Image is from the Britannica article on CECOT, known as the Terrorism Confinement Center in English.
This megathread's topic is inspired by our lovely news regular, @Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net, who talks often about the conditions inside El Salvador and gives nuanced and informative takes.
As the Trump administration continues to make foreign policy blunders that would make even the staunchest anti-imperialist accelerationist blush - and we are barely three months in! - it's interesting to compare and contrast his policies of incompetent imperialist and domestic management to the dictators in other countries.
Bukele is somewhat unique among fascists, in that he seems to not hide - and seems to even admit to - his evil, self-describing as the world's "coolest dictator". El Salvador has no particular shortage of prominent fascists in their history, but one major example is Maximiliano Martínez, who led the country over much of the 1930s and the early 1940s. He was responsible the deaths of many thousands of communists and indigneous people, and yet joined World War 2 on the side of the Allies and against the Nazis.
The comparisons between Martínez and Bukele - and, indeed, between Bukele and Trump - in terms of their impact on minority groups are slowly growing as world attention is being drawn to the country. The recent meeting between Bukele and Trump has shifted a spotlight onto El Salvador's crime policy; the internal conditions of El Salvador's prisons are genuinely monstrous. One gets a similar feeling as when reading descriptions of the conditions of Holocaust victims in German concentration camps. Trump has made statements to the effect that he want a similar crime crackdown inside the United States, and I certainly believe that he wants this (ICE is already just kidnapping people off the streets into vans), but his administration has been so chaotic and mismanaged that it's difficult to determine whether this will be an interest he rapidly drops in favor of some other hair-brained scheme.
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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.
Israel has used drones to attack a Gaza humanitarian aid flotilla in International waters off the coast of Malta.
From elsewhere on Twitter:
Despite multiple calls to embassies, media, and an SOS call and beacon no countries responded for over 6 hours until a Cypriot vessel picked up the SOS call and sent help.
I don't have the national makeup of activists on board for obvious reasons, but if any of them were British then it's highly likely that the British government has actively assisted in the illegal drone striking of one of its own citizens since they provide radio surveillance of that area, as well as surveillance flights and targeting for Israeli drones from RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus.
History is repeating itself again, as a reminder; in 2010 Israeli military boarded and stormed a previous Gaza humanitarian flotilla and executed at least 10 activists, all unarmed, some at point blank range, including UK and US citizens.
Gun to my head, this was probably done out of Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily. Depending on the size of the drone, someone could have launched it from a ship if it was a small one, or done it from Malta, since that "country" is basically just several intelligence agencies and organized crime syndicates in a trench coat.
Last i read on TG that an israhelli cargo plane landed on Malta yesterday, which could mean nothing.
It was a one way drone/suicide drone attack with small drones, so there's only a handful of possible locations the attack could have come from. Malta itself, Libya, Sigonella/Sicily, or drones launched from another ship. Possible parties responsible for the attack could be Israel or Libyan pirates. An Israeli C-130 cargo aircraft arrived in or flew around Malta yesterday, so that could be connected. Another possibility would be launching the drones out of the back of the aircraft.
This is of course disgusting criminal behavior by the zionazi regime.
But on a related note, I just learned about this freak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_O%27Keefe
Be vigilant about reactionaries in your midst, or they may one day get you killed.
White supremacy and anti-U.S. I can kind of imagine being a niche. Like you don't think the U.S. is fascisming hard enough for some reason or something. White supremacy and being "pro-Palestinian"...that one's bizarre.
I really have to wonder what is going through the heads of the people around him. I can't imagine even the liberal activists I know tolerating that junk and being closer than, at best, "Okay: I'm glad you're nominally broadcasting some of the same messages as us. But I'm not sure I believe you, and...just go do your thing way over there or something."
Is the flotilla even close to ever sailing to Gaza? It has taken almost 2 years for them to move from Turkey to Malta. Good people are at risk of grave harm in vain if their leaders aren't willing to make the call either way.
Coincidentally, the 2010 flotilla attack was also the flashpoint of the breakdown of relations between South Africa and the Nazi entity, with the first signs of hostility from recalls of ambassadors to academic boycotts and even terrorist threats already emerging before the FIFA World Cup.
Of course, I was in ameriKKKa at the time and like everything else related to Palestine, I didn't hear of this incident until 2014.
Death to ameriKKKa, Death to piSSrael