Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.
Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.
Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).
Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.
I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran's leadership must - if they haven't already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.
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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 am having flashbacks to 2003. If you are not old enough or not American… I wish I could be more articulate on this. It’s a feeling of foreboding because events are in motion and there is nothing in the universe that can or will stop it. From the perspective of the mainstream media and US politicians, it’s like they’ve learned nothing. Everyone just agrees “this is what we have to do”, and there is no questioning how we move forward.
But one thing is very, very different; and this is what I’m hanging my hopes on. The bloodlust from the American people just isn’t there like it was in 2003. I know there were some people who were against it but really, pretty much everyone was. All the Barbaras and Debbies (as Hasan says) were on board. All your “apolitical” folks were for it. Everyone had an opinion that was all of 3 minutes old and it was always the company line. The manufacturing consent machine said it had to be done, and the people bought it.
Before Iraq, Americans viewed actual hot, boots-on-the-ground war in the way we view sanctions today: why not do it, it’s easy our military is great we’ll be in and out easy. Saddam is bad and scary and maybe he has WMDs and maybe he doesn’t but probably a good idea to invade, just to be sure. I do think the one enduring legacy of Iraq on the American psyche is that we are now snake bitten on invading other countries (this is ofc a good thing).
That is not the case at all right now, the people don’t buy it, and honestly things could not be more different. No one wants intervention. Obviously what the people want won’t stop this train if it’s hell bent on attacking Iran, but I do think it’s something.
I agree. This is a time of far greater public discontent and much, much less support for US wars. Inshallah we are approaching the US's equivalent to the WWI for the Russian Empire.
Problem is, Russia wasn't world hegemon when WW1 started, they were the weakest of the main 3 Allies in terms of colonial possessions and economic strength (recall all the figures showing how deeply penetrated Russia was by foreign finance capital in Lenin's Imperialism). But if there was to be a major imperialist war right now, similar in scale to the first world war, I don't know if there's really any imperialist power that is sticking its neck out as much as Russia did then.
Also the russian empire was going through food shortages, low wages, and most importanly conscription.
You can kinda argue the USA getting to the food and low wages, but they still need that very unpopular war that bleeds soldiers
Overall, the Russian empire was still stronger than the Austria-Hungarian empire or the Ottoman empire. It was weak, but it wasn't that weak.
Let's be honest, the WWI equivalent in the US is much more likely to create a Hitler than a Lenin.
Russia was an incredibly reactionary empire with regular pogroms
Is that a non sequitur? The modern US much more closely resembles industrial age Germany than the Russian empire. I get that people here are actually trying, people in Germany were too, but a successful socialist revolution here won't be kicked off by a ruinous global war.
We're more likely to balkanize than anything.
Never know until we try
I think I agree, but one Russia is more than plenty, don't you think?
Disregarding the fact that Iraq and Afghanistan had nothing to do with it, there is a qualitative difference this time in that the US has literally not been attacked. I think even a lot of chuds and normies are starting to struggle to maintain the cognitive dissonance without questioning “why exactly is this our problem?”.
And I do think there is some social memory of the last few wars in the Middle East being a complete shitshow that is helping.
Does this mean the US state won’t just do whatever it wants? Of course not. But popular support for it feels different this time
every one i have talked to IRL is very eepy about this war. they either blame purely Trump or Israel. the average shitlib/apolitical is worried this is going to destroy the economy and gas prices, and legit see Iran as the defender
It's already destroyed gas prices
100% agree. The fact that there are people out in the streets waving Palestinian flags would have been unthinkable in the early 00s. A person showing even the faintest of public opposition against the soon-to-be GWOT would've been publicly lynched and swinging from a tree or streetlight on 9/12/2001.
As long as the US sticks to missiles and bombs, I don't think there will be any political consequences.
And if we do major airstrikes and Iran retaliates and kills some troops, public opinion can flip like a lightswitch.
Yeah if USians aren't dying to drone strikes on Bradleys no amount of dead Iranians will destabilize the US.
Will anyone inside America DO ANYTHING about it this time unlike 2003? Or can we just expect empty organized protests from the same groups that have accomplished nothing in decades?
sure they will. No Kings! No Demands!
The MAGA base will vociferously support this, but I don't know how anyone else outside of diehard Zionists would support it
Nah MAGAs actually don’t like it and are pissed at Trump right now. It’s the centrist “normie” Republicans that support the war the most
The old guard Buchanite Paleo-cons hate it because they're just old school antisemitic, the smart neocons hate it because they know they can't win, the MAGA idiots hate it because of reflexive isolationism, the Thielian accelerationist pedophiles probably like it and hate it at the same time. Everything under Drumpf is in chaos, the situation is excellent.
The isolationist stance is what I run into as well. "We don't need to be involved, we need to take care of shit here". Which isn't wrong but they believe that for the wrong reasons
Who cares, in the short term they are our allies
Yes, I think having them in agreement with us is important on this issue. Wouldn't call them allies, though, since many are cheering on police violence and deportations here at home.
not while they're hate crimeing me
the imperialists are literally about to murder 5+ million people. Nobody on your side of a massive demonstration is going to hate crime you anyway, there will be thousands of allies there
I’ll be honest I know more centrist normie republicans than I do MAGA chuds and the centrists I know are not in favor of it either. The only person I know who is in his 70s, racist as fuck, and is a Christian Zionist so there you go
The only people I've heard for it are the Trump hating former Republicans in the Bulwark podcast. Tim Miller had Bill Kristol on and they were pro-regime change in Iran. Leftover neocons, basically.
I’m… not sure about that. The MAGA folks I know are against this. They are not blaming Trump, they’re just like “I don’t think it’s a good idea”.
Only in my experience then. Breitbart reading family members are buying the "Iran was going to nuke Israel very soon" line
I don’t see MAGAs here as being into it. Trump looks pretty weak right now, getting led around by a Polish guy from Philly.
I am kinda wondering if MAGA has lost its juice. The parade had insanely weak attendance.
I have MAGA family that is pretty much in line with netanyahu though.