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.

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
      ·
      3 months ago

      ultimately it doesn't really matter, Nasrallah isn't looking at Hexbear going "...fuck, they're beginning to doubt us..." we could all give up tomorrow and say that Israel and the US will rule for the next thousand years and all it would do is make the site a) unbearable if you're, like, a minority/nonwesterner who's trying to actually find ways to fight back, and b) incorrect

      it's mainly just "would I rather read a bunch of pessimistic shit about how doomed we all are or a bunch of positive messages about how doomed the empire is? would I eventually leave if everybody here was just depressed about everything all the time?" and the answer to the first question is 'positive messages' (well, technically it's 'I would like to read well-reasoned analysis regardless of whether it comes to a conclusion that makes me feel good' but Hexbear is not a serious scientific site, it's a vibes-based site with relatively frequent good analysis on it) and the answer to the second question is 'yes'

      it's not that I believe that by posting pessimistic takes that they will manifest in the real world and so we must silence them, it's that I believe that if I (and many others) read like five comments in a 10 minute span about how "it's so over, everything is doomed, they're gonna get away with it" then I (and many others) would be like "wow, this place sucks to be in. I'm gonna go find somewhere else that's not a drag on my mental health, and has some real insightful comments and historical comparisons with which to enrich my understanding of the situation"

        • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
          ·
          3 months ago

          I'm personally not in favour of banning pessimism, that would be an odd thing to do, and I think that there's a subcategory of it which can be genuinely enlightening - more of a sort of "here's how things suck about XYZ, here's how the left has been beaten down in that arena, here's some suggestions about what could be done next (but I don't have a ton of hope that it'll happen)" quasi-doomerism than a defeatist "well, that's it. we might as well surrender."

          perhaps it just requires a tightening of the rule that requires nothing low effort or off-topic in top level comments, as that would strangle a lot of the just outright defeatist stuff. very few people are gonna write up paragraphs and paragraphs detailing every single reason why socialism is impossible and fighting back is less than worthless - I'm curious as to why they'd even be here posting if that was the case, they should be on r/politics or something - they're just gonna go do what defeatists do (grill, I assume)

    • BreathThroughTheTube [he/him]
      ·
      3 months ago

      the doomer comments being mocked aren't based in reality. Go read them, they are unhinged. they don't know basic details like Israel being nuclear armed, they say that one tactical defeat means total strategic defeat, etc. They talk out their asses and don't contribute to analysis. They are emotional, not rational in nature.

      panic is not analysis. it is panic and needs to be stomped out.

    • Eldungeon2 [he/him]
      ·
      3 months ago

      The bloomer vs doomer is a little comical and you're right, in that being unrealistically optimistic is stupid and dangerous. That's not exactly what's playing out here. The US is waning in influence in the ME and globally. Iran has become a almost totally self sufficient regional power. The entity discredits itself daily celebratingremoved, torture, murder and terrorism. While it's western patrons pile on ideological contradictions (as we're allegedly againstremoved, torture, murderand terrorism). The long term trends are not in the imperials favor as I see it. They are trying to pick a fight on their terms. A tactical victory today can also be a strategic defeat tomorrow. Imagine a producing economy in the global south utilizing this electronic terrorist attack because the imperial core imports everything, would expose such a national security risk we would have to abandon neo colonialism and do the old school occupation colonialism.

      • HelltakerHomosexual [she/her, comrade/them]
        ·
        3 months ago

        adding on also: Iran is responding you nerds how the heck do you think Yemen got those missiles? There is a massive buildup going on and the resistance is gaining more and more complex equipment. The Axis of resistance has their backer now and i believe totally with Iran's all in assistance that victory, although a hard road, is now certain.

        • Hexboare [they/them]
          ·
          3 months ago

          The US literally just had their Suez moment with the failure of Operation Prosperity Guardian

        • coolusername@lemmy.ml
          ·
          3 months ago

          The pager attack doesn't even have any strategic significance. It's pointless terrorism. On the other hand Hezbollah, Iran, and Yemen can strike any target they want in Israel and neither Israel nor the combined strength of the US and US-occulied Europe have the ability to stop it.

        • Eldungeon2 [he/him]
          ·
          3 months ago

          Yes. It's obviously an arbitrary line that based on an individual's analysis. I personally try not to call others names, nor do I like to be called them. There will be disagreements, misinterpreted takes, bad faith etc. I'm probably in the minority here but I would not ban "doomerism" (nor do i make personal value judgments about people based on their take's of the damned "News" of all things) but I do try to discourage despair it if it doesn't make sense. Also, there is that point where we're simply fucked, and I hope I can admit it if/when it happens.

    • HelltakerHomosexual [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      3 months ago

      yeah but theres a difference between being gramsci quote doomer and uh 'wow iran isn't responding immediately to (insert horrible thing israel does on like a daily basis now here) so they've basically lost' and stuff (i was guilty of this previously so im not innocent)

      pessimist due to seeing reality, optimist out of will for a better future and realizing that the forces of change do not operate on our timetable

        • HelltakerHomosexual [she/her, comrade/them]
          ·
          3 months ago

          im not damning all analysis, im pointing out the very prelavent 'doomer' strain that just like to basically say 'its over' everytime the baddies do something.

          the kursk counter, the israeli terror, the response of Iran seen as 'a failure' due to israel attacking without a fitting enough response.

          cynical analysis is different from doomerism, i agree, i don't get why you seem to be angry at something we both are agreeing on.