Image is of Yemen seizing the first ship in its blockade of Israel (the Galaxy Leader) with a helicopter raid.
Alternate title: What If It Was The Bab El-Womandeb And It Was Just For The Ladies?
Ansarallah is a key component of the broader Resistance movement, backed by Iran, and has been a stalwart member in engineering the ongoing collapse of Zionism. It has steadily escalated both its rhetoric and, rarely nowadays, its actions, proving that the mythical "red line" might actually exist in the world after all, after going MIA in both Russia and China. It has been striking first Israel-owned ships heading through the Bab el-Mandeb - the strait that leads into the Red Sea and then to the Suez Canal - and, recently, has demonstrated its promise that any ships that intend to dock in Israel will be attacked. While this is really only half a blockade, the cost of going around Africa is significant, and Western insurance companies really don't like it when their ships get blasted by missiles and drones. Several shipping companies have already stated their intention to alter/stop shipping routes through the Red Sea, trying to prompt the West to find a "solution".
Despite US naval presence in the area, Yemen possesses the ability to strike the oil refining facilities of the Gulf monarchies, leaving the US in a very difficult position. If they attack Yemen, then not only do Western ships risk being attacked directly, but those oil refineries may go up in smoke depending on if they help the West - and global oil prices will skyrocket, in an already declining world economy - and it might cost several Western leaders their leadership positions, including Biden himself. A regional war could ultimately tumble into worldwide chaos.
Equally, however, the US cannot afford to lose Israel. It is the single most important American imperial outpost, perhaps alongside Taiwan. If Zionism is destroyed as a local destabilizing influence, then the Russia-China-Iran axis will find itself in a leadership position over the region. Israeli military losses in Gaza increase every single day as they advance further into the labyrinth death trap under the obligation to show some kind of military victory, with Hamas' strategy of attrition taking its toll. And Hezbollah sits there, having destroyed most of the border infrastructure, silently threatening the obliteration of Israel's infrastructure under the rain of a hundred thousand missiles.
As world attention gradually shifts away from the Gaza genocide, we continue to approach the brink.
The weekly update is here on the website.
Your Tuesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Thursday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Saturday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
The Country of the Week is Yemen! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
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. - 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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
::: spoiler 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.
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.
You don’t have to start a revolution but you need to have a political project, or at least working towards one. This is what worries me the most - they don’t seem to want to take power, and are content with being the perpetual opposition.
On the note of Maoist revolution, remember that during the Long March the vast majority (>90%) of the communists were wiped out and the Chinese Communist Party was down to a few thousand party cadres. But Mao was undeterred, he was obsessed with land reform, and firmly believed in the revolutionary potential that it can ultimately unleash.
The KMT was not in any way militarily inferior and had in fact vastly outnumbered the communists. They lost because they had greatly underestimated Mao’s land reform, and the waves of revolutionary power that it would soon unleash that shook the KMT rank and fil itselfe. The KMT lost on ideological grounds.
It is important to note that history could have easily gone down very differently. This is why Mao is so revered in China: following the Stalinist Comintern or the Trotskyist lines would have been a disaster. Mao synthesized the unique path that led to the victory of Chinese socialism. And it all started with a rag-tag group of party cadres who survived the brutal persecution.
Nobody in the U.S. wants land reform nor political power (not even the actual politicians). They want the treats to be as cheap as they were before, because they have already accepted that they are going to work until they die, deluded themselves into thinking that they will be able to make it, or want to 'be their own boss'.
There is no ideologically socialist plan that doesn't involve us giving up parts of those things. The unions aspect is often the closest we can get because it fulfills part of the third want. But we are well and truly fucked right now here in the imperial core. I wouldn't hold your breath.
You're always on your shit about how stupid Russia and China are, but let me tell you, their leftism and understanding of how to wield political power is miles more developed than ours. But we are in Lenin's era of 'darkest reaction' right now, and I see no victory, ideological or material, in our near future.
There needs to be something that changes the contradictions of society in a way that makes a real synthesis, otherwise we are simply faced with the annihilation of the classes, and a shove back into the feudal economy.
Fair points, but what I am saying is that I have not seen any development on the theory front that is serious about achieving their political aims. It’s not only that they don’t want to change the status quo or take advantage of the crisis of capitalism, it’s like they’re not even trying.
To be clear, I never said that. I simply don’t understand why every time I criticize Russia and China, people always take to it to the extreme thinking that I’m saying Russia and China are weak and useless.
I have made my positions very clear for no less than half a dozen times on this site: Russia and China are making extremely strong plays against Western imperialism, but with one fatal flaw - they are still following the rules set out by the Washington Consensus neoliberals to the letter, as though it is some sacred dogma that cannot be violated.
All their moves (which we have seen throughout this year) have assumed that the United States will play by the same rules it has set for the rest of the world. This is why they can’t win against the West, not because they are incapable. It’s ideological rather than capability.
To put it another way, Russia and China are excellent students who spent their entire lives perfecting their play to defeat their master, only to be surprised when the master turns to them and say: “oh, I see you’re about to beat me now… looks like I’m going to have to change some rules to make sure you CANNOT and will NEVER defeat me!” (cue evil laughs) This is literally what America is doing right now and both Russia and China are fumbling about how to respond to that.
I have come to realize that the greatest weapon of the US empire is really the ideological weapon. Entire generations of neoclassically indoctrinated economists who have studied from American universities have gone back to their respective countries to serve their governments, regurgitating the same flawed dogmatic rules that America taught them, and ones that America never intended to obey itself.
Neolibs are a lot stronger in Russia than in China
The vast majority of economics department in Chinese academia has been filled with neoclassically trained economists. Marxian economists have long been banished to humanities and social science departments.
The question is how do you define someone as a “neoliberal”? Is someone who sees the evil of neoliberalism, wants to defeat and get rid of neoliberalism, but who still blindly follow the rules taught by the neoclassicals and ideologically incapable of transcending their own indoctrination, a “neoliberal”?
I have no doubt that China wants to get away from neoliberalism. My concern is that they are too indoctrinated to see the world from outside a Chicago school neoclassical (and Austrian school) perspective.
(It’s the same with some left wing anti-imperialists I see who think that gold and bitcoin can somehow dethrone/supplant the dollar. Good that you want to de-dollarize, but you are still confined to the same mindset imposed on you by neoclassical theories. All your best efforts are going to go to waste because you have been taught playing a game with the wrong rules purposefully by your teacher)
I don't think China's confined to neoclassical economic theories, it's a huge problem definitely. Some regions lean that way but idk why people act like reform and opening up completely annihilated the Maoist agrarian economy with laissez faire policies instead of allowing communes to participate in the market, and now things like automating planting & harvesting to increase the labor power of workers in the countryside while making sure they receive the returns of increased production are moving in a direction that's far afield from western industrial agriculture (not that there isn't significant overlap or room to improve, like rn they have a burgeoning organic farming movement)
Are you arguing with youtube thumbnails