Bulletins and News Discussion from March 10th to March 16th, 2025 - The New World Struggles To Be Born; Now Is The Time Of Proxy Wars - COTW: Myanmar

Image is from Wikipedia's article on the war..

I've wanted to cover Myanmar for a while now but haven't had the needed knowledge to write much more than "This situation really sucks." After doing a little reading on the situation, I feel even more confused. A decent analogy is the Syrian Civil War, at least while Assad was in power (though it's still pretty true today) - many different opposition groups, some co-operating with the United States, others not. The main government supported partially by an anti-American superpower, but who could live with that government collapsing if there are deals to be made with the group coming into power. A conflict kept going and exploited at least partially by the United States and other imperial core powers, though with plenty of genuine domestic animosity and desires for political independence.

Recently, the Myanmar government - the mainstream media uses "junta", which is probably accurate despite the connotations - has promised elections at the end of 2025. This doesn't seem likely to happen, and even if it did, how this would work in a country as war-torn as Myanmar is unclear. The government is losing territory and soldiers at a quick pace; they now hold only 21% of the country, though that 21% does at least comprise many of the cities. It's difficult to get a handle on the number of people affected because civil wars and insurgencies have been ongoing in some shape or form for decades, but we're talking at least millions displaced and thousands of civilians killed.

Here's a comment by @TheGenderWitch@hexbear.net from fairly recently that covers the situation in Myanmar:

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Mass US airstrikes in Yemen, which are still ongoing. Sana'a, Hodeidah, and now Saada are being targeted. Though it's unclear if Hodeidah was targeted now or in the days before, with Al Arabiya reporting strikes on March 11. Or it could be Al Arabiya leaking future US military actions, again. 9 civilians are said to have been killed, with 9 injuries. Targets are said to be air defences, Ansarallah military members (at their homes or in command and control facilities) and Ansarallah military bases.
The Guardian
Al Jazeera
AP News
Al Mayadeen English
I've reverse image searched and done Error Level Analysis (ELA) on both images below, they appear to be legitimate.

Lots of videos of ammunition depots exploding around Saada on Arabic twitter with lots of secondary explosions, unable to verify them at this time.
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More airstrikes in the past few minutes targeting Dhamar city and Ans district, and in Saada, according to Al Masirah TV correspondents stationed in Dhamar and Saada. The airstrikes are still ongoing across Yemen, the air raids have been renewed.
More airstrikes in the Al Bayda and Hajjah governorates. This is probably the largest aerial campaign carried out by US CENTCOM forces against Yemen since the start of their campaign against their actions in the Red Sea. US reconnaissance aircraft took off from bases in Bahrain, the UAE and Qatar.
Third round of US airstrikes in Saada now.
From footage released by US CENTCOM on social media, we can see that the US Navy is using 2000lb BLU-117 bombs with GBU-31 JDAM guidance kits, and AGM-154 JSOW stand off cluster munition dispensers. Collateral damage and civilian casualties are inevitable if these weapons are used in populated areas...
Warning: severely injured/dead civilians, including children. The victims of tonight's US airstrikes, Al Masirah TV
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Airstrikes now in Marib Governorate.
Fourth round of airstrikes in Saada.
Another round of US airstrikes in Sana'a. The airstrikes in Yemen have been going on for over 6 hours now. New videos from CENTCOM show the use of Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles, launched from US Navy ships.
The power station in Dahyan, Saada, was apparently targeted.
Renewed airstrikes in Sana'a Governorate, now 7 hours into the US CENTCOM bombardement of Yemen.
- Nothing but love and solidarity to the people of Yemen. I hope the pilots are struck by lightning or an aneurysm, whichever would be a more fitting condemnation from God, while trying to land on the aircraft carriers and scuttle the entire death machine.
  And I mean, I'm an atheist, but I get the instinct of wishing for cosmic justice.
- I expect this will probably still be controversial since the last time I voiced this here, but I don't see how the Resistance (which is what, just Ansar Allah and Gaza at this point?) can change the calculus of this war without making the GCC comprador states pay a price for letting the US launch attacks from their territories.
  
  To be honest I can see Iran leaving Yemen on their own before launching an attack against Qatar or the UAE themselves. The Yemenis would have to go it on their own in such attack, like they did against Saudi Arabia years ago. At most Iran would give them the missiles necessary to carry out the attack. Iran is not going to attack Qatar unless they feel that their existence is threatened in an existential manner. Qatar is where the US hosts nuclear capable B-52 bombers on occasion, bombing the US bases in Qatar would be a large escalation and lead to a US air campaign against Iran. Then there's the question of how effective such a long range attack would be. Against Israel Iran achieved 30-40 direct hits on Nevatim, but only hit a handful of targets. The accuracy is not there in terms of counterforce targeting for the long range missiles yet. It would more effective to attack oil facilities in such a barrage, the accuracy is there for a target like that. And the Yemenis have hit Saudi Arabian oil facilities with great success before.
  
  I don't think they should target US bases. GCC military installations or economic infrastructure makes more sense, specifically petroleum or shipping related infrastructure. Yemen doesn't have any equivalent infrastructure to a refinery that could be hit in relatilation, and it would increase the price of oil at the time when Trump's approval rating is already starting to slip into the negatives due in part to continuing issues with affordability. Shipping specifically cripples the GCC treats economy and also hurts the shipping land bridge to Israel.
  And yeah, I don't think Iran is going to do anything, which is why I said the Resistance at this point is just Ansar Allah and Gaza (I guess maybe the Iraqi militias, too).

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