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.
I only now checked the news today by accident, death to Israel. I feel completely sickened. Nasrallah was a greater man than any Israeli can ever be.
This is so blatantly an act of war. Lebanon is at war whether it is announced by either side or not. What will still be standing by the time troops begin moving? Maybe the whole nation will be treated like Gaza but the rubble will grind down the Israelis, but by god the death toll of that. They are losing more and more equivalents to North Vietnam or the like, a place that is secure and safe for planning operations.
The death of a leader is not game over, but if Israel can keep decapitating these organizations, an orderly and planned out resistance becomes more and more difficult.
I keep thinking of Finkelstein's story about his mother testifying against that female concentration camp guard and them walking out of the court and seeing the woman just walking around and his mother says "GET HER, THEY THINK WE ARE SHEEP" and him doing unspecified actions. Make them pay, they think you are sheep
I keep thinking of Finkelstein's story about his mother testifying against that female concentration camp guard and them walking out of the court and seeing the woman just walking around and his mother says "GET HER, THEY THINK WE ARE SHEEP" and him doing unspecified actions. Make them pay, they think you are sheep
where can I find this? I'm assuming Norm popped her one
He talked about it on true Anon (and possibly other places). Episode 131 and 132 I believe.
It's definitely a powerful moment in part because he does not really say what he did but it is clear that whatever it was was done with the utmost contempt and hatred for the guard. Rightly of course. Just a powerful emotion comes through.
The death of a leader is not game over, but if Israel can keep decapitating these organizations, an orderly and planned out resistance becomes more and more difficult.
That assumes that an organization can't learn to exist without rigid command chains with one person at the head.
You only need one person with supreme power in battles on a local scale over a period of days. Beyond that, concentrated power is more of a liability than an asset.
For planning a consistent resistance with a clear policy like we have seen, yes that does require leadership. And notice the fact that I didn't say one individual person, but literally contrasted the death of a leader (singular) with the decapitation of an organization which usually involves more than one dead person.
No one is saying one almighty leader is all that is needed, the point is that it is not good for morale and organizing if those planning concerted strategies get killed. The IRA would often have very autonomous groups, sometimes under a dozen guys in a bog fleeing from the British, but the whole thing NEEDED the IRA Army Council to organize between cells, plan with other IRA's when possible, and decide policy. Your resistance doesn't work very well if every third cell decides to try to start a land war when the other cells are buying time.
The whole reasoning for not going to war with Israel fully, is that Israel needs to grind itself down and exhaust itself. You are assuming that this strategy still works if there is no organ actually making and enforcing this policy.
As for the point about local scale battles, yeah but the Axis of Resistance does not fight local scale battles as its main objective. That has been the entire stated goal of Hamas and Hezbollah this whole time. That open warfare and battles are not how they will win. The asymmetric nature of their strategy REQUIRES a firm order and plan that is a settled matter.
What you are describing is exactly what caused the disaster in the Congo Crisis. Read The African Dream, Che's journal of the Cuban mission there. This blase attitude led to cells hoarding weapons even when they had no ammo for them, refusing to follow orders to assist in other fronts, entire units attacking when they shouldn't, completely opposing attitudes towards locals, intelligence slipups, the arrest of attaches from other cells and allied forces for "suspicious activity", and so on.
I have more to say about this, but I have to run, the point is, putting all your leadership in one place is a liability, the fix is not to autonomize your underground organization, that is perhaps even worse. The way to avoid decapitation is to have firm procedures for continuity of government/redundancy in leadership. If Gerry Adams had been blown up, the Provos would not have fallen apart, but it would be completely and utterly absurd to say the IRA needed to decentralize from the Army Council. The more asymmetrical the war, the MORE important concentrated power is, even if delineated to more people. That cannot be on a, in the line of fire, thing either. Because again, the key to the Axis of Resistance is shared policy and strategy for the whole movement, a leader during a skirmish is not even as important for them as a clear leader with a clear order from a higher leader on what the party line is.
Enforcing this was instrumental to the IRA, the Chinese Red Army, the Bolshevik Party, the FARC, PLO, etc