Image is from this article, showing a march by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela Youth. The preamble's information came from a few sources, such as here, here, and here.
Over the last few weeks, pressure on Venezuela from the US has mounted as their newest proxy, Gonzalez, lost the election to Maduro. The Trump administration now alleges that Maduro is the mastermind behind the "Cartel of Suns," raised the bounty on Maduro's head from $25 million to $50 million, and is working to deploy troops and naval assets to the region.
While I would not consider myself an expert, I believe an explicit boots-on-the-ground campaign by the US in Venezuela would be, at best, implausible, though the administration has not explicitly denied it (and even if it did deny it, denials by the US are merely confirmations that are being delayed). What seems much more likely is an intensification of a subversive campaign against Venezuela which seeks to further isolate it, with intelligence from the US given to whatever groups and individuals exist inside the country. There are certainly some parallels in regard to recent US belligerence towards Mexico, with both countries being implicitly or explicitly threatened with military force under the guise of "preventing drug trafficking" - and, of course, spreading drugs is one of America's greatest specialities.
Will this work? I don't know, though I am optimistic about Venezuela's chances. The Venezuelan government does seem to be taking this threat with a refreshing degree of seriousness - with over 4 million militia members being activated across the country as of August 18th, as well as a call from Maduro to the armed forces to be on high alert. The socialist youth of Venezuela are being mobilized in defense of the revolution.
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Israel's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
Why do US Border Patrol need to train in mortar firing?
https://www.dvidshub.net/image/9274238/soldiers-international-forces-train-mortar-live-fire-during-arctic-edge-25
I keep thinking about something Christman (I think) said on chapo, that Americans will happily see a million corpses stacked on the southern border to preserve Applebee's and The Cheesecake Factory (paraphrased).
I truly wonder if the majority of Americans will even blink when people are being blown apart with artillery for the crime of seeking a better life
They already don’t care that migrants die from heat exhaustion or thirst or that the border patrol shoots them or puts them in cages, I don’t think changing the brutality delivery method to mortars will move the sympathy needle at all
They'll blink; Cry, even.
They'd vote right f*cking now if they could.
the preparations for warfare on the southern border have been going a bit slower and less flashily than the other theaters but regime change and pushing the militarized border south is a clear goal of the empire. Border patrol will be deployed to places they'll be taking fire and casualties to preserve the proper troops
What does this mean for someone living near the southern border
who knows? the US planners are evidently so far up their own asses they think BP can be stormtroopers, it's unclear how uncalibrated their expectations and ambitions are
OK, so a good opportunity to liberate the city and be a part of mexico again. Sounds good
Protracted Peoples War is universally applicable.
Some prime opportunities for sabotage
I was questioning mostly rhetorically but yeah. They're training because they intend to need it.
spec ops: the line
underrated comment
Given that it's in Alaska, I think this is more about training for defence in case Russia does anything irrational and invades Alaska Battlefield Bad Company style. Russia's strategy at the beginning of the Ukraine war was to try take over airports, civilian or military, to use as a forward operating base (Hostomel Airport), some border patrol agents at airports with motar training could make a difference if any paratroopers get on the ground and the national guard can't manage. There's been a lot of research into that initial invasion plan, what Russia tried, what their goal were. On the inverse, it's also why Russia wanted to limit Ukraine to something around 10 attack helicopters and no rockets, missiles or artillery with a range over 50km in the Istanbul peace deal in 2022. Attack helicopters and rocket artillery would've made light work of the unprotected Russian armoured column to Kiev (which already suffered heavy damage to Ukrainian artillery as is). More concerning for the border with Mexico would be drone strikes and the like, if CBP drones start showing up with hardpoints for weapons. The P-8A Poseidons, while manned aircraft and not drones, recently spotted armed with LRASMs (the black things under the wings) while on patrols for example, that's a very recent and concerning development, but no one really knows about it.
BORTAC regularly operates in foreign countries, fighting relatively heavily armed groups. This isn't anything new for them, they've been militarized for a long time.
They were deployed to Portland in 2020, so even doing bad things domestically isn't new to them.