this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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Bulletins and News Discussion from June 16th to June 22nd, 2025 - Iran, Harden Your Heart
(hexbear.net)
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
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.
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Daily Best article
Who do you turn to for advice in this moment of extreme crisis? Men with decades of military experience or the town drunk?
"Mr. President, you don't want me sitting in the meeting? I could. I could offer—"
"Nah. I don't need you now. I know you got a hidden wet bar in your office. Hang out with a bottle. If I need you to control California after I invoke Posse Whatever - I'll call you."
What does this signal? I remember in his first term it was said that the generals pulled him back from escalating with Iran, and that also they're all democrats nowadays.
I don't know if it signals much of anything.
As for the generals - I hope they have at least a modicum of common sense and humanity. But they might have neither.
I think Trump put Hegseth into the Pentagon so Trump could use the military on American citizens. That's highly illegal and anti-constitutional but Trump doesn't care. If Trump wants it - he'll have it done. He saw Hegseth as loyal and easy to control. Yet somehow even Trump's pathetic, rotten old brainpan can see that Hegseth is beyond useless when it comes to his actual, nominal job. I wonder if in private - Trump says Hegseth is moron.
I think it's only a matter of time with his kind of revolving doors administration that Hegseth will be out on his ass and Trump will probably call him stupid publicly
That would be on brand. And Trump can always find another sycophant loser to install at the Pentagon. I wouldn't be happy if Hegseth started to fall into a drinking spiral though. I assume he's a nasty drunk and he's got a ton of kids.
Edit. He's got seven kids.
we need a pizza tracker but for his favorite liquor store
Oh, man. A HegsethBoozeTracker would be awesome.
Yea i think youre right. Hegseth is just there as a yes man, and I dont think he considered that he would need an actually competent secretary of defense because he probably genuinely thought he could end the wars overseas. And you can see there is the MAGA base that doesnt want war with Iran, which some have pointed out here, is because they want to use the military at home.
The material reality contradicts with Trump's ambitions, and the US cannot become isolationist
I'm going to use that phrasing from now on.
He really seems to believe he can do the impossible simply by thinking it and then saying it out loud to the public. At the time he made statements like covid would "go away" and there would be a "miracle" - I thought it was merely slop for his base. But I started to think he actually believed in his mental powers as if he was far more powerful than Doctor Manhattan.
I imagine Hegseth really wants to go to war with Iran, but he lacks the expertise and brain cells in order to make the correct calls even if Trump shares that goal
Generals are the most likely to oppose US involvement, IMO. They understand the limitations of the US's military capabilities better than anybody. There's a reason the US hasn't done peer conflict since WWII.
Now we all know the limitations of the US's military capabilities after that parade
What peer? The only militaries of comparable size have nukes, and the closest thing to a non-nuclear peer was Iraq. America lost the insurgency there, but not the war.
I guess he really is just in that position to "trigger the libs"?