Bulletins and News Discussion from August 12th to August 18th, 2024 - Marshall Plan: Now As Farce - COTW: Ireland
Bulletins and News Discussion from August 12th to August 18th, 2024 - Marshall Plan: Now As Farce - COTW: Ireland
Image is of one of Ireland's only manned navy ships, the Samuel Beckett. Image sourced from this BBC article.
Putler has been HUMILIATED by the Kursk offensive and this proves that Russia's army is in tatters and unable even to defend its own territory. However, it is simultaneously true that Russia poses an existential threat to countries thousands of miles away, as this recent Politico article demonstrates. Ireland - a country that immediately springs to mind as one surrounded by enemies - is being bullied due to its lack of military.
Despite bearing responsibility for 16 percent of the EU’s territorial waters, and the fact that 75 percent of transatlantic undersea cables pass through or near Irish waters, Ireland is totally defenseless. And I mean completely unable to protect critical infrastructure, or even pretend to secure its own borders. [...] Ireland’s “navy” of six patrol vessels is currently operating with one operational ship due to chronic staff shortages. [...] Ireland simply has no undersea capabilities. How could it, when it barely spends 0.2 percent of GDP on security and defense? And it has, in effect, abdicated responsibility for protecting the Europe’s northwestern borders.
For all we know, the dreaded sea-people from the Bronze Age Collapse could soon emerge from the North Atlantic.
Unfortunately, things are even worse up in the skies. Ireland has no combat jets, and it’s the only country in Europe that can’t monitor its own airspace due to the lack of primary radar systems. Instead, the country has outsourced its security to Britain in a technically secret agreement between Dublin and London, which effectively cedes control over Irish air space to the Royal Air Force. This must be the luck of the Irish — smile and get someone else to protect you for free.
While this is very silly, rearmament has long been a part of US imperial strategy on an economic level. Desai, discussing the US imperial strategy in the WW2 period:
By 1947 [...] the domestic postwar consumer boom was nearing its end. While financing exports became more urgent, the 1946 elections returned a Congress unlikely to approve further loans. Now the Truman Administration concocted the ‘red menace’ to ‘scare the hell out of the country’, enunciated the Truman Doctrine of US support for armed resistance to ‘subjugation’ which launched the cold war, and Congress granted $400 million to prevent left-wing triumphs in Greece and Turkey in 1947.
One reading of history states that the US was so intimidated by the USSR that this forced a policy of massive arms production even outside of official wartime. Why this arms production is not occurring today can be puzzling, and (very reasonably) explained by neoliberals exporting industrial production overseas. However, a different historical reading can explain both the first Cold War, and the ongoing situation in which American weaponry is being almost purposefully given in insufficient numbers to give Ukraine a chance of victory and thus only prolonging their suffering (while generating massive profit for the military-industrial complex):
In this sense the Cold War was not the cause of US imperial policy but its effect. It combined financing exports with fighting combined development by national capitalisms as well as communism. When such ‘totalitarian regimes’ threatened ‘free peoples’, ‘America’s world economic responsibilities’ included aid to countries battling them.
By selling massively expensive weapons to Europe, America could simultaneously guarantee export markets for its industries, trap Europe into reliance on American industries at the expense of their own, and divert European funds away from constructing factories which could compete with American ones. Providing a way to defend against Soviet communism (and now Russian "imperialism") is merely a happy side-effect, and so the lack of effectiveness of American weaponry is causing no great panic among the military-industrial complex, nor an urgent plan to quintuple artillery shell production or Patriot missile production - the deals for F-35s and such are still there, and they are what matter.
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 Ireland! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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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.
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While people here are posting about how the Ukrainian raid into the Kursk oblast is having tremendous casualties while simultaneously failing to achieve anything of military importance, Danish government broadcaster DR is publishing articles like this (machine translation):
Ukraine Has Become an Occupying Power with its Incursion into Russia: 'They Have Several Obligations'
With its incursion into Russia, Ukraine has become an occupying power: 'They have several obligations'
Each day, Ukrainians seem to be capturing more and more territory in Russia.
It appears that Ukrainians are maintaining momentum in their advance into the Russian region of Kursk.
Full article
According to Oleksandr Syrskyi, head of Ukraine's armed forces, the country's soldiers have managed to capture more territory over the past 24 hours, and Ukraine now controls an area of about 1,150 square kilometers.
This is reported by The Guardian.
Earlier today, the same Oleksandr Syrskyi informed President Zelenskyy that the city of Sudzha in Kursk "has been successfully liberated from Russian forces." The president announced this on X.
Read also: Russians are being evacuated on a large scale: 'The house shook, and all the windows rattled'
A Ukrainian military office is now being established, which according to the army, is meant to ensure order and meet the needs of the local population. Ukraine now bears a moral responsibility.
Ukraine as an Occupying Power
With Ukraine's military incursion into Russia, the country is de facto an occupying power. With this title comes a certain responsibility, which is likely why the military office is being set up.
This is according to Anders Puck Nielsen, a military analyst at the Defense Academy.
"They have several obligations to take care of society and governance, and they have set up an office for this purpose."
Read also: Ukrainian military reports fewer rocket attacks on the eastern front: 'There used to be 30 to 60 a day. Now it's at most 10'
According to the military analyst, the new office gives the impression that "this is more or less a permanent institution."
"This has become a very big headache for the Russians."
- Anders Puck Nielsen, military analyst, Defense Academy
"In other words, they intend to stay there for a long time," says Puck Nielsen.
And it is not at all unlikely that the Ukrainian presence in Russia could last much longer, he points out. Russia has yet to mount "a proper response."
"If the Ukrainians focus on digging in and entrenching themselves in the area, it could become quite difficult for the Russians to dislodge them," says Anders Puck Nielsen.
Headache in the Kremlin
Since the incursion into Russia, there has been speculation about how long the offensive might continue. Perhaps it was only a matter of days before Russian forces would push the enemy back and recapture the area.
But the offensive is now on its tenth day, and if Russia is to succeed in pushing the Ukrainians back, the manpower will likely need to come from the front line in southeastern Ukraine, estimates Anders Puck Nielsen.
"They probably don't have reserves ready to do it, so it could take some time."
Moreover, the Russians have another problem. While fighting has been ongoing along the front line, the border between Russia and Ukraine has become "full of holes," giving Ukraine the potential to perform the same maneuver elsewhere along the border.
"This has become a very big headache for the Russians. It's both because they now have a challenge in evicting the Ukrainians, which could be difficult. But they also have a future challenge in ensuring this doesn't happen again," says Anders Puck Nielsen.
Read also: While drones swarm over border regions, tens of thousands of Russians are being evacuated
I was seeing a news special about how Ukraine is giving aid to the needy Russians. Like dudes you’ve been there for three days no one was starving yet.
So their gambit has is try to take land for a leveraged peace deal to get Crimea back or something or attempt to "bulkanize" Russia. It isn't going to go that way. Russia will cut off
supply chains and in effect entrap them. Then systematically reliberate. Then will have less to work with, less leverage at the negotating table, more demoralized population at the loss, and an even more emboldened Russian population.The brazen idiocy of whoever is leading these poor
conscripts. 
wisens up to being a puppet and overthrows 
to make a peace deal and shove out the 
bastards.Winter is coming.
If the leaders of Ukraine had any sense or any consideration for the well-being of their people this war would not have started in the first place and Ukraine would have been a neutral and multilingual state that benefitted from being the bridge between western Europe and Russia.
This was the path that was open to them in 2014. Arguably, it’s the path most Ukrainians wanted. That big economic deal that Yanukovich tried to make with Putin would have kept them neutral, because they had to make a deal with someone and Putin was more interested in keeping Ukraine away from NATO than pulling them into Russia’s orbit.
But that was unacceptable to the US and NATO. So they fanned the flames of Maidan, which in itself led to tremendous division in Ukraine. And when Ukraine was looking to make a deal to end the conflict quickly, that’s when Boris Johnson came by with either threats or lies (or both) to keep them fighting. For any Lemmy libs who may wander in here, that is why I give my critical support to Russia in this fight. In no way is some inevitable, ancient conflict between Ukraine and Russia. In fact, every time Ukraine has had a chance to pull the car over to side of the road, the US has been there to jerk the steering wheel back and step on the gas.
Death to America.
Thank you, I suspected that I was being far too generous to the west.