this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.


Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.

Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).

Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.

I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran's leadership must - if they haven't already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.


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.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli 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 Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on Israel's 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.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

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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[–] Staines@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago (2 children)

A response to @Z_Poster365 and @Monk3brain3

Russia and Hamas have conducted themselves extremely morally. Russia has killed remarkably few civilians, whilst Hamas treated people trying to genocide them exceptionally well despite having no obligations to do so. However, it doesn't mean anything when people are broadly believe what they are conditioned to believe, and western governments are operating purely off twisting facts to suit their agendas, with morals being almost entirely irrelevant. Trying to be morally superior to entities that simply do not seem to factor morals into their actions is utterly pointless.

If western powers are only going to act (regardless of what is said) in ruthless self interest, the only effective outcome is to make them afraid and respect your capabilities so that they take heed and compromise out of a desire to avoid conflict for their own safety and well-being.

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[–] aanes_appreciator@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago (10 children)

So the target of interest right now seems to be Fordow. I imagine the Iranians know this and have already evacuated anything sensitive. Would be interesting to see if the US were to declare victory and scuttle off once that target was dealt with or if they'll deal with other sites too.

For Iran, you can only hope they have facilities unknown to the entity, which wouldnt be totally surprising if not for the massive levels of security infiltration we've seen this last week.

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[–] Dessa@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Final post count of last week's newsmega

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[–] InevitableSwing@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The Guardian

Donald Trump has encouraged vice president JD Vance and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to offer to meet the Iranians this week, the New York Times has reported, citing a US official.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi had earlier indicated that Tehran was open to negotiations, also suggesting Trump could stop the war with “one phone call” to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. In a post on X he wrote:

If President Trump is genuine about diplomacy and interested in stopping this war, next steps are consequential. Israel must halt its aggression, and absent a total cessation of military aggression against us, our responses will continue.

It takes one phone call from Washington to muzzle someone like Netanyahu. That may pave the way for a return to diplomacy.

Rant. Guardian needs to use correct formatting for quotes.

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[–] cinnaa42@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

Statement from israeli oil and petrochemical company Bazan Group, which operates the Haifa Bay refinery: the refinery and subsidiary facilities are shut down because of damage to the power plant and other damage.

From Wikipedia:

ORL (old name for Bazan) provides a variety of products used in industrial operations, agriculture and transportation.[4] ORL is Israel's largest integrated refining and petrochemical facility.

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[–] Evilphd666@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Despite Israeli claims to have targeted and destroyed IRIAF F-14 jets, the targeted aircrafts were proven to be decoys placed at Tehran’s Mehrabad Intl Airport.

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[–] mkultrawide@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (13 children)

So does Iran hit Channel 14 (Israeli Fox News/OANN equivalent) in response?

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[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Israel has issued more Gaza and Beirut style evacuation notices for Tehran, specifically on District 18 and the Mehrabad airport.

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[–] SteamedHamberder@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Two interesting pieces in Haaretz:

Wealthy Israelis fleeing the country by yacht due to closed airspace,

On the flip side, El Al to begin “rescue flights” to repatriate Israelis “trapped abroad”

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[–] OnceUponATimeInWeHo@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

❗️Israel's Channel 12 says the United States will join the war against Iran tonight.

https://t.me/thecradlemedia/37651

Follow-up: According to CBS, Trump is considering joining, but there is no full agreement among Trump's closest advisors.

I won’t believe it until it’s announced by the US

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[–] InevitableSwing@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

About an hour ago Trump posted a creepy, fundie screenshot of a post written by Mike Huckabee. I put that shot into a "image to text" website. I couldn't find a single transcription. Fucking US media.

From Mike Huckabee, a Pastor, Politician, Ambassador, and Great Person!

Mr President, God spared you in Butler, PA to be the most consequential President in a century-maybe ever. The decisions on your shoulders I would not want to be made by anyone else. You have many voices speaking to you Sir, but there is only ONE voice that matters. HIS voice. I am your appointed servant in this land and am available for you but I do not try to get in your presence often because I trust your instincts.

No President in my lifetime has been in a position like yours. Not since Truman in 1945. I don't reach out to persuade you. Only to encourage you. I believe you will hear from heaven and that voice is far more important than mine or ANYONE else's. You sent me to Israel to be your eyes, ears and voice and to make sure our flag flies above our embassy. My job is to be the last one to leave. I will not abandon this post. Our flag will NOT come down! You did not seek this moment.

This moment sought YOU! It is my honor to serve you! Mike Huckabee

Trump certainly has supporters who need ALT text. I guess they have to transcribe their hero's screenshots again and again and again and again and...

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[–] supafuzz@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago

Meanwhile, in "omens and portents" news, Indonesia's Mt. Lewotobi Laki-Laki volcano has erupted rather spectacularly https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/17/indonesias-mount-lewotobi-laki-laki-volcano-erupts-alert-at-highest-level

[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago

Colombia joins the New Brics Development Bank - Prensa Latina

Article

Bogotá, 19 jun (Prensa Latina) La canciller de Colombia, Laura Sarabia, celebró hoy el ingreso de su nación al banco del grupo Brics tras la solicitud realizada por el presidente Gustavo Petro en Shangai para adherirse a esa entidad.

"The news that transcends the financial and broadens our horizon. Colombia officially joins the Brics bank led by Dilma Rousseff. We continue to open the way to new opportunities for the country," he wrote in his account on the social network X.

The application to join the New Development Bank and an interview with Rousseff constituted Petro's last activity in his tour of China last May.

At the same time as Colombia's application, a letter signed by the Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Germán Ávila, was also made public, revealing Colombia's interest in joining the entity as a borrowing member, which would allow it to receive loans at low rates to finance development projects in infrastructure, renewable energies or health.

The minister also explained to Rousseff that Colombia “is willing to subscribe 5,125 shares of the authorized capital of the New Development Bank, of which 4,100 correspond to callable shares (as a guarantee) and 1,25 correspond to paid-in shares (in cash)”.

This is equivalent to a subscribed capital (total amount committed to contribute) of 512 million 200 thousand dollars, which includes a callable capital of 410 million dollars and a paid-in capital of 102 million 500 thousand dollars.

The first payment, as detailed in the letter of application for membership, would be made within six months from the date on which Colombia delivers the accession document.

The first payment, as detailed in the letter of application, would be made within six months from the date on which Colombia delivers the document of adherence to the agreement to the Brazilian Government. The New Development Bank is a multilateral financial institution created by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Its main objective is to mobilize resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in emerging and developing countries, both within and outside the group that already make up the bloc.

[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Maduro urges global support for Iran, slams Netanyahu's madness - Al Mayadeen

Article

The Venezuelan leader calls on China, Russia, and the Global South to back Iran against Israeli aggression, warning of catastrophic consequences from Netanyahu's actions.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has called on the governments of China, Russia, Turkey, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Islamic countries, and the broader Global South to support Iran in its legitimate pursuit of peace.

Maduro emphasized the urgent need to stop Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's actions "before it's too late," appealing to those with political and military influence to act swiftly in favor of peace.

Condemnation of Israeli crimes

Speaking firmly, Maduro described the Israeli military's actions against Iran as "criminal attacks," urging the international community to intervene and prevent further escalation.

Accusations against Western powers

The Venezuelan leader accused Berlin, Paris, London, and Washington of encouraging a potential nuclear war, questioning the underlying motives of these governments. "Where do they want to go with this? How far will they let Netanyahu go?" he asked.

'Hitler of the 21st century'

Maduro labeled Netanyahu as “the Hitler of the 21st century,” warning that the Israeli premier is driving the Middle East, West Asia, and the wider world into a devastating conflict with potentially catastrophic consequences for humanity.

Warning of regional and global catastrophe

Referring to "Israel's" genocide in Gaza, where he said over 60,000 Palestinians, including 30,000 children, have been killed, as well as attacks in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, and threats to Iraq and Jordan, Maduro warned of a resurgence of what he described as the “criminal ideology of Hitler through the Zionist state.”

He concluded by calling Netanyahu “the criminal leader of the Zionist state,” accusing him of seeking to impose a regional project “from the Jordan River to the Euphrates.”

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[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

Verified visually confirmed losses between Israel and Iran during the war so far, done by the same source who compiled the losses in Syria. Excludes duplicate footage, decoys and inactive equipment. Actual losses are likely higher:

73 Iranian losses:

  • 44 ballistic missile launchers
  • 5 air defence systems
  • 8 attack helicopters
  • 6 pieces of excavation equipment
  • 1 Mid air refueling aircraft.

Israeli losses

  • 3 Heron MALE UAVs.
  • 1 Hermes UCAV.

Source

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[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (7 children)

Video of an early release submunition (ERS) from an Iranian ballistic missile tumbling through the skies in Israel.

Video

This the problem with releasing submunitions at such high relative altitudes (7-8km according to current reports), not only is the spread radius multiple kilometres for only 15-30 submunitions, the aerodynamics is a huge issue. They simply aren't heavy enough and lack the inertia, definitely slow enough to be hit by Iron Dome.

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[–] VHS@hexbear.net 47 points 2 months ago

I went out for a walk and Trump bombs Iran

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