this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2026
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Image is of Iranian speedboats spotted by a satellite in the Strait of Hormuz.


Not terribly much has happened in the last week. The main two developments is the very much expected resumption of fire in Lebanon as the ZIonists are famously agreement-incapable, and the continuing supply of equipment to the Middle East, including the George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier. This means there are now three aircraft carriers in the general vicinity, and while I'm uncertain how much of a role the burnt-out Ford and the increasingly exhausted Lincoln will ultimately play (they were rather ineffective during the first round), there are also a good ~20 destroyers and however many submarines that are carrying their own munitions. I have a couple more paragraphs of exposition below, but it's unlikely to be major news to anybody here, so I've spoilered it.

spoiler

On the one hand, it feels like a resumption of the war for the US at this point would be complete madness. We are getting article after article from even the Western media admitting to US standoff+interceptor missile shortages, as well as detailing the extensive damage to US bases. The Zionists are also getting ever more mired in Lebanon, with Hezbollah's unjammable fibre optic drones playing an ever more prominent role in causing substantial long range damage to invading forces. On the other hand, it is very unlikely that most of the US's remaining firepower is being brought to the region on a mere bluff. For its part, Iran and their allies seem to have their finger on the trigger, with their own extensive repairs, upgrades, resupplies, and adjustments having been made for round two.

Assessing the overall global economic situation is difficult, not least because of a degree of financial manipulation that is almost admirable in its sheer scale and recklessness - to quote Ghalibaf: "Their frontline is the yield curve." Multiple countries are now facing real and desperate shortages, including major economies like Japan. Diesel prices continue their record rises, and reports about the potential impacts to all sectors of the global economy are streaming in, with famines around the world now very likely. While the US is profiting from the rise in oil prices, it seems like it will be unable to meaningfully increase production for at least a year or two, and so the US will certainly not be replacing the massive oil barrel deficit to create an energy hegemony, as some have suggested. In contrary: this is the best opportunity in a generation for China, Russia, and Iran to collectively make economic decisions that could cripple entire pillars of American hegemony. However, if the response is lacking - and we've all seen before over the last four years how China's responses to crises have been on the lacking side - we could see a (albeit temporary) strengthening of the US's financial power, as this global crisis will almost certainly result in debt climbing even higher as Western financial institutions grant loans en masse to struggling countries in the developing world. It's very uncertain times.

Last week's thread is here.
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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.


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[–] Tervell@hexbear.net 54 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (5 children)

https://xcancel.com/ArmchairW/status/2049657243277095297

Trump very publicly has said he thought his initial strikes would last a few days and the regime would fall or he’d get negotiating leverage. He expressed extreme surprise when that didn’t happen. Being wrong then is one thing. Doing the exact same thing again 2 months later and still thinking the same thing is so monumentally stupid I can’t even get my head around it. Iran has said if the U.S. attacks again they’re going to go bananas on us and our allies. Does Trump even know they’ve promised that?

What's most amusing is this latest scheme comes on the heels of the easily-predictable failure of the blockade plan, which was never going to work because even trying to cut off that traffic FORCES China to get involved. This war is being run by AI LLMs with inadequate context.

Is there no backstop human analysis and recommendations to both reinforce and counter the AI? Or is Trump's boomer brain just shorted out by the AI? "Between this war plan and the cat videos, America will be great again when we cover it bigly with beautiful Data Centers!"

The DoD literally bragged last month that a 20-man cell was doing what had previously been the work of a 2000-man MI brigade thanks to AI tools. This means that there is ZERO human backstopping or sanity checking happening in the pipeline. None at all. Recipe for disaster.

more

https://xcancel.com/JessicaBones10/status/2049658986857975972

But then they had to race to pull hundreds of extra intel officers into centcom (article from Mar 4th) Side note incredibly poor taste to brag about intel 3 days after destoying a girls school https://archive.ph/qtAck

U.S. Central Command, meanwhile, is asking the Pentagon to send more military intelligence officers to its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days but likely through September, according to a notification obtained by POLITICO. It’s the first known call for additional intelligence personnel for the Iran war by the administration, and a sign the Pentagon is already allocating funding for operations that may stretch long beyond President Donald Trump’s initial four-week timeline for the conflict. The rush to add people and resources to support efforts that are often organized well in advance of U.S. military action highlights how the Trump team had not fully anticipated the wide fallout of the war it launched alongside Israel on Saturday. “What we’ve seen is a completely ad hoc operation where it appeared that nobody actually understood or believed that military action was imminent,” said Gerald Feierstein, a former senior U.S. diplomat who dealt with the Middle East. “It seems like they woke up on Saturday morning and decided that they were going to start a war.”

oh, so the exact thing that has happened in like all big AI integration cases - cutting personnel because the AI's going to be so much more efficient, followed by it promptly shitting the bed completely and a rush to get those personnel back - happened again? who could have predicted this?

[–] lurker_supreme@hexbear.net 10 points 14 hours ago

he replaced 2000 military intelligence officers with 20 magic 8 ball readers. incredible

[–] miz@hexbear.net 30 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

uses artificial intelligence to choose and dismiss targets more quickly than the human brain can think

a nonsensical phrase written by an idiot

[–] WalrusDragonOnABike@reddthat.com 23 points 18 hours ago

What’s most amusing is this latest scheme comes on the heels of the easily-predictable failure of the blockade plan, which was never going to work because even trying to cut off that traffic FORCES China to get involved. This war is being run by AI LLMs with inadequate context.

If you ask like 90% of Americans right before AI cooked some of their brains, Pearl Harbor was totally unprovoked or unpredictable; just Japan widely acting out. So plenty of humans are just that stupid as well. I always assumed the planners back then knew they were trying to provoke an attack to justify entering the war, but now I wonder if they were similarly just as self-deluded?

[–] VComrade@hexbear.net 28 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

The DoD literally bragged last month that a 20-man cell was doing what had previously been the work of a 2000-man MI brigade thanks to AI tools. This means that there is ZERO human backstopping or sanity checking happening in the pipeline. None at all. Recipe for disaster.

Even if there was, the Trump administration or perhaps even military leadership likely wouldn't heed any warnings or second guessing anyway. Americans are so high on their own supply now they simply can't comprehend not having their way with whoever it is they're trying to destroy. American exceptionalism is going to save the world.

[–] marxisthayaca@hexbear.net 34 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

LLMs might have helped collapse US Power? What the fuck I love it

[–] jack@hexbear.net 26 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Just step one in that process. When the AI bubble hits and we learn the last three years of US capital investment was entirely wasted, it's going to obliterate the financial markets.

[–] hello_hello@hexbear.net 12 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

AI won't disappear, but the economic base they injected into it will susie-nudge

Spending hundreds of billions on AI to only have the product be superseded by a Chinese startup #69 in a corporate office in Shenzhen or Hangzhou who provides the same thing but pennies on the dollar.