Bulletins and News Discussion from August 5th to August 11th, 2024 - LGBT - COTW: Iraq

Well, Iran and their allies' response may happen sometime this week and apparently they aren't talking to the US in order to negotiate how and where they will hit Israel (and Shoigu arrived in Tehran rather auspiciously), the Bangladeshi government just fell, F16s have been given to Ukraine, there are fascist riots in the UK, and Japan just had its worst stock fall since 1987 and seems to be taking several other countries/corporations with it. I don't really know where to look right now.

The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

The Country of the Week is Iraq! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

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An extremely interesting post from a few months ago (apr 27) translating Ansarallah politburo member Abdulmalik Alejri where he discusses Marx and capitalist crisis.
"The death of Sheikh Abdul Majid al-Zindani brings to mind the era of global jihad led by Salafi Jihadism and the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s against what was then termed the communist threat. The result was that they handed America and the capitalist West a victory without war, as then-US President Reagan borrowed a phrase from his predecessor Nixon. In the context of the Cold War, Afghanistan, that distant corner of Central Asia, transformed into a hub of Islam, and Kabul became a destination for Arab mujahideen, while Palestine, with Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Prophet's Ascension, was within arm's reach, yet failed to attract Arab mujahideen to jihad or to the allure of the virgins. Ironically, when America occupied Afghanistan, Kabul ceased to be a hub of Islam and a destination for jihad.
At that time, Western capitalist intelligence agencies and their Arab allies succeeded in portraying Marx and socialism as a threat to religions, whereas the truth was that they posed a threat to exploitative capitalism, and Marx's battle was fundamentally against capitalist exploitation. Marx's legacy fundamentally did not prioritize religions, and all he wrote about them was few and scattered texts. His most important work, "Capital," in which his genius shines, explained the structure of capitalism, analyzed its internal mechanisms and contradictions, its capacity for expansion, crisis generation, and self-renewal. Even according to his adversaries, Marx's legacy remained the primary reference for analyzing capitalist crises, with his ideas resurfacing with each historical cycle of capitalist crises.
Marx believed that the Enlightenment had overthrown the exploitation of the church and that the real looming danger was capitalist exploitation, even suggesting that religion could play a positive role in mobilizing against capitalist exploitation. I don't understand how some perceive Marxism and communism as a threat to religion while finding no risks in liberal capitalism, even though the Enlightenment movement with its liberal tendencies was the one that battled the church, and the French Revolution raised the slogan "Hang the last king with the intestines of the last priest," while the slogans of the Bolshevik revolution called for overthrowing the bourgeois government. Naturally, this is just a question of amazement, as the issue as a whole is not as simple, and civilization cannot be reduced or approached solely from the angle of combating religion.
The real danger to religion is such exploitation of religion to serve the battles and projects of America and the imperial West in the region, and those involved should take heed from the dramatic end of the Afghan jihad."
https://xcancel.com/aldanmarki/status/1784319180822417791?s=46
- Reading statements like these from politicians in the more generally anti-imperialist countries really just exposes how much of a sheer waste of time US (and western) "politics" is. Absolutely no fucking substance, even from the better orators, compared to something like this, which is clear, concise, sharp, and thought-provoking. The difference is just mind-boggling sometimes.
  
  He's said enough there to make you think a book by him might be worth reading.
- This is honestly one the best short explainers of Marxism’s relationship to religion I have ever seen.
- Afghanistan, that distant corner of Central Asia, transformed into a hub of Islam, and Kabul became a destination for Arab mujahideen, while Palestine, with Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Prophet's Ascension, was within arm's reach, yet failed to attract Arab mujahideen to jihad or to the allure of the virgins.
  Remember when ISIS was still powerful, and it somehow managed to attract a bunch of white men and european muslims to fight for it, meanwhile the genocide in Palestine attracted 0 westerners to fight directly against Israel under the Palestinian resistance or Hezbollah? Weird how the struggle against a material enemy was overshadowed by nonsensical American-Israeli backed extremist idealism.
  
  Hamas isn't getting millions of dollars for their PR department like ISIS got in Syria to make slick highly-produced propaganda video aimed at westerners. They use what funds they have for helping each other survive
  
  I suspect it's not just making the content but also correctly targeting exactly where that content needs to go to be seen by the right people to convert them and make them take action. This is done by western agencies who can easily pass on the information through proxies which becomes a massive force multiplier for them.

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