Image is of a Colombian campaign rally in support of Iván Cepeda of the left-wing Historic Pact.
As always, my weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
The unstable stare-down in the Middle East continues. Yet again, there's been little region-level change, but there have been some big escalations. Namely, the entity has decided to go further into Lebanon, with all the casualties and destruction that will bring them, while simultaneously abandoning bases elsewhere in the theater due to constant pressure by Hezbollah. Seeking to pressure Hezbollah away from their successful strategy of attrition on IOF forces that attempt to advance only to receive rapid onset symptoms of FPVdroneitis, they have also decided to resume airstrikes on Beirut, which is an obvious violation of the region-wide ceasefire that Iran may or may not militarily respond to, but they do seem very diplomatically displeased as of me writing this sentence. Meanwhile, Iran has responded to US drone incursions with strikes on Kuwait military bases. Trump has escalated his demands lately, so a return to war seems more likely than ever.
In Bolivia, Paz appears to be escalating in response to undiminished general strikes, with Congress allowing him to declare states of emergency at will, and therefore get the military more easily involved. In Colombia's runoff elections, far-right candidate Espriella won the first round of the runoff election with 43.7% of the vote ahead of left-winger Cepeda's 40.9%. Every poll had Cepeda beating Espriella by varying margins, so this appears to be a fairly standard case of the US putting their thumb on the scale; as the saying goes, they do not trust the population of Colombia to do democracy correctly and they couldn't risk them accidentally electing the wrong person.
Over in Sudan, the conflict appears like it is moving in a pro-SAF direction, with some significant military gains against the UAE-backed RSF, although the military situation is still fairly complicated. A potentially notable news item that I missed a couple weeks ago is that the US seems to have ended their strategic ambiguity over who they consider the true government in Sudan, as they now firmly recognize the SAF over the RSF. Why exactly this has occurred is a little beyond me. Could be because they see how the winds are blowing militarily; could be because they want to fuck over the UAE for some perceived slight (to be America's ally is fatal etc etc). The humanitarian situation appears no better though, with millions of people remaining in incredible hardship and near-starvation, and RSF-backed genocidal atrocities of the kind that Zionists would nod approvingly at.
Thankfully, China is looking at all these manifold crises and has dramatically escalated the speed at which they are writing strongly worded letters and are calling for a revitalized UN.
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.
Video reveals damage from fire on the USS Gerald R. Ford
#1 question here, why are they using flammable materials for stuff in crew compartments? A ship is a giant metal box, and I think commercial ships also require the use of flame removedant materials. IMO, the fact that they would even have to activate the fire suppression system was a failure in its own right.
Wasn't it allegedly lint that caught fire initially? Even if its partly made from clothing that was originally FR, I doubt it is once its ground into a dust. Still not sure that would be enough to cause what happened, even if there was no circulation and the room was just caked in dust when the fire started.
To be fair, they did try to keep the Iranian Anti-ship missiles out of the crew compartment
There should be a mutiny alone for the fact that the sprinkler systems failed
I'm sure there's like 15 contractor middlemen who each pushed the sprinkler deadline a few months back and millions over budget just to have it catastrophically fail in what is probably the most ideal set of conditions for it to operate.
ideal if it really was just some laundry fire from lint, but let's get real it wasn't a simple laundry fire it was incoming drones and missiles. They took an Iranian anti-ship missile to the crew compartments and it probably also hit a laundry area, that put them out of commission for 2 days and took 30 hours to suppress the fire. They don't want to admit this so they've lied and said it was because of lint and they were still totally operable. Like they always do, they never admit losses under any scenario unless it's proven and documented externally already, in which case they lie to spin it in the most favorable light.
I don't exactly get how "my 13 billion dollar ship was seriously damaged by lint" is less embarrassing than "my 13 billion dollar ship was seriously damaged by an enemy missile"
the same reason it's less embarrassing to say 'my 2 navy seals slipped off the ladder and drowned' than 'they were gunned down by ansarallah dudes while boarding their ship'. The US empire can handle embarrassment just fine, it doesn't mind eating that sin, everyone will forget anyway. What's important is depriving the enemy of any victory.
I don't totally buy the laundry story, but if you take into account the flushed tshirts and towels and all that, I think it's possible it could've been a mutiny type thing. There's plenty precedent for those kinds of things in previous wars.
But even so - in that best case - its still a dog shit outcome where probably millions of dollars were burned on some "advanced" system from the "best minds" etc but it left service members assed out, stuff / place-to-sleep torched, and they could have died. Not to mention they also couldn't use a toilet half the time.
On top of that they just had that other guy who went on the news about how his unit complained for weeks about operating from a tin-roof building with 0 fortifications in the range of the attacks, and then got hit straight through that tin roof and lost people.
I think any service member who's contract is up is going to look at all this and say "fuck that, they don't give a fuck about us"
selfish mutinous rebellions liek this don't happen while in live combat under fire generally, it's clear this was an anti-ship missile. People who fragged their officers in Vietnam didn't do it while under attack from the Vietnamese.
Maybe it's different on a ship, but sprikler systems are designed in a way where they're activated when a certain tempreature is reached
they have a little coloured glass bulb in them that shatters when it gets hot enough and the water just pours out
but I would think extinguishers on a ship probably use the carcinagenic foam
anyway considering this was the laundry, there were probably a heap of polyester type materials in the room, presuming sailors don't get cotton bedsheets and clothes cause theyre more expensive
i dunno, i'm rambling, the damage in the video looks fucked
Video on fire-suppression systems on ferries/ships in case others want to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7iLOuSE254
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Fire surpression is both a fun rabbit hole and the information might even save your life, thanks comrade
The CNN video that I saw is not from the laundry space, but from a berthing (sleeping space). I wasn’t on a ship with a laundry sprinkler system, but I was familiar with magazine sprinklers which are operated differently.
Magazine sprinklers operate either manually (with a local and/or remote operating valve) or automatically using a pneumatic bellows, which is held open by a fusible link that melts at a specific temperature. Now, there are a number of ways it can fail, and they’re all attributable to bad or neglected maintenance. If you test or operate them in shallow or silty water (like in port), sediment and marine life can deposit in the valves and prevent them from operating. Also, neglecting maintenance will seize the valves. (The maintenance is neglected constantly in the best of times, even on such a critical system to keeping a fire from blowing big holes in the thing keeping you from drowning).
There are several types of fire suppression systems on ships,l: seawater sprinkling (magazines, pulper [garbage] room), AFFF sprinkling (carcinogenic foam, used on flight decks, well decks, vehicle storage, and engine rooms), and Halon 1301 (environmental disaster, used in engine rooms). Again, not sure which one was in their laundry, but neglected maintenance or bad maintenance can break any of them.
Also, standard issue linens are cotton sheets and curtains and (incredibly scratchy) wool blankets. Pillows are down, and the fabric is made of the same fire removedant material as the mattress fabric. All of which is the cheapest possible and incredibly uncomfortable, so sailors often supply their own linens which are usually flammable synthetics.
"damn it stinks in here! Someone light a match."
Monkey's paw curls
I mean… have you seen what they’ve been eating?
Nothing would have been more poetic than capitalism's rot and everything being built by ~~the lowest bidder~~ the corrupt zero compete contract winner under the ideology of the ruling class sinking their fanciest and newest toy . Critical support to failed fire control systems.
It was so tough on the imperialist murderers to invade and bomb two sovereign nations in such a short span of time, salute to our brave troops who endure such hardship and are the real victims of war.
“Big fires are always a challenge, and this was significant — laundry and dryer-based fire”
Mhm. Laundry based fire.
Wait I thought you said this was a laundry fire. Now it's 'inherently unpredictable battle damage' that our 'system redundancy' was able to overcome. You know, like a fire suppression system that doesn't work and making our sailor haul buckets of sea water to the fire for 30 hours like you are a 16th century privateer. System redundancy.
Wait, I thought the sailors did a phenomenal job and this was just a non-combat related laundry fire that did not impact capabilities. Now it has to be out of commission in dock for a year? It's so hilarious how completely full of shit everything the Navy claims is