this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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Bulletins and News Discussion from June 16th to June 22nd, 2025 - Iran, Harden Your Heart
(hexbear.net)
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.
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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.
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So the israelis are just obscuring all military casualties from the Iranian strikes, right? It's completely unbelievable with the number of confirmed hits on IDF/related institutions that no military personnel have been killed.
Western media just takes dictation. Every time I see "lightly injured" used for civilians I have doubts. Of course - Israel wants sympathy but they also don't want to seem like losers.
If our comrades here learn nothing of media literacy other than this, they will still be doing OK. When we talk about the US government or bourgeoisie “controlling” the newsmedia, it’s not done by someone at the CIA calling up a newsroom producer and telling them to talk about how Iran is only 0.001 seconds away from having a nuke. It’s how an entire ecosystem of “experts” has been cultivated (just to pick one person as an example, look at Sam Vinograd) over the decades. These experts are the only people who are ever brought on, or the only people who are spoken to off-camera. These experts often have some sort of access or just air of authority that the media needs. So they just unquestioningly repeat what is said. If you question the narrative that’s being put out there, your connections get frozen and now when it comes time to get an inside scoop or have some former admiral on who looks like he knows what he’s talking about, there’s no one who will return your calls.
I genuinely think that happens in UK media sometimes, except it's gchq/mi6 doing it.
Well, right, I mean I think it DOES happen at times in the US too, just that it’s not the primary method of control.
Also there is an entire closed off ecosystem of "experts" and talking heads cultivated over decades in universities. All ideologically committed to capitalism. The ones who are not committed just don't get invited for anything.
Reminding me I still have to finish Manufacturing Consent
What confirmed hits? All the footage we have is of bombing population centres. There have been attempts to hit military targets inside these areas, such as Mossad headquarters, IDF buildings, etc, but due to the relative inaccuracy of the missiles, these have missed by hundreds of meters. Iranian missiles don't have the precision to hit a single building like that, especially not the Qadr and Emad missiles which are ultimately enlarged SCUD Bs, where the warhead becomes a giant artillery shell after leaving the booster stage. The early release submunitions warheads spread their submunitions over literal kilometres. Other missiles yes they have guidance (GNSS and INS) and the ability to maneuver, but these haven't demonstrated much accuracy either, Israel is likely jamming the GNSS. There's only one specification of missile with both the range to hit Israel and dedicated terminal guidance (electro optics), Qassem Basir, a brand new missile that was first announced just over a month ago.
The direct hit on the "Ministry of Interior" building didn't actually directly hit it, it hit a post office and mixed use commerical building nearby. Besides, the HQ of the ministry of interior is in Jerusalem, not Haifa. The building nearby would have been a sub branch, like a DHS or Social Security building in US context.
Source with geolocation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Interior_(Israel)
Yeah, we don't get footage of bombings on military installations outside of cities for obvious reasons, but there were some (low res) satellite images that confirm at least two hits on military installations (the Aman warehouse and the Rabin camp). I'm not saying they're hiding thousands of military casualties or anything but none at all in a state at war, with conscription?
I'm also pretty hesitant to believe that the only people injured when Soroka took a glancing blow were civilians given that a lot of soldiers receive treatment there, but that's just conjecture.
Also they didn't hit a hospital, they hit a military site next door, the hospital was damaged by the shock wave, maybe that military site was empty.
The hospital wing that was damaged also treats IDF soldiers wounded in Gaza
It was damaged but it was not hit, the military com building was hit.
I mean I absolutely would hit Zionist hospitals with cluster munitions, but thinking the Iranians would do the same is judging an honest man by my own mean measure.
Aman was a hit on one building/warehouse in the complex, all four missiles missed the Mossad building, by hundreds of meters. The other one is another hit in Tel Aviv that missed by hundreds of meters.
Aman:
MenchOsint has been cutting corners on geolocations as he's desperate for good news, see his geolocation on the "ministry of interior" building today. Ignored that the headquarters is in Jerusalem, not Haifa, ignored the evidence published later showing no impact on the sub office of the ministry of interior, but on a mixed use commerical building instead. Stated that there were direct hits on air defence batteries on the first night of the war despite footage showing impacts, while close, not directly hitting the launchers.
I think you're closer to the truth here, still saying the hits were on warehouses etc still begs the questions about workers and security on site etc these are military facilities after all.
Obviously the counterpoint is given they would know such a strike is coming eventually its hard to imagine precautions around this aren't already in place.