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.
lol CNN had on a talking head who was getting choked up over one of the dead soldiers. They want this war so bad.
"Hyuk hyuk, Iran's about to find out why Americans don't have free healthcare"
-US soldier, seconds before dying to a gmod contraption
https://archive.is/EdUjW
A senior BBC employee branded Jewish people “Nazis” and white people “parasites” in a string of social media posts.
no she didn't, she called zionists nazis, but she does have massive brainworms in other things she said
Ms Queva, whose location is listed as London on her Linkedin profile, also brands the UK “bigoted” and “genocidal” and claims white Europeans are “melanin-recessive parasites”.
Absolutely pissing myself laughing at "melanin recessive parasites".
A good reminder that the UNRWA is a seperate UN entity because Israel wanted it that way, special treatment for the Palestinians in negative terms, is in Jonathon Cook's latest article In waging war on the UN refugee agency, the West is openly siding with Israeli genocide:
UNRWA is separate from the UN’s main refugee agency, the UNHCR, and deals only with Palestinian refugees. Although Israel does not want you to know it, the reason for there being two UN refugee agencies is because Israel and its western backers insisted on the division back in 1948. Why? Because Israel was afraid of the Palestinians falling under the responsibility of the UNHCR’s forerunner, the International Refugee Organisation. The IRO was established in the immediate wake of the Second World War in large part to cope with the millions of European Jews fleeing Nazi atrocities.
Israel did not want the two cases treated as comparable, because it was pushing hard for Jewish refugees to be settled on lands from which it had just expelled Palestinians. Part of the IRO’s mission was to seek the repatriation of European Jews. Israel was worried that very principle might be used both to deny it as it wanted to colonise Palestinian land and to force it to allow the Palestinian refugees to return to their former homes. So in a real sense, UNRWA is Israel’s creature: it was set up to keep the Palestinians a case apart, an anomaly.
Iran, the only more-or-less decent new BRICS+ member.
Also, UNRWA has announced a possible suspension of humanitarian aid into Palestine is now looming on the horizon. According to liveuamap, it is likely by the end of February. The primary cited reason is funding cuts but even if hypothetically, China, Ireland and South Africa stop pissing about and pick up the slack, there's the matter of military and "civilian" rioters going out of their way to prevent the delivery of food and medicine.
The
is of course, celebrating it. There is also no longer any functioning fire engines, with Civil Defense and medical functions all but collapsed. This in an area where the population density may have swelled to at least 20,000/km2.Allegedly, the Gaza Civil Registry has also been destroyed. There is no more record of degrees, birth/death certificates, addresses, families, etc. essentially declaring the 2.3 million people nonexistent, save for maybe a refugee in Johannesburg who still has their papers. Of course, the destruction of any legal documents will also throw a spanner in the works for any prospective asylum seekers. If they manage to flee the strip, then what? Hoof it for over 6,000 kilometers across the entire continent to South Africa?
along with Finland, Italy, Austria, Romania, Netherlands and Estonia have cut funding as of writing this.I love how the EU just pledged €54 billion in aid to Ukraine and nobody is talking about it.
Leave it to the Europeans to start throwing money at a war when the US basically already pulled out and nobody gives a fuck about it anymore. Pure self-destruction.
Unfortunately, the Namibian president who gave us the legendary "why you talk about the Chinese, talk about Germans" clip, Hage Geingob, has died today.
https://nitter.cz/comradesipho/status/1754099107516317908
https://twitter.com/comradesipho/status/1754099107516317908
Conservatives attempting to weaponize the fact that the US soldiers that died were black on twitter is fucking making me want to tear my eyes out.
Lots of takes like: WElL I gUess TO thE Left bLAcK LIvEs ONly MATteR if TheY arEN’T AmERiCAN hERO SoldieRS
wHy Are thErE nO pRoTESTs WHEN bLAcK MEN arE mURdeRED bY mUsLiM TerRoRiSTs????
The level of cynical dipshittery is really something to behold
My fucking god Chomsky has become so donkey-brained these days. Watched a video in which he says Democrats (as in the party, not voters) have soured on Israel, and that it's all Republicans who support it now. Meanwhile, the fascist you obsessed on telling people to vote for in swing states because lesser-evil is actually perpetuating the genocide as we speak, Noam, and even bypassing Congress to do it. Fucking hell.
Global sea surface temperatures have reached an all-time record in February, two months ahead of the March-April biannual peak (when the sea is hottest in the southern hemisphere, because most of the world's water is there)
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The orange line was 2023, so already a massively standout year - sea surface temperatures were only very gradually increasing year-on-year before that point. This year may be even toastier.
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Tabaivka had a prewar population of 34 btw
…
WHEN THE FUCK CAN THEY CUT THEIR LOSSES
BIRD NEWS: Indian police clear a suspected Chinese spy pigeon after 8 months in bird lockup
spoiler
NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian police cleared a suspected Chinese spy pigeon after eight months’ detention and released it into the wild Tuesday, news agency Press Trust of India reported.
The pigeon’s ordeal began in May when it was captured near a port in Mumbai with two rings tied to its legs, carrying words that looked like Chinese. Police suspected it was involved in espionage and took it in, later sending it to Mumbai’s Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals.
Eventually, it turned out the pigeon was an open-water racing bird from Taiwan that had escaped and made its way to India. With police permission, the bird was transferred to the Bombay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, whose doctors set it free on Tuesday.
Mumbai police could not be reached for comment.
It is not the first time a bird has come under police suspicion in India.
In 2020, police in Indian-controlled Kashmir released a pigeon belonging to a Pakistani fisherman after a probe found that the bird, which had flown across the heavily militarized border between the nuclear-armed nations, was not a spy.
In 2016, another pigeon was taken into custody after it was found with a note that threatened Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
