this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2025
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Image is from this article, showing a march by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela Youth. The preamble's information came from a few sources, such as here, here, and here.


Over the last few weeks, pressure on Venezuela from the US has mounted as their newest proxy, Gonzalez, lost the election to Maduro. The Trump administration now alleges that Maduro is the mastermind behind the "Cartel of Suns," raised the bounty on Maduro's head from $25 million to $50 million, and is working to deploy troops and naval assets to the region.

While I would not consider myself an expert, I believe an explicit boots-on-the-ground campaign by the US in Venezuela would be, at best, implausible, though the administration has not explicitly denied it (and even if it did deny it, denials by the US are merely confirmations that are being delayed). What seems much more likely is an intensification of a subversive campaign against Venezuela which seeks to further isolate it, with intelligence from the US given to whatever groups and individuals exist inside the country. There are certainly some parallels in regard to recent US belligerence towards Mexico, with both countries being implicitly or explicitly threatened with military force under the guise of "preventing drug trafficking" - and, of course, spreading drugs is one of America's greatest specialities.

Will this work? I don't know, though I am optimistic about Venezuela's chances. The Venezuelan government does seem to be taking this threat with a refreshing degree of seriousness - with over 4 million militia members being activated across the country as of August 18th, as well as a call from Maduro to the armed forces to be on high alert. The socialist youth of Venezuela are being mobilized in defense of the revolution.


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'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 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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[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 60 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)
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[–] RedDawn@hexbear.net 60 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Somebody should edit a video of China’s perfect, beautiful parade stitched together with Trump’s sad, dumpy parade for side by side comparison.

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[–] Tervell@hexbear.net 60 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61482 (archive.ph seemed to get stuck when archiving this one, not sure why, it's not a particularly complex page, maybe gov't websites have some robots.txt-esque rule preventing this?)

Something important to remember about military equipment is that the numbers in inventories do not represent actual immediate deployment capability - there is, at all times, some portion which is in maintenance, or is only set up to perform certain subsets of missions and needs extra preparation for the full set. And the more complex and demanding the piece of equipment is, the larger that portion is.

In the case of some marvels of design like the F-35, this can be particularly extreme. Now, the partial availability rates seem decent

But as for full mission availability, the highest rate is a little under 40%, for the conventional runway-take-off variant, while the carrier-borne one is much lower, at around 20%, and the VTOL variant seems to be hanging around 15% (I wish they'd used a more detailed graph here...)

But it gets particularly dire when age is considered - now of course, all things decay with age, but some decay a lot faster... In just 7 years of use, the carrier-borne and VTOL variants both shrink to around 10% availability, while the conventional one manages a whole 15% - a 30% drop for the first two, and a 45% drop for the conventional variant, which started off the best but is also dropping in availability the fastest (although this may just be a consequence of them being flown the most, not sure). Data for even older planes isn't available, but the F-35 entered service in 2015 (for the USMC, 2016 for the USAF), so if we follow the stonks-down for 4-5 more years... according to the report, there were actually even a handful of 14-year old (as of September last year, so 15 today) planes in service (I assume ones which were originally used for testing before the official adoption?) - one can only imagine how well they're holding up.

So, I guess the F-35 might operate on dog years doggirl-sweat.


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Given the slowdowns in upgrades, plus continued contraction of industry (although I'm not sure how much the MIC specifically is affected - but given that all industry needs raw materials to actually make stuff out of, higher material costs brought on by tariffs aren't going to help, and the sensitive electronics and sensors of the F-35 are probably particularly badly affected), I would anticipate that this might get even worse with time, as newly-manufactured replacement parts just aren't available in the numbers needed and the planes in service get less and less reliable. Plus, with how production itself is going, I wonder if it could basically enter a death-spiral where planes are getting retired at a faster rate than new ones can be brought into service (or getting to a point where they should be retired because it's straight-up risky to fly them, but they're being kept since there's just no alternative).

Here's a chart of yearly delivery numbers, with the data taken from here. Apparently Lockheed aims for at least 156 yearly as a "stable production rate" - 2025 has higher numbers, but this isn't because of a scaling-up in production, but rather them delivering additional jets that were waiting in storage because the DoD was refusing delivery of them on account of those upgrade issues I mentioned. So the rate isn't going to keep growing, this year is an aberration - and given the economic troubles mentioned above, will they actually reach that target? What if delays keep happening, and things actually return to the 2023-24 production rates, but even worse due to tariffs?

Plus, you know, there's supposed to be a bunch of other countries getting these planes. And if they decay so quickly, one of the classics of military procurement - the superpowers handing their old shit over to their allies and other friendly countries - might not be able to happen, since the old shit isn't just going to be somewhat reduced in functionality, it's going to be wholly non-functional. Well, I guess it's good for the world on the whole if Western air-forces end up accidentally demilitarized...

Now, according to the article I got the stats from, part of this is that priorities are shifting to the next 6th-gen fighter project - but given all the issues with the F-35, how well would the production of an even more complex and technologically-advanced plane go, especially with current immigration policies causing a brain drain? And apparently, there's also supposed to be a doctrinal shift here, towards a small number of really fancy manned aircraft supported by "loyal wingman" autonomous drones... uh, good luck with that, and critical support to AI bros for doing their best to sabotage the future imperialist military. Looking forward to when the first "collaborative combat aircraft" collaboratively shoots down its human pal since its image-recognition algorithm fucked up somehow.


And I'm now thinking about CoD Black Ops 2 again, so uh, the US MIC and nickels and all that I guess. One of the better CoDs tbh, also kind of the Black Panther of its time in having the villain be a revolutionary who's actually basically correct, and then they have him do some arbitrarily evil stuff (although honestly, he doesn't even do that much, there's an attack at an ultra-fancy-1-percenter-resort I guess, where as part of kidnapping a high-value target his guys also just randomly do a bombing and mass shooting for good measure, but, you know... as the "good guys" you pull a SWAT classic and murder a little girl with a haphazardly-thrown grenade, so that's cool... beyond that it's mostly "well, he's a populist appealing to the global poor, that's inherently evil!"). Also a great bit at the end where the game's all like "oh no, he's going to use the hacked drones to attack these cities!", and then he just self-destructs basically the entire arsenal of modern weapons and goes "well, global proletariat, it's in your arms now, the imperialists' shit is all broke!"

Also a great 2012 time capsule, with there being a fucking USS Barack Obama, and a totally-not-Hillary-Clinton female president. Also David Petraeus for some reason?


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[–] Lovely_sombrero@hexbear.net 59 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Justin Sun "invested" around $500 million into the stupid Trump "WLFI" token. The understanding was that this was a bribe. Now he took out $9 million of that $500 million and he got blacklisted by WLFI and can't sell any more tokens. Extremely funny, I hope this isn't temporary. It is not your money, Justin! You should know this!

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[–] companero@hexbear.net 59 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (9 children)

Edit: Old/fake video, sorry

https://t.me/milinfolive/155994

Video of the armed(?) Venezuelan F-16's doing a flyover of encroaching US warships.

What strikes me is that the US could have easily shot them down and gotten away with it by saying they felt threatened. But it proves that Venezuela has high ranking soldiers willing to stand up and fight against overwhelming odds.

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[–] ClathrateG@hexbear.net 59 points 1 week ago (4 children)
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[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 59 points 1 week ago

Eleven people were reportedly killed in a U.S. attack on a ship off the coast of Venezuela.

  • Telegram
[–] SickSemper@hexbear.net 59 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

Yemen struck Ramon Airport with a drone, injuring several settlers. Will update with upcoming statement in 30 min.

https://t.me/SABAYEen/81252

Triumphing for the oppressed Palestinian people and their dear Mujahideen, and in response to the crimes of genocide and starvation perpetrated by the Zionist enemy against our people in the Gaza Strip, and to affirm Yemen's steadfast position in the battle of the promised conquest and holy jihad.

The UAV force of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a military operation with a large number of drones targeting numerous targets in the Negev, Umm al-Rashrash, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Yaffa regions.

The attacks were distributed as follows:

A drone targeted Ramon Airport, which, by Allah's grace, directly hit the airport and caused the airport to shut down and halt air traffic.

Three drones targeted two sensitive military targets in the Negev.

A drone targeted a vital target in Ashkelon.

A drone targeted Lod Airport.

And two drones targeted a vital target in the Ashdod area.

The operation successfully achieved its objectives, thanks to Allah, while Israeli and American interception systems failed to detect and intercept a number of the drones.

The Yemeni Armed Forces affirm that they will escalate their military operations and will not back down from their support for Gaza, regardless of the consequences. They also affirm that Yemen, by Allah's grace, is developing its weapons to be more effective and efficient.

The Yemeni Armed Forces assure all air navigation companies that the airports inside occupied Palestine are unsafe and will be continuously targeted. The Armed Forces bear no responsibility for this, they must quickly leave occupied Palestine and refrain from returning to these airports, as they have become unsafe.

To the Zionist herds, we say: Our armed forces will prove to you that your foolish leadership is merely fooling you with its assurances. We have the means to strike at security systems and sensitive targets, and the coming days, Allah's willing, will reveal that to you.

"Those who do wrong will soon know by what [unforeseen] reversal they will be overturned." Allah Almighty has spoken the truth.

Sana'a, Rabi' al-Awwal 15, 1447 AH September 7, 2025 AD

Issued by the Yemeni Armed Forces

http://t.me/army21ye

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[–] Coolkidbozzy@hexbear.net 58 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

On the ground goddamn news:

After speaking with Greenland's foreign minister, it seems it isn't likely independence will be declared for at least a few years. The economic problems of independence don't have any solutions, and the population is on the decline because people keep remaining in denmark after leaving for college. It seems they need a lot more people with technical skills, and significantly more investment in natural resource exploration

And apparently the american trump infiltrators are very real

[–] companero@hexbear.net 58 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (8 children)

PSA: China's Victory Day parade starts in 12 hours. Don't let the woke "time zones" confuse you!

It's looking like there's a solid possibility that aircraft carrier Fujian will be commissioned as well. Don't miss it!

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[–] grandepequeno@hexbear.net 58 points 1 week ago (2 children)

not-built-for-this Big accident in Lisbon yesterday.

At least 17 people have been killed after a funicular cable railway derailed and hit a building in Portugal's capital Lisbon. Said rail's maintenace services had been outsourced for years and because of a price contract dispute with the service provider the rail hadn't gotten maintenance since august.

A few years ago the mayor also transfered 4m euros from the carris (lisbon public transport company) budget to....WebSummit.

Of the 22 injured, 12 are women and seven men, and they are of at least 10 different nationalities: four Portuguese, two Spanish, one Korean, one Cape Verdean, one Canadian, one Italian, one French, one Swiss, and one Moroccan.

Not sure there will be any political consequences to this, I can see the mayor being re-elected due to how removedd the political climate is and how the city's composition has changed.

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[–] miz@hexbear.net 57 points 1 week ago (4 children)
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[–] Tervell@hexbear.net 57 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

had my attention drawn to this by the RWA pod chuds, but it's a useful resource - apparently LostArmour keeps track of mercenary deaths in Ukraine: https://lostarmour.info/mercenaries

Colombia is massively over-represented here, with nearly 300 deaths, and just about 200 more than the next country - the US. Nearly 90 Americans have died there too. And these are just the confirmed casualties, the artillery-heavy nature of the war likely means there's a whole lot of bodies which are hard to identify, and there have been plenty of instances of the Ukrainian side just not bothering to recover their bodies, and the Russians eventually finding them later in really late stages of decomposition. Plus, the mercenaries are generally not thought of particularly well even by the Ukrainians (much to the disappointment of various Westerners who went in thinking they'd be heroes and then got sent straight into a meat-grinder), so they're likely putting in even less effort in recovering and identifying those guys.

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[–] makotech222@hexbear.net 57 points 1 week ago (9 children)
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[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 57 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Trump's latest post on Truth Social:

Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere. The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States. The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE! Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!!!!!!!!!

A 30 second video of the strike is included in the Truth Social post.

Truth Social link

[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 56 points 1 week ago

They just decided to attack some random boat. Everyday the US Coast Guard arrest smugglers and destroy their boats, today they just decided to kill people so they can scare Latin America/Venezuela.

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[–] Lovely_sombrero@hexbear.net 57 points 1 week ago (11 children)

OpenAI Says Its Business Will Burn $115 Billion Through 2029

That's about $80 billion higher than the company previously expected

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[–] Tervell@hexbear.net 57 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

https://archive.ph/61nPk

Pentagon Official: Trump Boat Strike Was a Criminal Attack on Civilians

A current DoD official and many military legal experts say the U.S. attack on a boat in the Caribbean near Venezuela broke international law. The lethal strike on a boat in the Caribbean on Tuesday was a criminal attack on civilians, according to a high-ranking Pentagon official who spoke to the Intercept on the condition of anonymity. The Trump administration paved the way for the attack, he said, by firing the top legal authorities of the Army and the Air Force earlier this year.

oh yeah, I'm sure the guys who were probably in the military while it was drone-striking weddings in the Middle East would have totally viewed this as a deeply-immoral attack

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“The U.S. is now directly targeting civilians. Drug traffickers may be criminals but they aren’t combatants,” the Department of Defense official said. “When Trump fired the military’s top lawyers the rest saw the writing on the wall, and instead of being a critical firebreak they are now a rubber stamp complicit in this crime.” President Donald Trump claimed that the attack was aimed “against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists,” in a TruthSocial post. He continued: “TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of [Venezuelan President] Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere.” Trump accompanied the post with a video of a four-engine speedboat cutting through the water with numerous people on board. An explosion then destroys the boat. Trump said the attack killed 11 people. It was unclear whether they were given a chance to surrender before the United States killed them.

After days of silence, the White House issued a statement late Thursday claiming the attack was lawful. White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said it was “taken in defense of vital U.S. national interests and in the collective self-defense of other nations who have long suffered due to the narcotics trafficking and violent cartel activities of such organizations.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth offered his own justification for the strike the same day. “Every boatload of any form of drug that poisons the American people is an imminent threat. And at the DoD our job is to defeat imminent threats,” he told a group of journalists. “A foreign terrorist organization poisoning your people with drugs coming from a drug cartel is no different than Al Qaeda, and they will be treated as such as they were in international waters.” Two U.S. government officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Hegseth’s justification – which one called “completely unserious” – took shape after the attack.

hey, even US government officials are (almost) calling things "deeply unserious" now!

Experts said Hegseth’s rationale was flimsy, if not farcical. “Tren de Aragua being designated as a foreign terrorist organization is a purely domestic law enforcement designation. It offers no authority for the military to use deadly force,” said Todd Huntley, who was an active-duty judge advocate for more than 23 years, serving as a legal advisor to Special Operations forces engaged in counterterrorism missions around the world. “Under international law, there’s no way this even gets close to being a legitimate use of force.” Other legal experts have agreed with Huntley, now the director of the National Security Law Program at the Georgetown University Law Center. Members of Congress have echoed the assessment. “Congress has not declared war on Venezuela, or Tren de Aragua, and the mere designation of a group as a terrorist organization does not give any President carte blanche to ignore Congress’s clear Constitutional authority on matters of war and peace,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn, in a statement. “There is no conceivable legal justification for this use of force. Unless compelling evidence emerges that they were acting in self-defense, that makes the strike a clear violation of international law.” Hegseth said the attack would be followed by others. “It won’t stop with just this strike,” he told Fox News on Wednesday. “Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate.”

Diosdado Cabello, the Venezuelan Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace called the Tuesday attack “an illegal massacre in international waters” and said the United States had “violated international law.” Brian Finucane, who worked for a decade in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the Department of State, where he advised the U.S. government on counterterrorism and other military matters, also noted that designating a group as a foreign terrorist organization does not, by itself, provide authority for the use of military force. “Nonetheless, such FTO designations are widely and mistakenly perceived as authorizing such action within the executive branch,” he wrote in a legal analysis published this week. “Thus, designation of Tren de Aragua and a number of other Latin American criminal entities as FTOs in February foreshadowed this week’s attack in the Caribbean, despite providing no actual legal authority for it.” U.S. attacks around the world – from Libya to Somalia – during the war on terror have been justified under strained interpretations of the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force. But despite the Trump administration labeling cartels “narcoterrorists,” experts say there is no plausible argument that the AUMF can apply to Tren de Aragua.

“We knew exactly who was in that boat,” Hegseth told Fox News on Wednesday. The Pentagon has frequently claimed to have killed terrorists when it has instead killed innocents. A 2023 investigation by The Intercept, for example, determined that an April 2018 drone attack in Somalia killed at least three, and possibly five, civilians, including 22-year-old Luul Dahir Mohamed and her 4-year-old daughter Mariam Shilow Muse. At the time, the military announced it had killed “five terrorists” and that “no civilians were killed in this airstrike.” Several experts and government officials speculated that the boat the U.S. struck on Tuesday may not even have been smuggling drugs due to what they said was an unusually large number of people on board the vessel.

Experts and government officials were incredulous that a judge advocate signed off on the strike, variously speculating that any lawyer involved must have been ignored, pressured or simply capitulated to the will of the president. Hegseth fired the Air Force’s and Army’s top judge advocates general (JAGs) in February to avoid “roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief.” The next month he commissioned his personal lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, as a Navy JAG and empowered him to help overhaul the JAG corps, reportedly pursuing changes that would encourage lawyers to approve more aggressive tactics and take a more lenient approach to those who violate the law of war. Parlatore’s prior claim to fame was successfully defending Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL accused of first-degree murder in the death of a captured ISIS fighter as well as the attempted murder of civilians in Iraq. Distinguished former JAGs and members of Congress have repeatedly spoken out about Hegseth’s efforts to undermine the independence of military legal counsel and subvert military justice.

In February, Trump designated Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, MS-13 in El Salvador, and six cartels based in Mexico as foreign terrorist organizations. More recently, the Trump administration added the Venezuelan Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, to a list of specially designated global terrorist groups, alleging that it is headed by Maduro and high-ranking officials in his administration. In July, Trump also signed a secret directive ordering the Pentagon to use military force against some Latin American drug cartels he has labeled terrorist organizations. Venezuelan officials believe Trump may be renewing long-running efforts, which failed during his first term, to topple Maduro’s government. Maduro and several close allies were indicted in a New York federal court in 2020, during the first Trump presidency, on federal charges of narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine. Last month, the U.S. doubled its reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million. Speaking on Fox News, Hegseth did not rule out regime change by the U.S. in Venezuela. “That’s a presidential-level decision and we’re prepared with every asset that the American military has,” he said.

Two armed Venezuelan F-16 fighter jets flew over the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer Jason Dunham in the southern Caribbean Sea in a show of force on Thursday. The Pentagon called it a “highly provocative move” that was “designed to interfere with our counter-narco-terror operations” and issued a threat. “The cartel running Venezuela is strongly advised not to pursue any further effort to obstruct, deter or interfere with counternarcotics and counterterrorism operations carried out by the U.S. military,” read the statement released on X Thursday night. Hegseth declined to say what type of weapons were used in the Tuesday strike but referenced “assets that we have in the region” include a “MEU” or Marine Expeditionary Unit “which holds 2,200 combat infantry Marines and has plenty of its own organic assets.” He added: “So we’ve got assets in the air, assets in the water, assets on ships, because this is a deadly serious mission for us.” All told, around 4,500 U.S. personnel, seven U.S. warships and one nuclear-powered attack submarine are either in the Caribbean or are expected to arrive there soon.


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[–] Boise_Idaho@hexbear.net 57 points 1 week ago

It seems like China has the Victory Day parade and National Day parade every 10th anniversary, and since 1945 and 1949 are almost 5 years apart, this means we almost get a big parade every 5 years (it's a 4 year-6 year cycle instead).

[–] mayakovsky@hexbear.net 56 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Exclusive: Top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un arrives in Beijing to attend China's V-Day commemoration events #VDay

https://xcancel.com/CGTNOfficial/status/1962897008383132153

juche-rose

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[–] Horse@lemmygrad.ml 56 points 1 week ago (2 children)

god damn can the PRC put on a parade

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[–] Leegh@hexbear.net 56 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I love the outfits of these female soldiers in the parade, they look like Communist Cowgirls haha.

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[–] Torenico@hexbear.net 56 points 1 week ago

That's a lot missiles the chinese just showed us. I wonder if like a few dozen of them simply disappeared from their stocks and appeared in uh, oh, I don't know, Yemen? And they explode at "israel"?

That'll be so cool

[–] Hermes@hexbear.net 55 points 1 week ago

holy hell this isn't even comparable to the US parade where everyone just wanted to go home.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 55 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Ansarallah/Houthis in Yemen have claimed an attack on the "Scarlet Ray" oil tanker, a Liberian flagged, Israeli owned ship that was near Yanbu, Saudi Arabia at the time of attack, around 1000km/600+mi from Yemen, with a ballistic missile.

UKMTO issued a warning after the attack, stating that the crew saw a splash in close proximity to their vessel, and heard an explosion afterwards.

There is only one ASBM in the arsenal with the range to get that far, the Qassem Basir. However, a non specialised ballistic missile without terminal guidance to hit a moving target could've been used, with the impact point calculated based on as estimation of the ship's course, and weather conditions, a very long range artillery shot of sorts.

[–] SickSemper@hexbear.net 55 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

A leadership source in the Martyr Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades to Al-Jazeera after the IOF announced Gideon's Chariots 2 today:

We are launching the "Moses' Staff" series of operations in response to the zionist "Gideon's Chariots 2" operation.

The first of our operations took place in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood and Jabalia hours after the enemy announced the launch of its operation.

The enemy witnessed firsthand the readiness of our fighters, and this is but a drop in the ocean of what awaits it in Gaza.

Just as "David's Stones" thwarted "Gideon's Chariots" by the occupation's own admission, "Moses' Staff" will bring miracles.

https://t.me/PalestineResist/81517

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[–] Tervell@hexbear.net 55 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

https://archive.ph/SUfBy

New U.S. Anti-Ballistic Interceptor Must Cost Under $750,000 — Is It Even Possible?

The Pentagon is seeking new ways to cheapen the missile defense against modern threats like Iskander or Zircon with a new competition announced the other day. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has announced a competition to develop a low-cost interceptor for cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles, with a target unit price not exceeding $750,000. The goal is highly ambitious, but potentially very helpful, considering that a single Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptor costs an average of $4.97 million — and typically two are fired per target. To cut costs, the MDA intends to rely on existing commercial and military components, along with cheap manufacturing practices.

The interceptor must also be designed with modularity and open architecture in mind, enabling easier modernization and sensor integration in the future. The minimum technical requirements include exo- and endoatmospheric interception of ballistic and hypersonic threats — such as russia's Kalibr, Iskander, and Kinzhal missiles. The interceptor should reach speeds of at least Mach 5, have a range of 200 km, and use a high-explosive fragmentation warhead with terminal homing guidance. The interceptor also must support in-flight target updates and trajectory corrections to engage maneuvering hypersonic gliders. At the same time, the system has to fit inside both Patriot launchers and naval vertical launch systems (VLS).

To summarize, the program seeks a unified, budget-friendly interceptor designed to counter the kind of massive mixed salvos of missiles seen in Ukraine — one that doesn't cost all the money in the world. This reflects an adequate understanding of today's priorities, especially against the known shortage of interceptors in NATO countries. However, achieving 200 km range and ballistic missile interception for under $750,000 per unit seems highly optimistic. Perhaps, some innovative design or its manufacturing technique could make it possible, but meeting both performance and cost requirements is surely a difficult task. Submissions to the competition are accepted by the end of September. After that, there will be a six-month preparation phase, followed by a year of prototype development and testing. For now, the objective is limited to "prototype demonstrations," with the full program expected to take two to five years.

Well, I guess finally a tacit admission by the Americans that their air defense equipment costs way too fucking much - note that this is coming on the heels of a whole lot of such munitions being expended defending Israel, plus all the stuff that's been eaten up over several years in Ukraine, so replacement of all that is likely on people's minds. But somehow going down from nearly 5 million to 750k doesn't seem particularly likely. Even eliminating the MIC graft factor, there's just a degree of inherent complexity to such a missile, it's going to end up costing a decent bit even if you are very efficient.

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[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 55 points 1 week ago

I like the gold lining on this carpet oh hey it's Kim.

[–] GVAGUY3@hexbear.net 54 points 1 week ago (9 children)

So is Venezuela alone in this?

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[–] Evilphd666@hexbear.net 54 points 1 week ago
[–] anarchoilluminati@hexbear.net 54 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I noticed during the parade that the English-speaking announcer said Chinese casualties in WW2 were 32 million.

Is that right? I thought Soviet Union had the highest at 22 million.

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 56 points 1 week ago

I think they might be including deaths from the Japanese invasion of Manchuria starting in 1931, not the 1939 date that is usually used for the war elsewhere in the world.

[–] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 53 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

WWII started earlier in Asia than it did in Europe. The Chinese lost more in their war against Japanese imperialism than the Soviets did against European fascism, albeit over a longer period of time:

The War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45)

About the scale of human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War (1941-45)

For China the number usually cited is around 35 million. For the Soviet Union it's 27 million. Both are enormous sacrifices that deserve to be eternally honored and remembered.

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[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 54 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (14 children)

Chinese Y-20A Kunpeng transport planes were spotted landing in Moscow Chkalovsky Airport today

Something interesting is happening.

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[–] Lovely_sombrero@hexbear.net 53 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Stocks are soaring following a bad jobs report - because everyone believes this forces the Fed to cut interest rates. Tesla is especially doing well on news that the Tesla BoD proposes to offer a huge 10-year bonus deal to Elon Musk, dilute the Tesla shareholders and offers to invest in Elon Musk's xAI (because xAI is burning cash fast). So good news all around, I guess?

Full-time jobs: -357K

Part-time jobs: +597K

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[–] FuckyWucky@hexbear.net 53 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

War.gov

Ikik it's honest etc etc. But why tf does the Prez have the power to rename entire departments at will?

Apparently it's still DoD legally. But still why is it allowed?

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[–] Crucible@hexbear.net 53 points 1 week ago (6 children)

AP: Trump says US has carried out strike against drug-carrying vessel that departed from Venezuela

Trump says the U.S. has carried out a strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug-carrying vessel that departed from Venezuela.

The president on Tuesday offered scant details on the operation.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that the vessel was being operated by a “designated narco-terrorist organization.”

The press office of Venezuela’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the announcement.

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[–] ClathrateG@hexbear.net 53 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Sleve_McDichael@hexbear.net 53 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That’s because they harvested him for organs to donate to Trump. The car crash thing is a cover up

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