Image features Haitian Creole, meaning in English: "Let's Join Hands To Remove Haiti From The Boot Of Domination-Occupation!"

Welcome to the first news megathread of 2024! Last year saw rather little territorial movement in Ukraine (though shocking levels of attrition), and while BRICS has made some important moves, such as the upcoming expansion, there's no massive anti-imperialist offensive yet for us to really analyze. Instead, a lot of things have been going on behind the scenes, with the anti-hegemonic axis of China, Russia, Iran, and others forming a lot of bilateral currency deals as they distance themselves from the dollar. This all culminated in a rather boring year, or so I had thought until October 7th. The courage and heroism of the Gazan Resistance showed us that the imperialists truly are paper tigers, and Ansarallah demonstrated that American naval control is more illusory than the likes of John Bolton would like to admit.

This year will almost certainly be even more interesting and horrific. Debt across the developing world is at record levels, and the incoming hurricane that is the global recession not just on the horizon, but rapidly moving inland. Russia seems to once again be escalating in Ukraine with the return of large missile strikes, and the Zionist entity is failing to make much progress against Hamas, let alone Hezbollah, let alone Iran - instead vying for civilian bombings and propaganda campaigns (e.g. wedding proposals and drawing stars of David in Gaza to prove just how not mad and not owned they are, as their soldiers shit their pants due to insufficient military preparation and brigades are withdrawn due to the tremendous casualties they are experiencing). I'm sure there will be other sudden events that will occur this year. Here's my bingo grid:

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In the midst of all this, it's easy to forget the other underdog nation on the other side of the world from Palestine - Haiti. Since I last covered them, about half a year ago, the UN was on the verge of allowing a Kenyan police force to enter Haiti to "restore order", as the country is in a chaotic, perhaps potentially revolutionary situation. This has been described by various Haitian analysts and experts as essentially a US military force in blackface - white blows from a black hand - and Kenya's president, Ruto, has received a lot of aid from the US because of their willingness to step up, including a five year military deal. It took a while longer than I thought for the vote to occur, but on October 2nd, the UNSC allowed Kenya to do this (Russia and China abstained). However, the Kenyan Supreme Court needs to confirm that this is constitutional, and will give their verdict by January 26th. Many Kenyan lawyers and opposition leaders say that this is blatantly not constitutional, but given all the US aid on the line, breaking the constitution might be worth it to Ruto, whatever the backlash.

From the article from which much of the above information has been sourced:

But Washington now has its hands full with other problems. Its proxy war against Russia via Ukraine is going very badly, a fact that even the U.S. mainstream media is now forced to acknowledge. Meanwhile, the successful Oct. 7 uprising by Palestinian fighters against Israeli occupiers has apparently blindsided both the U.S. empire and its foremost client state. The entire Arab world and Global South are both horrified and outraged by Israel’s ever-growing war crimes, as over 20,000 Palestinians, half of them children, have been slaughtered and starved. Meanwhile, the dysfunction in Washington is deepening, Biden’s approval rating is plummeting, and the U.S. economy is lurching toward another crash.

All this means that Haiti may finally catch a break. The desperation in Haiti is very intense but so is the apprehension of and indignation against another foreign intervention. That resistance continues in the streets of Haiti and its diaspora.

Viva Haiti!

The weekly update is here on the website.

Your Tuesday briefing is here on the website and here in the comments.

The Country of the Week is Haiti! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli 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 Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.

Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.

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.
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.

  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
    ·
    11 months ago

    An article by Danny Haiphong: How U.S. hegemony reached its limits in 2023

    U.S. political leaders often hype the "rules-based international order" as the pinnacle of global "democracy." However, the "rules-based order" exercised by the U.S. is predicated not on rules or order but rather on the domination of a single state over the interests of the rest. In 2023, this particular form of global leadership (or misleadership) has run up against profound and irreversible limitations.

    Nowhere is this more evident than in the conflict in Ukraine. U.S. military strategists and political officials entered 2023 optimistic about Ukraine's chances of defeating Russia militarily with the infusion of large sums of aid from NATO. Optimism quickly turned into its opposite as the year wore on. U.S. and Western mainstream media now openly admit that Ukraine's hyped counteroffensive failed to achieve any of its objectives and led to massive losses in human and military resources. Aid to Ukraine has since been scaled down as Kyiv's U.S. and NATO backers manage growing political divisions over the best way forward in a losing war.

    The U.S. and its NATO counterparts gambled on the hope that a combination of economic sanctions and WWI-style warfare would weaken the Russian government and cause the collapse of Vladimir Putin's leadership. The opposite has occurred. Russia reoriented its economy to the Global South, strengthening ties with the emerging markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Russia prioritized a war of attrition to limit casualties while using its military industrial capacity to gradually grind down Ukraine's army. Far from destroying Russia, the conflict in Ukraine has handed the U.S. a historic setback to its hegemonic aims.

    On October 7, 2023, the U.S. was confronted with another massive challenge to the stability of its "rules-based" order when the conflict between Palestine and Israel entered a new phase. Israel's response to the Hamas-led military raid has been internationally recognized as disproportionate and brutal, with many credible observers describing the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza as genocide. While China and Russia have worked diligently in the UN Security Council to answer the worldwide call for a humanitarian ceasefire, the U.S. has either vetoed, voted against or abstained any resolution for a ceasefire or humanitarian aid in favor of Gaza.

    Furthermore, U.S. President Joe Biden has provided unconditional military and diplomatic aid to Israel despite the role such aid has played in the death of over 20,000 Palestinians and the displacement of at least 2 million more. U.S. policy toward the Israel-Palestine conflict has caused enormous damage to the legitimacy of Biden's leadership. Public opinion toward the administration has reached a historic low and prominent party leaders are seeking possible alternatives. U.S.'s support in Israel's activities in Gaza has also raised the specter of a broader war involving neighboring states and political forces in West Asia.

    The improper diplomacy in dealing with conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and the domestic economic turmoil, which has brought huge pressure on Biden administration, have additionally forced the United States to rebalance its relations with China. In the last six months of 2023, high-level U.S. officials from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have made visits to Beijing in the lead-up to the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden this past November. These meetings have reduced tensions between the two countries on the surface but have not produced significant policy change from the U.S. side. Washington's overall foreign policy of containment remains in the form of aggressive maneuvers in the South China Sea as well as ongoing economic sanctions on key sectors of China's economy.

    The Biden administration's contradictory policy toward China is a stark reflection of the limits of U.S. hegemony. China spent 2023 moving toward its overall goal of sustainable economic growth, peaceful development, and integration within a multipolar global framework. For example, while the U.S. neglected the Middle East for "Great Power competition" in the wake of its defeat in Afghanistan, China helped negotiate peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

    Thus, the rigid limitations of U.S. hegemony have opened up opportunities for the advance of multipolarity. It is imperative that U.S.-inflamed conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere come to an end in 2024 so that the benefits of a more democratic world order are felt farther and wider.