Image is of a protest in San Diego against ICE.
On January 7th, 37-year-old Renee Good was murdered by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. While a considerable amount of the discussion online has been about the direction her wheels were turning and things like that, truthfully, I think it's just fundamentally bad to shoot a person to death with a gun if you happen to be a state mercenary enforcing an incredibly racist federal policy, regardless of the circumstances.
The murder has since prompted a wave of vigils and protests, not only in Minneapolis, but also in virtually every major city in the country. The demands are justice for Good in particular, and the abolition of ICE in general, to avenge its many victims. The Trump administration has done all they can to inflame the situation, designating Good a "domestic terrorist" and saying that the agent who shot her will be immune from prosecution.
Protests and resistance to this administration's policies have, encouragingly, had an element of international solidarity - not only are flags from countries throughout Latin America (and also Palestine) present, but speakers in protests have even been actively condemning the recent imperialist actions against Venezuela. For it is, of course, one joint struggle. The imperial boomerang always returns - and in the modern day, it returns rapidly.
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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
So is Iran gonna stand alone in this or will it receive help in any shape or form from others?
China will send a strongly worded message
I'll doubt it'll even be strongly worded
We urge all parties involved to abide by the United Nations charter and uphold the principles of international law
China will send a mildly concerned letter
If China is smart they will be working behind the scenes diplomatically, at the bare minimum. Keep an eye on how Pakistan reacts to this.
Pakistan has good relations with Iran, they won't be happy to see an attack but unless they're willing to officially extend their nuclear umbrella and alienate the US I don't see what they will be able to do about it
It was rumoured that Pakistan extended their nuclear umbrella to Iran, in the event of a nuclear strike, in the 12 day war.
Pakistan also knows that they're probably next after Iran. Mossad + India already tried to denuclearize them during that brief conflict.
As far as I know:
This was a joint collaborative effort by Iran and Pakistan, where they scratched each other's backs. Notice how neither ever escalated or got mad about it. Both used each other to deal with problematic populations without legal issues. This is actually proof of how close they are, and their collaboration.
There's nothing stopping a nation from being friendly with multiple countries at once.
Not in government. Every nation has racists, this is completely irrelevant
"There are some racist Persian factions that despise Pakistanis for being browner compared to Aryan lineage, idk. Maybe I read too much twitter."
I think we've all seen the Iranian diaspora's Israel flags and rabid disavowing of being Arab. It may be true, but they hardly need to react like a white supremacist being called black.
The circumstances of that bombing are allegedly about the Balochi seperatism. They both bombed Balochis in each other's borders, and everything was over within 48 hours.
Given that Iran also did strikes in Syria and Iraq, I believe there was a scheme that Iran had to urgently put down - that the public still doesn't know about.
Can you expand on what you mean by that? I have seen some horrible memes (for the slop section on hexbear maybe) about some Pro-Protest account about supporting to "erase all Sunnis" (Pelavi was not radical enough), become Zhoroastrian again, and stop "worshiping Arabs (and their religion)".
Also I knew an Afghan personally who told me he was treated badly for racist reasons in Teheran.
Pro-protester saying to erase Sunnis is a strange one. I think that's an Israeli op - they do try to put a wedge between Iranians and Arabs.
If anything, I hear pro-Pahlavi ex-muslim Iranians taking the Sunni line and calling Shiism an Iranian made up version of Islam.
If an anti-iran gov person says something Islamophobic, it's against all Muslims.
If they say something racist - it coincides with American racism, but carves an exception for Iranians (except Arabs). So Afghans, Arabs, and others are treated as lower.
Yes Afghans are treated terribly. I am 2-hop away from an Iranian doctor who non-consensually removed an Afghan immigrant's uterus. Reminiscent of what white American doctors have been doing to Latin-American immigrants.
What'd be the point of doing this in secret? Iran needs deterrence.
Idk if it was completely secret, only communicated to the appropriate parties, or false.
They also have 2 hostile neighbours and their border with Iran already has a bunch of US-backed militants to contend with.
Not gonna hold my breath but I've been wrong before.
Which countries?
Azerbaijan is hostile to Iran, but their Turkish masters do not want to see Iran balkanized because of the Kurdish issue. Moreover, they are surrounded by Armenia, Russia, and Iran. They only have potentially hostile countries as neighbours if they pick a fight.
Afghanistan won't do anything unless the water issue comes up right now somehow. But they already fought with Pakistan last year, and that adventurism didn't go well for them. It would be a massive risk to collaborate with the US and have a surviving Iran pulverize them.
Iraq won't do anything. They are partially vassalized by Iran.
Turkey is friendly as an intelligence collaborator, despite being a NATO country. Again on the Kurdish issue.
Pakistan, similar to Turkey, in the Balochi issue.
Turkmenistan never does anything geopolitically.
No good definite source, but I heard on a podcast a former US Col. speculating that China had helped Iran black out all the Israeli starlink terminals they’d smuggled into the country. Seems plausible, but I don’t have confirmation to offer either.
Iran has as many engineers as the US despite the population disparity. I'm sure they could've figured it out themselves.
Possible, but that's well within the capabilities of the Iranian state to develop this technology on their own
Not saying they dont have the capability—I just mentioned it because the commentator seemed confident that China had provided assistance (they have been on a starlight tear recently) as an example that China and Russia had stronger location/geopolitical interests in Iran compared to Venezuela.
My understanding is that you can basically black out Starlink by jamming GPS, and that tech has been around for decades. I'm not an engineer, though.
There's also a one click "fix" in the application to make Starlink use Starlink satellites to determine the position of the receiver, and not GPS. How well does this "fix" work, is unclear. But it is a setting that can be enabled. Iranians who own Starlink are probably not enabling it because they don't know about it, and can't find out because the internet is down. Mossad/CIA have their own lines of communication not available to civilians.
It was funny to see them share the tips on how to re-enable StarLink internet in Iran - over the internet on Twitter.
They are clearly quite desperate to get the word out. Not a good sign for them.
Why is this option not enabled by default instead of the old GPS? I assume the starlink positioning system is harder to jam than GPS? For me this indicates this fix does not work well.
If
You already know the answer.
Most likely the former.
Well they would have had allies if they acted sooner, but now they are alone
It's tough, Iran has to balance:
Waiting for the Israeli strikes last time did a number on Iran. But it also established to Iran's neighbours that Iran is not the rogue nation here, that they are interested in the stability of the region, and that Israel is not.
Less valuably, the people of the world also saw this fact. Whereas, had Iran attacked first - it would've been used to further delegitamize Iran's position, it would have alienated China and Iran's neighbours, and it would have been used to delegitamize the Palestinian resistance.
Iran at the very least relies on China, Russia, and India for parts, food, electronics and other staples of the economy.
What does any of that matter if all the neighboring nations don't aid Iran and abide by anti-Iran sanctions, despite having a "better opinion" of Iran? Israel just did a genocide in front of the world. What did any of that diplomacy and good faith building achieve them? Very little it seems.
At the very least Russia and China did consider the sanctions null
Yet China continues to divest and wipe their hands of Iran, and refuses to divest from Israel and America
Russia for one is still trading.
China reduced investments, but still bought oil.
Time will tell what China and India do in response to the 25% tariff threat.
Russia, Venezuela, North Korea would be unscathed by the tariff threat.
Bad opinion means they join in on fighting Iran in a coalition.
Because Iran would be considered an irrarional and violent threat.
Don't think the gulf states would risk it, as they are extremely vulnerable economically. They will remain "neutral" while aiding America and Israel in every way possible short of actually fighting Iran, thus removing the trump card Iran has of blowing up gulf state infrastructure. A world where Saudi Arabia and Iran are friendly but not allies is actually more dangerous for Iran, as they no longer have any meaningful way to retaliate in the value exchange
This is more of a counterpoint to my own statements, but the Persian Gulf states did participate in early warning and tracking of the Iranian response.
There's also the fact that all these gulf states don't actually have real effective militaries so there's no real point of them "joining the anti-Iran coalition". They have groups of ganjaweed jihadist light infantry that they move around from country to country, but this is not an actual military that could mount an invasion of Iran. These groups can't defeat Ansarallah, let alone Iran itself. Any time they are given helicopters or tanks they end up crashing them or getting them stolen.
They would let the US/Israel use their airspace to make attacks, shoot down retaliatory missiles and do recon. They will let the US/Israel use their airports and seaports for logistics and recon. Jordan and Qatar were doing this during the last altercation.
I do think the other points like Iran's domestic politics and the Israeli strategy are stronger.
Iran has a very tough economy, starting conflict won't go over well. Even being attacked, quite a number in Iran blame Iran.
And Iran needs to not help Israel bait the US into doing their dirty work.
The US was always going to join in on an existential war for Israel if Israel felt threatened. There's no way to not "bait" the US to joining, they will join no matter how you approach it.
Iran and the axis said for years their reason for existence is to destroy the entity. Then the moment comes where that might seem possible, and they balk for their own protection (which allows the US/Israel to then pick apart the axis piece-by-piece because they aren't coordinated and acting in solidarity, all looking out for their own self-preservation).
What was the point of all this if you weren't going to attempt to destroy Israel? Just become a libshit American vassal then to draw less of Sauron's ire if that's all they care about.
Just become a libshit American vassal then to draw less of The Great Satan's ire if that's all they care about.
That's not guaranteed to help. I mean look at Denmark's, we fought for you in Iraq. And now you are going to take from us the majority of our territory I'm the from of Greenland?
Iran has been trying to de-escalate for a long time. Israeli-backed US politicians prevent it - despite US oil lobbyists fighting the Israeli faction.
Dick Cheney had a lot of trouble during his election for the pro-Iran statements he made as a US oil executive - all due to Israeli influence.
Denmark ain't gonna get bombed, nor are their scientists routinely assassinated. It's all theater, nobody is gonna hurt Denmark at all. If US takes Greenland it will be 100% bloodless and done via a political process. US military already has bases in Greenland and its total population is like 50k, they basically already de facto control it. All it would require is for those troops to move a block and swap the flags out at the capital.
Yes and it doesn't work because America and Israel will never accept a sovereign government that they don't control.
The last shred of political legitimacy of the government and all the sacrifices they've made so far would go out the window if they drop Palestine at any point. Including now.
All they have left is self-interest and self-preservation.
The Iran-Iraq war was a critical juncture for curbing both Saddam and Iran's anti-Israel ambitions.
Iran's strategy is to hold out for a time when the US won't step in for Israel if it becomes existential. That's why many years ago they set the clock until the end of Israel at 2040.
I agree, and it's starting to look like they missed their best window to liberate Palestine. Likely because of the reformist civil government and president meddling.
The why was Soleimani negotiating a rapprochement with Saudi Arabia right before he was killed?
The Iranian failure to protect its axis of resistance is associated with the loss of Soleimani's leadership.
Saudi Arabia will send a strongly worded message