Image is of China's ambassador to Afghanistan, Zhao Sheng, meeting Taliban Prime Minister Hasan Akhund in September 2023.

I know the Rambo title card is a hoax.

The COTW was chosen in the wake of the aborted sequel to the attempted assassination of Trump being performed by a guy who is VERY enthusiastic about Ukraine, to the point of trying to sneak Afghan soldiers into Ukraine by setting up a house in Pakistan to house them and then further transport them. He also apparently offered to send thousands of Afghan soldiers to Haiti to help them combat gang violence. Whomst among us doesn't have the numbers of thousands of Afghan soldiers on speed-dial. Do you reckon there's a group chat?

Anyway, while there is still no official recognition of the Taliban's government by any country, China has taken a different course than the late USSR and the US - forming economic in-roads, rather than trying their own invasion. This has been a big boon for the struggling country, with various mines and oil and agriculture deals helping keep things barely afloat. A total disintegration of the social fabric of Afghanistan is not in the interest of any of the powers that border it - China, Pakistan, and Iran, with Russia not too far away - so an interesting dynamic of helping-without-official-recognition has been established. I wonder who will be the first country to fully recognize them?

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 Afghanistan! 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 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.
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.

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.
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.

  • Kolibri [she/her]
    ·
    2 months ago

    I don't think it's fair to compare it to QAnon-esque cope. Perhaps an alternative would maybe be requiring a cw spoiler tag then for very defeatist stuff?

    • HarryLime [any]
      ·
      2 months ago

      A content warning for "defeatism?" I'm sorry, but isn't this a bit silly?

      Frankly, the left loses a lot more often, and for a lot longer, than it wins, and it's not defeatist to face up to that fact or to express frustration with it.

      • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
        ·
        2 months ago

        No, there's a difference between discussing the Ls and thinking the cause is lost with just one L. And most of the time, the doomerism is entirely unwarranted. People were losing their shit when Ukraine launched their doomed excursion into Russian territory and despite the repeated assurance from more sober minded people that the excursion was doomed, too many people were losing their shit and spreading doomer takes until it turned out Ukraine predictably wasn't able to do what the Swedes, French, and Germans failed to do.

        Doomerism is technically reactionary. There's a reason why revolutionary optimism is a thing, why "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will" gets repeated. In regards to the pager attack, this is fine while this is doomer nonsense. Someone personally feeling emotionally distraught over an L doesn't give them license to dump those negative feelings onto the rest of us. Those negative emotional dumping almost never comes with analysis anyways, certainly not good analysis.

        • carpoftruth [any, any]M
          ·
          2 months ago

          People were losing their shit when Ukraine launched their doomed excursion into Russian territory and despite the repeated assurance from more sober minded people that the excursion was doomed

          I am once again asking news mega posters to read clausewitz

        • Boredom [none/use name]
          ·
          2 months ago

          I am not here to be a government spokesman. Posting about the news, especially during the second nakba is necessary even if it is demoralizing.

          • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
            ·
            2 months ago

            If Iran and Hezbollah don't attack Israel in the next few hours, they will have essentially surrendered.

            This is absolutely news and not just you giving your hot doomer take on the situation.

          • SeekTheDeletion [none/use name]
            ·
            2 months ago

            You are one of the biggest culprits of out of pocket dooming. It’s not analysis to whine that the world is doomed

          • SeekTheDeletion [none/use name]
            ·
            2 months ago

            As someone whose phone occasionally heats up, all I can say is that we need to put down the copium. If Israel can do this, so can the CIA. It is highly likely that the age of mass communication is about to functionally end as soon as we reach the societal breakdown stage of late capitalism. As for Lebanon itself, it will likely collapse before Israel does. The zionists likely plan to genocide everyone within the borders of greater israel.

            This you? Can you point me to where the "news" is here? Looks a lot like Nostradamus doom saying and reading tea leaves to me.

            • Boredom [none/use name]
              ·
              2 months ago

              The news is that Israel double tapped. Opsec now means you can't use basically anything with radio waves unless you took it apart first.

              • carpoftruth [any, any]M
                ·
                2 months ago

                This is liberal nonsense that imagines the mossad as all powerful. This is exactly the kind of unhinged commentary that is not productive. This isn't the same as having rose coloured glasses or "coping", this is just you working out your fear in the thread. It is toxic and not helpful. Demonstrate that you are capable of taking part in this community in a respectful and thoughtful way or I will do more than just delete your worst posts.

                • Boredom [none/use name]
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  Not saying Mossad is all powerful, however I am saying that we have crossed the Rubicon into indiscriminate boobytrapped electronics. That is a huge problem especially when you are dealing with American controlled supply chains.

    • FungiDebord [none/use name]
      ·
      2 months ago

      maybe not a fair characterization.

      i should still not like doomer stuff to be removed by the mods; other posters and the community at large should be responsible for correcting and responding as necessary -- as Harry notes, we lose all the time, and its good practice to notice this and find the strength and support to keep the faith up.