One year on. Hundreds of thousands are dying or dead, millions are displaced, the Middle East is undergoing its greatest changes in a generation, Iran has directly attacked Israel twice in one year, and Yemen has proven that the US Navy ain't worth shit. We are the closest we have been to nuclear war (discounting accidents) in decades, but also the fall of Israel.
Because one day, the prisoners of a concentration camp paraglided over a wall.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
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 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.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
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.
This tells us two things. Israel is likely to attack Iran soon, and the iron dome can do jack shit against Iran missiles (also they might be out of interceptors)
https://nitter.poast.org/IsraelRadar_com/status/1845154626884280656
It is a kenetic weapon with a speed of Mach 8+ that can theoretically intercept hypersonics. And it's good for hitting targets "dropped by parachute from a C-17"
Imagine a few $5k-$10k drones knocking out a billion dollar interceptor array.
THAAD is the USA's version of Arrow-2, it aims to intercept ballistic missiles on re-entry in the terminal phase of flight. This probably means Israel's stocks of Arrow-2 have been depleted by the Iranian responses in April and a few weeks ago. Iron Dome does not intercept ballistic missiles, Israel uses Arrow-3 (aims to intercept ballistic missiles in space), Arrow-2, and David's Sling (Israel's version of the Patriot SAM system) to intercept ballistic missiles.
The US has 7 THAAD systems in the entire world and they cost, at this point, probably north of $1B each. Each system has 6 launcher vehicles carrying 8 missiles each, a radar unit, and a fire control unit. If the US were to deploy all of them to Israel, it would be a total of 338 interceptors. The UAE has an additional 2 systems that are operational.
Unless iran stored all their missiles in one place, i don't see how 50 interceptors will help if they retaliate (harden your heart irgc)
336 interceptors if we are assuming the US sends all of its THAAD batteries. It would be enough for one Iranian missile attack. After that, the US would either have to "borrow" the UAE's 2 batteries or get them involved, which would likely mean direct Resistance retaliation on the UAE, or they divert 7 the batteries that they are making for the Saudis to Israel, which aren't even scheduled to be completed for another 2-3 years. That scenario would likely worsen the chances of the Abraham Accords being signed anytime soon.
Or they could just reload with fresh interceptors?
Lockheed Martin has produced ~800 THAAD interceptors to date. That's less than enough for two full uses of the current US and UAE batteries (9 batteries x 6 launchers per battery x 8 missiles per launcher = 432 interceptors). An eigth US battery is supposed to be delivered next year, and then 7 for the Saudis in the next 2-3 years. Lockheed only has the capability to make 8 missiles per month and they cost tens of millions each. This situation could easily outpace production very quickly, and that's without factoring in the potential destruction of any of these launchers or their radar or fire control systems.
perhaps the reason the US are committing such a limited resource and such an untested defence system, are so they can see how it performs in real-world combat scenarios. maybe this is less about effectively protecting israel, and more about getting data out of an Iranian missile counterattack they view as inevitable and too large to defend against.
Dear [insert preferred deity], please let these batteries be denazified by the resistance.
Nothing can do that much against a barrage of ballistic missiles, let alone hypersonic cruise missiles or missiles that have a built in course correction that deviates from the measurable parabolic trajectory.
More wunderwaffen to get blown up spectacularly I welcome it
So they're not even going to bother to defend the oil fields around West Asia, am I understanding this correctly?