Pattern recognition makes this so easy. I noticed this guy + Jewish Voice for Peace years ago based off of gratuitous endorsement by Jackson Hinkle, a CIA agent designed to make ypu depressed about how stupid people are while bamboolzing to ESL speakers. Should I even bother mentioning the other things I notice? Why? people are mean to me. Why should I help anyone. Maybe you should be tricked until you die
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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Image is of a Quds Day march in Bandar Abbas, Iran.
It now seems likely that, very soon, the US and the Zionists will attempt to bomb Iran. Compared to the buildup to the Iraq War, the stated goals of such a move are being kept a little more generalized - some say the point is to overthrow the government for "humanitarian" purposes (others are more honest and want to partition Iran into a dozen powerless statelets). Some people instead say the point is to get rid of the ballistic missile program, which is synonymous with outright surrender, as no matter the deal, bombers would be en route within 10 minutes of the last batch being handed over.
Still others say that the goal is to destroy the Iranian nuclear program, which, as the thread title implies, is now in a bizarre propaganda superposition: it is apparently simultaneously true to the Trump administration that the US obliterated the nuclear facilities and set back Iran's nuclear program years, if not decades, but also that Iran is mere days away from finishing a nuke and a new round of bombing is urgently required. This obviously casts newfound doubts on how effective US weapons even are at penetrating Iran's underground facilities (though it doesn't necessarily mean they didn't breach them, as Iran was almost certainly moving nuclear material out of Fordow and other sites in the days before the Twelve Day War). The sheer quantity of US anti-air defense equipment they're shifting into position also casts doubts on whether Iran's air defense was mostly destroyed during that conflict, as those who assert that the Zionists had total air supremacy over Iran seem to be implying.
I'm not a military guy, and so I have no novel insights on how such a war is likely to go, nor do I feel confident predicting either side's victory. I'm looking at most of the same sources that you're all looking at. Some confidently boast of the total destruction of Iran's air defense within hours, allowing US planes to fly directly over Iranian cities and drop bombs en masse; others cast doubts on whether this will ever occur, and say that the US's limited supply of Tomahawk missiles is the only major firepower they will be able to safely unleash. Some say this war will last mere days before state collapse; others say months, maybe even years. I have no idea.
I do at least feel somewhat bolstered by the fact that Russia and China finally appear to be pouring in meaningful information and matériel to help Iran this time around, though of course, one can still debate whether it's enough. I feel like we are at the culmination of decades of war planning by both the US and Iran, and the result could have deep ramifications indeed.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
OK so I've been seeing news that the aircraft carrier that the US is mobilising towards Iran, the USS Ford, is leaking sewage from the toilets and that this same problem happened on this same ship when it was sent to Venezuela earlier this year. But the only source I can find on this is The Times of India.
Can someone please find out if this is true so I can giggle at the poopie ship please.
It's real (CW: Lots of poop water)
A Reddit link was detected in your comment. Here are links to the same location on alternative frontends that protect your privacy.
Just realised that it's the 4th anniversary of the start of the Russia-Ukraine war... 4 years... I honestly don't know what to think. Any thoughts anyone? If you told me 4 years ago, even 2 years ago, that this would still be ongoing, I wouldn't believe you, at all. Had to rethink a lot of things around this.
It certainly has given me a healthier skepticism of rosy claims people tend to make in places like this and a greater respect for the fog of war and just how many pieces we can't see moving no matter how hard we look even 8 months into a thing.
This is tangential really, but it’s almost nostalgic looking back. The start of the war was responsible for the creation of the news mega. There were so many comments that the website couldn’t handle it. We had to have daily threads just so it wouldn’t take posts forever to load. Thankfully things are much more optimized now. One of the funnest times on this website was Prigozhin’s failed coup or whatever it was. All the jokes and just the absurdity of the situation. Now the news mega is much broader and is probably one of very places on the internet where communists seriously understand and discuss geopolitics and for that I am thankful.
More so on the war side of things, I remember how naïve we were back then, thinking it would be over within a month tops. Maybe it could’ve been had it been planned thoroughly and a much larger force been dedicated, not that it matters much now. Most of us (including myself) thought Russia would never actually do it, that the build up was to just pressure Ukraine from entering NATO. Their is some insane footage of helicopter and planes that I don’t think we’ll really ever see again because of how much war has changed.
No one can say Ukraine rolled over without a fight, as many expected in 2022, even if egged on by death cultists
4 years
and here's to another four, of russians taking hovels with names Kyivans have never heard, which are 2 cm away on this 1:1 scale map.
I fucking hate it because thanks to this war I lost a job opportunity that would have taken me out this poverty-like situation i am in rn.
After 4 years, my prognosis is that over the course of the conflict Putin got cold feet, and now he's an anchor on the entire Russian military
He's a neolib thru and thru, he wants to win as cheaply as possible without pissing off the US, so instead of billions poured into R&D to overcome Ukrainian/US drone and electronic warfare, it's 4 years of pounding artillery duels and building attritional losses for inventory that was already paid for
With Russian innovations happening slowly despite Russian government foot-dragging and idiosyncratic advances based on whatever insight an individual Russian division happened to stumble upon
I suspect it's not just Putin but that Russia doesn't want to over commit in the event of a full scale war with the west. They've kept a shitload of stronger assets out of this war and the only way to look at holding that instead of using it is that it's deemed necessary as a deterrent to nato.
Yeah theyre definitely recording data to develop counters any time new stuff enters the equation, so i imagine that weighs heavily into the war planning.
NASA says it needs to haul the Artemis II rocket back to the hangar for repairs
This is the SLS rocket, an unholy abomination of legacy space shuttle parts kerbal'd together and using the latest in 1970s rocketry technology. It was designed this way because the US senate, holder of NASA's pursestrings, specifically wrote it into law that NASA must build and fly this stupid thing so that the defence industry contractors who made the space shuttle could continue their grift without investing into new R&D.
This specific vehicle is intended to carry four astronauts on a looping orbit around the Moon as a dress rehearsal for the Artemis III mission intended to land astronauts on the Moon. Bringing it back to its hangar for repairs after several launch delays is yet another indication of what a grifting clusterfuck the entire Artemis program is. Cost estimates are officially USD $2.5 billion per launch just for the rocket, no payload, and unofficially-but-credibly-sourced as being about USD $4 billion per launch. The primary contractor is Boeing. They can build one roughly every 18 months. It costs about USD$26000 per kilogram to lift a payload to orbit even using the optimistic official-NASA numbers, but probably more like USD$40000 in reality. And it uses solid rocket side boosters of the exact same design that killed the Challenger crew. You can't turn solid rockets off in an emergency, they either burn themselves out, or explode.
(Insert standard "my respect for SpaceX accomplishments is strictly for the scientists and engineers and technicians and not the know-nothing shithead who owns the company" disclaimer here.) SpaceX's Falcon Heavy in comparison can lift about 70% of what SLS can do on a single launch (64 tonnes in expendable mode vs SLS' 95 tonnes). And it can do it for about USD$2350 per kilogram, less than 10% of SLS's per-kilogram cost. And it can launch every week. And it uses propulsion that's basically the safest you can get in rocketry: turn-off-able liquid engines running on kerosene and oxygen - the same as the renowned Soyuz itself.
Watching spaceflight R&D nowadays is basically full-time 
Hold on, I just checked what this mission they scrubbed actually is, and THEY'RE DOING THE FIRST CREWED FLIGHT OF THIS CAPSULE EVER AS A LUNAR FREE RETURN?!? They're gonna kill some astronauts with this Artemis shit.
Thankfully China has been steadily developing its space industry. Long March 10B is scheduled for April 6th and Long March 10A will have its first orbital flight in the latter half of the year. From what I can gather from some poorly machine translated articles is that they are on track for a lunar landing by 2029/2030 and China usually launches when they say their going to launch. China could conceivably 'beat' the US to the moon without even having to speed up their timeline. SpaceX has been having so much trouble with their HSL lunar lander that NASA reopened the contract, while China's Lanyue Lunar Lander completed a simulated landing and ascent back in August.
I can absolutely see China sticking to that 2030 landing goal. They're nailing their R&D goals so far.
And the 2030 Chinese landing isn't just a landing. They're not playing the old Apollo plant a few flags and grab a few rocks game, they're going to establish a base. An international base, at that, with a Russian nuclear reactor and astronauts from across the global south.
I hate the Senate Launch System I hate the Senate Launch System I hate the Senate Launch System
I hate the Senate Launch System
Please explain?
Just as miz said, someone already explained it above. The SLS (Space Launch System), which has now been renamed Artemis, is a fundamentally misconceived and compromised rocket, because it was designed to comply with directives from the Senate which were ostensibly intended to be cost-saving, but which really amount to a handout to the many aerospace profiteers responsible for the disaster that was the Space Shuttle and a refusal to progress technologically beyond it.
"Senate Launch System" is a derogatory alternate definition of the SLS acronym intended to highlight this ass-backward set of priorities.
from the comment buckycat is replying to
It was designed this way because the US senate, holder of NASA's pursestrings, specifically wrote it into law that NASA must build and fly this stupid thing so that the defence industry contractors who made the space shuttle could continue their grift without investing into new R&D.
That's why I didn't get that excited for it, Artemis...
Watching spaceflight R&D nowadays is basically full-time
Yeah SpaceX is so far ahead of the competition it's not even funny. Even starship is having successfull tests now. A
The only real competition is coming out of China
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday expressed his country's willingness to expand and deepen relations with African states, especially Burkina Faso.
Pezeshkian made the remarks at a meeting with Burkina Faso's Minister of Defense and Veterans Affairs Celestin Simpore in the Iranian capital Tehran, according to a statement from the president's office.
Really surprised how fast Burkina Faso became basically a AES in Africa, they quickly established ties with Venezuela and other left-wing LatAm goverment, and also with China and Russia (thought they seem to cordial terms with the US and the British), meanwhile cutting ties with France and Nigeria.
Is BF actually AES or just anti-imperialist? Of course it's good that they've nationalized the colonial industries but are they reigning in their national bourgeoisie?
Not to criticise Traroré, because he's genuinely doing good work, but I'm curious how far his personal Marxist politics will take him without a vanguard party.
It's pretty impressive. It displays an excellent dialectical ability on the part of BF's leadership. They grew up in the shadow of Africa's greatest socialist revolutionary starkly murdered by neocolonial imperialism. They became patriotic military officers who wanted to recapture the sovereignty he represents. In the course of their service, they faced imperialist backed Islamist insurrections promoted by exactly the same forces that killed Sankara under a feckless comprador government. They fused their real experience with historical understanding and the will of the masses (who share their consciousness!) to immediately set about the real work of sovereignty and liberation at any cost. They recognize the absolute interdependence of the Global South to defeat the Imperialist North.
3 news outlets- Wall Street Journal, Axios, and the Washington Post- reporting stories about the Pentagon raising doubts about an attack on Iran. Seen speculation that this indicates someone in the administration is leaking to try and stop it:
Yashar Ali summarizing the WaPo story:
This time from the Washington Post:
“As the Trump administration weighs an attack on Iran, the Pentagon’s top general has cautioned President Donald Trump and other officials that shortfalls in critical munitions and a lack of support from allies will add significant risk to the operation and to U.S. personnel.
Taking out Iran’s missile program would require hitting hundreds of targets across a country more than three times the size of Iraq.
If the objective is to overthrow Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as Trump has mused publicly, the target set would expand dramatically to thousands of sites, including command-and-control nodes, security services, and key buildings tied to Khamenei.
Such a campaign could extend for weeks or months, require much more munitions and expose U.S. forces to more intense retaliation, the former defense official said.
Two munitions critical to the defense of U.S. military personnel against Iranian-launched ballistic missiles — Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD interceptors, and Patriot missile systems — have been extensively used in recent military operations in the Middle East.
Patriot missiles also remain one of the most in-demand items by Ukraine as it defends against Russian missile attacks. But the U.S. produces only several hundred of both defenses each year — far less than would be needed.
Because of their complexity and production constraints, it can take two years or more to produce each replacement missile.
Donald Trump posted on TruthSocial denying the stories:
I don't buy this shit. You dont move half of NATO's airforce around a country you've already bombed once in the last 12 months only to get whiskey dick when it comes time to consummate.
No dip it's an economic disaster waiting to happen, but some intern refilling the gacha games in the pentagon leaking some stories about a last minute fakeout isn't gonna deter the beast. besides, this was all exactly how the US played it with Venezuela and Iran already.
There is clearly a lot of hesitation. Iran is being resolute in these fake ass negotiations, saying the military retaliation will be far greater in scale than any True Promise, and has the missiles for real deterrence. And now the US can't use Diego Garcia while their ships fall apart.
There's a reason the US hasn't gone to war with Iran - they don't want a real fight. US military doctrine depends on absolute superiority, which they don't have in this case.
now the US can't use Diego Garcia
what'd I miss?
Maybe this?
The joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia has delayed planned repairs on runway 13/31 until April 2. The closure, originally scheduled to start in February, will last for approximately 80 working days, according to a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) issued on Monday
The leaks only suggest there's dissension and disagreement in the administration. Obviously some elements, probably the dominant ones, want it to happen.
lol who woulda thunk giving most of your ammo reserve to Ukraine and Israel with barely any manufacturing capability would have consequences
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At least something good came out of the Peruvian New Interim Goverment, the new Goverment (under conservative socialist/andean socialist party, Peru Libre) is planning on restoring full relations with Mexico and Venezuela, they also seem interested on approaching Colombia and Brazil to settle the border dispute/crisis that started under Dina Boluarte's goverment.
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