this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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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

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

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

UNRWA 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.


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[–] [email protected] 51 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

alex-aware the drone was allowed to fly into the US base' airspace because they thought it was an American drone. What if there's someone redpilled in the ranks and this is their modern day fragging

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

Denmark Fast-tracks Military Expansion Amidst Growing Regional Instability

THE WEST'S DESCENT INTO FASCISM - In a move that is threatening the fragile stability of the Baltic region, the Danish regime is planning to increase the pace of its aggressive military buildup. Just last summer the nearly-unanimous parliament of the American satellite state rubberstamped the succdem-led right-wing regime's plans of a decade of rearmament at an unprecedented scale.

However, recent geopolitical developments have seemingly ignited a fresh wave of anxiety within the regime's inner circles. The increasing inevitability of a NATO defeat in the Ukraine war and the military-industrial capacity of Russia outperforming that of the American bloc is exacerbating existing fears of vulnerability in the Copenhagen regime, prompting hasty revisions to it's military spending plans.

As a result, upcoming negotiations between the regime and it's rubber-stamp parliament on military policy will most likely lead to a hasty expedition of the regime's militaristic agenda, allocating funds at an accelerated pace to hasten the buildup of its armed forces. This abrupt escalation in military expenditure comes at a significant cost to the nation's populace, who are grappling with the harsh realities of rising inflation and deteriorating public services as the regime starves essential social services to fund it's militaristic agenda.

The regime refuses to divulge details on the rearmament plans to the public but reports done by the nation's Liberal Party-controlled ministry of defense suggests that F-35 attack aircraft, ground or sea-based air defences, naval anti-submarine capabilities and satellite capabilities will be included in the extravagant spending spree.

There appears to be a semblance of public support for the accelerated military buildup but dissenting voices seems conspicuously absent from public discourse that is dominated by government media touting the necessity and urgency of militarisation. The authenticity of public support for the building remains unverified by independent sources.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago

Millennium Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (9 children)

God damn. This fucking YouTube "journalist"...he went so far beyond the usual token "I condemn Hamas". He spent a quarter of the fucking video going "TERRORIST Hamas" and "steals humanitarian aid" and "the ATROCITIES!!!!" and even when he says some of the Israeli claims are "dubious at best" he uncritically repeats shit like "as Hamas fighters went DOOR TO DOOR KILLING EVERYONE"" blah, blah, blah (not to mention the Biden apologia). This shit just isn't worth the rest of the video where he talks about repression of pro-Palestine protests and the self-flagellating Zionism of Germany, IMO.

IDK Hexbear. Should I restore it in /r/BreadTube, or am I correct in assessing that the damage these brainworms do to the already "dubious at best" audience there isn't worth it?

EDIT: What I wrote when removing the post, for anyone who doesn't want to go to the fasci-snoo site:

Pre-emptive Zionist propaganda used to mollify anyone who might be upset over criticisms of Israeli genocide...you can shove that right up your ass, OP/content creator. Removed.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago (3 children)

interesting (and really long) article I came across covering Ukrainian nazis and CIA fuckery (archived)

While researching the topic of CIA links with post-soviet Ukrainian secret services and rightwing nationalists, I came upon the short book Hitler’s Shadow: Nazi War Criminals, U.S. Intelligence, and the Cold War, which relies almost exclusively on declassified CIA and US military documents. It can be read online here. While there is plenty of fascinating material in the book about the post-war careers of high-ranking German Nazis in both the anti-western Arab world (where their murky careers were often cut short by the local Mukhabarat) and West Germany (where they had fruitful careers helping in the struggle against communism), I will be focusing on the last chapter, ‘Collaborators: Allied Intelligence and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists’.

some highlights:

spoiler

The emergence of Mykola Lebed, father of the SBU (1941-4)

After the Germans invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941, Bandera’s teams moved into East Galicia. On reaching the East Galician capital city of Lwów on June 30, 1941, his closest deputy Jaroslav Stetsko proclaimed a “sovereign and united” Ukrainian state in the name of Bandera and the OUN/B. Stetsko was to be the new prime minister and Lebed, having trained at a Gestapo center in Zakopane, the new minister for security.

I already wrote about him a bit in a recent article. There are good reasons to return to the story of Lebed’. The same article of mine also treated Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, head of the SBU under Yuschenko and (literal) Godfather of the far right. In a 2015 interview (his political weight had naturally grown after 2014), he stated:

"For the SBU, there's no need to invent anything extra; it's important to base our traditions and approaches on the work of the Security Service of the OUN-UPA from the 1930s to the 1950s,… [The SBU in that period] worked against the aggressor under the conditions of temporary occupation of the territory, had a patriotic upbringing, conducted counterintelligence operations, and relied on the peaceful Ukrainian population, enjoying its unprecedented support. When I was still in the opposition, we thoroughly studied these traditions and the traditions of Lebed and Arsenych-Berezovsky, who created and led the Security Service of the OUN."

:he-admit-it: just openly said "we based our approaches on the genocidal Nazi collaborators" :agony-shivering:

Lebed’ employed quite specific ‘traditions’ in the turbulent years of World War Two:

When the war turned against the Germans in early 1943, leaders of Bandera’s group believed that the Soviets and Germans would exhaust each other, leaving an independent Ukraine as in 1918. Lebed proposed in April to “cleanse the entire revolutionary territory of the Polish population,” so that a resurgent Polish state would not claim the region as in 1918. Ukrainians serving as auxiliary policemen for the Germans now joined the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Maltz recorded that “Bandera men … are not discriminating bout who they kill; they are gunning down the populations of entire villages.… Since there are hardly any Jews left to kill, the Bandera gangs have turned on the Poles. They are literally hacking Poles to pieces. Every day … you can see the bodies of Poles, with wires around their necks, floating down the river Bug.” On a single day, July 11, 1943, the UPA attacked some 80 localities killing perhaps 10,000 Poles.

Interestingly, the wartime SBU’s methods were actually too extreme for the Germans:

As the Red Army moved into western Ukraine (it liberated Lwów in July 1944) the UPA resisted the Soviet advance with full-scale guerrilla war. Maltz noted that, “Most of the Bandera gangs, men and women, from the villages … are still hiding out in the woods, armed to the teeth, and hold up Soviet soldiers. The Soviets may be the rulers of the towns, but the Bandera gangs reign supreme in the surrounding countryside, especially at night. The Russians…have their hands full…. Hardly a day passes without a Soviet official being killed….”19 The Banderists and UPA also resumed cooperation with the Germans. Though the SD was pleased with the intelligence received from the UPA on the Soviets, the Wehrmacht viewed Banderist terror against Polish civilians as counterproductive.

spoiler

Go West My Son: help from the Vatican (1944)

The Ukrainian nationalists, who were themselves highly supported by the west Ukrainian Greek Catholic Clergy (Bandera’s own father was a priest in the church), also found it important to reach out to Rome. Lebed’, the spymaster, was also always the one positioned to reach out to foreign governments:

In July 1944, before the Soviets took Lwów, the UHVR (Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council, established by Stepan Bandera’s nationalists in 1944 as a front to appeal to the western governments) sent a delegation of its senior officials to establish contact with the Vatican and Western governments. The delegation was known as the Foreign Representation of the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council (ZP/UHVR). It included Father Ivan Hrinioch as president of the ZP/UHVR; Mykola Lebed as its Foreign Minister; and Yuri Lopatinski as the UPA delegate.

Those better-versed in parapolitics would be able to add something relevant here about the role of the Church here. While Opus Dei was busy in Chile in the years leading up to and under Pinochet, the Catholic Church was also quite active in the eastern, Ukrainian vector.

Bandera splits from Lebed, CIA moves away from the unpredictable Bandera (1948-1959).

In 1948, Lebed’ and Hrinioch split away from Bandera and Stetsko. While Bandera’s group supposedly had the support of 80% of the party, Lebed’ would gain control over access to CIA support.

The UHVR later rejected “attempts by western Ukrainian chauvinists, including Stephen Bandera, to erect a Ukrainian state on a narrowly religious, mono-party, totalitarian basis, since the Eastern Ukrainian nationalists find such a political philosophy unacceptable.” A feud erupted in 1947 between Bandera and Stetsko on the one hand, and Hrinioch and Lebed on the other. Bandera and Stetsko insisted on an independent Ukraine under a single party led by one man, Bandera. Hrynioch and Lebed declared that the people in the homeland, not Bandera, created the UHVR, and that they would never accept Bandera as dictator.

Bandera would grow more and more volatile, uncontrollable, while Lebed embraced his role as a smooth operator for western intelligence services, despite his own relative unpopularity in Ukrainian nationalist circles:

The Prometheus/Intermarium spy network

Despite Bandera’s obvious status as an uncontrollable contract-killer despot, MI6 was quite interested in him.

British Intelligence (MI6), however, was interested in Bandera.** MI6 first contacted Bandera through Gerhard von Mende in April 1948. An ethnic German from Riga, von Mende served in Alfred Rosenberg’s Ostministerium during the war as head of the section for the Caucasus and Turkestan section, recruiting Soviet Muslims from central Asia for use against the USSR**. In this capacity he was kept personally informed of UPA actions and capabilities. Nothing came of initial British contacts with Bandera because, as the CIA learned later, “the political, financial, and tech requirements of the [Ukrainians] were higher than the British cared to meet.” But by 1949 MI6 began helping Bandera send his own agents into western Ukraine via airdrop. In 1950 MI6 began training these agents on the expectation that they could provide intelligence from western Ukraine. ...

I bolded the section about Von Mende because of my interest in the Prometheus program and the Intermarium project. Prometheus was a spy network of anti-Russian nationalists created by inter-war Polish leader Jozef Pilsudsky. Intermarium is the idea of an alliance of Romania, Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic nations on the basis of rightwing nationalism and opposition to both Germany and Russia. Originally, these ideas were supported by the Americans and the French, then they were taken over by the Poles. In the 1920s and 30s, dissatisfaction with Polish colonial rule by Ukrainian nationalists led to their increasing patronage by the increasingly radical German secret services. In World War Two, there were powerful forces, concentrated in the SS, that advocated support for radical anti-Russian peripheral nationalisms, from Muslim Chechens and Azeris to Ukrainians. However, they were generally overruled by powerful factions in the Wehrmacht, whose need for resources necessitated heavy-handed methods in Ukraine and beyond. On this topic, I recommend Rossolinski-Liebe’s book ‘Stepan Bandera’ and Himka’s ‘Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust’. Nagy-Talavera’s book ‘the Green Shirts and the Others’ is perhaps even better in describing the conflicts between various factions of the Nazi state over support to Romanian and Hungarian fascists. After the war, this network would be taken over by the Americans. The Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (itself created in 1943 by Bandera’s OUN) would unite them, under the umbrella of the new transatlantic sponsor.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Stop calling Gaza a concentration camp. It is not just a concentration camp anymore. it is a death camp.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago (7 children)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68171280

US approves plan to strike Iranian targets in Syria and Iraq, officials say

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)
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[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago

Yemen's Ansar Allah Movement Attacks USS Gravely Destroyer

Houthis will also continue to prevent Israeli commercial vessels or ships bound for Israel from transiting the Red Sea.

On Wednesday, Yemen's Ansar Allah Movement (Houthi) attacked a U.S. warship in the Red Sea with missiles.

"In support of Palestinians in Gaza, and response to the aggression on our country, we fired several missiles at the USS Gravely destroyer," Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said.

"We confirm that all U.S. and British warships in the Red and Arabian Sea participating in the aggression against our country are within the target bank of our forces and will be targeted within the legitimate right to defend our country and people."

Sarea also warned that the Ansar Allah Movement will continue to prevent Israeli commercial vessels or ships bound for Israel from transiting the Red Sea until "the aggression against Gaza ceases and the siege is lifted."

Earlier on Wednesday, however, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said that its navy forces had shot down an anti-ship cruise missile fired by the Houthis toward the Red Sea.

The missile was shot down by USS Gravely, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, and no injuries or damage were reported, it added.

On Monday, the Houthi group claimed responsibility for attacking a U.S. warship in the Gulf of Aden with a ballistic missile, a day after it claimed another missile attack against a British oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden that set the tanker on fire for several hours.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)
[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago (11 children)

What happens if Ansar Allah decides to launch like 10 Shahed drones at the same time / in the same tight window at a US military boat ?

Genuinely asking, these interceptor mechanisms must have an incoming throughput limit, right ?

Also and not to mention, IIRC some of those interceptor missiles cost a million+ bucks a piece. They can't have an unlimited number of them onboard.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Anyone else committing voter fraud to make sure Joe Biden wins? Kremlin checks won’t clear so I won’t be stuffing ballots for Trump cause I’m not working for free. Beijing promised a raise if I can vote for Biden at least 85 times

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The King's New Green Clothes

Following a seemingly bloodless transition of power from the aging queen Margrethe to her son and hand-picked successor Frederik, the Danish monarchy and government-controlled media has embarked on a campaign to brand the new king as a "climate king".

In a manifesto published mere days after rising to power, the king talked about wanting to use his position to further the green transition. He repeated that message recently in a speech given in Warsaw while travelling with a Danish business delegation.

Politicians from the radlib and otherwise traditionally republican Social Liberal Party as well as from the green radlib Alternative party has urged the newly-minted monarch to incorporate standards of green sustainability into a revamped scheme for the "purveyor to the royal Danish court" predicate that is given to businesses that are considered established and respectable. The predicate, which has previously been granted based purely on vibes, was put on hold shortly before the transition of power and all existing grants were recalled.

The monarchy seems to understand the utility of attaching royals to progressive causes as a way of constructing a widespread cult of personality, like they did when then crown princess Mary was appointed protector of the 2021 World Pride event in Copenhagen. Associating themselves with climate issues or the LGBT community might earn them some ire from fringe reactionary circles but it serves to make the monarchy seem relevant and relatable to a much wider group of people than those who are swayed by traditional monarchist appeals to authority, tradition and hierarchy.

How deeply felt these progressive sentiments really are remains unclear. The royals, keeping their tradition of maintaining an "apolitical" public image, are certainly not calling for the kind of sweeping social changes that would be required to stop climate change and bring about climate justice. It remains uncontroversial milquetoast liberalism and even that is seemingly superficial. Six months before becoming king, Frederik attended a climate conference in the city of Aalborg. Not only did he chose to fly there rather than suffer the four hour drive (or train ride) from Copenhagen, being too fancy of a lad to take a taxi from the airport he had an empty limo driven all the way from Copenhagen and back, just to ferry him between the event and the airport. While at the event a journalist caught him off-guard and asked him a softball question about what measures the monarchy are taking to reduce their personal carbon footprints, sending the future king into a desperate incoherent mumbling about "hybrid" solutions that made him look more like a student being caught at not having done his homework than a climate-conscious champion of green transition.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago (7 children)

Maybe it should be on the dunk tank I dunno but should they ask #HBO do you condemn Hamas too?

Rybar Russia lost another boat, a coordinated sea drone attack with support from US intelligence. While nothing can be done about US assistance even Rybar already put their hands in the air basicaly saying its hopeless given the current leadership.

lol

President Andrzej Duda reiterated this position during an interview on YouTube channel Kanal Zero late on Friday. However, when asked if he believed Ukraine would really be able to retake Crimea, he said, "It is hard for me to answer that question".

"I don't know if (Ukraine) will regain Crimea, but I believe it will regain Donetsk and Luhansk," he said.

He said the Crimean peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014, eight years before launching its full-scale invasion, "is a special place... also for historical reasons. Because in fact, if we look historically, it was in Russia's hands for most of the time."

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (7 children)

Very interesting interview of President Traoré (Burkina Faso for the unaware). Some interesting bits that stood out to me:

  • He once again basically accuses the west of allowing terrorist groups to run wild in the AES, and on top of that actively hindered their efforts to build up their own military. It honestly seems like he might have been implying that they're the direct agents of the west at one point lol, or at least that's what the talk of the "sleeper cells" activating and his wording around it made me think that.

  • He emphasized more than once that the AES can be entirely self sufficient in the (near?) future, and they are currently doing lots of experimenting on that front (i assume meaning to increase crop yields in particular). He uses this to kinda just brush aside the concerns of the AES leaving ECOWAS, he honestly barely spent anytime elaborating on them lol.

  • He glazed up Russia quite a bit in this interview, really emphasizing that they give access to any weapons they ask for, and will even commit to sending troops to help Burkina Faso if asked, although he vehemently denied they were currently in the country. He also mentioned that Iran and China also give access to their entire market of weapons. He also made sure to shit on the west again here lol.

  • I havent read (or at least dont remember) anything about this, but apparently there was concerns that they had given entire mines to Russia? He denied that, although he did say something about giving them a liscense that they have to pay a tax on? idk the english seemed kinda unclear there to me.

  • another thing that seemed like a potential breakdown of the english was how the government intends to pay for all this, especially the weapons. I couldnt tell if he was being evasive or the translation was just bad lol. Part of it was him saying that the previous government was extremely corrupt and inefficient (which is also a part of the whole self sufficiency angle he's going for, they have almost everything they need to be self sufficient, they just need to utilize it). There's something about saving ~800 million US$ in subsidies in 2023 alone, although once again the english seemed unclear to me and I'm not sure if he's saying that they've made sure the subsidies arent just being pocketed and are actually being efficiently used, or if this is him bragging about austerity, or some other 3rd thing.

  • he addresses the coup situations in a kinda funny, kind of sad way: he basically says he's not gonna get got by sticking to friendship like Sankara did, which is definitely a good thing, I mean we've already seen several coup attempts against him already, but also just makes me sad thinking about how good of a person Sankara genuinely was.


Overall, pretty hopeful interview. Also, makes sense since he has risen to be a very powerful person at such a young age, but he is a quite charismatic person. Nothing obviously marxist that I noticed, but I do think they're definitely taking a very materialist view of the world, he really hammered down that every decision they're making is only made after careful analysis, and I havent really seen anything to contradict that (although I haven't been looking at news from the Sahel all that much so i could have easily missed stufff...). One last thing to leave off on is that he also mentioned his desire to "awaken the people". He framed it in a nationalistic, patriotic way, but a quote someone posted in here a day or 2 ago popped in my head while watching the interview. “The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living," and in Burkina Faso the shadow of Sankara looms heavier than anyone, and I honestly wonder even if Traoré doesnt become a communist like I've hoped he might, by raising this patriotism in burkina faso, it might also raise their class consciousness just because of Sankara's legacy.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Lol EU's solution to the widespread farmers protests is reducing imports from Ukraine and reducing environmental regulations

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (7 children)

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/31/politics/us-warship-close-call-houthi-missile/index.html

A cruise missile launched by the Houthis into the Red Sea on Tuesday night came within a mile of a US destroyer before it was shot down, four US officials told CNN, the closest a Houthi attack has come to a US warship.

In the past, these missiles have been intercepted by US destroyers in the area at a range of eight miles or more, the officials said. But the USS Gravely had to use its Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) for the first time since the US began intercepting the Houthi missiles late last year, which ultimately succeeded in downing the missile, officials said.

The CIWS, an automated machine gun designed for close-range intercepts, is one of the final defensive lines the ship has to shoot down an incoming missile when other layers of defense have failed to intercept it.

The Houthis got within seconds of destroying a US warship and managed to get a cruise missile to evade all other lines of defence and interceptor missiles, except for the CIWS. That is not good news for the US. Their airstrikes have failed to limit the Houthi's ability to carry out attacks on both cargo and US military ships, and the US only has so many interceptor missiles left, and missile defence with CIWS is too close to rely on. The Houthis will successfully strike a US warship if the current status quo continues. (It will not continue indefinitely obviously, as soon as the US retaliates. But then again, previous US airstrikes have failed to stop the Houthis or hinder their capabilities. )

The Houthis have continued to launch missiles and drones at vessels in the Red Sea, however, and on Wednesday morning were preparing to launch a surface-to-air missile that posed a risk to US aircraft operating in the region, according to US Central Command.

In a statement, CENTCOM said US forces successfully destroyed the missile before it launched.

Again, US Navy and Air Force Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (SEAD) operations are top notch. This kind of thing should worry Iran. The US airforce successfully baited the Yemeni air defence systems targeting radar to turn on, jammed it and destroyed it. A lot of people joke about that one US strike in which only one plane and one missile was fired at a radar site in Yemen earlier, but if it's at a control centre or early warning radar, it shows the capabilities there.

So in essence we have an asymmetric situation where Iran and various other military groups have the capabilities to strike US ships and ground assets if need be, but the US has the ability to suppress their air defence and launch airstrikes. What happens next, nobody knows.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

Anyone have a link to that research comparing Bandera's approval rating in Ukraine and how it compared/changed from before 2014, to after 2014 ,and just before the war started? I remember seeing it just after the the Ukrainian war started and just being shocked at how blatant it was with Bandera's approval skyrocketing post 2014.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 9 months ago (9 children)
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[–] [email protected] 48 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

CW: Blood, Partial nudity, Torture, Satanic IOF Cruelty

[–] [email protected] 48 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Carl Weathers, the actor whose credits include Rocky and Predator, has died at 76. His family released a statement through his agent to announce that he died “peacefully in his sleep” on 1 February. “Carl was an exceptional human being who lived an extraordinary life,” the statement continued.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 9 months ago (2 children)

IOF has confirmed it is pumping seawater into Gaza tunnels. (English articles are available on ynet and Haaretz)

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Nypost and CBS and Qanon all circlejerking about the tunnel. Deranged comments. Their version of a voice of reason is like "leave them alone!!! as long as there are no children in the tunnels"

https://web.archive.org/web/20240126015917/https://nypost.com/2024/01/24/news/california-homeless-found-living-in-furnished-caves-full-of-trash-and-drugs/

https://web.archive.org/web/20240126042137/https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/hidden-homeless-caves-dug-into-tuolumne-river-bank-in-modesto/

In November 2022, CBS13 took a tour of the cleared-out caves in Stanislaus County in the same location. They were nowhere near as elaborate as they are now.

Sure just come back every few years don't bother housing anyone. I love this country. Anyways huge news for tunnelheads.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 9 months ago (8 children)

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/01/your-man-in-the-hague-in-a-good-way/

how the hell have I never heard of craig murray, ive been reading his work for 5 hours now.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago

From his coverage of the Israeli argument:

While the court was in session, Germany has announced it will intervene in the substantial case to support Israel. They argue explicitly that, as the world’s greatest perpetrator of genocide, they are uniquely placed to judge. It is in effect a copyright claim. They are protecting Germany’s intellectual property in the art of genocide. Perhaps they might in future license genocide, or allow Israel to continue genocide on a franchise basis.

hahaha

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 9 months ago (4 children)

cop Seen today outside the Argentinian Congress as the deputies began a 30 to 50 hour long debate to approve the Mega Law proposed by milei. The Security Ministry deployed a large contingent of militarized police (National Gendarmerie) to counter any protest that might show up (and it did). There will be a time when the US will be forced to ask for forgiveness for poisoning the entire world with their shitty export culture, that includes the fascist flag used by the Gendarme in the picture. Either way, it's kinda funny that when laws are discussed in either the Chamber of Deputies or in the Senate that might affect society at large, and negatively so, the government deploys a huge contigent of riot police and militarized police... wonder why huh?


Before we advance, here's how the Argentinian Congress looks like, annotations and party names below. The Trots hold five steats.

Key test for Milei as lower house opens debate on ‘Omnibus’ reform bill

Argentina’s lower house Chamber of Deputies opened debate on President Javier Milei’s mega reform package known as the ‘Omnibus’ bill on Wednesday, with the government confident it has the votes it needs to secure its approval.

With no surprises, the ruling party achieved a comfortable quorum in the lower house and the special session on the ‘Ley de Bases y Puntos de Partida para la Libertad de los Argentinos’ without delay. The ruling party was guaranteed the floor of 129 deputies to enable the session after the Unión Cívica Radical, PRO, Hacemos Coalición Federal and Innovación caucuses said that they would collaborate. Sources expect that they will "vote in general" for the majority opinion, while going against key articles.

A total of 137 deputies were seated at 10.30am, enabling Lower House Speaker Martín Menem to open the session. Lawmakers from the Unión por la Patria and the Frente de Izquierda caucuses did not collaborate.

Milei’s bill, which also seeks to privatise dozens of companies and expand his executive powers on economic matters, narrowly passed three congressional committees last week. To get it to a vote, the government was forced to give ground in several key areas, including eradicating the entirety of its fiscal chapter. Amendments to the ‘Ley de Bases’ has seen it shrunk in size from more than 660 articles to around 385.

After weeks of negotiations, the megalaw was slashed almost in half. Still, many key elements are left in it. The delegation of faculties to the president, giving him extraordinary (dictatorial?) powers and the possibility to ask for loans without the approval of Congress, effectively setting no limit as to how much money the country can borrow from entities like the IMF.

The numbers so far indicate that the bill will win general approval and the government is confident it has them thanks to the pro-dialogue sector of the opposition.

Everyone in this so-called "pro-dialogue" opposition is a traitor to the motherland and we should remember their names, for when our time comes.

However, there is intrigue as to what will remain of it at the close of the session – the ruling party could suffer some key defeats when it is voted for article-by-article. The UCR bloc, for example, has already announced that, while it will generally support the bill, it will not hold back on several articles, such as those privatisations of state firms. According to a tally kept by the Perfil newspaper, La Libertad Avanza and its allies provide 41 votes in favour, with another 39 to come from PRO. Another 34 votes could come from the UCR caucus, with 17 from Miguel Ángel Pichetto’s Hacemos Coalición Federal. Within Innovación, a federal space that responds to governors of several provinces, there are at least three more in favour. That would provide them with, in theory, 134 votes.

The government expects at least 108 votes against, mostly from the Unión por la Patria (Peronist) opposition caucus. Two from Hacemos Coalición Federal, five from the Frente de Izquierda and two from other spaces make up the rest. At least eight lawmakers have not stated their position.

The debate starting Wednesday is expected to last more than 35 hours, stretching over multiple days. The ruling party has proposed at least four intermissions for the session, including one at a “reasonable time on Wednesday night to give the legislators a few hours of rest to replenish their energy,” Noticias Argentinas reported. The session is expected to resume sometime after 10am on Thursday morning.

On Avenida Rivadavia, in the direction of the neighbourhood of Once, Gendarmerie trucks with water cannons, police vehicles and security equipment stretched for two blocks. At the nearby Plaza del Congreso, facing the Legislature, things were calmer as people were already milling around ahead of an overnight “vigil” called by rights groups, unions, social organisations and student protesters. The groups, which include Polo Obrero (PO) and the Coordinadora Sindical Clasista (CSC), have vowed to demonstrate for the duration of the Congress session, framing the rally as part of the “plan of struggle” against the proposed reforms.

Left-wing lawmakers Romina Del Plá, Gabriel Solano and Néstor Pitrola, of the Frente de Izquierda y Trabajadores – Unidad party issued a statement on Tuesday calling on their peers to “reject the Omnibus Law ... and the whole plan of Milei's government."

In short, the law will be approved. They have the numbers thanks to the slashing of several articles. However, the law is approved "in general", they have to literally go through all 300+ articles to approve every single one of them. This will take a long time. Plus the debate is full of irregularities, like a random businessman entering the chamber and shouting insults towards the Trots, or the Congressmen not receiving the full law text in time, meaning that they don't what they're even debating right now lmfao. Clowns.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

⚡️Al-Qassam (Hamas) published a video showing its forces target IOF militants vehicles & sniping a Zionist officer in the Tal Al-Hawa and Sheikh Radwan neighborhoods, west of Gaza City.

What a beautiful sniper shot directly in the officer’s neck 🔻

https://twitter.com/AryJeay/status/1753105974347596193

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Al-jazeera headline: US senate grills tech executives

Me: sicko-wistful grillman porky-scared-flipped

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 9 months ago (1 children)
Ukrainian media: Zaluzhny refused to write a resignation report during a meeting with Zelensky

TopWar

30 January 2024 🗄️

Ukrainian media: Zaluzhny refused to write a resignation report during a meeting with Zelensky

Political games continue in Kyiv, during which the forces competing for a place at the Western trough are trying to declare their exclusive right to this place.

Eve like reported "Military Review", a number of Verkhovna Rada deputies (mostly deputies from Poroshenko’s party) published notes saying that Valery Zaluzhny had been dismissed from his post as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. After some time, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine issued a post where it was written that “the information that appeared (without specifics) is not true.” Zelensky in his evening address did not say a word about Zaluzhny and resignation.

Now the Ukrainian press is discussing a new behind-the-scenes statement, which says that Zaluzhny was offered to write a resignation letter, but he refused.

Such materials are identified as sources by representatives of the presidential office, as well as by the entourage of General Zaluzhny himself.

The reports say that Zaluzhny allegedly refused to write a report, since Bankova did not offer any specifics on his future career, limiting himself to hints that he could become an adviser or assistant with the possibility of working at one of the Ukrainian embassies in the EU.

In other words, Zaluzhny was offered something like an honorable exile, according to Ukrainian media reports. At the same time, many major media outlets in Ukraine write that Zelensky actually met with Zaluzhny and it was during this meeting that he invited him to write a report due to the fact that he did not live up to hopes for a summer counteroffensive.

❤️🖤❤️🖤💙💛💙💛❤️🤍💙

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

@[email protected]

I'm replying to your comment here because I can't see your original comment from my instance.

I feel that the state of queer rights is actually getting worse and that Singapore as a whole is getting more reactionary. The stuff below are what got me to this conclusion.

cw for homophobia, transphobia and ableism2021

Someone made a post on reddit identifying herself as trans student (she/ her pronouns). She was barred from transitioning and that her principal told her ‘due to your presentation, you would be as disruptive to the school environment as a student with severe autism’. link

2022: I felt that Singapore's anti-LGBTQ community got more active and aggressive in this year.

There was a school counselor who hijacked a sex ed to spread homophobic stuff. After the incident the counselor was barred from teaching sex ed. Explanation they gave was that the counselor showed un-vetted material with no acknowledgement of the homophobia. link

Then there was this protect Singapore/ families townhall organised by Jason Wong (he seems to be super-active in anti-LGBTQ movements). Police did not consider this hate speech. link

While it's true that Section 377A was repealed in 2022, at the same time the constitution was changed to define marriage as between man and woman, completely invalidating the reason people wanted it removed. link

Around this time the Singapore politicians were whining about protecting homophobes from cancel culture. Yup. The type of stuff you expect from anti-PC comedians in the US or kid's show writers in Japan is parroted unironically by local politicians. Instead of changing themselves they accuse LGBTQ for taking away their citizens. It's pathetic and scary in the same way an incel school shooter is.

Also Singapore has been infiltrated by a lot of anti-LGBTQ talking heads from foreign countries. This is one article on transphobic foreign interferance

The book 'The Aware Saga: Civil Society and Public Morality in Singapore' also has information on how the christian right managed to ban official sex ed from ever being able to acknowledge or properly educate on gender and sexual minorities.

They constantly call LGBTQ foreign interference yet allow anti-LGBTQ talking heads into the country.

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