A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like “in Minecraft”) and comments containing it will be removed.

An image of Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, c. February, where Iranian strikes have caused substantial damage and several US soldier deaths and casualties.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preamble

After an uncertain beginning to this second major period of hostilities, we can now see the overall plan for either side.

For the Americans, their fire has been primarily focussed on southern Iran, where they have been attempting to break Iran’s control of Hormuz by a steady campaign of striking both military and civilian sites. Additionally, it looks like the US is attempting to shape the battlefield around Bandas Abbas and Qeshm Island for some kind of incursion, as we have seen bridges and tunnels in the vicinity struck by missiles. The key word there is “attempting”, because there are several things wrong with this plan both tactically and strategically.

Tactically, Iran has demonstrated the ability to very quickly get their transportation infrastructure repaired, and the US simply isn’t firing volleys in the required amounts - and towards the right targets (they’re using several missiles on purely civilian targets, like fishing boats) - to meaningfully degrade Iranian control of even this sector of the coastline. Additionally, an amphibious assault on Qeshm Island in the style of the WW2 Pacific theater is essentially impossible unless Iran, for whatever reason, allowed it. The gauntlet that any ship holding Marines would have to run to get to the island precludes this, let alone also transporting heavy weaponry and materiel for resupply. Using helicopter-borne troops or paratroopers would be much more feasible, but runs into even greater logistical problems if the US wanted to do anything there other than a brief skirmish before withdrawing. Strategically, even if the US waved a magic wand and took Qeshm Island, it’s unclear what this would do to fulfill war aims. The most obvious intention would be to trade it back to Iran in return for a major Iranian concession, but what if you take the island, you call up Iran saying “Alright, let’s get this deal running! First, I want no Hormuz tolls–” and Iran just… hung up, and kept firing drones and missiles and artillery at your forces on the island until they either all died or were forced to retreat? It’s not a tenable position to hold, and Iran’s capabilities to affect shipping in Hormuz are obviously not all concentrated on one single island.

So, what is Iran’s strategy? It’s what one analyst (Amerikanets) has termed “debasification”. If the first phase of the war from late February to mid-April was focussed primarily on generally destroying and disrupting the US’s military infrastructure in the region, what this second phase has planned is something more like a region-wide missile advance. Starting from the Gulf states and their US bases, the plan is to push back American planes and soldiers to further and further afield bases and thereby make sorties against Iran take much more time, fuel, and use more resupply planes. Iranian strikes are, as of me writing this, concentrated on Jordan, where a recent Iranian strike caused the first admission of soldier deaths in quite some time. The Iranian goal is clearly to push back all US planes to at least the Zionist entity, by which point, unless they are withdrawn further back all the way to Europe, the planes will all be so concentrated on so few bases that it will become a physical impossibility to get them all scrambled before Iranian strikes hit. Compared to the US’s strategy, Iran’s is immediately bearing fruit, with US strikes already very limited in intensity compared to the first phase of the war months ago. The irony of the US breaking off negotiations - again! - to pursue a new strategy that already looks to be profoundly failing is truly some inspired stuff; the genocidal architects of American imperium in the mid-20th century are rolling in their graves.


Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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:

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.


  • Lovely_sombrero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    8 hours ago

    Tesla sold more cars than expected in 2026Q2, but their earnings disappointed, mostly because they are starting to sell most of their cars at a loss. Their best line items in the earnings reports were paper gains on SpaceX stock (that stock is already down like ~25% in July, their report is up to June 30th) and direct subsidies they can book as profits (regulatory credits).

    Optimus (their stupid AI autonomous robot) and Cybercab (stupid autonomous minicar) were supposed to begin mass production early this year. After missing the deadline the earnings report now doesn’t say when production is supposed to start. Tesla Semi (EV semi truck) was supposed to go into production this year, shareholder letter now says 2027 or later. The famous 2020 Tesla Roadster 2 was supposed to go into mass production in December 2026 (Elon promised that on the Joe Rogan podcast!!!), then production was moved to May 2027, the new production date is ???.

    All is well in the world of Tesla. Stock is somehow down only 6% in premarket and I bet it will make up some of that in daily trading. Because Elon cultists are real piggies.

    • homhom9000 [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      7 hours ago

      Good friend of mine was excited to get the spaceX stock because “it’s worth a billion dollars.” I told them it’s fake valuation, they said they hope I’m wrong. I keep looking at the price and wish I told them to sell immediately and avoid holding. Oh well. Musk will always make money from somebody

      • WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them]@reddthat.com
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        6 hours ago

        That’s the same reaction I got from my mom when I mentioned how much the market as a whole are inflated with examples like Tesla and SpaceX making it clear how disconnected the market has become from normal economic material reality. But people depend on infinite growth assumption when planning for retirement…

        • Lovely_sombrero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          6 hours ago

          Wait wait wait, are you implying that Tesla isn’t actually worth more than the rest of the car market (~98.5% market share) combined? It seems to me like you hate progress and humanity.

          • WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them]@reddthat.com
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            5 hours ago

            That’s the specific thing I pointed out (along with SpaceX being “valued” more than all other aerospace companies combined by a large margin but only if you multiply the ‘value’ of the actual stocks that exist on the market by 20, which somehow is considered the way to calculate it).

      • Lovely_sombrero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        7 hours ago

        This is happening with only ~5% of the SpaceX float being available to the market. The SpaceX stock is a rare commodity and it is crashing anyway. Soon another ~20% will be available to the market.

        I guess this is a good day for the sickos holding fun small amounts of 5x leveraged short positions on Tesla (me).

        spaceX stock because “it’s worth a billion dollars.”

        It is if you spend $5 billion on it!

        • homhom9000 [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          4 hours ago

          Like on one hand stocks haven’t been based on anything for a while now so the price can fluctuate for no reason, but to fall for a self determined company valuation- a company that relied on public funding to satisfy some woowoo mars voyage- is silly.

    • sisatici [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      7 hours ago

      Tbf profit margins in budget cars is very slim. They get their profits from service and parts but there are many people here who know more about such stuff than me

      • Lovely_sombrero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        6 hours ago

        There was an unexpected surge in service & other, it is always hard to say what Tesla is doing with that stuff.

        Keep in mind that their gross margin was 16% not so long ago. They were making crazy money selling cars. Everything else combined was like ~10% of revenue. Now their margin is below 3%.