Bulletins and News Discussion from February 26th to March 3rd, 2024 - Breaking The Siege Of Omdurman - COTW: Sudan
Bulletins and News Discussion from February 26th to March 3rd, 2024 - Breaking The Siege Of Omdurman - COTW: Sudan
The war in Sudan has so far been marked by a lot of incompetency and mismanagement by government forces (the SAF). After months of bitter fighting, in late 2023, the opposing Rapid Support Forces suddenly expanded their control towards the southeast of Khartoum after not a lot of resistance, most notably taking the city of Wad Madani. This led the SAF supporters and officials to panic and point fingers at each other about what the hell the army is even doing, while RSF soldiers looted the city.
These victories led to a short period in late December and early January where diplomacy and peace talks were considered, but such attempts fell apart. The leader of the RSF visited various African countries, including meeting Paul Kagame in Rwanda, to boost his legitimacy. Then, the RSF attacked into South Kordofan and consolidated their hold on other areas.
The Sudanese capital of Khartoum sits on a river which divides it from the city to its west, Omdurman (see the post image). The SAF and RSF have been fighting over this grand urban area for the whole war, with the RSF holding most of Khartoum (with an entirely cut-off SAF force holding on in the center), with a similarly cut-off SAF force also in eastern Omdurman, up against the river. For 10 months, this force has been under siege - but no longer. In perhaps the first actual W of the war for the SAF, they finally managed to break the siege a week ago, pouring supplies in. This leaves a section of the RSF now cut off, though Omdurman is still not under full SAF control (and, who knows, the whole situation could once again go badly for the SAF).
Meanwhile, the Sudanese socioeconomic situation has completely collapsed, with potentially a 20% fall in GDP and 8 million people displaced, with 2 million from Khartoum alone. 18 million Sudanese, or about a third of the population, is in acute hunger, and 20 million children are out in school. The refugees streaming out of the country are causing knock-on effects in neighorboring countries like Chad. Nobody is even really counting the dead anymore.
Red is the government forces, the SAF. Blue is the RSF opposition. Other colours are various factions.
The Country of the Week is Sudan! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
You're viewing a single thread.
I feel like the whole world is unraveling.
This is a very depraved and evil society. I used to imagine it was out of willful ignorance, being overburdened, and exhausted. I still believe this is true to a certain extent, but I am coming around to the belief that this is deliberate and willful complicity; complicity of depravity, of indifference.
And where once there used to be a facade of attempt at denying this, everyone in power is openly embracing genocide. Israel supporters are brazenly celebrating this.
Geopolitics and its government administrators aside, I'm really disgusted at ordinary people choosing the wrong side - the side of genocide - in this moment.
There are a bunch of quotes about Marxists having to live while knowing and understanding the horror and evil of the capitalist system (I'd use one if i could remember any of them). Most people just live their normal lives not really thinking about this stuff without consciously taking a side, whereas we are weird internet communists who continue to learn about how the collective world worships at the blood altar of capital.
As someone who could be on the other side of the planet from you, all I can really do is encourage you to look after your mental health and take breaks from staring into the soul crushing abyss. Also, avoid adopting misanthropic views because we should fundamentally believe that people are generally good and it is the system that twists them into the demons that they become.
I wish it was easier to want to look away, but as leftists even just being social will devolve into political discussions at some point. sometimes I take time away purposefully, but catch myself still sneaking updates on situations that are ongoing
I honestly wish I could become bluepilled for real
when I stumbled in here after a random google search asking wtf was chapo trap house about roughly 3 years ago, I remember I spent a full day browing this website and reading every single post, and i became a wreck when i realised that literally everything I had learned and taken for granted was basically fake. I think I spent a year being depressed about how hopeless everything was, and yet it fucking got worse. I don't have anything helpful to say, just chiming in to say I know exactly how you feel.
Yeah, a few months into covid I was having a hard time after lurking here and in the collapse subreddit. At a certain point I think everything just kind of scabbed over those raw feelings as I learned to live with everything. We don't know the future and barely know the present, and I came to terms with my place in the world. I still get filled with the rage and resentment sometimes, but I've learned to have hope even if I'm an incredibly atomized person who doesn't leave the house.
I think everyone here has these feelings to some degree. Ultimately, these feelings are good because they prove our humanity.
Mr Piss you are stored in the Balls? Correct?
Some animals don't have balls so I make due where I can. Usually I try to stay near the sex organs/ass when possible. For mammals generally yes, but for birds I'm in whatever the fuck the cloaca is.
Used to lay awake at night just going over everything I knew and reconciling it with the new. Still do that sometimes.
I've noticed this a little too - being atomised works both ways, you can forget that a huge number of people actually are just awful and malicious, not just indifferent.
We need to dismember the universe.
Dethroning and killing god should remain an option