Image is of a Quds Day march in Bandar Abbas, Iran.
It now seems likely that, very soon, the US and the Zionists will attempt to bomb Iran. Compared to the buildup to the Iraq War, the stated goals of such a move are being kept a little more generalized - some say the point is to overthrow the government for "humanitarian" purposes (others are more honest and want to partition Iran into a dozen powerless statelets). Some people instead say the point is to get rid of the ballistic missile program, which is synonymous with outright surrender, as no matter the deal, bombers would be en route within 10 minutes of the last batch being handed over.
Still others say that the goal is to destroy the Iranian nuclear program, which, as the thread title implies, is now in a bizarre propaganda superposition: it is apparently simultaneously true to the Trump administration that the US obliterated the nuclear facilities and set back Iran's nuclear program years, if not decades, but also that Iran is mere days away from finishing a nuke and a new round of bombing is urgently required. This obviously casts newfound doubts on how effective US weapons even are at penetrating Iran's underground facilities (though it doesn't necessarily mean they didn't breach them, as Iran was almost certainly moving nuclear material out of Fordow and other sites in the days before the Twelve Day War). The sheer quantity of US anti-air defense equipment they're shifting into position also casts doubts on whether Iran's air defense was mostly destroyed during that conflict, as those who assert that the Zionists had total air supremacy over Iran seem to be implying.
I'm not a military guy, and so I have no novel insights on how such a war is likely to go, nor do I feel confident predicting either side's victory. I'm looking at most of the same sources that you're all looking at. Some confidently boast of the total destruction of Iran's air defense within hours, allowing US planes to fly directly over Iranian cities and drop bombs en masse; others cast doubts on whether this will ever occur, and say that the US's limited supply of Tomahawk missiles is the only major firepower they will be able to safely unleash. Some say this war will last mere days before state collapse; others say months, maybe even years. I have no idea.
I do at least feel somewhat bolstered by the fact that Russia and China finally appear to be pouring in meaningful information and matériel to help Iran this time around, though of course, one can still debate whether it's enough. I feel like we are at the culmination of decades of war planning by both the US and Iran, and the result could have deep ramifications indeed.
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.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
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.
Trump was warned by the deep state this would go badly.
Trump did it anyway and it’s going badly.
The deaths of US soldiers are very very very clearly his fault.
US public opinion is for the first time ever a plurality against Israel.
Trump gets impeached for this
I'll believe it when I see it. GOP doesn't care and the mainline Democratic stance is "You didn't file the right paperwork".
impeached I concur, is just not happening. i do think though that there's a dangerous, hypothetical feeling of this becoming a lame duck presidency.
we all know that most policies would be supported even by a democrat supermajority in congress. especially foreign policy like this. and yet no political cohort enjoys being on the passenger seat. many liberals in the US crow about midterm fuckery, but that's on the horizon IMHO.
if trump's factions fuck with the midterms just to secure the drivers' seat they'll disillusion the public. hard.
He's historically unpopular, but I don't even know if the term "lame duck" applies. Usually it means they are in their last term and can't get anything done because Congress, judiciary, and or the bureaucracy won't cooperate. Both are actively cooperating with him, and to he's just ignoring them and doing what he wants, anyways, to the extent that they don't.
No no, I agree. I don't think a lame duck trump presidency is possible. Just like you said, Trump will just decree things and neither Congress nor the Supreme Court will challenge said decrees. Either because the Dems agree with, say, war in the middle east, or because the ideological judiciary agrees with most of what Trump wants done.
However a lot of weird things happen in history just because political parties would rather they be in the driver's seat. It doesn't matter that you and your buddies are going to the same place. Some drivers just become nauseated when they aren't the ones in charge of the car. How will the GOP perceive things as the midterms become a fait accompli? The Democrats are the ones to stay calm and fundraise for the next election. For the Republicans everything is pointlessly existential. That's where the danger lies for the social and political cohesion of the United States. I'm afraid the christian nationalists and the tech oligarchs will become restless in their (very much secure) seats.
I don't really know how it's going. We don't have a lot of info.
thats because Iran degraded the US Radars severly and targeted Command posts and Hotels housing high ranking Personal. One needs to read what is NOT happening in cases like these ,
have we seen lots of black and white videos of Israeli/US strikes ?
have we seen much US or Israeli officals seeking the Cameras , claiming credit for that
Good point, most of what the west sees is mostly just this, the top post on reddit/all right now:
CW disturbing, blood, related to attack on school but not directly bodies or gore
oh fuck thats bad for USA if even reddit is not carring the narrative , any sort of triumphalism Post ? apperently 8 new refueling aircrafts have now been send in the region so that might indicate that the plan isnt going to planned .. the Isreali goverment plane that was circling also pissed of to Italy it seems...
Very surprised that r/pics would show something like that, I thought they were one of the most astroturfed subreddits. Though the plan here might ultimately be to just lay the blame for all this on the feet of Trump and Netanyahu and pretend that Israel and the US are innocent, that these evil aberrant leaders caused this and nothing will fundamentally change.
Or maybe the USAID style budget cuts ended up destroying the CIA reddit mod group as well.
Have there been any?
I haven’t seen any claims or acknowledgments of any US casualties yet, but given the targets Iran has been hitting…
I don’t think anyone has landed hits on the US military like this since Vietnam.
I'm worried what happens when the Dow tanks and the price of gas shoots up. Trump made that happen but there's no button on the Resolute Desk for "Make the Dow go up" and "Make gas prices go down". Trump is not sane, intelligent, or rational, etc. Such people are capable of anything. Trump will want to prove his actions are a "win". But how to do that if he's already raw dogged fucked the economy?
Trump might try to do something impossible and insane like bombing the fuck out of Iran to try to force regime change before the midterms.