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.
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.
It isn't wise to fall into the stupidity that is the Great Man Theory, even more so since we're leftists and we uphold other ideals. We seek to build movements from the ground up, leaders are important for articulation but our collective fates are NOT tied to them. The same goes for Nasrallah, he was indeed a great leader and very important for Hezbollah in it's resistance against the genocidal entity. His death is a heavy blow but the movement will continue because it has a great and noble goal -- the liberation of their land from the zionist occupier. He himself spoke about this, he himself was aware that he will die sooner or later, and he made it clear that the fight must go on despite this. Now, the man is a martyr, he's in a position where he can't be killed nor touched.
Let us not forget also that movements like Hezbollah have a different approach to death itself. A dead palestinian or a dead lebanese is a martyr, not something to hide or be ashamed of. People who die are mourned, cried but also celebrated, remembered, elevated to greatness even. That's a key difference between the arab resistance movements and the genocidal entity that is "Israel", one is not afraid to die, the other hides behind military hardware and will take the first plane out of Tel Aviv as Ansar Allah fires a missile or two. One proudly announces their dead as martyrs, vows to keep fighting for them, meanwhile "Israel" hides behind censorship and will never release their death toll in Gaza and the northern front, they're ashamed of their dead.
Leave the Great Man Theory for losers like the fascists, liberals and monarchists, those who will tie their fates to individuals. Mourn the death of a great leader, but go on. The path ahead is full of problems and obstacles, but one shall never lose track of the ultimate goal: the elimination of the genocidal entity that will mark an important victory in our greater anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and therefore anti-capitalist struggle.
Nasrallah was in his 60s. He was going to have to think about passing the torch in the medium term unless he wanted to lead until the day he died. Compared to most who face down Israel, he lived a quite long and accomplished life and left behind many very competent leaders trained to replace him.