Image is of military and civilian sites across Caracas which were bombed by the United States as of last weekend.
As everybody has already known for a couple days, the US has abducted Maduro and his wife in a massive operation (of which the exact details are not currently known, but involved hundreds of aircraft and at least some bombing of military and civilian targets), and has threatened Venezuela and the socialist party with further abductions and widespread murder if they do not hand over control of the country directly to the United States. In a statement that really says it all, Trump said that Machado is not being considered for the colonial viceroy position due to her sheer unpopularity. Various parties and countries around the world - and inside the US - have expressed their disapproval, which, as we all know, will not shift US foreign policy a single iota.
A few months ago, when the pressure campaign on Venezuela began, I speculated that Maduro was going to be killed or captured eventually. Flagrantly illegal and violent American military campaigns in Latin America are not new. The US has been invading land, looting banks, assassinating democratically elected leaders, and otherwise overthrowing countries in the region for their own economic benefit for the better part of two centuries, under both Democratic and Republican parties. Unfortunately, we all know that Russia and China are unlikely to do anything meaningful to contest the US in their attempt to more violently assert hegemony in Latin America. I doubt very much that the China of today will come out to bat for Venezuela and start meaningfully pressuring the US economically. For better and worse, we are far from the days of the USSR.
However, Latin America has, historically, met the US in its radicalism, committed to wars of anti-colonial nationalism, and carried out successful revolutions against the dictators placed in control from the US. As history continues ever onwards and conditions develop, I can only assume that we shall once again enter that radicalizing cycle. In that vein, the big question on my mind, and everybody else’s, is: what comes next? Does the Venezuelan socialist party have the social and military cohesion to wage a years-long guerilla war against occupying troops? Can they quickly transition from a conventional to guerilla force as their military facilities are bombed, or will it take several years? Can they prevent the theft of their oil resources and make the attempt at foreign occupation more costly in both the manpower and economic costs than what that war will generate? Can Venezuela manufacture weapons for this guerilla war in a state of blockade? Will this military campaign begin immediately upon soldiers landing, or will it take a period of relatively unopposed occupation of months or even years? Will Cuba, Colombia, and even Mexico be in the same situation by the end of the year, with abducted leaders?
Yemen is the very recent proof that seemingly weak countries can force the American military to retreat in defeat. Can Venezuela follow? We shall see what Maduro has done to prepare the country for this war very soon. The only certain thing is that the murderous violence propagated by a trembling and dying empire shall be defeated eventually, whether it takes months, years, or decades, and the end result will be a socialist victory.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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 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.
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.
There’s been a lot of talk online about “mass US military movements to the Middle East”. The truth is there is no evidence for that, the only movements that have taken place so far to the Middle East has been a rotation of F-15E Strike Eagles. There has been no mass movement of US military assets to the Middle East, it has not happened.
As for movements eastward but not to the Middle East, elements of 160th SOAR (1 MH-47G and 5 MH-60M, the same helicopter unit that captured Maduro from Venezuela) have been forward deployed to the UK, but haven’t left the UK. A handful of mid air refueling tankers have been pre positioned but that’s it.
There have been no other movements of combat aircraft. Anyone saying anything else is either lying, reposting AI slop, or reposting clickbait.
As for a US strike on Iran, given US Air Force (USAF) global strike capabilities, the US doesn’t need to use any forward deployed assets to hit hundreds of targets in Iran if they desire to do so quickly, within the next few days. Flights of B-1B, B-52 and/or B-2 bombers and accompanying mid air refueling tankers could fly out of their bases in the continental USA, launch AGM-158 JASSM-ER cruise missiles, and fly back. The JASSM-ER is a stealth cruise missile with a range of over 500 nautical miles (575mi/925km), the bombers wouldn’t need to enter Iranian airspace and it would be very difficult for Iran to shoot down JASSMs. A B-1B can be armed with up to 24 JASSM-ER, a B-52 up to 20, a B-2 up to 16, an F-15E up to 5. You can do the math, a dozen or more bombers can hit hundreds of targets.
Aside from the USAF, SSGNs (guided missile submarines) of the US Navy could also be near Iran and can’t be tracked by us. An Ohio class SSGN can be loaded with up to 154 BGM-109 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles.
What I’m saying is that’s it’s unlikely, but very much possible, that the US could launch strikes with minimal/no military build-up.
AGM-158 likely can be shot down by modern infrared missile not too difficult. Iran do not have enough plane and I do not think that air defense system can handle large number and I think it is older generation which AGM-158 is designed to counter. Answer to AGM-158 is modern IR terminal guidance.
I saw some of that circulating around and was waiting to see the marmite jar take on if it was bogus or not. Thank you comrade.
Your input is so valuable, thanks a lot for the work comrade.
the build ups we’ve seen recently are just deterrent, in retrospect. Sure, it gives the generals some extra options, but the bulk of the forces are just there to keep the victims from fighting back.
It depends, the “speed” of the months long US military buildups last year (Iran and Venezuela), a lot of that was dictated by political signalling towards negotiations and things like that, then intelligence gathering. The US can move a lot faster if it wants to. For instance, look at F-22 movements. The US only flew out the F-22s a few days, if that, before striking Iran, and a few hours before striking Venezuela. But they did have to deploy the F-22s, no signs of that yet.
As for flying into and conducting combat operations inside another country’s airspace with double digit SA systems for air defence, the US is always going to deploy F-35s and EA-18Gs with the NGJ pods to suppress that air defence network. They did it to Yemen, Iran and Venezuela last year. With Yemen the US initially underestimated them and didn’t deploy that in the beginning, they had to bring it in later. And if that country has any air force to speak of, the US will deploy F-22s. Those aircraft in particular are needed because of the capabilities they offer. If the US plans to enter Iranian airspace, they’ll use them.
You put it into words better than I ever could! I think it shows the utility of the less effective systems like the A-10 and B-52 in diplomatic signalling, too.