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Bulletins and News Discussion from September 16th to September 22nd, 2024 - This Megathread Is Dedicated To The Brave Mujahideen Fighters of Afghanistan - COTW: Afghanistan

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.

1.6K comments
  • Говорит Шестиугольный Медведь!

    Сообщение Совинформбюро!

    Модераторы 1-го Международного информационного фронта под командованием фельдмаршала Советского Союза 72 трлн при поддержке 1-го Украинского информационного фронта под командованием фельдмаршала Советского Союза Карпа Правда завершила уничтожение мировой группы Лемми фашистских войск после упорных уличных боев!

    А сегодня, 17 сентября, они полностью захватили столицу нацистского мира Лемми, город Лэнгли, штат Вирджиния!

    Центр империализма Лемми и центр агрессии Лемми.

    Hi, I'm here to announce that Hexbear's News Comm is going to be changing the rules of the comm in order to better modernize rules that haven't been changed since the founding of hexbear or have been added slap-shod in the heat of the moment to address pressing issues of the day.

    With that in mind, we of the News Comm mod team have decided to add an element of democracy to the process of modernizing the comm's rules by opening the floor to the participants of the comm to both propose new rules, edit or strike old rules, and after deliberation by the mod team, voting yea or nay on the finalized slate.

    If you wish to participate by making proposals, please make a comment in reply to this pinned comment with your proposed motion. For your proposed motion to move to deliberation by the mod team, we'll be requiring a minimum floor of 21 votes (20 unique votes plus your own comment's initial vote).

    An example of this could be "Proposal to editing the old rule 4 on twitter links from nitter.com to xcancel or any other twitter mirror that does not require an account, while also striking the section referring to the firefox extension, making it

    -- If you are citing a twitter post as news please include not just the twitter.com in your links but also xcancel.com (or another alternative instance). There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/ . or archive them as you would any other reactionary source using e.g. https://archive.today . Twitter screenshots still need to be sourced or they will be removed --

    End proposal"

    Proposals that meet the minimum required votes will be brought to the floor in a private chamber for deliberation by the mod team and proposals will be discussed, edited should minor adjustments be needed, and finally voted upon to accept it as a part of the final draft or to table it from discussion. (by the way we called the chatroom we're gonna be chattering about all your ideas "The Central Committee of the news mega" You can either be jealous or mirthful of the level of Larping we're doing for this event)

    After a set amount of time for accepting new proposals, discussing, and voting upon them, we'll do another one of these pinned comments presenting each accepted proposed rule for a simple thumbs up-thumbs down vote. After a set period of voting, we'll confirm the results and edit the Comm rules to reflect the new changes. (The voting system will look like Comment with proposal and two reply comments with a silly emoji and text saying "Yea" and "Nay")

    Alright my little war piggies, its time to run wild!

  • The motherfuckers did it again, fuck this earth. One of the explosions in Sour/Tyre yesterday was less than 100m from my cousin's office. We fucking lost contact with him for hours until everything settled and we got a thumbs up in the family group chat. How is this blatant terrorism even fucking justified by these absolute freaks. So many young beautiful people leave us every single day in Lebanon, for what? The continuation of the biggest terror state since Nazi Germany. My hatred and rage are genuinely reaching uncontrollable levels, fuck everyone from Sykes to Ben Gurion to Sadat to Clinton to Abdullah

  • Cards Against Humanity sues SpaceX, alleges “invasion” of land on US/Mexico border

    Apparently they're saying SpaceX has invaded land that CAH bought to prevent the Trump border wall.

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/09/cards-against-humanity-sues-spacex-alleges-invasion-of-land-on-us-mexico-border/

    "Seven years ago, 150,000 people paid us $15 to protect a pristine parcel of land on the US-Mexico border from racist billionaire Donald Trump's very stupid wall. Unfortunately, an even richer, more racist billionaire—Elon Musk—snuck up on us from behind and completely fucked that land with gravel, tractors, and space garbage."

    "If we win, we'll equally split the lawsuit's net proceeds among all 150,000 of our original subscribers, up to $100 each," the company said. "While this isn't enough to compensate our subscribers for the anguish they've suffered witnessing Elon Musk defile their once-verdant land⸺where wild horses galloped freely in the Texas moonlight⸺we think it's a pretty good start."

    Lmao if you paid $15 to CAH several years ago, they're gonna give you $100 when they win.

  • Nasrallah's speech, courtesy of political_aya on Twitter:

    The reason for my speech today is the updates during the past 2 days. I had not intended to speak before October 7 on the anniversary of Al-Aqsa Flood to give an overview and assessment of the past year, but these events require a speech. I must first, before everything, congratulate all Muslims on the birth of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and the birth of his grandson Imam Jaafar Sadeq (AS). We were also meant to commemorate the late Sheikh Hassan Trad today. However, the events do not allow for that.

    I must extend my deepest condolences and warmest congratulations to the families of the martyrs, both the ones who rose during the past 2 days, and the ones on the frontlines too. We must also thank the Lebanese authorities, the Ministry of Health, hospitals, clinics, medical centers and organizations, nurses, and doctors. We must also thank everyone who rushed to donate blood and those who offered their organs. We must thank every person who helped transport the wounded to the hospitals. Some people carried them and rushed them to the hospitals, others on motorcycles and their cars. The medical sector is working tirelessly day and night to treat the wounded. One of the blessings of the blood that was shed is the unity we have seen in Lebanon, which we had not seen for a very long time. We extend our thanks to all parties, nations, leadership figures...who condemned this act and offered their condolences, and thank the nations who have sent aid and helped transport the wounded for treatment.

    On Tuesday, the "israeli" enemy conducted an attack through detonating pager devices simultaneously. These devices are used by many sectors of Lebanese society, and even in the world, and not only by Hezbollah personnel. On Wednesday, the enemy repeated the attack, detonating walkie-talkie devices. It is not necessary for a brother to be carrying the device to be harmed. It is enough for it to have been set on a table. The enemy has crossed all red lines and all laws in this attack. This is a massive terrorist attack, genocide, a massacre. "The Tuesday & Wednesday massacres" is what we will call them. This is a war crime, a declaration of war...you can call it anything. When the enemy planned out this attack, they assumed there were at least 4,000 pagers spread out across all of Lebanon. This means that the enemy had the intention of murdering 4,000 people in a single minute. By repeating the attack on Wednesday, the enemy had the intention of murdering at least 5,000 human beings. God the Almighty saved us with His Mercy and Generosity. The number of martyrs was lower than the enemy had aimed for because of how the people, ambulances, medical workers...all rushed to save lives. Some pagers were also out of order. Thankfully, this saved many lives.

    We formed an extensive investigative committee to study all scenarios, possibilities, and theories, and have reached an almost-definitive conclusion. We are realistic people; this attack was certainly a huge blow on the security and humanitarian level. This attack is unprecedented in the history of Lebanon and our battle against the Zionist enemy, and possibly even the history of the world. This was certainly a huge blow, but this is war; one day our enemy harms us, the other we inflict harm upon them. This enemy is backed by the US and the entire West and has the most advanced technologies recruited for their benefit. I can tell you with utmost certainty that this attack did not break us and will not break us. On the contrary, it will only increase our resolve and determination to continue on in this battle.

    Why did the enemy do this? When the blessed Al-Aqsa Flood began, the Southern Lebanese support front was opened. This front has inflicted huge losses upon the enemy since October 8, as they have repeatedly admitted themselves. I am not concerned with what those who do have input or data say, and those who do not follow up on what the enemy says. The enemy cries, "We have lost the North!" They say this is the first time they receive a defeat of this nature in the North. The Southern Lebanese front has been a very effective front alongside the other support fronts. The enemy has repeatedly sent us messages to close this front. They resorted to threats of war, and attempted to differentiate between Lebanon & Gaza. Tuesday afternoon, after the first attack, the enemy sent us a message through official and unofficial channels, threatening that if we do not close our front, they have more in store for us. And so the attack on Wednesday came.

    In the name of the martyrs, the wounded, the ones who lost their eyes and palms, and in the name of every person who has taken on the responsibility of supporting Gaza, we tell Netanyahu and Gallant: the Lebanese front will not stop until the war on Gaza ends. Through this attack, the enemy wanted the people of the Resistance to turn against the Resistance. This goal failed on Tuesday and Wednesday when we all saw the stances of the people and the wounded who hope to recover to return to the battlefield. The enemy thought they would destroy the formations and command and leadership units of the Resistance to create a state of chaos and confusion in Hezbollah's leadership. This did not happen for even a moment. What happened these past 2 days did not bend us, nor did it break our spirits or affect our capabilities or leadership. It did not affect our presence on the battlefield. On the contrary, it increased our strength and resolve.

    Recently, the entity had been talking about shifting the center of gravity to the North in order to return the settlers. Does Netanyahu think he can achieve that? They think they can create a security zone in South Lebanon so that the settlers can live in peace. I tell Netanyahu: You cannot bring your settlers back to the North. Do as you wish; whatever you do, you will not bring them back unless you end the war on Gaza. This is a challenge between us, and I assure you, by God's will, they will not return.

    The commander of the Northern region said their troops will enter South Lebanon. We wish they would do that! It requires massive intelligence efforts to track the troops at the border to target them. It would make our job easier if they came here. We would "welcome" these troops if they came to the South. You may see it as a threat, but to us, this is a historic opportunity! The security zone you dream of in the South will be turned to hell for you troops. You will face the ones you attacked on Tuesday and Wednesday, who have only become more determined to fight.

    Allow me to speak with a different tone today, for this attack was done covertly: the reckoning will come, and it will be severe. I will not speak about a date or time. You will know of it when it happens; you will not hear about it before. We will keep plans and intentions for our severe response limited to our tightest circles. You will not hear anything, you shall only see. I hope the Lebanese people hold on to the sense of unity we witnessed the past 2 days, and pay no mind to the petty ones who try to create strife and division.

    The enemy's foolish, narcissistic, savage leadership is leading the entity to its demise, to the abyss, God-willing. If they choose to escalate against Lebanon, that will only cause more settlers, these occupiers and land thieves, to flee from the North. I pray to Allah the Almighty to aid our Palestinian people in Gaza, who are being massacred before the world. I pray for the speedy recovery of the wounded to they could return to the battlefield. Your words for us are deeply moving & leave us embarrassed. The enemy does not understand the deep cultural and sentimental relationship the people and the Resistance have. They have failed and will fail to achieve all their goals. God-willing, grand victory awaits us. The days, weeks, months, and maybe even years are between us. This is a huge battle, and it may be a long one.

  • many news heads have rightly said that this pager (and now radio) attack makes sense only as a direct prelude to invasion, and the zionist entity seems to have wasted this opportunity. i also saw a comment, before the relevation that two hezbollah fighters had discovered the pagers, that “israel” has a tendency to pull the trigger on operations as soon as they are technically feasible. this sort of strategic flailing seems odd, but it also lines up with the conclusions of a US army analysis of the 2006 “israeli”-hezbollah war.

    it’s about 60 pages of actual content, and it’s interesting for a number of reasons (there’s a good section on the missiles hezbollah used for people into that). now there’s a two decade sized grain of salt that should be taken here, but i doubt i could get access to current “israeli” planning, let alone in english. the biggest conclusion for recent events is that the zionist entity has focused on counterinsurgency and air power, degrading its combined arms capabilities and doctrine to the point that it does not have them.

    specifically, “israel” has fallen for the US air force’s greatest lie - that air power and bombing can stand as a combat arm independently from ground operations. as such, the head of the military at the time was an airman, and the doctrinal changes created were both confusing and biased against ground combat. additionally, the long time focus on ‘counterinsurgency’ in Gaza (the phrasing is not mine) has led to reserve mechanized equipment not being replaced, tank and mechanized crews not being trained, and minimal training at the division or batallion level. the lack of training in large formations and the fact that doctrine became more confusing as the formations got larger led to failure, broadly.

    to provide an illustration, i’ll run through the actions of two divisions in the last act of the war. the UN had passed a ceasefire resolution, and for reasons that are not completely clear, “israel” planned a last hurrah offensive. the symbolic goal was the litani river. division 91 of the iof was meant to be driving towards the mediterranean, but stalled out completely. In an inquiry after the war,

    The investigation concluded that commanders within the division “did not fully understand their orders” and “were not present with their troops during important battles and even failed to fulfill basic missions.” The investigation also found fault “in the way tactical orders were composed, sometimes without a time element. Since the orders were not clear, they were changed, in some cases, on an hourly basis. Brigade commanders did not properly understand their missions. . . . They didn’t know what their goals were and how long they had to fulfill their missions.” Remarkably, according to the report, “an entire battalion sat in the same location for several days without moving and when the commander finally received orders to push deeper into enemy territory he was confused and failed to fulfill the mission.”

    division 162 was looking to take Ghandouriyeh, a town that sat on a crossroads and high ground. they had to cross a valley, Wadi al-Saluki, to get there. first, the general sent air assault elements to secure the high ground over the valley. the air assault successfully landed near two towns, cleared several occupied buildings, did not take the high ground, and then reported that they secured the high ground. 24 tanks were sent up the road, and a collapsed building in front of them and an ied behind them had them trapped. each merkava had a smoke screen to make missile aim harder. dozens of anti-tank missiles then struck the column. not a single tank deployed smoke, and 11 tanks were hit. what infantry that was near was pinned by fire, and tank crew requests for artillery or air support were denied out of fear of friendly fire. the advance stopped at that town.

    to me, this paints a clear picture of modern military material (tanks, electronics, aircraft, artillery, and infantry) manned by people who don’t know how to use them. there is no feature of the actions of these divisions where their equipment failed them. moreover, i would expect any competent force with air assault, artillery, and armor elements to be able to seize a lightly defended town 10 kilometers from their border.

    so the iof is made up of a large number of uncoordinated small groups, and collectively has little sense of how to put these pieces together. and you might say, “well maybe they fixed some of that in the last twenty years”. i think the fact that modern merkavas have the trophy system answers whether or not that happened. it’s a very cool toy, designed to blow up an oncoming anti-tank missile mid air. strapping sensitive explosives to the front of your tank means that your infantry cannot be anywhere near it. so we see dozens of unaccompanied merkavas and bulldozers parked somewhere that a resistance fighter can run up to, unopposed. we also might see a hot shot intelligence officer cook up some pager plan, report it to his commanding officer, and have it approved without anyone thinking that operations are only effective in sequence and with support.

  • Media making sure to say that the attack was "targeting" Hezbollah.

    And I read a couple of articles that fail to mention the brand of the pagers that were blown up.

    I really don't know how to live without constantly feeling rage that shit like this is happening and so many people just keep on living their lives without a care in the world or at least question the narrative presented to them.

  • https://xcancel.com/Joyce_Karam/status/1836156436855877718

    High level intel sources tell @gsdebinski and Tyler Huffman:

    • TWO Hezbollah members found out about Israel's hack, one was "neutralized"
    • Decision to detonate pagers early took place before 2nd alerted superiors

    I don't know if this is true, but it does explain why the explosions weren't synchronized with an Israeli invasion.

    Hezbollah was at their weakest in the immediate aftermath. Every day that passes will allow them to regain strength. And the element of surprise is totally gone now.

  • hello fellow news enjoyers

    lots has been going on in the world since i last posted. A ghetto uprising in Gaza sparking into a full on multi-front war of resistance. Russia's slow grind finally paying off with desperate and collapsing Ukrainian forces, this Kursk adventure seems to be facing the same fate as the last Kursk adventure, with Russia re-taking a big chunk of the salient today. Once an offensive has stalled and started moving into retreat, we can safely say it was thwarted. Multiple coups and coup attempts throughout the world, the only ones in our favor seemingly in the Sahel.

    The latest looks like Israel continues to escalate towards Lebanon. After the two waves of terror attacks in Lebanon yesterday by Mossad, now the IDF airforce is heavily bombing Southern Beirut, and Netanyahu is releasing press statements about regaining the settlements in northern occupied Palestine on the Lebanese border. Apparently the General Staff of the Zionist Entity have approved a plan for an offensive in Lebanon. Armored units, special forces & helicopters are arriving at the border. The airstrikes may be preparation and softening for the offensive.

    Also, it's cute that America pretends to not know about the pager attack when they advised all of the staff in the American hospital in Beirut to swap pagers 10 days ago. Echoes of Crocus terror attack where American made ominous warnings days before about an upcoming terror attack in Russia but wouldn't provide any details.

  • Still no arrest warrant for Netanyahu.

    Putin got his in 3 weeks. It has been 4 months since Chief Prosecutor Khan requested the warrant for Netanyahu.

  • This is so evil ... absolutly evil , and proably planned so long ago .. . Nurses Doctors etc.. and now the second unfathanable evil is them claiming that every victim (Nurses , Doctors , Rescuers) is "hezbollah" since they had pagers that exploded..

    currently there is another wave of explosions ... Radios and Walki Talkies apperently .. fucking Insane ..

  • Now we know the real reason why the West has such a hard on for Taiwan. It's not just for commercial reasons. Spy agencies have infiltrated the fucking manufacturing processes. This is going to increase the pace of governments turning away from Western tech products.

    Not only is the West putting backdoors into hardware and software. They're putting EXPLOSIVES in the fucking stuff.

  • A few thoughts.

    I guess there's an object lesson in here that if you are procuring equipment for a movement, you gotta inspect it. Whether it is technology, arms, food, medicine. You gotta crack them open. At least a normalized sample.

    This pager thing seems to be a supply-chain attack (there would be a lot of collateral damage to other RF systems if this were simply triggered by RF interference), which raises the question, when did these devices go into circulation? This operation was likely months, if not years in the making. I doubt these devices were distributed last week.

    The paranoiacs might look at this incident as proof of the Zionist régime's omnipresence, but it should be considered simply as another step on the escalation ladder. It is an option the Zionists had at their disposal which has now been spent. One less trick up their sleeve.

    This shit is pretty embarrassing, and the Zionists will be riding on their high horses for a while, but it doesn't significantly change the situation. "Israel's" economy is in dire straits, with no tourism, large areas made uninhabitable by the resistance, a severe deficit in agricultural laborers, tens of thousands of businesses closing for good, mounting domestic contradictions, and a brain drain and exodus more broadly.

    Finally, when you combine a crisis with a disruption of communications infrastructure, it is fertile ground for intelligence gathering. I hope people are being smart about information being shared through irregular channels.

  • House Passes Bill to Label Products From West Bank Settlements “Made in Israel”

    The House passed a bill on Wednesday to label products from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as originating from “Israel,” essentially recognizing Israel’s annexation and ethnic cleansing of the region in what opponents of the bill say is a “hateful” attempt to erase the very existence of Palestinians in Palestine.

    The bill would make permanent an extremist Donald Trump-era policy to mislabel products from Palestine. Under the proposal, products from areas encompassing the majority of the West Bank would be labeled as a “Product of Israel” or “Made in Israel.”

    . . .

    The bill passed 231 to 189, with 16 Democrats joining Republicans in voting “yes.” The Democrats who voted in favor represent some of the most extremist pro-Israel Democrats in the House, as well as some of the most conservative in the caucus, including Representatives Ritchie Torres (New York) and Josh Gottheimer (New Jersey).

  • Another extremely evil move by Israel, but they can only really pull this trick once. Now Hezbollah is going to be thoroughly inspecting every vaguely electronic item that goes through their hands. For injuring a couple thousand random people, Israel has thoroughly burned their ability to infiltrate resistance organizations this deeply ever again. They could have injured the same number of people with conventional weapons easily, but they wanted their terrorism to be theatrical above all else.

  • I’ve been watching Trump talk about Israel on Hasan’s stream for a bit now. Honestly, Trump is truly disgusting. The way he talks about Israel is disgusting. It’s worth noting that Trump will still be REALLY BAD for Palestine.

    And I will fully admit, watching Trump talk about Israel elicits an emotional reaction in me. It was making we waver. I was starting to think maybe - MAYBE - I should go ahead and hold my nose and vote for Kamala, because she can’t be as bad as him right. Or at least losing to her will make this asshole and his supporters mad.

    And then, in my mind I saw the face of Nasrallah amongst a sea of Hezbollah flags. I thought about how much Hezbollah has had to deal with from Israel. How much poking them with a stick they’ve endured. How they’ve had to see Israel act like an out of control child. It must be so hard for them to not respond out of emotion. And yet, they haven’t. They kept a cool head for nearly a year now. And because they didn’t respond reflexively, I truly believe Hezbollah will destroy the IOF and even maybe bring about the end of the entity in time. So, be like Nasrallah and don’t give in to the need for immediate satisfaction.

    (No, I’m voting for Kamala and never was, just to be clear)

  • Fires still raging on in portugal. It's getting pretty bad

    And get this, just last week we donated our ONLY 6 KAMOV FIREFIGHTING HELICOPTERS to, guess who?

    Also a 28 year old brazillian worker died in one of the forest fires because he had gone into the forest to retrieve his company's equipment.

  • The Taiwanese pager company said that they're just giving their brand to the product but the pagers are actually manufactured by a hungarian company. The hungarian company said they didn't make the pagers, they're just an in-between, but refuse to say where the pagers were made.

  • Reddit really is a horrible website full of liberals lol. I was looking at some memes about the neoliberal mayoral candidate in Brazil who hit a far-right guy over the head with a chair and then threw the chair at him live on TV during a debate, because the guy accused him of being aremoved and made fun of the fact that a member of his family had died. Then the far-right guy left crying in an ambulance because he thought he broken his rib and today he had a meltdown because someone brought the same kind of chair near him during a march he was doing.

    Anyway, on reddit, someone made a post on some English-speaking subreddit and the comments were flooded with liberals saying: “I hate violence! That's not democracy! When he attacked the far-right guy, he became just like the far-right guy!” and some Brazilian gusanos insisting that the guy isn't far-right, even though the guy openly said he likes Bolsonaro and Trump, he said he wants to be the new Bolsonaro or some shit, honestly, this guy has a strange accent. And, of course, most of these Brazilians come from the south of Brazil, from mostly pro-Bolsonaro places (the same state that was destroyed because the Liberal and Conservative parties there stole the money that was supposed to be set aside for natural disasters and had to beg Lula for help).

  • all the business press going

    "there is no alternative to IMF austerity" on Sri Lanka.

    smaller countries like Sri Lanka always gets fucked over more under capitalism. not saying other global south countries are less vulnerable but with smaller countries IMF can force even a well meaning pro-worker Government into doing what they want. no coups or assassinations required.

    India really is the best candidate for the next socialist state imo, large population, one of the larger countries, enough resources, relatively industrialized and the Indian Rupee is more widely used internationally.

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