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.
The USSR was a failure the movements they supported and propped up also failed it might be time to take some lessons from history instead of hopeless dooming because China won't go to war with the US on behalf of Iran (who has not even asked for military aid from its allies yet). "Save the World" histrionics cause the US did a token airstrike against evacuated nuclear facility's to look tough come on.
I don't really expect that. But China is still trading with a country comitting an genocide for almost 2 years. I don't expect much from them at this point
China is still trading with America the sponsor and backer of Israel it does not matter if China stops trading with them directly unless they also cut off the US, (Europe and also any other country that would supply Israel). which would be a surefire sign of an actual war. Could it be useful as a propaganda move and as a way to put more pressure on Israel sure perhaps I would do so If were the supreme leader of China or whatever but I am not. The Iranians are ones in the drivers seat only they can decide which was this is going to go
The rare earth metals embargo is a start, but I'm sure the Chinese government is well aware that they will eventually have to face the imperial core, no different to how America's embargo of oil to Japan was all but symbolic but just one small event that eventually set the Imperial Navy on a collision course with its Yankee counterpart
it would have been nice if they had used any of their immense power and wealth to either give some sort of comfort to the suffering people of palestine, or to disrupt the activities of Israel.
The only way to give comfort to the people of Gaza is breaking the siege which would mean war. "disrupt the activities of Israel" Like I said before the only real way china could do this is embargo Israel and everyone that trades with them anything else would be nothing a few sanctions or such would be purely symbolic in effect.
War is already there.
Which the PRC should do (but can't, because of the way it has made itself reliant on NATO).
The PRC could also arm and support the enemies of NATO with personnel.
China does not have power projection in the middle east it does not have the military ability to go to war there it would need military bases and a bigger air fleet and country's that will facilitate this on their soil.
"Which the PRC should do (but can't, because of the way it has made itself reliant on NATO). The PRC could also arm and support the enemies of NATO with personnel."
They tried making an arms deal (among others) with Iran they backed out of it. If the country's in the region do not want your assistance there is not much you can do. Also Iran does not need small arms they need air defense and planes these system are complicated and require a lot of training which means time.
Okay, so the PRC is a failure in this regard, as well.
When will it? At some point, that will need to be done to stop NATO's colonialism.
Again, this is a worse showing than what the USSR did. Another failure.
That doesn't prevent the PRC from sanctioning Pissrael, Pissrael's owners, and everybody else who would trade with them. (What does prevent the PRC from doing so is the PRC's economy being reliant on NATO. Again, another failure.)
Did I say that the PRC could arm enemies of NATO with small arms specifically, or did I say that the PRC could arm them with no further qualifiers?
Are you saying that the PRC can't produce air defence and planes?
You are being obtuse I don't think I am gonna get anywhere arguing with you
We both know that this accusation is false.
Your arguments have basically been the following:
I am not criticizing China from their reaction to Israeli aggression on Iran alone. Their entire foreign policy seems like "the spice must flow". Now I'm not an expert but at this point I don't see China acting against the status quo (even as the status quo is actively preparing to act against China). They are definitely very good to their citizens but countries are not dimensionally isolated islands free from global consequences.
the answer is in that line, the status quo is preparing to act against china because china's existence is already a challenge to it
it sounds paradoxical because how contradictions work, but china defends this part of the status quo precisely because it's the only way to permanently change it. that's why we keep memeing about how "china does nothing and still wins". and america is trying to destabilize the situation for the same reason, things can't keep going the way they are or the west is fucked
acting in any way differently would be reckless, and repeating the same mistakes communists have made before. by advocating for the right action before the right time, you're facilitating the enemy's work
that's not to say every foreign policy decision from china is good, but the spice must flow is definitely the most rational and (long-term) beneficial part of it
Exactly well said, China is not doing nothing their are building up there country and production and of course cooperating and helping the Global South build up and be independent from the IMF.
The PRC's existence is not a 'challenge' or a threat to the status quo. It's NATO that wants to change the status quo and come to something more resembling the status quo of 100 years ago or so.
Today's PRC doesn't seem to exhibit the willingness to improve things for the rest of the world.
Ah, yes, increasing life expectancy by 60% and eliminating illiteracy within about 20 years, providing people with guaranteed housing and universal healthcare (which today's PRC obviously does not due to its privatised economy), giving women basic rights that they were denied previously, helping several colonies of NATO to liberate themselves, etc. is a 'failure'. /s
'Failed' how?
The history of the post-liberalisation PRC is its inability to reach the achievements of the USSR, and either inability or unwillingness to help the rest of the world fight against colonialism.
"'Failed' how?" It no longer exists all of there allies besides the DPRK and Cuba fell NATO has advanced and caused the war in Ukraine today and Azerbaijan has invaded and ethnically cleansed Artsakh the other wars, life expectancy drop and on and on..... I would consider these results abject failure F-.
Cool. And you are just going to ignore all of its achievements and long-lasting impacts? Hell, chances are, I wouldn't be literate if not for the USSR.
Notably, the USSR did not fall because of relevant achievements and I do not see how the USSR helping in anti-colonial liberation contributed to that.
Did they become NATO's old-style colonies (as opposed to neo-colonies) again? Did things like elimination of illiteracy get rolled back?
Also, if the PRC is 'succeeding' so much, where are its allies with non-capitalist economies and which are not neo-colonies of NATO? Oh, wait, that's just the DPRK and Cuba.
Sounds like the PRC is not achieving anything much in this regard, so bringing up this point as something that the PRC differs from the USSR favourably is extremely silly.
Which is happening while the PRC exists and not contemporaneously with the USSR, so claiming that this is a fault of the USSR - especially considering the PRC actively helping NATO in cases like Afghanistan - is similarly silly.
The PRC is either unable or unwilling to prevent NATO from doing this. This is a failure of the PRC in comparison with the USSR. This is a point in favour of the USSR.
Again, this has been happening contemporaneously with today's PRC, and not contemporaneously with the USSR. The PRC has failed in this regard.
Which was done by liberals who destroyed the USSR, and not by the USSR. Extremely bizarre thing to pin on the USSR, along with the rest of this list.
I ignored none of their achievements I merely said they failed which is true and we should learn from their adventurist failures and yes everything that happened in eastern Europe since the 90's is the direct result of the USSR's failures. In order to advance world communism you cannot be destroyed so easily as the self proclaimed Vanguard of revolution was. I could continue to argue with you but I think it would not be very productive.
You did. You basically claimed that the USSR's failure was not magically making it so that things that rely on the economy being planned would be conserved after its destruction and the liberalisation of the economy, and not magically making it so that the small former colonies would be capable of standing up to NATO without help of large well-equipped militaries (such as those of the USSR and the PRC).
How did the former colonies 'fail'?
What are the 'failures' of the USSR, compared to the PRC?
Calling successful anti-colonial liberation actions - like the one in Vietnam - 'adventurist failures' is obnoxiously silly and ignorant.
Meanwhile, so far, the PRC has not helped the rest of the world as much as the USSR did.
Again, this is extremely silly. You are claiming that the enemies of the USSR partially dismantling the USSR's achievements is somehow a fault of the USSR, while the PRC - under its current economy - can't reach the same achievements at all.
The PRC has nothing to show in this regard. This is literally happening contemporaneously with today's PRC.
'Destroyed so easily' is when you successfully fight off the Lebensraum and exist for decades afterwards while the world's hegemon actively tries to destroy you.
The PRC has already significantly liberalised its economy, and you don't exactly have any ground to speak about the USSR being 'easily destroyed' until the PRC restores planned economy and/or starts helping the rest of the world dismantle colonialism. So far, the PRC has not only not matched the achievements of the USSR, but has also actively aided NATO.