Also known as "Foucault's boomerang" or the "imperial boomerang".

Image is of a sniper on the roof of the Indiana Memorial Union at Indiana State University, overlooking a student protest.

The Imperial Boomerang is the observation that the tactics of mass oppression and totalitarianism used by Western countries in their colonies and neocolonies will, sooner or later, return home to be used against the citizens of those Western countries. While the people living at the time of WW2 were, rightfully, in deep shock of the concentration camps used by Nazi Germany, those paying attention to what was occurring in Africa would not have been terribly surprised. Concentration camps were used in several countries in order to separate out ethnic groups and place them in more easily controlled environments which aimed to prevent them from rising up and fighting back against the Western governments which exploited them. There is the additional factor of governments taking notes from each other - Hitler was inspired by America's racial segregation and genocide of indigenous groups, which author Carroll Kakel among others have written books on.

Today, the totalitarian strategies used by the Zionist entity in occupied Palestine are being brought home to Western countries as the American Reich and its global influence accelerate in their decline. Gaza was and is a cyber-concentration camp, with digital surveillance taking place alongside old-fashioned techniques of paying informants. Aside from being an unsinkable aircraft carrier and disrupting the entire Middle East, Israel's primary role appears to be to generate new ways to monitor entire populations. Propaganda about China being an authoritarian police state with social credit scores and AI which knows where everybody is at all times was probably created, at least in part, to deflect attention from Israel doing those exact things. The paranoid and flimsy American regime with its gerontocratic upper circles now use these tactics at home: cracking down on any and all protestors with political views left of Mussolini; placing snipers on roofs ready to fire at the slightest provocation; and arresting organization leaders. Pegasus has wormed its way around the world, with a notable recent example in Poland, in which the previous conservative government used the spyware to monitor the current liberal ruling party. The Israeli military, experts only in killing children and not actual warfare, have trained the police of other nations.

It would be easy to end the preamble there, on a gloomy note about the brick wall - or, indeed, iron curtain - that upstart left-wing groups are up against. What history has shown is that these regimes are, in fact, beatable. Liberation movements around the world have found ways to counter imperialism, even if they required wars in which millions of their countrymen were murdered. The legacy of Israeli propaganda psyops and digital tracking is not victory, as Hamas demonstrated on October 7th and continues to show with every ambush executed and every Merkava destroyed. The legacy of Western military defence equipment is not success, demonstrated by every missile fired by Hezbollah and Iran which hits Israel. The legacy of the American Navy is not competence, with a naval blockade of the Red Sea still maintained after months by one of the poorest countries on the planet.

The protests of at least the last couple decades have been marked by failure to produce material results: from those against the Iraq War, to Occupy Wall Street, to the BLM protests of 2020. Of course, it would be silly to tell American protestors to start digging tunnels. But sooner or later, the failure of Western protest movements will be overcome, and a more effective strategy will be devised, in order to deflect the boomerang.

The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

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

Please check out the HexAtlas!

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.

  • Ideology [she/her]
    ·
    7 months ago

    Fuck

    Exclusive: Israel planning ring of checkpoints to prevent men from fleeing Rafah

    Israel is setting up 'complex network' of checkpoints to prevent 'military age' men from fleeing Rafah assault, senior western official tells MEE.

    Full Text

    Israel is setting up a complex system of checkpoints that will prevent men of “military age” from fleeing Rafah in preparation for its offensive on the southern Gaza border city, a senior western official familiar with Israel’s plans has told Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity.

    The checkpoints are designed to allow some women and children to leave Rafah ahead of an expected Israeli offensive, but unarmed, civilian Palestinian men will likely be separated from their families and remain trapped in Rafah during an expected Israeli assault.

    The previously unreported disclosure of Israel’s construction of a ring of checkpoints around Rafah underscores how Israel is pushing ahead with plans to attack the city where over one million displaced Palestinians are sheltering in tents and makeshift camps.

    The creation of gender-based checkpoints around Rafah would put a spotlight back on Israel’s practice of stripping and forcibly detaining male Palestinian men and children, as it faces rising scrutiny in the West of its conduct in the war.

    The rounding up of Palestinian males in Gaza and photographing them stripped to their underwear drew condemnation in December, with the US calling the images “deeply disturbing”.

    Relatives of many of the men photographed recognised them and said they had nothing to do with Hamas. Israel's military was later accused of staging footage of men surrounding weapons.

    “Israel considers every male a Hamas fighter until proven otherwise,” Abbas Dahouk, a former senior military advisor at the State Department and military attache in the Middle East told Middle East Eye.

    “It’s not a sound move. Cordoning Rafah is a daunting task and good luck separating fathers and sons from their families.” Truce talks down to the wire

    Israel’s preparations for an assault are occurring at the same time it continues down-to-the-wire truce talks with Hamas. A delegation from Hamas is set to visit Egypt on Monday for further negotiations.

    The US, UN, European states and Arab powers are pushing to avert a Rafah offensive, which aid workers and diplomats say could spark a humanitarian disaster and potential refugee crisis.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday urged Hamas to accept the latest Israeli truce offer which he described as “extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous”.

    “In this moment, the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas," Blinken said in Riyadh at the World Economic Forum.

    "They have to decide - and they have to decide quickly,” Blinken said, in an apparent reference to Israel’s threat to invade Rafah.

    In Riyadh, Blinken met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani.

    Both Qatar and Turkey maintain ties with Hamas, with the former hosting the group’s political leadership at the request of Washington. Egypt, which borders Rafah and whose security establishment talks directly with Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, is also mediating.

    MEE reached out to the White House and the Israeli embassy in Washington for comment on this story, but neither responded by the time of publication. Reconnaissance by fire

    Israel has offered a 40-day truce to Hamas and the return of thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails in exchange for hostages. It has also downsized its demand that at least 40 hostages held in Gaza be released, with the new figure being placed at 33 hostages.

    But Hamas has called for a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the return of forcibly displaced Palestinians to their homes. A key sticking point in the talks has been Hamas’s demand that Palestinian families are not to be separated going back to their homes.

    As truce talks drag on, Israel has ramped up its threat to invade Rafah, where it says four Hamas battalions are stationed. As the threat of an Israeli attack mounts, Hamas has also released more hostage videos.

    Israel’s potential assault on Rafah is in many ways unique to warfare.

    The border town turned sprawling refugee camp is hemmed in on the left by the Mediterranean Sea and on the right by Israel proper, both of which Israel controls. Egyptian troops are massed along Rafah’s southern border where Cairo has vowed to prevent an influx of refugees. Hamas fighters have shed their uniforms and disappeared into a vast tunnel network, military experts say.

    Israeli analysts have told MEE previously that Israel's war cabinet believes it can't declare victory in Gaza without attacking Rafah, but other analysts say the bloody assault is unlikely to extract Israel from the Gaza quagmire.

    “The conduct of Israel’s operations from north to south has been revenge-driven, not intelligence-driven," Dahouk told MEE. "They don’t know where the enemy is. It’s reconnaissance by fire.”