That particular X account is notorious for posting Ukronazi and Zionist propaganda going years back. They are one of the worst “OSINT” disinfo factories on Twitter. Take anything you see quoting them as a source with extreme, extreme skepticism.
China made some mistakes in the context of the Sino-Soviet split, in particular their intervention on the wrong side of the Cambodia-Vietnam conflict, and a few other things, but the root causes of the split were the much worse mistakes made by the Soviet Union in their behavior toward China (stemming from the CPSU’s historical-nihilist revisionism). Since the dissolution of the USSR i think China has had a fairly pragmatic foreign policy and they did the best they could under the circumstances they have been facing.
Russia wins either way.
There has to be a limit to what Europeans will take, right?
You would be surprised. If their behavior toward Ukraine is any indication, you shouldn’t expect anything other than to see a doubling down on pro-US, pro-Israel policies, no matter how much it harms Europeans.
More evidence that the podcast unfortunately leans heavily to the ultra-left/白左 side.
Look at the amount of Geran drones Russia launches every week. And they produce more than they launch. Iran likely has similar capabilities. That is not an unrealistic number.
by all accounts Iran can churn out a thousand shaheds in a year
That would be a tiny number. Russia produces more than that in a week, and almost certainly so does Iran.
looked it up, supposedly Iran can produce 400 shaheds daily.
That’s much more realistic.
For context, there is still disagreement on whether the vdv were wiped out to a man in the takeover/withdrawal from hostomel or the other way around.
Unserious statement. There is no disagreement unless you choose to ignore all evidence and believe only moronic Ukrainian propaganda.
This is nothing unusual for those of us who have been following the Ukraine conflict since the start. There were times when there was an absolutely insane amount of bots. Russian speaking spaces were (and still are) heavily targeted. Even now there is always some Ukrainian psyop even in “pro-Russian” telegram channels. You can’t prevent all infiltrations, but with time and experience you learn to recognize the bullshit.
Right now there is a big blitz of botting and information warfare, but eventually it will calm down and there will be concrete on-the-ground results that will be impossible to deny (like how Ukraine can spin all the tall tales and put out all the deep-fakes it wants, but sooner or later Russian advances get undeniably geolocated). It’s why i recommend stepping back and waiting if you are unsure what is trustworthy at the moment.
Just a little reminder to all: Best practice right now is to disbelieve everything you read in the western media and stop reposting western MSM articles or social media rumors for the time being. Full stop. Unless it’s coming directly from the Resistance, treat it as disinformation and psyops.
You wouldn’t believe, repeat or distribute Nazi newspapers if you were a Soviet citizen during the Great Patriotic War. You wouldn’t listen to Voice of America radio broadcasts if you were a Vietnamese or Korean soldier fighting against the US invasion. Don’t do the equivalent of that today!
A war is being waged not just against Iran, it is being waged against YOU and your mind. In today’s day and age even images and videos can be faked. Information warfare is very sophisticated. You are not immune to it. So remain calm, critical and patient.
The fog of war will lift eventually. Until then the best you can do is maintain informational discipline. Do not write or post anything that is not in accordance with the Resistance’s line. Agitate against the war, discredit the imperialist aggressors and do not undermine the morale of your own side.
¡Patria o Muerte!, ¡Venceremos!
It was 24 Feb 2022.
The same infrastructure just doesn’t exist elsewhere in the region. You can’t just magically re-route the pipelines. They would have to transport oil by truck hundreds of kilometers through the desert to ports that are not set up for those volumes of export anyway. This transport infrastructure takes years if not decades to build.
I like how China’s PLA is so often involved with disaster relief and does so much work to help people, rescuing them from floods and earthquakes and the like. That very much appeals to me. If i could be in like the engineering corps where i could build roads or bridges or something that would be really cool. But yeah, in a capitalist country i would rather frag the nearest officer or go to jail than serve.
Totally understandable. It’s difficult for me too.
This specific incident is on video, you can literally see it happening. There are countless videos like this on social media, you unfortunately cannot avoid them if you follow this conflict. The sources are the people filming it. Most of them have to stay anonymous when they post or they get a visit from Ukraine’s Gestapo.
Some examples in this article (content warning):
https://head-post.com/europe-shocked-by-violent-mobilisation-efforts-in-ukraine/
As for the forcibly mobilized often being beaten or even killed, here is an article from a western publication where they cite the families of victims saying so:
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/how-ukraine-military-press-gangs-grabbing-citizens-streets-4115968
(Incredibly, they still try to twist it into a story about how it’s because of “Russian propaganda” that Ukrainian people are getting angry about this mass scale kidnapping campaign.)
And: Mobilized Ukrainians mysteriously dying at recruitment centers
Here is an article about Ukrainians starting to rise up against these brutal press gangs:
Here is article about Ukraine trying to illegally conscript ethnic Hungarians:
And: Ukraine uses forced recruitment to liquidate Hungarians in Transcarpathia
And another about Kiev targeting ethnic minorities to use as cannon fodder:
The Romanian minority is smaller than the Hungarian minority so you will not find as many articles about it (plus the Romanian government and most Romanian media are complicit and do not protest these practices unlike the Hungarian government), but for sure the same is happening in ethnic Romanian minority regions.
Of course they would have, if the US imposed a blockade and criminally hijacked tankers off the high seas. What are they supposed to do, pick a fight with the US Navy? It’s not a question of will, it’s a question of capabilities. Material reality. Maduro does not have superpowers to magically teleport oil to Cuba and neither did Chavez. I haven’t seen the interim administration of Venezuela do anything so far that Maduro or Chavez wouldn’t have done in the same circumstances.
It’s obviously not ideal, but you have to play the hand you are dealt. For now Venezuela and Cuba are both practicing strategic patience. They are betting they can outlast whatever the US can throw at them in the short term.
Because everyone can see that, in the long term, the US is in decline.
Perhaps. We will see. They need to do something to save face, something that can be spun as a “win”. Very likely there will be some kind of attack, because they cannot be seen to back down now.
This must be what “winning” looks like…
I don’t think that the assessment about Venezuela was wrong at all. The reason they went for a kidnapping rather than trying to actually occupy it or get embroiled in a protracted invasion is because they know it would have been a disaster. The kidnapping was an easy PR win but it changed nothing in terms of the Bolivarian socialist path that Venezuela is on.
The US captured Maduro within a few hours, if that.
Easy to do when Maduro made no secret of where he was at any time and the fact that he chose not to hide. He remained out in the public eye showing that he was not afraid. He kept the Venezuelan military in a peacetime posture, and constantly emphasized in speeches that he wanted nothing but peace.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave explicit orders to the military to not engage against a US incursion. Whatever the case, it is clear that a strategic choice was made by the Venezuelan government to not give the US any possible pretext of “responding to Venezuelan aggression”.
The US has come out of this looking like criminal violators of international law for all in the world to see, with an unjustifiable act of aggression against a peaceful country. This was not a win for the US. Such rogue acts only accelerate the transition to multipolarity.
Anyway the comparison with Venezuela is asinine because Iran’s military is on an entirely different footing and on an entirely different level.
The US has more than enough forces for a sustained bombing campaign if the choice is made.
Yeah, for a couple of weeks. Then they will sue for peace again just like last time, especially once Iran starts hitting their bases in the middle east and shutting down the Persian Gulf. No matter how many forces the US amasses it is still a bluff. Iran can outlast them.
The US/Israel are betting on an internal revolt following some kind of “decapitation strike” to overthrow the government because they buy their own propaganda. They fundamentally underestimate the domestic support of the Iranian government.
Just one look at the numbers and you can tell a lot of these articles by politico or whoever are just making stuff up. Information warfare.
So are the numbers you are quoting. The build-up itself is a form of psychological warfare. So is overstating US capabilities and spreading false narratives about the 12-day war. It is meant to intimidate Iran and its supporters by portraying the US/Israel as invincible with their “stealth wunderwaffen”. It hasn’t worked and it won’t work. There are no wonder weapons.
The window for action is narrow.
The window of action has already passed. Iran has more than enough capabilities to survive and embroil the US in an unwinnable war that would devastate the global economy. Trump wants a quick PR win, that is the lesson that you should learn from Venezuela.
The build-up is part of his typical brutish “negotiating tactics” of applying pressure and intimidating the other side into making a deal. Just like he did with the tariffs, which were also a bluff, and one that China called just like Iran is calling this bluff.
Just imperialist propaganda doing what imperialist propaganda does.