Title is a reference to Resistance imagery about how Israeli soldiers will enter Gaza alive but leave it in coffins - the same is true for American soldiers in the Middle East if the regional war expands.
The image is of the Fattah-1 Iranian hypersonic ballistic missile, which its creators boast can overcome any missile defense system on the planet, has a range of 1400 kilometers (and thus Iran can strike Israel), and has a terminal impact velocity of Mach 13.
Dozens of American soldiers have been injured and 3 have been killed on a base in the Middle East. There has been confused reports about whether the attack was on Syrian territory or Jordan's - the Al-Tanf base is in Syria, but Tower-22 in Jordan is another base that helps supply Al-Tanf, and Tower-22 is the one that is alleged to have been hit. These is the first confirmed deaths of American troops since the conflict began, though it's not likely that this is actually the first deaths after hundreds of drone/missile strikes throughout the region on American bases, unless you think American soldiers are having extremely timely heart attacks just after a missile hits.
The attack is certainly impactful, though it does also have considerably symbolism. Courtesy of John Helmer:
The operational success of the strike for the attackers is strategic. Tower-22 is a logistics, supply, and rear guard post for the Al-Tanf base which US troops are operating thirty kilometres north across the border in Syria. The attack demonstrates that both Tower-22 and Al-Tanf, Jordan and Syria, are newly vulnerable to weapons which the US forces have failed to detect and neutralize. Just as significantly, the massive US airbase called Muwaffaq Salti, 230 kilometres west across Jordan, is also vulnerable now.
It indicates that Iran now possesses Russian expertise in countering American equipment:
“This is a significant accomplishment,” one of the sources said. “Was the bypassing of the US air defence system at Tower-22 pulled off with Russian assistance? US bases generally rely on the C-RAM [Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar] system. It was sent to Ukraine last year where the Russians have been learning to defeat it. What now of American EW [electronic warfare]? They’ve been doing a fair job of knocking drones down up to now. It seems a ‘coincidence’ that, not a week after the meetings in Moscow with Arabs and Iranians, we see this success. It’s a success the circumstances of which, we can be sure, Biden and Austin are not keen to advertise.”
I am putting my take on the table right now: I am 99% certain that the US won't attack Iran directly. I think we are still quite a while away from that being a possibility. Much more likely is that Iranian officials in Iraq or Syria will be hit by a retaliatory strike, as Israel has done recently. It is a significant escalation nonetheless. And it comes as Israel seems to be gearing up for a suicidal war with Hezbollah.
The Country of the Week is Iran! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Updates continue to be AWOL - but I am cooking something. Hopefully.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
I know we've all been saying that the situation is on the brink for months now but it really does feel like the next 4-5 days are the brink of the brink, and it's all behind-the-scenes so I genuinely cannot make any predictions. Will the Resistance take a subpar deal under pressures both known and unknown to us, and thereby potentially doom Gaza? Has Israel merely set up this deal predicting that the Resistance will reject it, so as to provide a pretext for further action including against Hezbollah? Will the deal merely involve a lengthy ceasefire and a prisoner exchange leading to the war flaring up again later as neither side wants to give in? Will Iran and its allies meaningfully respond to US strikes or just take it on the chin? Will the US agree to withdraw from Iraq or has it all been a feint? What would Hezbollah do if there was a ceasefire in Gaza? What will Netanyahu do? What will happen to Zionists and Zionism as a whole given that most of the non-Western world now hates them and they failed to destroy Hamas or permanently kill off the Gazans and annex the territory, as well as the settler anxiety at the northern border?
So your counter-prediction is that the same battle will spread out across approximately 7 years of ad-riddled episodes?
After further humiliation to its empire, the US will come up with a plan to summon Shenron and ask him to erase Putin from existence. What they don't know is that while they were distracted, China has been secretly collecting all of the dragon balls. Their only options are to either try and steal them directly by sending fighters to Xi's headquarters, or ask all freedom loving citizens worldwide to raise their hands into the air so they can help America with the biggest spirit bomb ever created.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXZ12NiziBo
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
If Iran responds, I suspect it will be like the response to the assassination of Soleimani. They will warn the countries that the US bases are located in of the attack, most US soliders will evacuate and get their aircraft in the air so they don't get destroyed, and only the ones left behind to guard the base will die as their air defence systems fail to intercept Iranian missiles.
The wildcard here is the responses by all the resistance movements in the region. I think they will respond immediately by attacking any US bases located in their own country. How effective their attacks will be, only time will tell.
What I can guarantee you is that Russia will not invade Ukraine. I mean, Putin’s not stupid or anything…
Well if Iran is 100% certain that the US is about to carry out a large scale military operation against them directly, be it months of airstrikes in Iranian territory or something else, Iran absolutely should strike first. "First mover advantage" is very real in warfare.
Its a catch 22. They are waiting to find a way to respond without starting another war, the longer they wait the bigger the strike has to be to justify the time it took to respond, the bigger the strike the more likely they have a full blown war.
The long delay in response makes america look disorganised and weak. When Ukraine has done shifty stuff like hitting the Crimea bridge, Attacking Belgorod, firing drones at the kremlin, etc. Russia has hit them back hard hard one or two days later. Its pretty clear that they have a retaliatory strike planned out in advance.
USA has nothing like that. They just have a bunch of assets sprinkled all over and a dozen enemies and a big "don't you dare" sign over them with no follow up when someone asks "or what." Yemen asked "or what" and the answer was 100 bombs on bases that have been bombed 100 times before. Who ever hit the base in Jordan asked "or what" and the answer has been "we will think about bombing your weapon's dealer"
I'm not so much worried about what USA does now. I worry for the next one who asks "or what." They will ask hard and the answer will probably be nuclear to remind everyone USA aren't a paper tiger, they are a paper tiger with nukes.
The US having nukes is scary, but the zionist entity itself having nukes is true horror
Brink of what though
Coooming. We're having a nuclear goon sesh.