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
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.
Controversial opinion and doomerism warning: The Axis of Resistance is losing. This communications attack by Israel is a prelude to a major Israeli offensive on Hezbollah. All three of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran should have attacked Israel together at maximal strength late last year. Now they've waited until Hamas is contained, Israel is shifting its focus to Hezbollah (hence this preemptive barrage), while Iran will probably sit around sable-rattling, then once Hezbollah is also contained, Israel will shift its focus to Iran, and Iran will be alone. Israel dealt with having three enemies at once by relying on them not going all in against Israel together at the same time. Israel can win one-on-one battles but not all three at once. Well, it's getting its winnable one-on-one battles because the three are letting it. A major tactical shake-up is needed. They can stretch Israel thin and win decisively, but the window of opportunity to do so is closing.
This would only make sense if Israel did not have nukes. The fact that they possess them necessitates a strategy of attrition. You can disagree, but it is the very reasonable decision of the Resistance leaders to not (yet) risk their respective countries being hit by nuclear strikes. I cannot tell them from my position in the West that they should 'man up' and start destroying Israel in these circumstances.
Hamas is not "contained", it is a constant draw of Israeli resources to try and destroy them, and the tunnel network makes neutralizing or even significantly weakening Hamas extremely difficult. Even the US has repeatedly admitted this. And Hezbollah would be orders of magnitude harder to destroy than Hamas. Unless you mean that Hamas has been contained within Gaza, in which case: no shit? Where else are they meant to be?
A major terrorist attack does not suddenly un-explode Israeli military bases in the north nor return settlers to their villages nor revitalize the Israeli economy.
They don't have nukes, they have loans from the US. The demon rats need to win the election and won't let the entity use them.
Edit: this comment was extra controversial so I guess I'll elaborate. I don't believe Israel can use its nukes independently of the US, much the same as how the UK has its 'own nukes' they developed themselves but there's no feasible way to use them without US permission.
This is just plain wrong, Israeli nukes are manufactured locally
Doomers get basic shit wrong but somehow expect the rest of us to take any of their bullshit seriously.
See edit.
The US will absolutely let them use nukes.
Your edit is just you restating your original point with different words
Edit: I believe that you reworded the thesis of your first point without actually saying anything new
Thanks for your reply, egg1918.
Edit: Thanks for your edit, egg1918.
See edit
See edit
What the hell are you talking about?
Nah they definitely have nukes of their own accord. Starting pretty much from day one of independence Israel pursued its own development of nuclear weapons, in collaboration with the French. They weren't gifted nukes like the UK, and their nukes aren't beholden to US triggers. They have their own nukes, under their own command structure, with their own warheads and missiles.
AFAIK it was the perfidious French who taught the illegal zionist entity how to make nukes
israel has ~80 nuclear devices
It's controversial because it's just straight up wrong lmao
Love this lol but I'd say the failure is more than 'minor'.
Not to be that person, but if you can't remember that lebanon was already invaded by the Zionists in 2006 I would stop posting in the news mega. I really don't know why this by comparison isn't a minor fuck up, we're talking about war with a nuclear regional power backed by another nuclear superpower. This isn't the end all be all for a protracted war, and Hamas suffered significantly worse losses yet they're still grinding the iof in Gaza. The slew of assassinations hasn't stopped them, neither will this stop Hezbollah because wars hinge on material realities. The material reality that the entity is currently burning itself out militarily and had to resort to drafting barely 1 year into this genocide, has suffered severe economic consequences, is currently dealing with a 250K+ internal displacement situation, and rapid eroding of the settler psyche (among others) hasn't changed. It will only get worse because that's what happens when you open multiple fronts without finishing the others. Those material realities are what determine the direction of the war, not some terror attack that killed <25 people.
The content in the mega is slowly becoming less material analysis and more armchair vibes. It has become more toxic, and clearly things haven't gotten better or even stayed the same since the kursk invasion. Just a bunch of armchair crackers dooming and glooming like every battle needs to be won or go a certain way or the whole war is lost. No such thing as a protracted war or long term consequences. Just the here and now.
It's on track to becoming another reddit because of posters like you, xiong-whatever, and boredom. If you have nothing valuable to post, then don't. Air your weird fixations and bad vibes in the general mega or make a post about it somewhere else.
People are getting sick of "it's so over" posting. It's become obnoxious.
Sorry, I didn't realize that you were the only one allowed to post here, or that every comment had to be a hive-minded positive historical monograph. I thought that 'news' included bad news as well as good, and that acknowledging defeats was both healthy and important. Obviously I was mistaken, and that dissenting opinions are not allowed.
(P.S., if you disagree, you are allowed to say so without telling others not to post; that's what comments are for...)
I have a gift for you
spoiler
Lol this is hexbear I'm not falling for that shit. Fool me once, shame on... shame on you...
puff, the stress of your arrest this morning for sex trafficking may be clouding your judgment
Sigh, it's true; I'm sick of talking to blood-sucking lawyers.
Not so sure about timing, but i feel the same. At the same time, its not like i'm the one fighting and dying, so still braver than my dumbass