Image is of a destroyed American AWACS plane in Saudi Arabia, of which there is a very limited supply and each of which is enormously expensive both monetarily and in terms of components. Iran hit this with a precision drone strike that likely cost ~$20,000.
I don't have much to add from the last megathread description. This isn't to say that nothing has happened or has changed since then - decades are still happening in weeks - but the general flow of the war is remaining the same. Trump sometimes threatens to open the Strait with troops and flatten Iran to rubble, and other times threatens that he's gonna back off and let other countries handle it if they really want little trifles like "fuel" and "energy" so much. Iran continues to strike across the Middle East. The West continues to bomb civilian infrastructure due to their relative inability to affect the missile cities. In all: things are generally getting worse for America and the Zionists.
April is the month where the last ships that left Hormuz before it was closed will arrive around the world, so the last month of economic turmoil has been a mere prelude to what's going to occur in the near-future. The silver lining is that Iran appears to be formalizing the new state of affairs in Hormuz, creating a rial-based toll to allow passage between a pair of Iranian-controlled islands where they can be monitored, meaning that, as long as the US doesn't do something exceptionally stupid, the global energy crisis may "only" last a couple years instead of simply being the new reality from now on. Some countries have already agreed to this arrangement, and others will inevitably follow despite their consternation as their economies increasingly suffer.
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 the Zionists' 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.
Orinoco Tribune - The Weight on Delcy Rodriguez
Pushes back on US narrative about Venezuela, talks about popular support and commune development
great article, thanks
@Damarcusart@hexbear.net commented something last thread that really stuck with me, that (especially western) leftists' demands that this or that nation throw themselves into the meat grinder against empire really starts seeming like western libs' "fight to the last Ukrainian" shit at a certain point
This is another great part, there's a persistent pattern that unfolds where non-imperial-core countries will openly lay out exactly what their plans and intentions are, and then everyone in the West will completely ignore any such official statements and spend months conspiracy-theorizing about what's actually going on. We see this with China, with Russia, now with Iran, and it happened with Venezuela, where apparently no-one cares to read what the actual Venezuelan government says and instead immediately jumps to psycho-analyzing how this or that action totally means they've been subverted. Maduro was apparently betrayed so that the traitor government can, uh... pass his own legislation?
the disparaging of Rodriguez in several circles has been deeply frustrating and is yet another one of those indicators that a lot of people on the anti-US side have good military analysis have poor political analysis
since at least last year, I've held that 1) Latin America is likely going to be the last region that the US frontier returns through, 2) China and Russia can do relatively little to help militarily, and 3) military development in the vein of what we've seen in the Middle East (tons of drones, missiles, and underground facilities) has, for reasons I confess to not understanding (lack of impetus due to relative military peace for decades?), not really occurred in the region. in these circumstances, it makes a ton of sense for Latin American socialism to batten down the hatches, negotiate with the US and make certain concessions even if you know that it could just be a setup for invasion, and just try and survive a decade or two longer
if, and only if, peace with the US is impossible - they're making demands you cannot fulfil or would be synonymous with the end of the socialist project, or they just outright start bombing and invading you - then you can start considering waging urban and rural guerrilla warfare. but as I noted in the megathread I made when Maduro was captured, you can't just decide "alright, cool, we're doing Vietnam/Nicaragua now" if the conditions aren't right and the national social cohesion isn't in place. there's every possibility that you just get the government overthrown within the week and the civilians don't rise up to form militias and resist but instead decide, very reasonably, that they don't want to die facing US soldiers, or don't want to be bombed from the air by JDAMs for months on end.
maybe living under US occupation is preferable to a million people dying in bombing and starvation if you can keep the revolutionary spirit alive under that occupation and join together and overthrow the compradors at a later date when American imperialism has further decayed. or, indeed, maybe they decide that they are going to fight regardless of the likely massive casualties. at the end of the day, it's up to the people actually living inside Venezuela and Cuba what they decide to be the best course forwards, even if some asshole in Nebraska is posting on their fuckass substack something like "Sandino would be so disappointed..."
I think even with drones and missiles, that still doesn't solve the fundamental problem of being in the empire's "backyard" so to speak. Iran's strike campaign can work because the empire is overstretched in that region, there's a much more limited number of bases and assets to actually strike and they're much more difficult to defend - if you're Venezuela and you're trying to run a missile campaign against the continental United States though, you've got way more than one or two dozen bases to deal with, maybe you could wreck some shit in Florida but your chances of meaningfully degrading the US's capacity to strike you are pretty low (whereas Iran, by driving the US further and further away, forcing their planes to spend more time flying to Iran rather than over it, and rely more and more on aerial refueling, is meaningfully degrading the rate at which they can bomb, and forcing them to spend more and more resources). For countries further south, they could end up in position more comparable to Iran, but Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, they're all simply too close.
More investment in underground facilities would probably be worthwhile though, but few want to swallow the tunnelpill
There is a psychological element to investing heavily into fortifications. It is like preparing for a long hard siege.
Why do you think this is? Is it because they would view it almost as "admitting defeat" that they can no longer sustain a global empire and need to focus solely on the Americas?
Proximity to the US is a major factor, we've already seen how the US is becoming increasingly logistically constrained as the Ramadan War consisted of airlifts rather than sealifts
China, Russia, and Iran will gradually push the US out of Eurasia and the Pacific, leaving Europe and Africa. Africa is gonna be third last IMO because the US will want to hang on to it for the resource potential but the combination of unpayable debt and developmentalism from China seems likely to promote the creation of anti-US and pro-China countries, though several will be dragged kicking and screaming. Europe's fucked in the long term as long as it follows American dictates which creates an incentive to eventually separate in policy and pursue rapprochement with Russia and closer ties with China, though they'll likely be the second last region to go because creating the political will to do so and supplanting the Atlanticist ghouls will take a couple decades. They'll probably collectively end up as a subimperial power like India; not really pro China or pro US, still trying to maximally exploit foreign nations and their people, lots of reactionary sentiment.
I suspect the drug cartels have really advanced tactics and modern drone equipment. But not rockets (yet). Meanwhile the nations military suffers from corruption and infiltration by cartels.
I think the same analytical failure is related to those constantly hoping China will hit the communism button: the international contradictions are primary for all imperialized countries and have to be understood as antagonistic without a way to just directly fight against them (without complete loss, like the US bombing and killing everyone).
The beginning paragraphs: "As I was leaving the University of the Communes in Tocuyito, after a joyful and uplifting visit, an earnest young professor came up to me and pulled me aside. Very quietly, he asked me what was going to happen. A number of the students were terrified there would be regime change and they, picked as young socialist leaders in the commune movement, would be imprisoned, tortured and executed.
It was a sharp reality check after a great day at this fledgling university. But it is very real. I had met sober and professional diplomats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who knew exactly which part of the mountains they would flee to with assault rifles in the event of the right coming to power, and were resigned to a life of guerilla warfare, including partners and children. I have met nobody who doubts that a change of regime in Caracas would lead to immediate mass killings of leftists, and a lengthy civil war."
It has been disappointing to see how quickly people with nothing to lose on this website decided to pronounce Chavismo as dead. I hope you'll all be volunteering to go fight in the protracted guerilla warfare that will happen if regime change finally comes
Politics is actually a series of football matches where we pick sides and cheer while criticizing players for not living up to Hollywood narratives.
🫠~___~
It's so hard to find detailed information about Venezuela when the English search results are flooded with Trump admin stenography. If anyone has more stuff like this, please share. If it's in Spanish I can machine translate it. Long-form is especially appreciated, if beggars can be choosers
Orinoco tribune and Telesur English are my current go-tos as a non-Spanish speaker, I also like Chris Gilbert's blog, he's a Venezuelan professor who travels around the country visiting communes and writing about their developments in communism.
Edit: also Cuba's Prensa Latina has an English language site but it seems to be broken? The main spanish language site works but the English language one doesn't :/