this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2026
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A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is of the USS Abraham Lincoln arriving at Thailand, looking worn after a very long deployment to the Arabian Sea.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleTo start briefly with Iran, there's been two significant developments over the last week. First is that Iran is now beginning to put into practice its policy that allows preemptive strikes - a policy which was authorized by the previous Khamenei a while before his death but has so far gone unused - to strike at Kuwait, Qatar, and Jordan without a corresponding American aggression immediately beforehand. The second development is that Iran is now taking a firmer stand against the US Navy in the waters of the Arabian Sea, beginning by testing anti-ship ballistic missiles against the US fleet - so far without confirmed hits as of me writing this sentence - as it is obviously disadvantageous for Iran to simply not do anything against the blockade even with US logistics under strain. The US has attempted to dissuade these new strikes by striking Iranian oil tankers, to which Iran has responded by striking oil tankers aligned with the West. This is very much not a shooting war that the US wants to get into as oil stockpiles continue to decline and diesel prices are at all-time highs (though if adjusted for inflation, we still have a little more time before we hit absolute highs). The overall picture is of an Iran growing in confidence.

There's also been some encouraging news out of Yemen, where Ansarallah has been conducting a ground offensive weaken the enemy occupation of the western coast, including some breathtakingly precise drone-drop operations combined with using recon drones to guide ballistic missiles at enemy formations. As far as I'm aware, the blockade of the Bab el-Mandeb to Saudi tankers has been very successful, although stopping Saudi tankers from heading north towards Suez has been understandably trickier. I suppose if push comes to shove, they can continue to strike the very immobile coastal oil facilities rather than trying to hit moving ships at a great distance.

The news out of Russia/Ukraine has been quite miserable for particularly Ukrainian civilians over the past month or two, with Ukrainian strikes on Russian civilian logistics and warehouses being met with much greater Russian responses on Ukrainian civilian logistics and warehouses. Ukrainian ports are now effectively blockaded, making exporting agricultural products in the same quantities as before essentially impossible, and within the cities including Kiev, food suppliers are scrambling to find smaller warehouses to place goods in so that they aren't as easily destroyed like the larger warehouses have been. I find it sincerely upsetting that the war has progressed to this point, though it's always worth noting that, first, Ukraine had a few opportunities to sign pretty good negotiating terms with Russia; and second, in comparison, Western wars begin at the step of making a conflict about hurting civilians, even to the extent of it being a detriment to strategic goals by not solely hitting military targets (most famously in Gaza, but also e.g. during Obama's term by bombing weddings and hospitals).

I will confess to not being as up-to-date on the situation in Europe, and especially Germany, in regards to the Ukraine War as I would like, but as a general statement, nothing I've seen over the last few years has demonstrated to me that Europe is capable of fielding a conventional force which would provide a formidable, let alone existential, threat to Russia at this stage. There's been lots of embarrassing stories about European missile, drone, and shell production being well below standards in both quality and quantity. My thoughts are now that I think the age of the US/NATO posing an existential conventional threat to China, Russia, and probably Iran (and perhaps others like the DPRK?) is now conclusively over, with Western bases proven to be indefensible with existing missile defence programs, their logistics very vulnerable to disruption, and their aircraft not being safe to use over airspace at least as well-protected as Iran's. The US can still do cataclysmic, nation-destroying damage to smaller, less defended countries like those in Latin America and Africa, but for the anti-US squad in Eurasia, the vast majority of the threat from the US is now a combination of financial/debt offensives and covert intelligence. We still have a long way to go on both those fronts, however - a minimum of a decade or two, I believe, even with Trump's inadvertently anti-imperialist accelerationism.

Lastly for this preamble, the annual SCO summit took place on September 1st in Bishkek, with the leaders of China, Russia, Iran, India, Türkiye, Pakistan, and others in attendance. A lot of the usual statements were made: down with hegemonies, down with militarising space, down with unilateral sanctions, up with local currency exchanges, up with cooperation, up with peace, etc etc. The big proclamation this time around was the Bishkek Declaration, which reiterated all those points I just mentioned. Overall, it's one of those documents where the content is mostly cool and indirectly jabs a lot at the US, but I find that paper is a generally ineffective barrier of protection against bombs and missiles, which is a pretty major avenue of... let's say, "international communication" in the current day. And I would like to see some real contenders to the World Bank and IMF taking shape soon if we're gonna truly start fighting hegemonism, but I digress.


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

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on the Zionists' destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

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.


top 50 comments
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[–] RobnHood@hexbear.net 15 points 40 minutes ago (1 children)

2 MQ-1 Predator drones have been intercepted in the Straight of Hormuz. The MQ-1 is the predecessor of the newer MQ-9 Reaper and were actually taken out of active service in 2018. These aren’t the first MQ-1 shootdowns of this war, but it does show how complete the ‘Reaper Genocide’ is now that they have to put obsolete drones back into service. MALE drones have basically become expensive one-way attack drones.

[–] companero@hexbear.net 14 points 31 minutes ago (1 children)

MQ-1 variants are still operated by the US Navy, who just had their new Dive-LD naval drone get captured by Iran. MES speculates that they are trying to destroy it to prevent it from being reverse engineered.

[–] Rojo27@hexbear.net 3 points 5 minutes ago

You would think they'd have some sort of remote kill switch. Or maybe that's more difficult to implement than I'm thinking it would be. Its just surprising they wouldnt plan for this and have something on device to do the job.

Oh well. Patiently waiting for the IRGC to post pics of their haulpicard-excited

[–] ThomasMuentzer@hexbear.net 7 points 24 minutes ago
[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 2 points 8 minutes ago (1 children)

The Silicon Valley funded international far right has spent the last 7 years working to destroy Brazil's only branch of government capable of regulating crypto, AI, and social media - the judiciary. This is what the anti-Supreme Court rally looked like in S. Paulo yesterday.

[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 2 points 5 minutes ago

Theres another coup happening in Brazil right now by the way. Far-Right justices inside the Supreme Court are removing cops who were investigating Flavio Bolsonaro and trying to sabotage Lula's election.

[–] Sasuke@hexbear.net 40 points 1 hour ago (5 children)

Reporting in from the Totalitarian Kingdom of Norway 🇳🇴🔥

Tomorrow we're doing a mandatory mourning session for King Harald. At the high school I work at, we're sitting our students down to watch a two hour funeral service. Attendance is mandatory. No one is allowed to leave the classrooms. We've even been directed to tell our students to go use the bathroom before the broadcast starts, so that we can keep it Proper and Respectful.

[–] casskaydee@hexbear.net 16 points 41 minutes ago (1 children)

When westerners talk shit about DPRK it's literally all projection isn't it

[–] someone@hexbear.net 8 points 18 minutes ago (1 children)
[–] HexReplyBot@hexbear.net 3 points 18 minutes ago

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

[–] FALGSConaut@hexbear.net 23 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Damn at least when Lizzy the Lizard kicked the bucket life there's wasn't this state-enforced mourning

[–] Sasuke@hexbear.net 19 points 1 hour ago

I thought we'd at least get a day off from work, but no. We're not even allowed to piss

[–] CanYouFeelItMrKrabs@hexbear.net 15 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

oh god the Norwegian King of Names has fallen. He once denied a kid's request to be named Sonic X

[–] supafuzz@hexbear.net 3 points 16 minutes ago* (last edited 9 minutes ago)

Harald Dreamcrusher (Drømmeknuser?)

makes him sound too badass actually

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[–] duderium@hexbear.net 24 points 1 hour ago

YOU WILL SHIT YOURSELF FOR THE KING, AND YOU WILL LIKE IT.

[–] Euergetes@hexbear.net 1 points 7 minutes ago* (last edited 2 minutes ago)

wasn't this clown an offspring of marechal bernadotte? to be clear all royal lines are bs but the "swedish" one being from a provincial gascon attorney's son has to be the least grains in genealogical heap 21st century people are expected to respect.

well it's close run with the pahlavi, fortunately no-body has to respect them anymore khomeini

[–] RobnHood@hexbear.net 42 points 1 hour ago (4 children)

The IRGC captured an usian terrorist unmanned underwater vehicle at the entrance of the Strait of Hormuz at dawn today. The vehicle appears to be an Anduril Dive-LD, which seems to be a long endurance autonomous torpedo. Reverse engineering such a weapon could prove to be useful for future IRGC weapons.

[–] BobDole@hexbear.net 9 points 25 minutes ago (2 children)

Throwback to (warning, US Gov website) Pentagon Cutting Weapons Testing Office Budget by 80%, Staff Reduced | JUNE 2, 2025.

And this, folks, is why you do operational testing. You cannot field something based on the pinky swears of the manufacturer, especially when they look like:

[–] culpritus@hexbear.net 4 points 12 minutes ago

the modern day Mark Twain snake-oil salesman archetype

[–] Rojo27@hexbear.net 1 points 3 minutes ago

Look at that fake ass Shahed with that ugly ass paint job.

[–] supafuzz@hexbear.net 10 points 35 minutes ago (1 children)

it seems weird not to build your autonomous exploding robot so that it will autonomously explode if captured or diverted

[–] supafuzz@hexbear.net 10 points 34 minutes ago* (last edited 33 minutes ago)

so jot that one down IRGC, first design improvement for free

also maybe don't take it anywhere secret

[–] manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 hour ago

Anduril Dive-LD,

https://www.anduril.com/dive-ld

they also sell them for mineral exploration, and uh, environmental monitoring with reduced carbon emissions

much more intimidating than the remote control boat the us deployed previously

[–] jack@hexbear.net 17 points 1 hour ago (1 children)
[–] casskaydee@hexbear.net 8 points 40 minutes ago (1 children)

IRGC was reported to have wiggled its fingers enticingly, saying "don't mind if I do"

[–] Rojo27@hexbear.net 1 points 2 minutes ago

Actually they used a crew of dolphins to capture itpog-dolphin

[–] miz@hexbear.net 26 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

War On Iran: Crude Price Nears $100 Barrel While Trump Still Hopes To Win | Moon of Alabama (✅ checked for brainworms)

this post makes a major factual error:

Despite the U.S./Israeli war on Iran, oil had so far not breached the psychological mark of $100 barrel.

crude was over $100 from March 30 to April 08, hitting a high of 112.95 during that time. crude was also over $100 from April 29 to May 05 and from May 12 to May 19.

(all dates 2026)

[–] Athena5898@hexbear.net 37 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

(The Cradle) US army, intel officials ‘quietly discuss’ reducing presence across West Asia: Report (https://thecradle.co/articles/us-army-intel-officials-quietly-discuss-reducing-presence-across-west-asia-report)

Sources say the war on Iran and subsequent Iranian retaliations exposed ‘deep vulnerabilities’ within Washington’s regional military infrastructure (https://t.me/thecradlemedia/67613)

[–] miz@hexbear.net 37 points 2 hours ago

THESE COLORS DON'T RUN, THEY REDUCE PRESENCE!

[–] Athena5898@hexbear.net 40 points 2 hours ago (3 children)

(MPN) Singer Pink Shared A Post Denying The Gaza Genocide On Instagram

Pro-Israel groups, like the one she shared a post from are seeking to cancel Macklemore & Ed Sheeran, demanding apologies and financial compensation because Macklemore performed his song Hind’s Hall as part of his opening act in a tour he is doing with Ed Sheeran.

Pink has since received enormous public backlash & a boycott campaign after sharing a post that explicitly denies the Gaza Genocide. (https://t.me/mintpress_news/15478)

[–] immuredanchorite@hexbear.net 12 points 1 hour ago

wow, haven’t really heard of pink doing anything in years. what an interesting strategy to claw back whatever meager publicity they might have had 20 years ago. seems like pink is really in touch with the sentiments of regular, everyday people

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 20 points 1 hour ago

There's absolutely no way Ed does that. It would ruin his career in the UK. I know he's got a literal scrooge vault of money at this point but I think he cares about being liked in his home country and there's absolutely no way to take that position here. He would be culturally ostracised.

[–] miz@hexbear.net 28 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

https://en.natopedia.org/wiki/Pink_(singer)#Childhood_hunger_activism

Alecia Beth Moore-Hart cares about starving kids... as long as they're white enough

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