Image is of a destroyed American AWACS plane in Saudi Arabia, of which there is a very limited supply and each of which is enormously expensive both monetarily and in terms of components. Iran hit this with a precision drone strike that likely cost ~$20,000.
I don't have much to add from the last megathread description. This isn't to say that nothing has happened or has changed since then - decades are still happening in weeks - but the general flow of the war is remaining the same. Trump sometimes threatens to open the Strait with troops and flatten Iran to rubble, and other times threatens that he's gonna back off and let other countries handle it if they really want little trifles like "fuel" and "energy" so much. Iran continues to strike across the Middle East. The West continues to bomb civilian infrastructure due to their relative inability to affect the missile cities. In all: things are generally getting worse for America and the Zionists.
April is the month where the last ships that left Hormuz before it was closed will arrive around the world, so the last month of economic turmoil has been a mere prelude to what's going to occur in the near-future. The silver lining is that Iran appears to be formalizing the new state of affairs in Hormuz, creating a rial-based toll to allow passage between a pair of Iranian-controlled islands where they can be monitored, meaning that, as long as the US doesn't do something exceptionally stupid, the global energy crisis may "only" last a couple years instead of simply being the new reality from now on. Some countries have already agreed to this arrangement, and others will inevitably follow despite their consternation as their economies increasingly suffer.
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
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.
Trita Parsi is generally well regarded, right? I don't want to feed in the nuke anxiety but the option is clearly being evaluated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87wwERml5bI
In one framing, the question is pretty simple: is the United States government and military willing to carry out the most evil and violent act in human history? It's not exactly against the system's nature.
The US is the only country to have dropped a nuke on a civilian population. And that was 80 years ago. Why are people surprised this is on the table and why do people hate the US only now? Despite all the regime changes, sanctions, and interference into nation sovereignty, no, no, THIS is what makes the US hated. Because the only hatred that matters is that from other Western countries.
Fucking
US soft power convinced a lot of people in other countries (including the enemies of the US) that all the shit about freedom and democracy was true.
I don’t know if it did. I think people who love “American freedom” understand the assignment and actually are fine with fascist might-makes-right domination, and actually believe in a fascist definition of freedom (that of the Roman legionnaire or American businessman, the freedom to exploit, to oppress, to trap and abused a vulnerable spouse, to engage in depravity, etc).
You need look no further than the foremost “freedom believers” abroad, gusanos and compradors. They are not Social Liberal idealists who want “freedom” in the way you or I would understand it, they are Fascists who want “freedom” in the way Confederates and Thomas Jefferson and Caesar meant it. They want to dominate and exploit, that is their freedom.
Considering the political illiteracy of the average person I find it very unlikely that they would have such a sober analysis.
They think of it as "freedom" in their mind, from their perspective they aren't being duplicitious. Freedom is the freedom of ME to do what I want. That's as far as the thinking goes, the fascism follows naturally from that conclusion
WWII was something of a unique situation. Beyond being the biggest war in human history, it also took place in the very brief period where the United States was the only country on Earth with a nuke. The threat of MAD has kept nukes off the table from then until possibly now, when the empire is so high on its own propaganda that it seems like it could happen.
Well Japan was unarguably an evil imperialist power that had done horrific war crimes throughout Asia as well as assaulting western economic and colonial interests so there wasn't a lot of sympathy for the monsters who did biological warfare and SA'ed and murdered masses of civilians getting some war crimes dropped on them. The Americans also successfully sold the myth that it saved lives and ended the war. Japan was also the aggressor clearly, it had started the war invading neighbors, it bombed Pearl Harbor, etc.
This would be quite a bit different in the eyes of most people as the US started this war unprovoked at the behest and in the interests of a genocidal state that is increasingly unpopular in its own right.
FOR A THIRD TIME. I think we all know the answer to this. It was only a matter of time before it came to this. No way the US goes down without lashing out with everything at its disposal.
They already used nukes, two times, when the other side was already preparing surrender - just to threaten the soviets post-war.
They don’t call it the Great Satan for nothing.
Yes, Trita Parsi is one of the foremost and trustworthy "Iran experts" within the American foreign policy think tank ecosystem, specifically from a leftist perspective.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: