The Ukraine War Runs on Lies

Nothing really new here but I like the presentation of parallels between the Vietnam War and Ukraine.

Recall in the first case that the template, that of the Cold War, is essentially unchanged, even in some of the particulars, not least in the comparisons of Ngo Dinh Diem and Volodymyr Zelensky to Winston Churchill. The South Vietnamese government (avaricious, corrupt) had the right to American arms by virtue of its right “to determine [the nation’s] future.” The Ukrainian government (avaricious, corrupt) likewise has the right, we are endlessly told, to be allowed to “shape its own destiny.”

Thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Domino Theory, long derided in the years following Vietnam, has made a comeback. Thus, President Biden’s declaration on December 6, “If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there. It’s important to see the long run here. He’s going to keep going…. Then we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today: American troops fighting Russian troops,” echoes that made by President Johnson in July 1965:

This is really war. It is guided by North Viet-Nam and it is spurred by Communist China. Its goal is to conquer the South, to defeat American power, and to extend the Asiatic dominion of communism. There are great stakes in the balance. Most of the non-Communist nations of Asia cannot, by themselves and alone, resist the growing might and the grasping ambition of Asian communism.

Former German spy chief founds new right-wing party

https://archive.is/ZqkKh

Ian Miles Cheong, twomad, Navalny in one month.

This is really good. Nothing most people here don't already know, I think, but it puts recent history and ideological and geopolitical shifts of the whole region into a really clear and succinct picture IMO. I think it'd be good to throw at people who are suffering from some Western ignorance but aren't fully committed to the liberal/imperialist narrative to the point where the blinders have to be violently pried from their eyes.

BreakThrough News: The Struggle to Liberate Palestine is a Battle for the Future of Humanity, w/ Matteo Capasso

Rania Khalek has been killin' it lately!

UK Labour under Starmer seem to be calling for a ceasefire now? not sure what changed, is the official Palestinian to Israeli exchange rate like 30k : 1.2k for them?

Looking at pictures of Soviet ruins

The words of Western barbarians are worth less than toilet paper: https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/spain-s-lies-about-ending-arms-to--israel--exposed--data-spe

Uh aktually, Germany isn't the sick man of Europe. It's just the unfit man of Europe: https://english.almayadeen.net/news/Economy/german-fm-describes-german-economy-as-an--unfit-man

Lula's twitter post after meeting with the Arab League:

"I return to Cairo in the context of the terrible humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip. The Hamas attack on October 7 against Israeli civilians is indefensible and deserved Brazil's strong condemnation. Israel's disproportionate and indiscriminate reaction is unacceptable and constitutes one of the most tragic episodes of this long conflict. The human and material losses are irreparable. We cannot trivialize the deaths of thousands of civilians as mere collateral damage. In Gaza, there are almost 30,000 fatalities, mostly children, the elderly and women. 80% of the population has been forced to leave their homes. The situation in the West Bank, which was already critical, is also becoming untenable."

"At a time when the Palestinian people need support the most, rich countries have decided to cut humanitarian aid to the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). The recent allegations against the agency's staff need to be properly investigated, but they cannot paralyze it. Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon will also be left destitute. This inhumanity and cowardice must be stopped. The federal government (Brazil's govement) will provide new funding for UNRWA."

"We call on all countries to maintain and increase their contributions. The most urgent task is to establish a definitive ceasefire that allows for the provision of sustainable and unimpeded humanitarian aid and the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages. The persistence of the conflict in Palestine goes far beyond the Middle East."

"We proposed and defended resolutions in the Security Council, which we chaired in October. We support the case brought before the International Court of Justice by South Africa on the application of the Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It is urgent to stop the killing. Brazil's position is clear. There will be no peace until there is a Palestinian state, within mutually agreed and internationally recognized borders, which include the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital."

"The decision on the existence of an independent Palestinian state was taken 75 years ago by the United Nations. There are no more excuses to prevent Palestine from joining the UN as a full member. The resumption of peace negotiations is a universal cause. And it is our cause. I renew my wishes of peace and prosperity to all."

if a nuke falls i'm calling out of work

deliberately starving the poor to own the socialists:

More hunger, less money: Argentina's soup kitchens count rations

At community meal centres across Argentina, a dual crisis is biting: the influx of ever more hungry mouths to feed during an economic crisis, and a decision by President Javier Milei's new government to freeze their aid.

In an Argentine soup kitchen, empty plastic containers are piling up from hungry visitors, and the cooks are worried their limited supply of pasta will not be enough to fill them. "I don't know if we will make it today," frets 50-year-old Carina López, who manages the ‘Las hormiguitas viajeras’ community dining hall in Loma Hermosa, a poor neighbourhood in San Martín, north of Buenos Aires. She points to empty crates normally filled with fruit and vegetables. Today, those coming for a hot meal will only get plain pasta and a small piece of pork.

Meal centres like this one are facing a dual crisis: the influx of ever more hungry mouths to feed during an economic crisis, and a decision by President Javier Milei's new government to freeze their aid. Tens of thousands of such community organisations in Argentina received their last batch of food from the government in November, before Milei – a far-right libertarian, self-described "anarcho-capitalist" – was inaugurated. Milei's government says it plans to audit the needs of each individual soup kitchen to put in place a system of direct aid, and excluding intermediaries such as social movements he describes as "poverty managers."

These "poverty managers" are social orgs that feed the needy in community centres, they are often accused of "getting money from the government" at the "expense of the poor", while also "using the poor for electoral campaigns" in the sense of clientelism. Of course this is bullshit, and clientelism is nothing but classism, thinking that the poor and the needy are just brainless bots who receive food in exchange for votes or for taking part in a rally or something. These are people with their own interests who are more than capable of pressuring whoever they want to get whatever they need. Furthermore, the absolute majority of these orgs are created and maintained by the poor themselves, that is: self-organisation, exactly what they fear and don't like at all, the poor organizing. Cutting aid is another way to discipline the poor, which in this country constitutes a social class of it's own.

Sure, let's just say that there are irregularities with these orgs in the way they receive aid, just for a moment. Okay, but the solution is not to cul ALL aid to feeding centers which people DEPEND ON TO EAT.

"There will be an innovative method so that help arrives where it is supposed to," Milei's Presidential Spokesperson Manuel Adorni said. The soup kitchens, which typically provide more than 100 portions a day, have waited months on that innovation while battling to survive off some municipal aid and donations. López said she had been told by authorities to either "cut the soup kitchen's days, or kick people out." "But I can't kick anyone out. There are new people. New elderly people."

'The situation is beyond me'

Argentina faces annual inflation of over 250 percent with almost half the country now living in poverty after decades of economic mismanagement. Milei, elected on a wave of fury last November, has vowed a painful turnaround and embarked on massive spending cuts. He also started his term by devaluing the long-overvalued peso by more than 50 percent and cutting state subsidies on fuel and transport – further hitting the poor.

One of the new visitors to the soup kitchen in San Martín is Daniel Barreto, 33, a bricklayer who like others is struggling to find contract jobs with many construction sites at a standstill after the government froze all new public works. Meanwhile, private companies are hiring less because of the economic crisis.

The wages Barreto does manage to scrape together are nonetheless eaten away by inflation. "However much I do or don't work, the money is not enough. I have a wife and four kids," he said. "The situation is beyond me." The social movements who run the soup kitchens – born of a strong sense of community – say the number of people resorting to them has risen at least 50 percent.

"And that has only just started," said Melissa Cáceres, a member of a local group co-ordinating the soup kitchen who is registered with the Libres del Sur group. Often families will send in a child to pick up some food, to avoid being seen. Argentina counts some 38,000 so-called "community dining halls," said Celeste Ortiz, spokeswoman for the Barrios de Pie social movement.

Minister under fire

In February, Argentina's conference of bishops called for "all spaces which give food... to receive help without delay." Last week, hundreds of people lined up along 30 blocks after Human Capital Minister Sandra Pettovello told social movements complaining about the lack of food aid that anyone who was hungry should come "one by one" to see her. She did not come out to see them.

That minister legit said this. She told starving people to meet her "one by one", literally the next day thousands showed up in the Ministry asking for a conference with her, but of course, these people mobilized with their own orgs. They thought they can manipulate and humilliate the poor, but this is not the case. And while the number of poor people is increasing in numbers, the organization of said people is also increasing. They're creating a monster they simply cannot contain or defeat.

Pettovello is currently the target of a lawsuit from a union leader over her Ministry's failure to deliver food. The government has taken pains to show that Milei's mass deregulation of the economy will not hit the most vulnerable, doubling the value of food vouchers handed out to families. In recent days, Pettovello has sealed aid programmes worth more than half a million dollars with evangelical churches and the Caritas Catholic charity. However, Caritas has spoken out against the government's selective aid, saying "a country where poverty is increasing cannot tolerate partisan opinions, ideological prejudices and sectoral struggles."

While she is grateful for the Church's support, Cáceres regrets that "it seems that there are intermediaries who are worthwhile and others who are not.” As the battle continues, the cooks in the San Martín soup kitchen breathe a sigh of relief after stretching their rations to feed all those who needed it for one more day. Carina López sighs with relief: 130 rations were distributed in the dining hall and everyone received a full lunch.

At the end of the day, it's all projection from them. Brainwormed milei has spent his entire campaign (and years before that) saying that the left loves to starve people because reasons, yet he's the one destroying everyone's income AND cutting aid to feeding centers for the poor. Who starves who now? Motherfucker. Hexbear taught me an important lesson these days, every accusation they make is actually a confession.

: Low unemployment and high stocks means the economy is fantastic, jack

:

How tf is Ukraine losing? They just sunk that one Russian ship. Shouldn't they be winning overwhelmingly after that?

quite funny: the top seven, yes seven, articles featured on Reuters' site are about Navalny

https://www.reuters.com/world

said France is willing to recognize a Palestinian state

French lawmakers voted in 2014 to urge their government to recognise Palestine, a symbolic move that had little impact on France's diplomatic stance.

Macron's comments were the first time a French leader had made such a suggestion and highlighted further impatience among Western leaders as casualties mount in Gaza...

"Our partners in the region, notably Jordan, are working on it, we are working on it with them. We are ready to contribute to it, in Europe and in the Security Council. The recognition of a Palestinian state is not a taboo for France," Macron said alongside Jordan's King Abdullah II in Paris.

"We owe it to the Palestinians, whose aspirations have been trampled on for too long. We owe it to the Israelis who lived through the greatest anti-Semitic massacre of our century. We owe it to a region that longs to escape the promoters of chaos and the those who sow revenge," he said.

Macron's comments are likely aimed at adding pressure on Israel.

An update regarding one of my older posts to a megathread:

The South African/Palestinian journalist Haidar Eid is actually alive after total radio silence for nearly 2 months - He has escaped back to South Africa and is confirmed to be a guest speaker at the SAJFP's "Shabbat Against Genocide" in Johannesburg this Friday

Quote tweets and replies to this are amazing - just a bunch of libs going insane at Rashida for the crime of... doing tiny and inconsequentional gestures that would put some pressure on Biden if Biden wasn't an insane person to begin with.

Israel-Lebanon border plan

France has made a proposal to Lebanon to bring an end to the confrontations between Hezbollah and Israel. The dpa learned this from Lebanese government circles on Tuesday. The proposal therefore calls for Hezbollah to withdraw its fighters from the border - to a distance of around ten kilometers. The border region is to be monitored by the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers. The proposal was developed together with government representatives from the USA, Qatar and Egypt. There was initially no official confirmation from Lebanon or France. Hezbollah circles said that they had not officially received any paper with suggestions.

Le evil French scheming again

Notoriously corrupt Indonesia seems to keep having an issue with poll workers "dying from exhaustion".

2024 voting day marred by reports of violations

The Elections Supervisory Agency has received thousands of reports of election fraud that occurred on the Feb. 14 voting day, ranging from intimidation of poll workers and voters to double voting and glitches of the official vote tallying platform.

2024 Over 20 poll workers die of exhaustion, says KPU

2019 More than 300 election workers, police officers in Indonesia die of exhaustion

2014 - 150 workers died from similar causes during the 2014 presidential and legislative elections

Egypt Builds Border Wall in Gaza to Contain Palestinians

Egyptian authorities are enclosing a vast area of the Sinai Desert spanning over 20 square kilometers with large concrete walls.

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Egypt is building a large concrete wall on its border with the Gaza Strip to contain a potential influx of Palestinians fleeing Israeli bombings.

Egyptian authorities are enclosing a vast area of the Sinai Desert spanning over 20 square kilometers with large concrete walls near the Gaza border, the newspaper asserts, citing Egyptian officials and security analysts as sources.

It is described as a massive new complex to bolster the country's security in the event that "a large number of Gaza residents manage to enter" if an Israeli offensive erupts in the southern part of the Strip, in the border city of Rafah.

Egypt has already been trying to bolster security along the border in recent months to keep Palestinians away, deploying soldiers and armored vehicles and reinforcing fences.

The Wall Street Journal published satellite photographs taken by the company Planet Labs PBC showing earth movements in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, next to Gaza, within an area designated as a walled enclosure for the possible location of a Palestinian refugee camp.

Over 100,000 people could be housed in the camp, which is surrounded by concrete walls and far from any Egyptian settlement. A large number of tents have been delivered to the site.

The construction of this wall comes as Israel continues its military offensive along the Gaza Strip, and fears increase that the country will launch an attack on Rafah.

Thousands of Palestinians living in Gaza have moved to Rafah to protect themselves from Israeli attacks that began in the north of that territory but have spread throughout the Strip.

A section of Iran’s natural gas pipeline (pipeline 65) exploded near the city of Borujen. Firefighters are at the location. No injuries. The nature of the event is not clear as it’s getting investigated. The fire will expand as long as there is gas. https://twitter.com/AryJeay/status/1757539655795273837

Sabotage?

Israel withdraws from truce negotiations in Egypt

Every week we're going to get a new story about a scary Russian super weapon so the next weapon to promote is the microwave bomb from Batman Begins that now Poopin Putin has.

is it just me or is google really pushing to take a phone number when im trying to log into my fake accounts

Ezra calls for Biden to bow out gracefully. Will this be the opinion of the paper, or is he just wishcasting an opportunity to flex his knowledge of party nominating convention history/procedure?

THE SEALS AND THE DHOW - Seymour Hersh

In which we recall the 2 dead and 1 severely injured Navy Seals from that anti-smuggling operation that was kept under wraps but we all were distracted by the horrors of what's going on in Gaza:

The Somali dhow offered the White House a chance to justify its new offensive. It had been tracked by American intelligence since leaving Somalia because it was believed to be carrying ballistic missile parts needed by the Houthis in their ongoing campaign against Western shipping; The basis for that intelligence, which proved to be wrong, has not been made known.

American intelligence? Wrong? Damn audio is playin on loop

Back to the Lewis B. Puller. The more than a dozen senior officers from all services assigned to the ship’s command center were gung-ho to send the hot-shot SEAL team to intercept the dhow, compel the boat to stand to, and board it to find ballistic missiles or parts of weapons that were coming to the Houthis from Iran, known to American intelligence as a longtime supporter and supplier of weaponry to Yemen. But there was a serious problem. The issue is what is known in the Navy as the Sea State Code, which is based on terminology used in oceanography to describe the general conditions of the ocean’s surface, as determined by three key factors: wind, waves, and swell.

There are ten categories of sea state, and SEALs can operate with ease and safety up to sea state 3. One experienced retired senior American Navy officer told me that even four- and five-foot waves can sometimes create difficulties for a Navy tanker attempting to refuel an aircraft carrier, but it can be done with skilled maneuvering. No ship loaded with high-octane fighter fuel wants to crash into the side of a carrier.

When the seas get higher, to level 4 or 5, the waves and stronger current make boarding a targeted vessel, even a wooden dhow, an extremely dangerous prospect, in part because of the difficulty in handling steel ladders, known as caving ladders, that are standard SEAL boarding gear. The steps are lightweight aluminum tubes linked by equally lightweight steel cables.

What is hard to do at sea state 3 is deadly dangerous at sea state 4 or 5, a retired Navy officer, with years of experience in special operations, told me. “The waves are going up and down eight feet and more and you do not board a ship in heavy sea,” he said. He added that Navy captains of combat ships finishing a long deployment understand that crews due for shore leave are not permitted to leave the ship in such churning waters.

RuZZian propaganda against our Navy SEAL high level operators. They can handle it. Send them in!

The SEAL team leader said no. But he was ordered to carry out the mission, despite the obvious weather issues, and he did so.

The questions that were not asked, the retired officer said, were these: “Do we know if the dhow is carrying a ballistic missile or a box full of missile parts?” No. “Can you get a key to a launch site?” No. “Or a map of all the Houthi launch sites?” No. “Do Somali smugglers know the difference between a case of Johnny Walker Red and one of Johnny Walter Black?” Yes.

A RuZZian within our own ranks, it can't be!

The decision to ignore the concerns of the SEAL commander has been seen by the angered SEAL community in America as “beyond rational planning” and “a disaster waiting to happen.” I learned that one high-ranking member of the community, now retired, wrote a private letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, asking that the officer who overruled the SEAL commander be court-martialed for dereliction of duty as the buck-stops-here boss of the operation. “It will never happen,” the former officer told me. “Dead SEALs will go down in Navy annals as heroes, not victims.” His point was that the Navy would never acknowledge that the SEAL team had no business being sent on a search-and-destroy mission in such weather.

What the SEALS should do from my experience of watching other wars unfold is drive up to the capital in a caravan of military vehicles, then turn around halfway, then have your leader go on a lot of private jet rides . I'm just speaking from experience here.

Gaza will be on the ballot, at least in one Houston congressional Democratic primary.

Some fascinating politics underway in a Houston Democratic primary where the war in Gaza is becoming a central issue. This text message went out to a bunch of voters, claiming to be from Lizzie Fletcher boasting of her AIPAC endorsement and her strong support for “Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorists.” She does say that and is indeed backed by AIPAC, but she’s crying foul, saying her campaign didn’t send the messages.

The suggestion in her statement is that her opponent or an ally did it to highlight her link to AIPAC.

https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1756508765304598870

https://nitter.net/ryangrim/status/1756508765304598870

Lizzie Flercher is the Democratic incumbent. Her primary opponent in this district (TX-07) is Pervez Agwan, a progressive Muslim man who has been accused by campaign staffers of hiring/protecting sex pests on his staff, as well as accused by staffers of being a sex pest himself.

Lizzie is a corporate girlboss backed by AIPAC/DMFI and big oil who the DNC/DCCC intervened on behalf of in the 2018 Democratic primary over a somewhat more progressive opponent, which pissed a lot of locals off. She defeated longtime GOP rep and all around scumbag John Culberson in 2018. In response to the "blue wave" of the 2018 midterms, in which Republicans in the Houston area in particular got their shit rocked, the state GOP redistricted, moving a bunch of the rich white neighborhoods into other districts to make them more safely Republican.

As a result, TX-07 is a majority-minority now includes what are probably the largest South Asian, Arab, and Muslim areas in the Houston, as well a significant portion of some of the largest East Asian neighborhoods. A significant portion of Houston's most established Jewish neighborhoods are also within the district. Almost every major Pro-Palestine protest I can think of in the Houston area has happened within the district, and the Israeli Consulate is also located in TX-07.

I saw some sponsored ads for uyghers on instagram lol