Title is a reference to Resistance imagery about how Israeli soldiers will enter Gaza alive but leave it in coffins - the same is true for American soldiers in the Middle East if the regional war expands.
The image is of the Fattah-1 Iranian hypersonic ballistic missile, which its creators boast can overcome any missile defense system on the planet, has a range of 1400 kilometers (and thus Iran can strike Israel), and has a terminal impact velocity of Mach 13.
Dozens of American soldiers have been injured and 3 have been killed on a base in the Middle East. There has been confused reports about whether the attack was on Syrian territory or Jordan's - the Al-Tanf base is in Syria, but Tower-22 in Jordan is another base that helps supply Al-Tanf, and Tower-22 is the one that is alleged to have been hit. These is the first confirmed deaths of American troops since the conflict began, though it's not likely that this is actually the first deaths after hundreds of drone/missile strikes throughout the region on American bases, unless you think American soldiers are having extremely timely heart attacks just after a missile hits.
The attack is certainly impactful, though it does also have considerably symbolism. Courtesy of John Helmer:
The operational success of the strike for the attackers is strategic. Tower-22 is a logistics, supply, and rear guard post for the Al-Tanf base which US troops are operating thirty kilometres north across the border in Syria. The attack demonstrates that both Tower-22 and Al-Tanf, Jordan and Syria, are newly vulnerable to weapons which the US forces have failed to detect and neutralize. Just as significantly, the massive US airbase called Muwaffaq Salti, 230 kilometres west across Jordan, is also vulnerable now.
It indicates that Iran now possesses Russian expertise in countering American equipment:
“This is a significant accomplishment,” one of the sources said. “Was the bypassing of the US air defence system at Tower-22 pulled off with Russian assistance? US bases generally rely on the C-RAM [Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar] system. It was sent to Ukraine last year where the Russians have been learning to defeat it. What now of American EW [electronic warfare]? They’ve been doing a fair job of knocking drones down up to now. It seems a ‘coincidence’ that, not a week after the meetings in Moscow with Arabs and Iranians, we see this success. It’s a success the circumstances of which, we can be sure, Biden and Austin are not keen to advertise.”
I am putting my take on the table right now: I am 99% certain that the US won't attack Iran directly. I think we are still quite a while away from that being a possibility. Much more likely is that Iranian officials in Iraq or Syria will be hit by a retaliatory strike, as Israel has done recently. It is a significant escalation nonetheless. And it comes as Israel seems to be gearing up for a suicidal war with Hezbollah.
The Country of the Week is Iran! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Updates continue to be AWOL - but I am cooking something. Hopefully.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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 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.
Just a question. I know it is pointless to refute the non-logic of genocide. But I keep thinking about this every time I hear about how Gaza must be carpet bombed due to how "embedded" Hamas is in the Gazan population. How there are "no civilians" in Gaza.
I obtain all value from the sidebar of the most obvious wikipedia articles which are linked.
Hamas in Gaza:
Population Palestinians (2016) =
4,816,503sourceHamas Membership =
20,000–25,000sourceMath: (
25,000/4,816,503) *100=0.5%result:
0.5%Gazans in HamasIDF in Israel:
Israel 2024 population =
9,846,080sourceAvailable and "Fit" for military service =
1,499,998males, age 17–49 (2016),1,392,319females, age 17–49 (2016) source2,892,317Math: (
2,892,317/9,846,080) *100=29%result:
29%of the total population of Israel is available and "fit" for service in the IDF.(If you include "unfit" people the total is
3,068,249, or31%of population.)The IDF % does not even count those who served in the past but are no longer "available", for example being over age 50. People who have directly on an individual, documented level participated in crimes on Palestinians. Furthermore it does not exclude children (
28%of Israeli population is <= 14 source). If only adults were included it would be a solid majority. I think this math is pretty generous to the israeli side.And still about 1/3 of their population seems to be directly, presently involved as combatants or potential combatants.
It seems to me that if I were Israel, I wouldn't be introducing an argument like this.
Is my logic flawed? Or is it just too sick to think like this?
Yours isn't, theirs is. The important part of their calculus is that their lives have more value than Palestinians' lives. They would call it immoral to treat them the way they treat Palestinians.
Knowing that doesn't make their insane behavior and rhetoric any less insane, though.
They know it doesn’t matter. There have been decades of factual examinations and debunking of Zionist narratives, but the same hasbara lines are trotted out without hesitation
This is in the OPT. In Gaza the population is 2.3 million, you can click through on your Wikipedia link. You can roughly double your percentage, since you are explicitly referring to Gaza. Minor nitpick, but it's important to note.
As for the IDF numbers, it's a bit flawed going by your own standards for Al Qassam bridages (active personnel vs potential recruits), but this is a moot point. Even just taking the active personnel for IDF provides a higher percentage. My core issue with this logic though, is that every settler will fight for their occupation - this isn't relegated to just the military. Yes their logic for their claims is flawed, but we must be careful not to assume their framing. Even if every male Palestinian was a Qassam fighter, so what? Their battle is righteous, the zionist entity's isn't.
Agreed!
I guess it's more that I have a hard time seeing how people can say things like that and not have even half a thought about the other side of the coin. Not so much that Israel is or isn't "justified". But that in any way Israel could be said to be justified, Palestine is 1000x moreso. It's another case of the aggressors ascribing their own actions to the victims.
There's no logic. The Zionist position is that every Palestinian is a criminal for the crime of existence. Think unironically 40k's attitude towards mutants and psykers - Their crime is existing and the only penance is death.
That is only because you assume that logic and moral consistency is a goal for them. It is patently not.
The audience for the "embedded KHamas" propaganda is either domestic zionists or westerners. The zionists can safely assume that these audiences will instinctively view non-white Palestinian lives as less worthy than white zionist lives and they will view the western colonialist struggle of the zionists as inherently legitimate and any indigenous resistance as inherently distressing and illegitimate.
From this point of view it makes perfect sense. KHamas is a scary terrorist organisation, while the IOF is a completely normal and unproblematic military.