Image is a map of the Western Sahara, sourced from this article in the Middle East Eye. Much of the information in the preamble also came from there, as well as this article.
November 6th marked the 50th anniversary of Morocco, under King Hassan II, beginning the invasion and occupation of much of the territory of the Western Sahara. Today, approximately 80% of the territory of the Western Sahara is controlled by Morocco, with the Polisario Front - the government of the Sahrawis - controlling the rest, hugging the border of Mauritania. Between them lies one of the longest walls and one of the largest minefields on the planet, of which construction began in the 1980s.
The legitimacy of Morocco's control over the Western Sahara is one of those long-lasting diplomatic issues which ultimately doesn't seem to matter very much in terms of on-the-ground realities, and reveals the eternal uselessness of the United Nations especially in regard to actually helping oppressed people. Up until about 2020, the US and certain other Western countries did not formally recognize Morocco as having sovereignty over the whole territory, but in terms of providing genuine opposition to Morocco, it seems that Algeria is the major player in the region. While American, European, and Moroccan corporations exploit the fisheries and phosphate minerals of the region, protected by their minefields (and claims of merely advancing the cause of renewable energy development, AKA greenwashing), Algeria provides what aid they can to support the displaced Sahrawi people, many of whom have been forced to live in refugee camps.
On October 31st, the US put forward a resolution in the UN Security Council which was adopted (Russia and China abstained) and provided major support to Morocco, urging the Polisario Front to adopt the 2007 "autonomy plan", which would, despite its name, be synonymous with an end to their independence movement. Such a plan was met with much jubilation in Morocco, with King Mohammed VI remarking "From now on, there will be a before and an after October 31, 2025.” Such a date was also the catalyst for the PF intensifying their guerilla struggle against Morocco, as legal avenues for autonomy and basic human rights are running out as the imperialists grow more desperate.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity'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.
Looks like Rubio is offering what would internationally be seen as favorable conditions to Russia in exchange for Russia abandoning Venezuela and to focus the US solely on the Venezuela invasion (something that Rubio cares about a lot).
Fuck Marco Rubio. I could see Russia accepting this too.
I had a feeling, based on the comment Zelensky made the other day about "tough choices" wasn't a coincidence and that it was related to the US wanting to shutdown the Ukraine front to focus on Venezuela. I just assumed it was for supply chain reasons, and not that the US wanted to negotiate Russia staying out of Venezuela.
Honestly, if Putin takes this deal, how do any of Russia's alliest every trust them again, short of having them by the balls.
True but did they ever? Were they ever anything more than a non-US arms dealer who would also sometimes go to bat at the UN for you a little if it didn't conflict with their own interests or enrage the US too much? Russia is simply the non-US option when it comes to power blocs, advanced arms sales, security cooperation, etc. If you're out of US graces your options are build your own or buy Chinese or Russian. For a while the Chinese were still catching up on anything beyond small arms actually on offer to other nations and Russian prices were fairly competitive anyways plus Russia was always willing to be a bit more outwardly belligerent on the world stage for you as a customer than China with their non-interventionist policy. And that had to count for something though not a lot when the cards are down as we see lately with Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Gaza, etc.
And this might be part of the plan of the US for the cold war. Where everyone thought confidence in NATO and US was shook by Russia not collapsing in Ukraine, if they can take out all their allies, show that Russia will sell them down the river and China will stand by the side with hands in pockets they can bully a lot of the world into their corner by the virtue that their side is the only one willing to directly stand up for their allies in theory and take blows for them and that will be their selling point as they try to bully countries out of the orbit of Russia/China in the coming resource and markets grab they have planned.
Any last stray muscular impulses of Soviet solidarity seem to be dying or already dead at least in terms of unwillingness to take continued years of pain in Ukraine for others.
Russia must be providing pretty substantial support if this is the case. Skeptical, though
If the Venezuela terms aren't in writing, it could be a situation where Russia says what the US wants to hear and then continues to support Venezuela anyway. Russia has the advantage in Ukraine and so if the deal falls apart because Russia supports Venezuela it will only serve to further demoralize Ukraine before fighting resumes, which still helps Russia.
That would be pretty funny. Shoe on the other foot situation. Russia is one of the only states on planet Earth that knows that the west cannot be negotiated with or trusted (the only others being Hamas, Yemen, and North Korea). They've already been burned by Minsk 1 and 2.
Thankfully we can rely on the EU to torpedo any deal that would be potentially harmful to the Global South in the long run, so we'll never have to worry about Russia falling for any of these.