aerial bombings on their cities.

Aside from the ever-worsening global economic catastrophe, the main event has been the US visiting China. Trump clearly intended to time the summit such that it took place after subjugating Iran and perhaps also Cuba. However, with the former goal not even remotely achieved, and the latter goal delayed - hopefully indefinitely, though the US still seems pretty intent on it - it all amounted to a big nothingburger. Marxist economist Michael Roberts has written up a great piece on the current state of the US-China economic conflict, stating among things that, despite the last decade of US sanctions and economic warfare, the Chinese economy has done extremely well, building up their own domestic industries to replace commodities lost from sanctions. China has, up to this point, refused to withdraw its aid from Iran, and seems to be looking to start moving its tankers through the Strait via Iran’s new tolling mechanism.

China obviously continues to maintain its position on Taiwan, and Trump has continued the US tradition of respecting this in words and disrespecting it in actions, but it’s becoming clear to everybody but the most delusional diehards that the US will not be fighting China in and around the Pacific for at least a couple decades, and likely never will. There is little choice. The Ramadan War has definitively proven that the US has been severely militarily and logistically weakened over the decades despite skyrocketing military budgets, and much of their equipment, strategies, and tactics are woefully outdated for the modern battlefield. The prospect of the US fighting a war against China and not immediately losing has gone from “almost implausible” to “hilariously absurd”. Unable to meaningfully impede China, the US will have to content itself to increasingly ineffective sanctions campaigns and bullying/overthrowing nations that do not currently have much of a capacity to resist. In that vein, one hopes that Iran and friends will share their expertise in drone technology and underground fortification around the world. The age of the tunnel is upon us.


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

If you have evidence of Zionist 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 the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on the Zionists’ 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.


  • companero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    16 days ago

    NYT: Early War Goal Was to Install Hard Line Former President as Iran’s Leader

    It turns out that the United States and Israel went into the conflict with a particular and very surprising someone in mind: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president known for his hard-line, anti-Israel and anti-American views.

    But the audacious plan, developed by the Israelis and which Mr. Ahmadinejad had been consulted about, quickly went awry, according to the U.S. officials who were briefed on it.

    Mr. Ahmadinejad was injured on the war’s first day by an Israeli strike at his home in Tehran that had been designed to free him from house arrest, the American officials and an associate of Mr. Ahmadinejad said. He survived the strike, they said, but after the near miss he became disillusioned with the regime change plan.

    pooh-wtf

    Are they just trying to get Iran to kill him for them or something?

  • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    16 days ago

    As a result of an individual petition, the Supreme Court in China has issued a statement clarifying the application of laws protecting minorities in China and their validity in cases of discriminatory speech on issues of sexuality, gender identity and gender expression. This statement includes guidelines on judgements and a clear explanation of how the law applies.

    To implement the provisions of laws such as the Constitution, the Civil Code, and the Employment Promotion Law, and to effectively safeguard citizens’ personal dignity against infringement, the Supreme People’s Court hereby clarifies the following adjudication rules:

    First, regarding cases involving the public insult or defamation of an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, people’s courts generally deem such acts to constitute an infringement of general personality rights; they order the cessation of the infringement, a formal apology, and compensation for emotional distress, thereby explicitly establishing the illegality of discriminatory speech and conduct based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

    Second, in the contexts of recruitment, hiring, job reassignment, or dismissal, should an employer engage in differential treatment on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, people’s courts shall, in accordance with the law, determine that the employer has committed employment discrimination; they shall order the revocation of the relevant decisions, compensation for losses, and other remedies, thereby explicitly prohibiting unreasonable discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression within the sphere of employment.

    Third, should a school impose inappropriate disciplinary measures against students—or fail to fulfill its administrative duties, thereby leading to campus bullying—on the grounds of the students’ sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, people’s courts shall, in accordance with the law, hold the school liable, thereby reinforcing schools’ obligation to protect students’ personal liberty and dignity. These cases collectively demonstrate the people’s courts’ unequivocal stance: that the legitimate rights and interests of sexual minorities are entitled to equal protection under the law, and that any unreasonable discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression is strictly prohibited by law.

    Moving forward, we will continue to systematically review cases nationwide involving the protection of sexual minorities’ rights and interests, summarize adjudication rules, and standardize adjudication criteria. At appropriate junctures, we will formalize established adjudication rules through various mechanisms—such as judicial interpretations, conference minutes, guiding cases, reference cases, and exemplary cases—to enhance the provision of legal norms. Furthermore, we will incorporate topics such as the protection of personality rights into judicial training programs, thereby ensuring the protection of citizens’ personal liberty and dignity in accordance with the law.” — Reply to the “Proposal on the Application of Law to Explicitly Prohibit Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Judicial Adjudication”

    https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/U1VX7omSTbnMjpoBTHIt-A

  • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.netM
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    15 days ago

    The general strike in Bolivia is growing. Unions in the two most economically important regions (Santa Cruz and Potosí) are now joining the strategy of building barricades to block highways. They hadn’t joined until now. They’re the two largest exporters (mining & agroindustry)

    This is Bolivia: Day 8 of the general strike, barricades across all the highways bringing all trade and economic activity to a halt, commercial trucks backed up for miles. This continues until the neoliberal govt resigns. Workers of every country have their Strait of Hormuz.

  • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.netM
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    17 days ago

    The US & Israeli governments have published statements condemning the general strike in Bolivia. The working class of a tiny country can scare even the most powerful global elites. Imagine if Latin America united, or Africa, or across Asia, or globally? We outnumber them.

    Why is the US preparing a military intervention against Bolivia?

    • Their humiliating defeat in Iran has shattered myth of US invincibility. They need to reassert power elsewhere.
    • Bolivia’s general strike shows the rest of Latin America how to overthrow US puppet regimes.

    The general strike + barricades blocking highways has paralyzed the government. If sustained, the neoliberal govt will collapse and it’ll show the rest of the region how to overthrow their own US puppet regimes that impoverish them. US wants to crush this idea.

    • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]@hexbear.net
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      17 days ago

      The US & Israeli governments have published statements condemning the general strike in Bolivia.

      If I saw a headline that said “The US & Israeli governments have published statements condemning the Puppy Shredding Machine” I’d automatically assume the puppies deserved it.

    • Tervell [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      17 days ago

      Their humiliating defeat in Iran has shattered myth of US invincibility. They need to reassert power elsewhere.

      I wonder if the sudden cancelling of that US Army deployment in Poland has something to do with this? Although that’s an Armored BCT (that is, Abrams tanks and Bradley IFVs), which doesn’t exactly seem like the ideal choice to quickly redeploy to a country full of mountains and jungle.

      Or maybe that unit is being brought back to replace other units which are actually being deployed from the continental US.

  • joaomarrom [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    14 days ago

    https://xcancel.com/John_Hudson/status/2057520185012068532

    SCOOP: The U.S. has depleted much of its inventory of advanced missile-defense interceptors after expending far more high-end munitions defending Israel than Israeli forces used themselves, per DOD assessments of Operation Epic Fury

    […]

    As the war drags on, tensions have grown between US and Israeli officials, particularly as Netanyahu exerts pressure for the US to restart the war. “Israel is not capable of fighting and winning wars on its own, but nobody actually knows this, because they never see the back end,” said a US official

    Holy fuck what a quote. Here’s the full article on the Washington Post: https://archive.is/6JYm2

      • DogThatWentGorp [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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        17 days ago

        He’s been posting non-stop about missiles and other stuff I think so maybe he just means more of what went on last time?

        It’s been some weeks so I’m sure he’s been coo’d and comforted by his entourage and AI chat bots into thinking he can really gettem this time if he wanted to, for seriousies. He actually held back last time in his mind.

        • P1d40n3 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          17 days ago

          I can’t imagine the US going nuclear (they rather like ruling an world that has cool shit), but I can imagine a sundowning Trump deciding that nuclear is the only way to assuage his ego. Would anyone even oppose him?

              • PleasantPeasant [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                16 days ago

                it’s technically temporary, and trump can push it to congress to make his cabinet give him his toys back

                Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

                Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department [sic][note 2][7] or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

                so, his cabinet would only ever do this if trump were trying to like nuke china or russia (or some other similarly catastrophic thing) because that’s the only thing that could get the repubs in congress to agree to remove him from office

              • PleasantPeasant [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                16 days ago

                faith isnt the right word. while there are definitely some true believers in the rapture death cult, vast majority of these people are ultimately craven cowards and i dont think they would risk themselves like that

                • P1d40n3 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  16 days ago

                  I fear the military is overrun with true believers. Hegseth would never disobey an order from Trump.

                  I get where you are coming from, and I sincerely how you are right.

  • 3rdWorldCommieCat [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    15 days ago

    "For the first time, China’s Supreme People’s Court has banned discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression in judgments, including the written terms in legal protections against discrimination.

    The ruling acknowledges that insults and humiliation for these reasons can lead to punishment and compensation, that companies cannot discriminate in hiring, firing, or work environment, and that schools can be punished for bullying LGBTQIA+ students.

    The Court stated that it will continue to standardize decisions on the rights of these minorities and will include human dignity and personality rights in the training of judges."

    Watch the absolute crickets on western media on this as it was a few years ago on the court that ruled a lesbian couple could both be legally their son’s mothers lmao just as the west destroys lgbt+ rights in their own countries.

    Link here but it’s in portuguese I just translated: https://x.com/npomvtt/status/2056814160399511856

  • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.netM
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    12 days ago

    The Bolivian military were sent to clear workers barricades surrounding the capital. The people dispersed then regrouped & reinstalled roadblocks & barricades on other points of the same highway. A cat & mouse strategy to avoid repression, stretch enemy thin & maintain control.

    This is now Day 11 of the general strike against neoliberalism. The cities are still surrounded

  • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.netM
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    17 days ago

    Our sources within the Bolivian police have confirmed that they’ve received orders to use live ammunition against the indigenous long march that is arriving today in the capital.Protesters are aware and heading down regardless, to defend the country and its natural resources. Patriotic factions within the police & military have kept us informed of all plans & movements. That’s how we got the documents confirming the joint operation with US armed forces to arrest Evo Morales.

  • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.netM
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    15 days ago

    A new poll by YouGov, sponsored by CEPR, finds that 64 percent of Americans oppose the US going to war against Cuba, while 15 percent support it and 21 percent are not sure. Among those who express a view, 81 percent are against a war.