Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.
Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.
Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).
Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.
I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran’s leadership must - if they haven’t already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Neoliberal Clown Car News: Danish Foreign Minister Caught Trying To Bribe MP To Hush Up Underage Sex Scandal
Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the powerful leader of Denmark’s neoliberal “Moderate Party” and head of the nation’s Moderate Party-controlled ministry of Foreign Affairs, is currently embroiled in a yet another remarkable scandal. A clandestine recording, captures Rasmussen offering a substantial cash payment to his own party member, MP Mike Fonseca, to quietly vacate his parliamentary seat and hand it to a party-loyal substitute. In doing so, Fonseca would be replaced by a loyal party substitute, preserving the fragile majority of the right-wing regime of which the Moderate Party is part.
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The sum in question, DKK 370,000 (about RMB 410,000), was dangled before Mike Fonseca, a fellow Moderate, whose technically legal but widely condemned sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl was about to explode into public view. The scandal unfolded in 2023 when Fonseca was 28. Fonseca refuses to accept that there is anything unethical about his sexual relationship to the girl.
On the recording, made by Fonseca and released to the press in connection to the release of a book on the case, a clearly agitated Rasmussen chastises him for refusing the offer, blaming him for the predicament. “It is an attempt to solve a problem YOU have created! YOU created it! It is not ME who created it,” Rasmussen fumes. Rasmussen accuses Fonseca of endangering the entire party — and the girl — and reminds him of the Moderates’ internal “code of conduct,” which, in Rasmussen’s own words, prohibits members from “fiddling with minors” – apparently a necessary rule in Danish centre-right politics. Fonseca, for his part, is heard accusing the party leadership of extortion and labelling the arrangement a bribe, a charge that sends Rasmussen into a fresh rage. “Bribery?! Who is talking about bribing anyone?” Rasmussen retorts defensively when Fonseca labels the proposed payment. Adding to the farce, on the recording Rasmussen says that the bribe is “money, that we don’t have”. Rasmussen goes on to say that the party will “need to find it somewhere”.
According to the book, the proposed deal also stipulated that Fonseca would remain a member of the Moderate Party. A transcript of the recording shows that Rasmussen did not reject the idea of Fonseca running for office for the party again at some time in the future.
The Moderate Party, a party created in 2021 as a vehicle to continue Rasmussen’s unyielding grip on power after the former regime leader was ousted from the Liberal Party, have since scrambled to control the fallout. In a written statement to state media DR, Rasmussen has framed the payment as an “attempt to find a solution” to “a very unusual situation”. Moderate Party secretary Britt Bager claims Fonseca himself requested the hush money and says the party also offered him therapy sessions and press management services.
Fonseca, who stood to earn far more by simply staying in his position and continuing to draw an MP salary and who insists there is nothing unethical about his relationship to the teenage girl, rejected the bribe. Ha claims he never intended to take the bribe and only went to the meeting with Lars Løkke Rasmussen to hear him out. He was subsequently publicly ousted form the party and is now an MP without party affiliation.
The backlash from the political elite has been swift — if not entirely coherent. The attempt to trade seats in the Nordic hermit kingdom’s rubber-stamp parliament for cash has been condemned by both far right and fascist groupings in parliament as well as the moderate pro-democracy opposition. The fascist Danish People’s Party, never ones to miss an opportunity for performative outrage, declared that such behavior belongs in “banana republics,” while Liberal Alliance, a right-wing frivolous party, accused Rasmussen of “clinging to power by any means necessary.” Meanwhile, the ruling Social Democrats, whose grip on power depends on the alliance with Rasmussen’s party, have maintained a studious silence on the attempted cash-for-mandates deal.
Legal experts have shrugged, conceding that while the transaction may not technically violate Danish law, it lays bare the rot at the heart of the country’s political machinery. Constitutional law professor Frederik Waage commented that the constitution was never intended to facilitate haggling over parliamentary mandates, even if no specific statute was broken.
The case will now be discussed in the presidium of the Nordic hermit kingdom’s parliament.
For Rasmussen and the Moderates, the scandal is merely the latest in a long series of humiliations. Founded in 2021, the Moderate Party have quickly earned a reputation as a clown car of embarassing public scandals involving everything from workplace bullying, sexual harrassment and misogyny to an MP lying about being a successful entrepreneur. With a damning insider book from another ex-MP about to hit shelves soon and Rasmussen currently hiding from journalists, the trouble is far from over for the Moderates. One thing, however, is already clear: Denmark’s political elite, so fond of lecturing others on democratic virtue, has once again revealed itself to be just as grubby as the systems it loves to condemn.
Sources: