this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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Image (of a Jamaat e-Islami campaign rally) and much of the information below is sourced from here and here.
In 2024, the government of Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami League, was overthrown in a student-led protest movement which was boosted by US interests. In the interim, Nobel laureate and dyed-in-the-wool neoliberal Muhammad Yunus was made president, and introduced a series of economic and political reforms (e.g. IMF packages and banking sector restructuring) which have sidelined the working class and aligned the country with US financial interests. Regardless of anybody's personal feelings towards Hasina (who did indeed make many mistakes and caused many deaths), it is now very clear that the reason why Hasina was overthrown was not due to a humanitarian, anti-authoritarian impulse, but because Bangladesh had at least some measure of sovereignty while she was in power, as she accepted Chinese infrastructure investments. Certainly, the US is perfectly comfortable with genocidal dictators if they are allied with US interests.
Last week, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party won over two thirds of parliamentary seats - the Awami League was banned from participating at all, and worker-aligned parties were either disallowed or decided to withdraw from participating due to repression. I haven't personally been able to nail down what exact economic/foreign policies they want to introduce, but because of what Yunus has set up in the interim, it might not matter that much - the economic stage has been set such that no matter what party took power, they would have to accept a fait accompli. As Vijay Prashad put it, the competition between the parties is reduced to "which faction will administer austerity"?
One of the many upsetting aspects of this election was that the student movement that helped overthrown Hasina have been forced into irrelevance, despite their legitimate grievances. The "Gen Z" protestors, displeased by the prospect of being ruled by the BNP about as much as the Awami League, found themselves with odd bedfellows, and allied with the now-opposition party (the hardline Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami). They are now in a tough bind, lacking much of the necessary left-wing organization to assert a genuine political project.
This is an instructive moment for many people who are desperate for better conditions in countries that are economically struggling, including Iran with its recent protests. If your country has sovereignty from the US, you walk a very dangerous tightrope - how do you organize for better conditions in such a way that it cannot be co-opted by the US to overthrow your government and put something even more terrible in its wake? Shortly after a jubilant revolutionary moment, you are left without influence, power, or even media representation, and now yet further under the repression of Western imperialism. This is one of the many problems that the population of the non-NATO world will need to find ways to overcome.
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.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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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US military buildup against Iran update:
The final 6 F-22 Raptors were finally able to get a KC-46 mid air refueling tanker that works, and are now crossing over the Atlantic to RAF Lakenheath in the UK, to join the first 6 F-22s after two failed attempts. The total of 12x F-22s will deploy to the Middle East soon.
Source
There are over 100 mid air refueling tankers forward deployed to strategic locations in the Atlantic, Europe and the Middle East to support both strategic bomber flights from the continental USA and fighter jets in the Middle East.
US tactical fighter aircraft numbers, bases in the Middle East, USS George Ford and USS Abraham Lincoln:
252 tactical fighter aircraft.
Israel tactical fighter aircraft numbers:
288 tactical fighter aircraft.
540 total between the USA and Israel, with over 100 5th generation stealth aircraft.
Good post Marmite.
It's funny how this entire operation is contingent on 12 high-tech F-22's that they can barely maintain, or in this case - deploy.
But with this many fighter jets, and so few people stationed on the ground - it's clear that all of the Millennium Challenge warnings are a moot point.
However, history has shown again and again that shock and awe strategies only unify a population. Hitler tried it against the Brits, and dozens of other examples of why you need actual boots on the ground.
This type of strategy has been done again and again by vile, aggressive, and incompetent military leaders for a few centuries now - and it never works out for them.
I expect 4 days to 2 weeks of air bombing. Some missile bases destroyed. A lot of footage of destruction à-la Iraq: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m8KimNtB9HI&pp=ygUSaXJhcSBzaG9jayBhbmQgYXdl
I expect them to go after Iran's counter-insurgency operational abilities and to use those insurgents as their boots on the ground.
We'll see lot of propaganda about how it's all over. A lot of pain and dooming over in Hexbear.
And then the humiliation of the west begins. At which point I'll be considered an optimistic idiot, and people from other federated instances will say - look at how delusional these tankies are.
Idk, depends on the desired outcome. It's not a good strategy to place a comprador government in resilient countries, but if your desired outcome is simply to smash the infrastructure and turn the country into a failed state (Libya or Iraq style) it can unfortunately be very effective...
The F-22s are fine, it's mainly to do with electrical gremlins and problems with the boom on the KC-46 Pegasus mid air refueling aircraft being too stiff. They appear to have fixed these for today, or were overly cautious previously. Notice how KC-135s were responsible for dragging the F-22s over the Atlantic, not the KC-46 which just provided the initial refueling above or near the continental USA. This is a known problem with the KC-46 refueling twin engined fighter aircraft (F-15, F-22), the boom being too stiff and electrical faults.
This is an article about one time the boom actually got ripped off a KC-46 while refueling an F-22. It's also happened with an F-15 too.
Millenium challenge was a poorly set up exercise. The criteria of the exercise essentially forced the US to set up their aircraft carrier and amphibious assault ships right on the Iranian coastline on the hypothetical Persian Gulf, and give Iran a 24 hour warning before an incoming attack. It was a massive waste of money and time to find out that yes, if you park a big ship mere kilometres from the Iranian coastline, it's defences can be overwhelmed by anti ship cruise missile swarms and speedboats. Hence redoing and scripting the exercise for US victory, to try hide the massive waste of money and time. Right now the USS Abraham Lincoln is over 700km from Iranian shores, so not the millennium challenge scenario.
I think that Marco Rubio is essentially speed running the George HW Bush administration foreign policy. This was a foreign policy that ushered in the end of the cold war and beginning of the unipolar world/US hegemony with the capture of Noriega from Panama and the Gulf War vs Iraq showcasing overwhelming US military power. Rubio wants to set up something similar, this time though it's ushering in the start of a new "cold war" (for now) vs China and the false dawn of a "multipolar world" (in which the US is the only true pole). We already had the capture of Maduro from Venezuela, now Rubio wants a Gulf War moment, showcasing overwhelming US military power, this time vs Iran.
China is the party that the US ultimately wants to deter or compel. Post Gulf War, China has been building their entire military structure to try prevent that from happening to them. If the US shows that such an air campaign is still possible (admittedly vs Iran who don't have the capabilities of China), it's designed to send a message.
Ultimately this is a fraction of what would be used vs China, the US is rebuilding a single air base in the Pacific that can house 256 aircraft, the same base that was used to drop nuclear bombs on Japan in WW2... That's just one base.
Okay, but what does an air campaign not performed in concert with ground forces actually accomplish? Both Iraq wars involved substantial ground deployments. Libya involved rebel ground forces, and NATO forces running out of their immediate supply of munitions in what wasn't even all that intense of a campaign. The anti-ISIS campaign by the US also involved munition issues, and required a push on the ground by what was left of the Iraqi army plus the Popular Mobilization Forces. The anti-ISIS campaign is Syria required the SAA and Russian special forces to actually fight on the ground. And, as a counter-example in that same country, during the fall of Assad's government Russia did actually bomb the shit out of the rebel forces - and yet the country still fell, precisely because there was no-one on the ground to offer sufficient organized resistance.
you've said this before i'm starting to think it's a technical term but surely you're taking a heap of piss
Here's the full explanation from a former boom operator from the US Air Force on the KC-46s stiff boom and the issues it can cause.
Explanation
Part 2
This can cause physical failures (boom snapping off) or electrical faults when refueling twin engined US fighters.
There are many more components to power than global force projection. The world is multipolar because China is a roughly equivalent economic power to the US at this moment with all signs pointing to it becoming substantially more economically power while the US's economic power declines. The US's soft power regime is crumbling. If the US were the only true pole, there would be no need to contain China, which is obviously uncontainable.
One point is that Iran has had more than 24 hours warning here.
One thing to note is that US claims to have surprised Iran with the 12 day war, but everyone in the Iranian diaspora knew it was bound to happen 6 months beforehand. I think that Iranian propaganda leaning into the perfidy and "surprise" is to gloss over the fact that a significant number of Iranian defenses were disabled during the first 48 hours + with them seemingly re-enabled following that.
Suspected cyber attack. Videos of ground forces using anti-tank missiles against Iran's best air defenses on the ground. Complete Israeli supremacy with no Iranian response for two days.
Leaning into US manipulation to run cover for their own failures in defense.
After the first two days, there were reports of people on the ground burning trees and tires to simulate fake air strikes for Israeli psyops.
US has significantly more SEAD capabilities than Israel, and so they seem to want to repeat the playbook of the 12 day war. I'm guessing they want to expand that 48 hour window to 2 weeks, because given their narrative last time - they wanted a full 2 week window to fulfil whatever their strategy was.
So long as they have control of the air, launching a missile response will be difficult. When that window closes. Iran will start punishing.
Laugh a little, cry a lot.
Do you think the Chinese and Russians being in the Straight of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman these days is a deterrent in any way? Will they have to leave the area before the US strikes?
I so hope that you are correct and Iran manages to resist the genocidal invasion. Atheistically praying for an aircraft carrier kill
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: