Bulletins and News Discussion from May 27th to June 2nd, 2024 - The Virgin France vs the Chad Sahel - COTW: Chad
Bulletins and News Discussion from May 27th to June 2nd, 2024 - The Virgin France vs the Chad Sahel - COTW: Chad
Chad, a country in north-central Africa, borders a lot of active geopolitical areas - Niger to the West, Libya to the North, Sudan to the East - but is scarcely discussed itself. I'm not really knowledgable enough to give anything like a decent history, but the recent gist is that the country was ruled for three decades by Idriss Déby until he was killed in battle in 2021 while fighting northern rebels. Idriss was part of a few wars - such as the one against Gaddafi in Libya, and also the Second Congo War. While he was initially elected democratically in 1996 and 2001, he then eliminated term limits and just kept on going.
After his death, Chad has been ruled by his son, Mahamat Idriss Déby. In early May 2024, elections began which were meant to result in the transition from a military-ruled goverment to a civilian-ruled one. Needless to say, Mahamat won the election - with 61% of the vote. Both father and son have been on the side of the French and the US, whereas the opposition is against foreign colonizers and has attempted to put pressure on the government in numerous ways to achieve a more substantial independence. France maintains a troop presence in Chad, and it's something of a stronghold for them - when French troops were forced out of Niger, they retreated to Chad. However, it's not clear even to the people inside Chad what precisely the French are doing there. I mean, we know what their presence is really for - imperialism and election rigging - but in an official sense, they don't seem to be doing much to help the country materially. What is clear is that they like to intervene on behalf of the ruling regime and against rebels a whole lot - the most interventions by France in any African country, in fact.
The United States, so keen on human rights and democracy in so many places around the world like Russia, Iran, and China, have - for some strange reason! - decided for the last 30 years that they can live with a couple dictators and wars in the case of Chad. In fact, various American state propaganda firms like the ISW and Washington Post have warned the current government about the Wagner Group interfering with the country and spreading anti-Western sentiments as in the rest of the Sahel.
Things are very tough for Chad. They are among the poorest countries in Africa and host about one million people fleeing from nearby conflicts, which is a pretty large number when Chad has a population of about 17 million.
With the French Empire fading, they are beginning to run out of places to retreat to in Africa. Macron, in January, said that his defense council had decided to reduce troop presence in Gabon, Senegal, and the Côte d'Ivoire, though has maintained troop levels in Chad and Djibouti. Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet from France, anti-empire sentiments are boiling to the surface in New Caledonia/Kanaky, which is unfortunate for the French military as they really need that island, both for the massive nickel reserves, but also as an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Pacific just in case a conflict with China pops off.
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 Chad! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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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 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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Politico: Dems in full-blown ‘freakout’ over Biden
Famed Russo-Chinese state propagandist, Politico, is also joining the chorus of panic over Biden and whether there's actually any reason to vote for him.
Some choice quotes:
A pervasive sense of fear has settled in at the highest levels of the Democratic Party over President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects, even among officeholders and strategists who had previously expressed confidence about the coming battle with Donald Trump.
“You don’t want to be that guy who is on the record saying we’re doomed, or the campaign’s bad or Biden’s making mistakes. Nobody wants to be that guy,” said a Democratic operative in close touch with the White House and granted anonymity to speak freely. But Biden’s stubbornly poor polling and the stakes of the election “are creating the freakout,” he said. “This isn’t, ‘Oh my God, Mitt Romney might become president.’ It’s ‘Oh my God, the democracy might end.’”
Despite everything, Trump is running ahead of Biden in most battleground states. He raised far more money in April, and the landscape may only become worse for Democrats, with Trump’s hush-money trial concluding and another — this one involving the president’s son — set to begin in Delaware.
While he’s long lagged Biden in cash on hand, Trump’s fundraising outpaced the president’s by $25 million last month, and included a record-setting $50.5 million haul from an event in Palm Beach, Florida. One adviser to major Democratic Party donors provided a running list that has been shared with funders of nearly two dozen reasons why Biden could lose, ranging from immigration and high inflation to the president’s age, the unpopularity of Vice President Kamala Harris and the presence of third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. [...] The adviser added, “The list of why we ‘could’ win is so small I don’t even need to keep the list on my phone.”
...
But Democratic critics of the campaign’s approach — while agreeing that abortion should be a winning issue — said they’re challenged when pressed by friends to make the case for why Biden will win.
“There’s still a path to win this, but they don’t look like a campaign that’s embarking on that path right now,” said Pete Giangreco, a longtime Democratic strategist who’s worked on multiple presidential campaigns. “If the frame of this race is, ‘What was better, the 3.5 years under Biden or four years under Trump,’ we lose that every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”
Whatever the Biden campaign has been doing over the past two months — and it’s a lot of activity, including $25 million in swing-state ad spending, according to AdImpact — it has had only a limited effect. According to FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s average job-approval rating on March 7, the date of his State of the Union Address, was 38.1 percent. As of Friday, it’s 38.4 percent.
And his standing against Trump has also changed little. On April 22, the day Trump’s criminal trial began, the presumptive GOP nominee held a 0.3-point lead in national polls, according to FiveThirtyEight. Trump is up about a point since then, currently leading Biden by 1.4 points in the FiveThirtyEight average.
“New York Democrats need to wake up,” said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. “The number of people in New York, including people of color that I come across who are saying positive things about Trump, is alarming.”
“The greatest political challenge confronting the president starts with an “i,” but it’s not Israel, it’s inflation,” Torres said. “The cost of living is a challenge that we have to figure out how to manage.” He said Biden should focus on issues around affordability and continue to tout his success in capping insulin costs in areas with high rates of diabetes, like his Bronx district.
Judging from the socdems/social fascists I sometimes watch (e.g. at r/curatedtumblr), the anxiety is also heightening in the non-wonk population, too. Increasingly frequent shit like how you're transphobic if you don't vote for Biden, etc. Entirely plausible that if Biden can't get the cost of living down in the next five months, it is officially Joever. And just bleating "the economy is actually great, the best it's ever been actually" won't change that. You can't gaslight somebody into thinking that they haven't spent noticeably more money on bills lately no matter how many fancy indices you throw at them.
It’s ‘Oh my God, the democracy might end.’”
“The greatest political challenge confronting the president starts with an “i,” but it’s not Israel, it’s inflation,"
It’s true though. It’s funny that liberals are complaining about anti zionists as “one issue voters” while completely ignoring the fact that Biden is also focusing on the same issue and completely ignoring the issues that are plaguing his chances of re-election.
”You don’t want to be that guy who is on the record saying we’re doomed”
-Guy who is on the record saying we’re doomed
One adviser to major Democratic Party donors provided a running list that has been shared with funders of nearly two dozen reasons why Biden could lose, ranging from immigration and high inflation to the president’s age, the unpopularity of Vice President Kamala Harris and the presence of third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
No mention of his support for genocide on that list, but RFK is on there instead.
These people are deeply unserious buffoons.Yea if the guy that has a dead worm in his brain because it got mercury poisoning is a legit threat to your campaign you've got way bigger issues.
RFK is only a “serious” contender because both sides think he hurts the other side more so they are both funding his campaign as a spoiler. Nobody actually likes him
if they truly believe that Trump means the end of democracy, then one of these cowards needs to hurry up and
Biden already since there's apparently no other way to get a different candidateIf only he hadn’t started a land war with Russia and a trade war with China…!
Who could have seen that backfiring?
Tbf, both of those projects have been consistent between Obama and trump too. I think Joe is probably the staunchest Zionist of the bunch though
Obama and Trump didn’t escalate to a land war against Russia. They definitely increased tensions, but Joe gets the credit for committing the one massive historical mistake even children know to avoid.
the 2014 coup, subsequent armament of ukraine and the escalation of the civil war over the donbass happened under obama. 14000 people died during that period. obviously 2022 was a further escalation but the hot war portion of this conflict has spanned 3 administrations
the 2014 coup, subsequent armament of ukraine and the escalation of the civil war over the donbass happened under obama
I wonder who was VP...
It’s ‘Oh my God, the democracy might end.’” Despite everything, Trump is running ahead of Biden in most battleground states
critical support to trump in his struggle against bourgeois democracy
Death to America
It’s ‘Oh my God, the democracy might end.
If you know democracy will end and you’re not rallying troops and militias to prevent Cheeto Man from being supreme leader, you are a worthless leader. Even if you won, you would be extremely unreliable and dangerous.
Democrats are so fucking stupid it’s unbelievable. They should’ve told Biden to shut his ass up and go groom another politician for presidency. Fucking dumb piece of shit party with tens of millions of voters and they couldn’t find a single asshole who’s more charismatic than Biden? Putting aside the genocidaire in chief, why should I vote for a party that fails at every fundamental aspect of politicking?
dnc shenanigans, dnc shenanigans
