Image is of a Quds Day march in Bandar Abbas, Iran.
It now seems likely that, very soon, the US and the Zionists will attempt to bomb Iran. Compared to the buildup to the Iraq War, the stated goals of such a move are being kept a little more generalized - some say the point is to overthrow the government for “humanitarian” purposes (others are more honest and want to partition Iran into a dozen powerless statelets). Some people instead say the point is to get rid of the ballistic missile program, which is synonymous with outright surrender, as no matter the deal, bombers would be en route within 10 minutes of the last batch being handed over.
Still others say that the goal is to destroy the Iranian nuclear program, which, as the thread title implies, is now in a bizarre propaganda superposition: it is apparently simultaneously true to the Trump administration that the US obliterated the nuclear facilities and set back Iran’s nuclear program years, if not decades, but also that Iran is mere days away from finishing a nuke and a new round of bombing is urgently required. This obviously casts newfound doubts on how effective US weapons even are at penetrating Iran’s underground facilities (though it doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t breach them, as Iran was almost certainly moving nuclear material out of Fordow and other sites in the days before the Twelve Day War). The sheer quantity of US anti-air defense equipment they’re shifting into position also casts doubts on whether Iran’s air defense was mostly destroyed during that conflict, as those who assert that the Zionists had total air supremacy over Iran seem to be implying.
I’m not a military guy, and so I have no novel insights on how such a war is likely to go, nor do I feel confident predicting either side’s victory. I’m looking at most of the same sources that you’re all looking at. Some confidently boast of the total destruction of Iran’s air defense within hours, allowing US planes to fly directly over Iranian cities and drop bombs en masse; others cast doubts on whether this will ever occur, and say that the US’s limited supply of Tomahawk missiles is the only major firepower they will be able to safely unleash. Some say this war will last mere days before state collapse; others say months, maybe even years. I have no idea.
I do at least feel somewhat bolstered by the fact that Russia and China finally appear to be pouring in meaningful information and matériel to help Iran this time around, though of course, one can still debate whether it’s enough. I feel like we are at the culmination of decades of war planning by both the US and Iran, and the result could have deep ramifications indeed.
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 the Zionists’ 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.
Recent poll found that Canadians consider the U.S. to be a far greater threat to Canada’s security than China and Russia combined.
Glad they could figure out the incredibly obvious
To be fair though the U.S. has literally always been a greater threat to Canada’s security than China and Russia. The country with a huge military they love using that you share an enormous border with is almost always a greater threat to your security than countries with smaller militaries halfway around the globe.
The amount of threat Canada is under from China and Russia combined is exactly 0. Any amount of threat from the US would be a greater one.
Think this shows just how susceptible public opinion is to news and statements by politicians. There is no US threat. The US and Canada are carrying out a joint military exercise right now at this time, Canada practicing intercepts using a US B-52 bomber as the stimulated bogey. There is no US military buildup directed towards Canada. Canada will buy more US F-35s. But because Trump says something dumb and Craney does a performative speech, now your average person believes the political theatre.
I think what’s most notable here is that we’ve been under a constant “RUSSIA BAD CHINA BAD” barrage of propaganda for years and years, and despite that people view the Burgerlanders as the main threat by far.
While there may be no military buildup, and our militaries are very intertwined, it’s hard not to pay attention to the countless times Trump has threatened us with annexation, or touted the stupid fucking “51st state” trope, and tried to blackmail us with tariffs. Not to mention the people in his administration like that wank stain Peter Navarro who just openly fucking hate us.
It’s hard to watch what the Burger Reich has done to Venezuela and Cuba in just the last two months, and not wonder when our turn might come. Especially given that a lot of Burgerlanders think we’re just as socialist as they are because we have health care or some shit.
The sense of unease here is palpable.
And yet I bet if you tried to sell atrocity propaganda to those same Canadians who say the US is the greater threat that you’d have a harder time selling outlandish stuff about the US than China or Russia both of which are still considered full of sub-humans run by strong-men evil dictators and corrupt cronies while the US is considered full of humans like Canadians and just has a single bad leader problem.
This is only true if you consider “threat” to solely mean military invasion. To most Canadians the US poses a very real threat, economically and politically. Whether the Canadian bourgeoisie/MIC benefits from this is irrelevant to this question.
That is very true on the economic side.
Maritimers are no strangers to brutal and unwarranted US tariffs, specifically the decades-long softwood lumber tariffs. There’s a lot of lumber mills across the Maritimes that were once the backbones of local economies. American tariffs resulted in a lot of them closing.
I mean, on the other hand, it’s not like Russia or China is any threat to Canada at all either. They have no military bases near Canada, they’ve never made any offer sive moves or motions towards it at all, and the only reason they would fight is if Canada joined the US in some sort of offensive war against them (like what’s happening in Ukraine).
I mean at this point, if you polled Americans, they should say the same thing. China and Russia never did anything to me, meanwhile…
Newsflash: Canadians have at least two braincells to rub together.
Unfortunately, they’re usually too polite to actually do so in public.