Bulletins and News Discussion from January 27th to February 2nd, 2025 - Tariffs in Trump's Imperium - COTW: Colombia

Image is of Colombian President Gustavo Petro giving a speech at the UN in 2022.

Trump has arrived in office with the force of an avalanche; ~~ending~~ slowing a genocide on the one hand, while simultaneously promising a total nightmare for minorities and the poor throughout and outside the United States on the other hand. [edited for clarity; I do not actually think Trump has ended the Palestinian genocide obviously, I was making a joke - but the ceasefire is a genuine improvement in conditions for millions of people right now who are on the edge of death, so it cannot be dismissed]

It's still far too early to truly compare and contrast his imperial strategy with Biden's, but initial signs show that there does appear to be somewhat of a reorientation. Biden was famous for being two-faced; ostensibly offering aid and stability, while also blowing up your pipeline to ensure you did not actually have an alternative to his idea. Trump, meanwhile, seems only really capable of aggression, threatening several "allied" nations with what may as well be sanctions because of the economic harm they'd do. I suspect we'll be debating for a long time how much of this can be attributed to the specific characteristics of Trump, or whether he merely embodies the zeitgeist of imperial decline - a wounded empire lashing out with extreme violence to try and convince everybody, including themselves, that they can still be the world imperialist hegemon.

I'll admit it: I did not believe that Trump would actually try and go ahead with putting tariffs on basically anybody who annoys him. And while the threat could still be empty in regards to countries like China and Canada, Colombia is the first indication of the potential of his strategy. Despite some fiery words from President Petro, after Trump's administration revealed the punishment if Colombia did not agree, it appears that Colombia will in fact be accepting deported migrants after all. It's funny how that works.

Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

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626 comments

Qassam has released quite a lot of footage of their operations against the IOF during the last month or so, before the signing of the ceasefire. All I can say is that despite 15 months of relentless bombing and a full blown ground operation, the Resistance's fighting capacity is still there. It's not untouched though because I believe the Resistance has suffered tremendously, but they are more than able to fight back and even determine the pace of fighting. In the latest series of videos released by Qassam, named "Ambushes of Death", the picture couldn't look worse of the "israelis".., scores of their soldiers are killed or seriously wounded in elaborated RPG, IED and sniper operations in the last few months. In one such operation, a Qassam Brigades team detonates a BIG IED under a Merkava tank and flips it over, tossing the turret away from the chassis in the process, resulting in multiple dead for the "israelis" as well as gravely wounded.
Do check out Jon Elmer's twitter account if you haven't, it's a great archive of Qassam/PIJ footage that might be uh.. handy I guess.
I have nothing but admiration for the military prowess of the Gazans, they're fighting in a small strip of land that is almost entirely flat and urban. There are no mountains or jungles to run away to, it's just a big city with smaller ones as satellites, the sea and the big border with "israel" and Egypt, completely at the marcy of their genocidal neighbors. Their only hope was to dig, dig and dig, study every single street and corner that exists and have a plan for each part of the city, strike only when necessary or when the enemy is completely distracted (like when these mfs just start posing for pictures or bulldozing buildings). Their way of conducting urban guerrilla warfare will be studied for generations, there have been urban guerrillas in the past but I think none is just as good as this one.
- It's not untouched though because I believe the Resistance has suffered tremendously
  Pentagon estimate is 10k-20k eliminated. But they also estimate that they have gained 15k recruits in the same time period.
  These will be untrained, but the overall force count of the organisation sounds unchanged to me. Assuming you take these numbers at face value. If the number eliminated is wrong then Hamas could be larger than it was before.
  
  A new recruit from 6 months ago is now a battle hardened veteran
  
  Perhaps, the article I posted suggested new recruits are only being used as security though. I think that would make some sense as it wouldn't be good for recruitment to just send people into the meat grinder like Ukraine.
  
  That's israeli estimation by number of killed men, no?
  
  Israel were estimating 12,000 in February 2024 so I don't think it's their one. I can't find where I read the pentagon estimate now though. The recruitment estimate was here: https://archive.is/ogkJW
  I don't see a reason for the US to be lying about the recruitment Hamas has done and it doesn't seem unrealistic under the circumstances. I doubt Hamas' total manpower has changed much at all, but they've lost a lot of skilled people.

626 comments