Israel trying to pass the hospital bombing off as Palestine doing it is utterly disgusting and guarantees Netanyahu a spot in the deepest pit of Hell for all eternity, obviously, but do not forget that
a) the only reason why Westerners will believe it is because they want to believe it - they are not being brainwashed and this is not some masterful propaganda being weaved around us to turn kind-hearted people into monsters,
b) no Westerner opinions matter at all. In most Western countries there is no real anti-Israel option to vote for even if they did realize that Israel was a giant factory for crimes against humanity, and Westerners protesting against things in general almost never achieves anything (tens of millions protested for BLM in 2020 and not only did the situation not change, it got worse), and
c) the people whose opinions do matter (both the people in the region, and the leaders who aren't already Zionist compradors) already know that Israel is full of shit and that they just murdered nearly a thousand civilians in a single bomb attack.
It is despair-inducing to think that the genocidal Zionist entity is so brazenly, so smugly getting away with bullshitting this away into a cloud of confusion, as they release their metaphorical squid ink just like they did with the stupid babies story, but the propaganda and the media narrative that they are creating isn't what matters. It cannot address the fundamental contradictions ripping the country, the region, and the world apart any more than masterfully-applied makeup can fix a stab wound. It can merely obfuscate.
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
The Country of the Week is still Palestine! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
The weekly update isn't coming because I'm sick and too focussed on the collapse of the Zionist entity.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
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.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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
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.
Last week's discussion post.
How viable is it for the US to hire mercenary forces if shit goes down?
Not very viable, in old times there were many independent mercenary armies just moving from place to place until they could be hired, nowdays mercenaries are just exmembers of a countries armies that only operate inside their country of origin and end up being just an unoficial brand of the military.
So the US with PMCs its just as strong as the current US, most PMCs are just militarized police so they could be used during a civil conflict
i can't believe they killed my roving landsknecht bands
but actually what happened is the 'mercenary' mode of military organization from the early modern period was maintained until the French Revolution, with varying levels of state monopoly/enclosement. signing up to a regiment in a 'national' army of 1778 was nearly identical to signing a condotta, the mercenary companies were just on permanent retainer to an monarch/government. the soldatenhandel of the Holy Roman Empire (most famous/known for the Hessian regiments in the american war of independence) were when the regimental contracts were temporarily exchanged between states for sums of money.
after the French reinvented the military levy the system was mostly destroyed even when europe returned to permanent professional armies, because trusting aristocrats and 'military entrepreneurs' with the training, equipment, maintenance of units on a decentralized basis was actually very wasteful and made for ineffective armies
i think you're right, the heart of the new 'mercenaries' is about states wanting 'unoffical' paramilitaries to do shady shit, not much of a return of the old trade. oh my god i think they might technically even be public private partnerships.
what's funny is that all these forms except the original condottieri sucked. when there was actually competition between and for condotta companies, there was pressure for them to be good, and the commanders needed to be talented at finance, politics, and military matters---when they were monopolized these positive aspects mostly disappeared, but all the opportunities for waste remained. modern PMCs replicate this and are quite incompetent, but i think that's a trade that ultimately doesn't matter to the neoliberal states who just want disposable disavowable bodies to throw at things
Also diverting public money in to private hands, can't forget that part.
I wonder when mercenaries changed from being outsourced military from wherever to being associated with a single country. It's hard to imagine Blackwater switching to Russian operations if the price was right, like Swiss mercenaries of yore
mid-late 1600s. there were earlier attempts that didn't really stick. Landsknechts and the Reislaufer were both supposed to be inexorably bound to states, but it sort of fell through. the Swiss were made a protectorate and the French the sole client of mercenary companies under the Perpetual Peace after Marignano in 1515. this didn't quite end swiss mercenaries in other country's service though. also the Reislaufer were, in the first place "official" formations of the swiss confederacy, the actual militia formations of the cantons, that occasionally decided to lease themselves--but because they weren't really employed by the cantons on a professional basis it's kind of weird, and they'd often find themselves on both sides of a war. Landskneckts were formed as the Holy Roman-exclusive version of the Swiss, and not supposed to take contracts with other countries, the imitation was too good (and Maximillian's pockets too empty) for this to last---they were signing up with the French very soon
usually the transition is pegged to the end of the 30 year's war, but the antecedents are a bit earlier. both the Spanish and French were flush enough with cash to maintain mercenary contracts on a fairly permanent basis in the 15th-16th centuries, for elements of their forces, while still utilizing temporary contractors for individual campaigns. the nucleus of the Gendarmerie (not the police) and Tercios were organized on that pattern. the "transition" is when nearly everyone had switched the vast majority of their forces to the permanent contracts, but still through the 1700s german states were practicing a bit of mercenarism, probably until quite near when the kind napoloeone buounaparti put that state out of it's misery
20th century mercenaries were, afaik, almost entirely ex-Nazis of various kinds sent to various colonial possessions to do war crimes on behalf of NATOstan. Since they were mercenaries folks at home mostly didn't give a shit if they died. There was also a degree of separation between the nations (or companies in a lot of cases) employing them and the mercenaries, so the crimes against humanity could be blamed on the mercs instead of landing on the nation or company itself.
In combat PMCs are generally worse than conventional US troops.
Also, they can't actually do anything useful. As we've seen in Ukraine massed artillery is still a defining factor in warfare. US PMCs mostly do police and death squad shit, they don't have tens of thousands of artillery pieces lying around.