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.
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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.
Iranian airspace is back open, the first few flights into and over Iran from foreign airlines are trickling in.
Looks like tonight was a big, co-ordinated psyche out/information and probing operation by the United States, with aircraft over Iraq, evacuating military bases of non essential equipment and personnel (which was also apparently paused at some point), contradictory statements from Trump himself, US government officials and "insider sources", reports of the US beginning to move the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier to the Middle East, etc. It's clear that the US knows exactly what the public can see online, and has a good indication of what other nations can see. With Iran having very few pre attack indicators, they closed their airspace out of an abundance of caution once those few indicators (evacuation of US bases and aircraft over Iraq) showed up. Strategic ambiguity at all times is the Trump strategy.
The question now is, what happens next? Does Iran continue to close it's airspace at the first sign of an impending US attack? Is Iran closing it's airspace potentially also probing by Iran, to see how the US would react (Iran could do this just before launching ballistic missiles). Will the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group actually arrive in the next week or two? If so, does the US strike before it arrives, as it arrives, or do they even strike at all?
Some Israeli insider who got the previous Iran strikes right on Polymarket was betting on it occurring by the 31st January this time around.
Don't write it off just yet.
I'm not writing off anything, just commenting on tonight's situation. The US did many such psyche outs with regards to Venezuela.
Still of the opinion that those polymarket options could be bullshit too. Pretty early to make a bet like that even if you've got insider knowledge
While a fake out may potentially have disproportionate costs for Iran, since they stop flying planes in all of their airspace...
Isn't this a poor sign for US hegemony? They have so many resources and so many avenues of intelligence gathering, and they are relying on psyche-outs?
So far this is effective for the US I guess. Internal sabotage, force them to keep internet disconnected, flights grounded, and tariffs on trading partners, potential currency manipulation. No hard strike for Iran to retaliate against though.
Not really, the US did it many times over Venezuela. If you want to see how a nation is going to react when under the threat of attack, the threat has to actually be real, or perceived to be real by said nation at some point. It's also a golden opportunity for intelligence gathering as said nation is forced to reveal their hand, Iran can't bet on there being no incoming attack and let their guard down. Neither could Venezuela, which is why they forward deployed their Buks/SA-17 air defence systems months before, systems that the US meticulously tracked and destroyed months later. They have to actually prepare to defend against an incoming US attack, and the US will be watching that closely.
Also, most institutions are simply not prepared to be fed conflicting information every minute while having little idea of what is actually happening. This can paralyse the decision making of both the USA's allies and enemies, which could be a desirable outcome, for instance the US doesn't want Israel involved, doesnt want Europe to leak information, and doesn't want China and Russia to pass on information to Iran. The US can also observe how they react. Does Israel carry out simulated strikes on Iran? What do European nations do, do they evacuate their embassies and military equipment from the Middle East too? What moves do China and Russia make? Psyops can be very effective.
Is ir possible they struck Natanz with a submarine launched missile or something and we just haven't heard anything.
Would the US keep a strike on the down low or would they boast?
I'd think we'd see Iranian missiles flying towards Qatar if that was the case..
Diplomatically it works to Iran's favour to announce externally that they faced a surprise attacks from the US. Makes their retaliation look like a preemptive strike otherwise.
Clear the airspace will also allow Iran to use best attack indicator HF band strategic radar which can track stealth plane with no problem but have low resolution and hard to read in busy airspace.
I don't think the US has any stealth aircraft in the region right now, just F-15s and A-10s. Venezuela also had these VHF/UHF radars in the P-12/P-18 Spoon Rest series, and more advanced ones like the Chinese JY-27A Wide Mat, I don't know how much early warning they gave Venezuela but it didn't seem like much, if any.
While these VHF/UHF radars could give some advanced warning of an incoming attack, basing a ground controlled intercept strategy around them as the key sensor would require a technological miracle to work against modern stealth jets. The F-35 is not the F-117. But at the same time, this is very different to how China plans to use these VHF/UHF radars. For China, they are just one sensor in a swarm of sensors, China's air defence strategy is very much a "system of systems", with high levels of integration being the goal.
VHF/UHF is completely different properties from HF. Not related.
HF will see stealth and non-stealth the same.
I do not think is a reasonable assumption to make. US was very active in the coast for a long time and attack was very fast and low flying helicopter attack. Very different situation.
Radar probably could see but how to know that it is attack this close?
Definitely JY-27 family is not a primary sensor, is a surveillance radar. Can provide important initial tracking information which will allow other sensor system to find correct sector and vectors.
HF radar is a very different purpose. It is over the horizon strategic radar. The purpose is strategic information. Earliest warning and useful for directing. Can also be satellite-based.
So over the horizon radars that operate below 30Mhz, like Sepehr/Ghadir? Yes that would probably be the best thing Iran has to detect an incoming attack. Israel did destroy a few of them in previous attacks, but Iran should still have some sites functioning.
Interesting page on those, with recordings
Yes this one.
Very interesting page. Choice to not use FMCW is very interesting.
The sounds of these things is very ominous.
While I doubt using a radar like with the Nighthawk would work, especially with NGJ pods, I wonder if IR missiles could work better if coordinated with ground stations, which themselves may even help encourage American aircraft to stay low enough to engage.