Image is Israeli interceptors trying and failing to intercept missiles over their cities.
Israel just carried out a widespread bombing of Iran, which has killed a number of senior officials inside Iran (though it seems the leadership is more-or-less intact) as well as a number of civilians. Important facilities have been targeted, but the amount of damage is unknown so far (note that many important Iranian facilities are deep underground, making them both hard to damage but also hard to determine if they are damaged from just satellite imagery, so reports of damage will be he-said-she-said).
It appears the attack took Iran by surprise, given that a residential block was targeted that contained some senior officials - if one saw an attack coming, one would imagine they'd be in bunkers. Nonetheless, like the rest of the Resistance Axis, I suspect that Iran has adapted their military structures to be resistant to decapitation strikes by ensuring that replacement figures are ready to take the place of killed officials.
Iran has delivered a massive missile barrage in response to Israeli aggression, even though Israel is continuing to bomb Iran. Iran is now aware of the location of many important Israeli sites, including secret nuclear sites, due to their recent intelligence haul, giving them a distinct edge.
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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.
Very interesting series of events. Elements of Trump administration try to wriggle out of Israeli grip, rifts start to show. Elon Musk teases Epstein reveal on Trump. Trump seems to back attack on Iran. Elon apologizes for his tweets.
Let's revisit the 'tail wagging the dog' debate in a few months. I have a feeling one side is going to have some egg on their face.
I think what's happening here is not exactly tail wagging the dog but the dog training the master. What I mean is that for 75 years, Israel has been the student in the relationship, learning how to colonize and operate on the world stage from the us. It was exactly aligned with each state's relative power. But thouse the power dynamic hasn't really changed, the heart of colonial and imperialist innovation has shifted to Israel. The United States is now learning from Israel how to evolve into higher states of fascism than either's "democratic" systems have allowed in living memory.
The United States hadn't internalized what the end of the Cold War really enabled for their behavior on the world stage outside of increasing the economic squeeze on workers. They didn't understand just how powerful their position really was, and so they allowed restraints (some real, some purely rhetorical) on their behavior in order to maintain their power. But Israel taught them a new lesson - if you go back to your old old ways, if you let the blood flow freely, no one will stop you. I mean, if a tiny little state like Israel can carry out the genocide in Gaza so brazenly, only because people are afraid of America, then what can America get away with? Trump is constantly testing those boundaries. There are boundaries. He has been slowed down or defeated on specific fights with courts or the financial system, but no one has actually stepped in to do anything besides a bunch of grumbling protestors, so who cares? If he has to gun them down, is Europe gonna attack him? Is China gonna swoop in and save them? No, of course not.
But that represents his biggest misunderstanding in the new imperial form's lessons from Israel: you do not have a USA. You do not have a patron pumping you full of bullets at every turn, shielding you from any negative consequences. You can't shield yourself from the consequences you inflict on yourself. The empire doesn't realize that it interacts with far larger and more complicated systems than Israel, with thousands of times more people and variable with their own competing interests. And 300 million of those are your own working class. They are not a subjugated people who have been lead to the point of thinking their only options are total victory or total obliteration - but you could push them there. And doing so will be vastly accelerated by the pressures on your ruling class from your declining economic power on the global stage.
The US is imitating Israel like a master would playfully, lovingly imitate their dog for fun. But they're taking it seriously. They don't know the rules change in their position.
[Was written
so I hope it makes sense)