Image is of the Galapagos Islands, sourced from here.
Moving the megathread topic slightly away from the chaos of the United States and going back around the world, we will begin with paying attention to Ecuador.
Ecuador has been ruled by Daniel Noboa since 2023, after he won the snap election. He's about as ghoulish as one gets; a neoliberal right-winger and as much as a marionette to the United States as Milei. Two months ago, he gave effective control of the Galapagos Islands to the United States and is allowing them to build a military base there - beginning the potential conversion from a natural paradise to unsinkable aircraft carrier.
We are now seeing the rematch between Noboa and Gonzalez; the latter of which is a leftist politician with a similar ideology to Correa, the socialist who ruled Ecuador from 2007 to 2017. The divide in Ecuador today is largely between the Correaists and those who oppose them, though Leonidas Iza represents the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador and commands a notable share of the vote.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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 reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
I'm just going to address the latest Israeli PsyOp that has hit the news media, primarily being spread by the German outlet Bild, and Turkish newspapers. This PsyOp being that Israel has obtained a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb from the United States, and that they plan to use it against Iran's hardened nuclear facilities.
There are two problems with this idea. The first is the idea that the MOAB is a "bunker buster" bomb that can be used for this mission. The truth is that it's not a bunker buster bomb, as the name states it's an air blast bomb, it does not penetrate deeply into the ground before exploding, it actually detonates above the ground. The lightweight aluminium casing of the MOAB is not designed to penetrate anything either. So it cannot be used to strike against deep bunkers in the mountains, such as Iran's nuclear facilities. There appears to be some confusion here, people confusing the huge overpressure effect that can occur when a MOAB is dropped in a valley or an open cave complex (as it was in Afghanistan) with bunker buster/penetrator capabilities.
The second issue is the delivery method. The only way of delivering the MOAB is to fly a modified C-130 transport aircraft directly over the target, and drop it out of the back of the plane. Israel have C-130s, but flying one over Iran would be a suicide mission, it would be shot down instantly. So the MOAB would never reach Iran.
The truth is also, that no such deal for a MOAB has occurred. I managed to track down the primary source of the misinformation that all these articles are quoting, and it's a Fox News segment between Sean Hannity and Steve Witkoff, in which Witkoff says that Israel already has "bunker buster bombs", likely referring to the 2000lb BLU-109. The MOAB is never even mentioned. These articles are completely fabricating and hallucinating something that was never even said.
The bomb that Israel would need to strike Iranian hardened nuclear facilities is the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), which is only carried by the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber of the United States Air Force. The United States did use the B-2 and MOP combination in Yemen last year, in a clear warning to Iran. Israel will not get this capability, the United States reserves it for only itself. Which is how the power dynamics play out, meaning Israel cannot "go it alone" with air strikes against Iranian bunkers deep in the mountains. They would require the participation of the United States. Israel can "go it alone" in other ways against Iran as they have shown, but not in that specific capability.
Never actually knew the delivery of a MOAB is a fucking C-130, that'll be an easy target in a conventional war imo. At least, this system against a conventional enemy is unreliable to say the least, like I can't imagine one or a couple of slow C-130s trying to strike say a Russian grouping with a MOAB, they will never make it. This leads me to believe the MOAB was designed with COIN in mind, to be used against enemies that have little to no way of countering an air force's operations.
The MOAB can trace its origins to the "Daisy Cutter" bombs that were used in Vietnam to clear sections of forests so that helicopters and/or paratroopers could land. It's just a much bigger version of that. Modern day use seems to be for psychological impact against enemies that can't effectively counter it. A weapon of intimidation and anti personnel weapon against large groupings of insurgents.
The morbid reality is that such a weapon is more likely to be used against civilian centers to cause mass casualty events
Isn't that basically all NATO nations strategy? 'step one: establish air superiority, step two: ???, step three: profit'
Israeli PsyOps are just so pervasive, they even hit all lots of resistance media outlets. I still remember when the news megathread accurately predicted Israel's attack on Iran (in terms of what Israel would hit and the tactics), then Israeli PsyOps started a few hours before their attack, which drove us all into a panic. It's part of why I created this account, to try find the primary sources of information, post them, and analyse them ourselves, instead of relying on journalists and outlets which don't know their arse from their elbow, are days behind on reporting, use AI LLMs for their research getting key information wrong in the process, etc.
Also want to add the really depressing truth that if there is any future deal for sending a MOAB to Israel (none exists currently and I don't expect any to materialise in future, but in the very rare case it happens), the target will not be Iran. It would be Gaza or southern Lebanon...
Surely Iran built their nuclear facility deeper than what they'd expect could be hit with conventional or nuclear weapons
Next you'll tell me the leader of Hamas is just strolling about Gaza
The MOP is not your ordinary bunker buster bomb, it's a 30 000lb/14 000kg bomb that's only 20% explosive by weight, consisting of just under 6000lbs of plastic bonded explosives. The casing is made of hardened metals like tungsten, and the bomb only explodes when it stops penetrating, or at a certain depth, depending on the fuse used. Early documents on the bomb's design state that it can penetrate over 200ft/60m of reinforced concrete. And each B-2 Spirit stealth bomber carries two of them. No one really knows how far it can penetrate. Nasrallah's bunker in Beirut was destroyed by 2000lb bunker buster bombs called the BLU-109, between 60-80 were dropped on the bunker and surrounding buildings. These bombs can penetrate up to 12ft/4m of reinforced concrete.
This video shows the impact of a one of these BLU-109 2000lb bunker buster bombs, how it penetrates the earth before exploding. The MOP weighs 15 times more and can penetrate a depth 17 times deeper than the BLU-109.
Twitter source
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Now imagine a crater 17 times deeper, that's the penetration capabilities of the MOP...