Bulletins and News Discussion from September 23rd to September 29th, 2024 - The War In The North
Bulletins and News Discussion from September 23rd to September 29th, 2024 - The War In The North
Image is of a Hezbollah missile attack on a military camp west of Jenin.
The situation between Hezbollah and Israel is rapidly escalating, with massive bombing campaigns on southern Lebanon by Israel predominantly on civilians (as the tunnels in South Lebanon are mostly unreachable to the Zionists, just like in Gaza), while Hezbollah and its allies respond with missile attacks predominantly on Israeli military facilities. Israel is spreading an evacuation order to the residents of southern Lebanese villages while also bombing their routes of escape and civilian infrastructure, similar to a terror tactic used widely in Gaza.
Northern Israel is currently under military censorship to hide their losses, so we get very little information other than what the Resistance provides and what videos and images get through the censors.
I don't know if Israel will dare a ground incursion soon, but it seems fairly likely in the coming days or weeks.
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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.
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When a brutal fascist regime is waging a war of terror against civilians, you think of where your sympathies lie.
So has Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Denmark's controversial foreign minister, who gave this statement to government broadcaster DR on September 26th 2024:
"I can certainly tell the difference between these countries. I know where my sympathy intuitively lies. I know which countries are democracies and which are not. But that doesn’t change the fact that, in the end, everyone has a responsibility to ensure this doesn’t spiral completely out of control."
The statement is an example of democracy washing where the alleged democratic nature of the illegal zionist entity is used to justify their atrocities and shift blame to the victims.
Journalists from a free and independent news outlet might have asked him follow-up questions such as:
- Can an apartheid state be democratic?
- Can a state be democratic when a majority of the people it governs is denied the vote?
- How can war crimes be justified by the perpetrator's system of government?
- Are the lives of civilians living under an allegedly "undemocratic" form of government worth less than those of people living under presumably "democratic" regimes?
"I can certainly tell the difference between these countries. I know where my sympathy intuitively lies. I know which countries are white and which are not. But that doesn’t change the fact that, in the end, everyone has a responsibility to ensure this doesn’t spiral completely out of control."
Fixed it
There's a blurb from Wendy Brown that strikes a similar vein, getting at the cultural hi-jacking of "democracy" during the invasion of Iraq :
"... Again, however, translated into neo-liberal terms, “democracy,” here or there, does not signify a set of independent political institutions and civic practices comprising equality, freedom, autonomy and the principle of popular sovereignty but rather, indicates only a state and subjects organized by market rationality. Indeed, democracy could even be understood as a code word for availability to this rationality; removal of the Taliban and Baath party pave the way to that availability and democracy is simply the name of the regime, conforming to neo-liberal requirements, that must replace them. When Paul Bremer, U.S.-appointed interim governor of Iraq, declared on May 26 (just weeks after the sacking of Baghdad and four days after the UN lifted economic sanctions), that Iraq was “open for business,” he made clear exactly how democracy would take shape in post-Saddam Iraq. A flood of duty-free imported goods poured into the country, finishing off many already war-damaged local Iraqi businesses. Mulitinationals tumbled over themselves to get a piece of the action in Iraq, and foreign direct investment to replace and privatize state industry was described by the corporate executives advising the Bush administration as the “answer to all of Iraq’s problems.”"
Although now, like CyborgMarx said, Global North imperial powers use "democracy" as a code word for whiteness, and according to their imperialist white supremacist logics, worthiness and humanity.
"Democracy" literally just means "Western" or "Western ally". It does not matter in the slightest whether a country has free elections, a country which is a Western ally will be called a democracy and one which isn't, won't. The word is completely meaningless when used by Western government officials.