(credit to RomCom1989 for the title)
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 an Iranian soldier exulting in the launch of a ballistic missile aimed towards the imperialists.
short summary this week: US doing pretty bad and Iran doing pretty good all things considered, Strait of Hormuz is closed and will almost certainly remain so until the end of the war, Trump has no idea what to do, global economic crisis from strait closure is basically guaranteed at this point but who will ultimately benefit most and who will ultimately lose most is still up in the air.
longish summary is below in the spoiler tags
longish summary
While there are still major debates raging about how badly things are actually going right now and what the post-conflict map may look like, as we blaze past the two week mark on this conflict, it's becoming ever more obvious to almost everybody involved that this war is not going according to plan, if there ever was one. US airstrikes are, from what I can best determine, still mostly done with relatively less powerful (but still very dangerous!) and much less plentiful standoff munitions launched from bombers, though certain border and coastal areas are being struck with more powerful and more plentiful short-range guided bombs. This indicates that Iranian air defense is still sufficiently functional throughout most of Iran that the kinds of true carpet bombing done against Korea and Vietnam in the past (and Gaza very recently) is still too risky, though their airspace is still very much under assault, as we appear to have images of small groups of Western fighters breaching relatively deep into the country. Under some kind of Iranian pressure (drones? missiles? speedboats?) one aircraft carrier has retreated to a thousand kilometers from Iran, hiding behind the mountains of Oman; the other is sitting in the Red Sea, rather pointedly out of range of Yemen. As such, the ranges that Western aircraft must travel to bombard Iran is increasing, which reduces their frequency and increases strain on maintenance and logistics in the medium and long term.
While there is tons to say about the current social, economic, and military state of Iran, I don't think I have a reliable enough picture to give a good summary beyond "they aren't close to defeat or regime change". What has instead captured much of the world's attention is the continuing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has inspired some of the most delusional statements I have seen so far in my life, which is sincerely a profound achievement. For those out of the loop: the strait is currently closed to all shipping except those going to very particular countries (I've seen China and Bangladesh mentioned, and apparently India is in the process of working something out and may succeed or fail). This is because most ships are not risking the trip due to the ~20 tankers and container ships that Iran has already struck and disabled in the strait and in the Persian Gulf. Additionally, the threat from Iran's military to Navy ships is such that attempting to create a convoy to guide tankers through it is suicidal to both the Navy and merchant ships. Right now it cannot be done, and it very well might be the case that it could never be done, simply due to the combination of Iran's naval forces (hundreds, perhaps thousands, of armed, specialized speedboats designed for exactly this purpose), their drones (in the tens of thousands), their torpedoes, and if all else fails, their naval mines.
The Western reaction to this has been so moronic that it has almost integer underflowed into being philosophical: what does it truly mean for a passage to be "closed"? Has Iran truly "closed" the strait, or is the risk of traversing it simply too high for these cowardly sailors (who, for some strange reason, seem to care about their "lives" and "families")? How is it possible for Iran to have closed the strait if, according to the West, Iran's military has been totally obliterated? All these questions and more plague the minds of those who cannot accept the now-proven fact that there are indeed military forces on this planet that the US Navy with all its aircraft carriers and destroyers and submarines cannot defeat; and one of those minds is, rather hilariously, Trump himself. His thrice-daily positive affirmations that Iran has been defeated are taking on an increasingly deranged and almost pitiable tone; the lamentations of a man who has finally found a situation where him merely stating that something is true is insufficient to change the situation one iota. Despite stating that some kind of naval compact or alliance is being established to protect shipping, every Western country so far - from the UK, to France, to Japan, to Australia - has publicly stated that they will not risk their ships to do so. All this as the continued blockade yet further guarantees a worldwide energy, production, transportation, and food crisis that will have major global ramifications for at least the rest of the decade and almost certainly beyond.
If the anti-imperialists play their cards right, the US could lose much from this crisis, and others, like China and Russia, could gain a great deal. To quote Nia Frome (co-founder of Red Sails): "An effective Marxist has to be enough of an accelerationist/pervert to treat the obviously bad things that are going to happen as the political opportunities they are."
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.
It appears Cuba is experiencing an island-wide blackout and a total disconnection of the electrical system.
Source (Drop Site News tweet)
Additional note, in his press conference just now, Trump stated he thinks he will be the first president to “take” Cuba. The reporter who asked the question seemed taken aback so he asked “take Cuba?”, to which Trump emphasized he meant take as in TAKE, in some form or another.
I don’t want to speculate too much, but given that just before this comment, Trump was talking about how nice the weather and climate is there, I suspect his plan is a complete US takeover of Cuba.
Is there the willingness and capacity in terms of things like small-arm weaponry for Cubans to resist an attempted occupation, or would the population (either by choice or by force), for lack of a better phrase, "go with it"?
I can't imagine we're talking about Iranian or even Venezuelan levels of war readiness, the US will invade the island if they so wish and if they really want to destroy Cuba then they can just carpet bomb it and we all know that there will no military aid on the way like that which Iran has received; I just wonder, after they presumably capture or kill their leader and as many officials as they can, to what extent the military and population would be 1) willing to and 2) able to frustrate or attrit an American occupation force presumably stationed in Havana in order to defend the revolution.
Would we see Hamas-esque activity? I'd hope the Cubans have been studying their tactics used against the Zionists, even if they might not have the tunnel networks (as far as I know?)
There was a time, back in the 80s, when Cuba was able to provide significant military support to other countries (like Angola fighting off the apartheid South African military). They are certainly armed. I think Cuba is more comparable to Venezuela in that they don’t have much in the way of air defenses or ballistic missiles, but there is a significant small-arms military.
All they need for deterrence is a few thousand Shahed-136 drones aimed at Miami and Disney World.
If they had this they could have the US even more on its knees begging than Iran does. Cuba sits at two vital choke points for the US out of the Gulf of Mexico
Venezuela had aot more modern air defence than Cuba. Venezuela had Buk M2Es/SA-17s and even an S-300VM/SA-23. All Cuba has is S-125/SA-3.
Most of that actual materiel was Soviet equipment they gave to Angola, without replacing for instance their helicopters and missiles. It was a huge act in part because Fidel was very openly showing that Cuba would leave itself partially vulnerable and send all its modern air-defenses and helicopters until the war was won. I am sure they did send small-arms as well, but the significant arms support they gave was the stuff their purchased or had donated by the USSR.
Cuba actually manufactures their own AKs, they even have a domestic model of red dot sight
I assume that for the red dots at least they might be partially reliant on imports for the electronic components, but they do have a steel industry so they're probably self-sufficient on the AKs (although of course, without electricity that industry can't do much - still, they probably have stockpiles of guns to hand out to militias if it comes to that).
No muzzle brake 🥺
Really bad and yet people will blame this on "evil communism" instead of the embargo. Even worse since apparently more anti-gov protests have been happening in Cuba recently.
if the usa pulls the rug out in the middle east and tries to swoop into Cuba to save them I'm going to die
interesting I am yet to see anything about anti-govt protests in Cuba
Since they are in the US crosshairs more than usual, we are probably paying people to sabotage shit.
It makes me wonder what China is thinking when they're donating solar panels to Cuba, like how do they know that their support won't be for nothing amidst the background of a possible US invasion that becomes more likely by the day. If they aren't gonna go all the way and help Cuba deter US Aggression then what's the point? Do they know something that news heads on Hexbear don't or have they just accepted the outcome of the fall of socialism within Cuba?
I think the only conclusion we can come to - and I say this without judgement - is that the ability of Cuba to remain a sovereign nation is not a very high priority for China; or at least not high enough that they see it as worth antagonizing the United States over.
Yeah, I'm afraid that's the case, especially in the context of China's long game.