this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
157 points (100.0% liked)

news

24111 readers
923 users here now

Welcome to c/news! Please read the Hexbear Code of Conduct and remember... we're all comrades here.

Rules:

-- PLEASE KEEP POST TITLES INFORMATIVE --

-- Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed. --

-- All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. --

-- If you are citing a twitter post as news please include not just the twitter.com in your links but also nitter.net (or another Nitter instance). There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/ or archive them as you would any other reactionary source using e.g. https://archive.today/ . Twitter screenshots still need to be sourced or they will be removed --

-- Mass tagging comm moderators across multiple posts like a broken markov chain bot will result in a comm ban--

-- Repeated consecutive posting of reactionary sources, fake news, misleading / outdated news, false alarms over ghoul deaths, and/or shitposts will result in a comm ban.--

-- Neglecting to use content warnings or NSFW when dealing with disturbing content will be removed until in compliance. Users who are consecutively reported due to failing to use content warnings or NSFW tags when commenting on or posting disturbing content will result in the user being banned. --

-- Using April 1st as an excuse to post fake headlines, like the resurrection of Kissinger while he is still fortunately dead, will result in the poster being thrown in the gamer gulag and be sentenced to play and beat trashy mobile games like 'Raid: Shadow Legends' in order to be rehabilitated back into general society. --

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.


you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ColombianLenin@hexbear.net 28 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (4 children)

Elijah Magnier - https://xcancel.com/ejmalrai/status/1934783722789691813#m

If Israel were to assassinate Sayyed Ali Khamenei, Iran would simply appoint another Supreme Leader. The institution would remain intact — just as it did after the death of Imam Khomeini. What such an act would truly trigger is a wave of popular mobilisation against Israel and a grave threat to the safety of every Israeli abroad.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategic calculus is not only dangerously shallow but emblematic of a broader collapse of international norms. His willingness to resort to targeted assassinations, car-bomb tactics reminiscent of terrorist operations, and open declarations of war against sovereign states — without consequence or international censure — signals the erosion of the very foundations of international law. Worse still, these actions are often met not with condemnation, but with tacit support or silence from the international community.

Also, on this vid (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iHpCUmoqaI) he mentions that the decisivity of the war depends on:

  • How long Israeli civil society is willing to put up with the difficulties of bombardment.
  • How sustaind Iran can keep up said bombardment.
  • The cohesiveness of Iranian civil society.

On the question of Is it possible that Israel wants to kill Khamenei, he thinks its 100% certain they want to kill him, yet this is not the decisive action that changes the course of the war because the Army has already put a solid chain of command that follows Khamenei's orders even on his death.

[–] ratboy@hexbear.net 2 points 16 minutes ago* (last edited 14 minutes ago)

What such an act would truly trigger is a wave of popular mobilisation against Israel and a grave threat to the safety of every Israeli abroad

I am just reading over the Project Esther document, and some of the objectives within it seem to align with this. Like this could be the objective of the escalation in Iran right now. If the Zionist entity is already fine with using its own people as human shields at home, why not endanger their lives even further abroad to really try to legitimize the anti-semitism angle. This could be in hopes of turning the tide on public opinion, and then there will be enough impetus to start using live rounds and shit to target the "Hamas terrorist orgs" in the US like every leftist activist/org. The PSL is already getting targeted as well as other anti-ICE groups in California. Real terror can then be justified, and perhaps Israel can regain legitimacy.

From Project Esther:

DE9: Executive branch presented with undeniable evidence of HSOs’ criminal activity.
l DE17: Preponderance of Jewish community perceives HSOs as a threat to their safety.
l DE18: Preponderance of broader American public perceives HSOs as a threat to their safety and a functioning society.
NC26: HSOs present a threat to American (Jewish and otherwise) livelihoods.

HSN's and HSO's being "Hamas Support Networks" and "Hamas Support Organizations"

Us Americans have the collective memory of a fucking goldfish so this could work, especially with long term agitation. But I also feel hopeful that this was a terrible move and that people won't be able to forget these atrocities, even if they want to. Maybe this is obvious but I just put it together

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 27 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I am of the opinion that people at the highest echelons of power in the west are not actually geniuses who have carefully studied Marxism and materialism and have an accurate understanding of reality. They by and large believe their own bullshit. I don’t doubt that if the west ever came after the DPRK, they would definitely attempt to assassinate Kim and would genuinely believe that would unravel the DPRK government.

[–] xiaohongshu@hexbear.net 8 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

This is not true. If you listen to Michael Hudson, a lot of the neocons came from Trotskyist background, many of whom are descendants of those from Eastern Europe who “fled Stalinism” and had been recruited by the Fed to take their vengeance against the USSR. Hudson himself (who wrote Super-imperialism) was recruited when they learned that he came from a Trotskyist family, but declined their offer.

According to him, most of the neocons believed in and turned Trotskyist idea of “exporting revolutions to the developing world to bring about global communism” into “exporting regime changes to the developing world to ensure the supremacy of the US empire”. A lot of their theories were derived from Marxist/Trotkyist lines.

If you read into the history of the neocons, there will be a lot of deranged articles about how they are a Jewish conspiracy, but really, they are just Trotskyists.

[–] WashedAnus@hexbear.net 12 points 3 hours ago

Hudson is 86 years old. The neocons he's talking about are of a similar vintage, and large swathes of them have already died of old age, and their replacements are the boomers who suckled at the teat of their propaganda and now have their grubby hands on the levers of power. Yes, the top level of American officials are of Hudson's age, but they're not the ones actually behind the wheel anymore.

[–] Salem@hexbear.net 6 points 4 hours ago
[–] HexReplyBot@hexbear.net 2 points 5 hours ago

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: