Bulletins and News Discussion from October 14th to October 20th, 2024 - Paper Tigers
Bulletins and News Discussion from October 14th to October 20th, 2024 - Paper Tigers
Image is a frame taken from this video of Iranian missiles raining down on Israel without interception due to a weak and depleted air defense system after a year of war and genocide.
Mao, 1956:
Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn't. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger.
When we say U.S. imperialism is a paper tiger, we are speaking in terms of strategy. Regarding it as a whole, we must despise it. But regarding each part, we must take it seriously. It has claws and fangs. We have to destroy it piecemeal. For instance, if it has ten fangs, knock off one the first time, and there will be nine left, knock off another, and there will be eight left. When all the fangs are gone, it will still have claws. If we deal with it step by step and in earnest, we will certainly succeed in the end.
Strategically, we must utterly despise U.S. imperialism. Tactically, we must take it seriously. In struggling against it, we must take each battle, each encounter, seriously. At present, the United States is powerful, but when looked at in a broader perspective, as a whole and from a long-term viewpoint, it has no popular support, its policies are disliked by the people, because it oppresses and exploits them. For this reason, the tiger is doomed. Therefore, it is nothing to be afraid of and can be despised. But today the United States still has strength, turning out more than 100 million tons of steel a year and hitting out everywhere. That is why we must continue to wage struggles against it, fight it with all our might and wrest one position after another from it. And that takes time.
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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.
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The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber aircraft that were first photographed in the sub-imperialist UAE over 9 months ago, have carried out their first attacks against Yemen. The bombings have been confirmed by both Western and Yemeni media. The airstrikes were aimed at several underground Ansarallah weapons storage and bunker facilities, with the US claiming five attacks, and Ansarallah claiming 6 attacks in the capital Saana, and 2 attacks in Saada. The use of stealth B-2 bomber aircraft for this mission was overkill for evading Yemeni air defence systems, this has been done to send a message, and the intended recipient is made clear by US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin's statement:
“This was a unique demonstration of the United States’ ability to target facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, hardened or fortified.” Austin said.
In other words: This is a warning shot across the bow towards Iran.
The B-2A Spirit aircraft is the only aircraft in the US fleet that can carry the 30 000+lb (14 000kg) "bunker buster' GBU-57 MOP (Massive Ordinance Penetrator) bomb, with each aircraft being able to carry two of these bombs, or 16 2000lb bunker buster BLU-109 bombs. The GBU-57 is the largest non nuclear bunker buster bomb in the world. Here is a video of the B-2 dropping two of them. The GBU-57 is designed to penetrate over 200ft/60+m of reinforced concrete, and is accurate enough to be daisy chained, with one bomb following the other to target the same area.
BBC News, 17 October 2024: US bombers target underground Houthi weapon sites in Yemen
I hate it here. I hate being complicit in this country's many crimes.
Instead of [stop fueling genocide] they are going to double tripple down on it. Should we call this Gulf War 3.0 at this point now that Americans are directly explicitly involved?
The US is definitely stepping up the rhetoric against Iran, I honestly believe that they would've gone to war against Iran in 2020 if COVID didn't happen. I think Iranian ballistic missile capabilities, as demonstrated by the October 1 retaliation against Israel, have put the US in a tough position where they want to destroy Iran's military capabilities, but also can't with the potential retaliation Iran could deliver. I expect something to happen after the US elections, though I think Israel might try to push for it to happen sooner to try tank the Harris campaign.
I'm comfortable saying that this is a plausible starting for for wwiii.
The existence of this bomb, the US’ eagerness to use it, and Lloyd Austin’s smug face all make me hate America even more than I did before reading this comment. And I was already at my all-time high before.
To further harden your heart, look at the new gigantic "bunker buster" ballistic missile South Korea revealed this month after being exempted from all ballistic missile arms treaties by the Biden Administration in 2021. (How accelerationist has Biden been on foreign affairs?)
https://hexbear.net/comment/5513461
South Korea unveiled this decapitation first strike weapon, designed to take out the bunkers of the DPRK leadership in a first strike, while simultaneously flying drones over Pyongyang. The message was clear.
How accelerationist has Biden been on foreign affairs?
I admit, when our comrade xiaohongshu has been saying this over the last year or two… well didn’t exactly doubt this per se. I just suppose I had a healthy dose of skepticism or just figured Biden (really, the Biden admin) was only a bit worse. But I was wrong. This administration’s policies have really pushed the imperialism to new, bloodthirsty heights. I don’t want to go quite as far to say that Trump is the harm reduction candidate but I at least have to think about it for a minute. I need to fill out one of those meme apology forms.
I will say though, I wonder how much of a bullet the world dodged in 2016 by not having Hillary win. She seems ever bit the ruthless imperialist but even moreso, as well as far more competent than Biden.
Trump is the harm reduction candidate. Even if he deports every immigrant without citizenship and shoots every woman that has an abortion he will cause less death than Biden has.
I don’t want to go quite as far to say that Trump is the harm reduction candidate....
I will 100% say it for you. I've been saying since at least 2020 that if liberals should be grateful that I don't buy their "lesser of two evils + voting for harm reduction" arguments, because if I did I'd be voting for Trump. TBH it was probably true in 2016 also, but it doesn't really matter which election because I'm never voting for one of the uni-party factions again (and haven't as far as the presidency is concerned since before 2000).
It's past time that the UAE gets a direct response from the Resistance.
Honestly really dislike that fake country. They are arming genocidal groups in Sudan, they allow the US to host their aircraft and conduct bombing campaigns, just the most modern example of how bad sub-imperialism is.
Mark Ames has repeatedly described the UAE as Venetian. Very wealthy, very shrewd. They don't get themselves bloodied. They use their money to have others fight their battles for them. They punch well above their weight in influence.
At some point this crosses the line into hubris though. They are not untouchable. They will get themselves bloodied, and their migrant-slaves will not fight very hard to defend them.
Look if I did the amount of annibale episodes that he did, I’d also be calling countries Venetian (he’s not wrong)
Plus they filmed a love is blind season there, the most damaging example of sub-imperialism
Lol.
South Africa only gets the second and third rate shows like Temptation Island and Tempting Fortune, we are not sub-imperialist enough for love is blind
Honestly that Tempting Fortune show drives me up the wall, it's a bunch of first worlders from the UK and USA acting like hiking 5 miles/8km a day for 18 days, while on rations of rice and beans and camping is the peak of torture. A bunch of them fall for all the temptations spending thousands of dollars of the group's prize pot on massages and chocolate, and destroy the group dynamic.
I have said it before, but that country is a series of arm shipments away from being a South Asian colony.
The GCC counties have supposedly told the US that they will not allowed Israel or US planes/weapons to use their airspace to that tack Iran, out of fear of retribution. I am really hoping that Iran turns around to tell the GCC that letting the US use their airspace to attack any Resistance countries will result in retaliation.
That unfortunately won't happen, as it will undermine any plausible deniability that Iran has with regards to helping arm and collaborate with these resistance groups. If Iran comes out with a statement like that, the US and Israel would see it as an "admission that these groups are Iranian proxies", or some other nonsense.
Among the stated reasons for the last missile attack from Iran was the bombing of Beirut and the killing of Nasrallah and the assassination of Haniyeh. The US and the Israelis already see Ansarallah as Iranian proxies and are acting as if they are. I don't see what Iran saying, "Yemen is another country, along with Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, that we will retaliate against you for if you continue to attack," is going to change.
bomb UAE and only they cry bomb tel aviv both uae and zionists cry
That statement feels targeted specifically at prof mohammad marandi and his comments about the depth and hardness of Iranian nuclear targets
30,000 lb bomb, holy shit. That is a big boom
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: