Bulletins and News Discussion from February 26th to March 3rd, 2024 - Breaking The Siege Of Omdurman - COTW: Sudan
The war in Sudan has so far been marked by a lot of incompetency and mismanagement by government forces (the SAF). After months of bitter fighting, in late 2023, the opposing Rapid Support Forces suddenly expanded their control towards the southeast of Khartoum after not a lot of resistance, most notably taking the city of Wad Madani. This led the SAF supporters and officials to panic and point fingers at each other about what the hell the army is even doing, while RSF soldiers looted the city.
These victories led to a short period in late December and early January where diplomacy and peace talks were considered, but such attempts fell apart. The leader of the RSF visited various African countries, including meeting Paul Kagame in Rwanda, to boost his legitimacy. Then, the RSF attacked into South Kordofan and consolidated their hold on other areas.
The Sudanese capital of Khartoum sits on a river which divides it from the city to its west, Omdurman (see the post image). The SAF and RSF have been fighting over this grand urban area for the whole war, with the RSF holding most of Khartoum (with an entirely cut-off SAF force holding on in the center), with a similarly cut-off SAF force also in eastern Omdurman, up against the river. For 10 months, this force has been under siege - but no longer. In perhaps the first actual W of the war for the SAF, they finally managed to break the siege a week ago, pouring supplies in. This leaves a section of the RSF now cut off, though Omdurman is still not under full SAF control (and, who knows, the whole situation could once again go badly for the SAF).
Meanwhile, the Sudanese socioeconomic situation has completely collapsed, with potentially a 20% fall in GDP and 8 million people displaced, with 2 million from Khartoum alone. 18 million Sudanese, or about a third of the population, is in acute hunger, and 20 million children are out in school. The refugees streaming out of the country are causing knock-on effects in neighorboring countries like Chad. Nobody is even really counting the dead anymore.
Red is the government forces, the SAF. Blue is the RSF opposition. Other colours are various factions.
The Country of the Week is Sudan! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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.
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.
Biden is now goading Trump to support his fascist border bill. (I don't understand why Trump doesn't just accept it? they get everything they want) remember to vote though, most important election of our lifetimes, This. Is. An. Investment. In. Democracy. etc
Trump doesn’t actually “want” anything regarding any border policy, he doesn’t give a fuck. He shouts about the wall because it makes his hogs squeal in delight, not because he personally is ideologically invested in it.
So it’s obvious Trump is blocking any immigration deal under Biden so that he can keep attacking him on immigration, keep his hogs squealing and take the victory for himself under his own presidency instead of letting Biden claim credit. It’s a pure cynical electioneering move from Trump.
I know that's the narrative people are going with, but he can support the bill and just run on immigration anyway, right? quietly get the bill passed, and just keep talking about the border. it's not like anyone who cares about the border is going to say "wow Biden got a border bill passed, I'm going to vote for Biden now!" the bill literally gives the president (soon to be Trump) the power to shut down the border, it's wild to me that Trump isn't taking it.
Republicans don't actually want to "solve" the "border issue". They want cheap grey market labor for their buddies. They want illegal immigration (if it's legal they can't bully their immigrant workers with threats of deportation). This is one area where Republicans are like Democrats and completely ignore their base in practice, while paying lip service to the policies they want. Biden conceding to Republicans on the border does absolutely nothing for him, it's baby-brained liberalism.
If a bill gets passed, wind exits the sails for several years on that policy front. If Biden gets an immigration bill passed then there will be less appetite for it later
Remember, Trump needs the backing of the super serious bipartisan RINO senators to pass his border bills. Those people are lost if the subject is settled under Biden, they will want to focus on neocon issues like Iran / Russia / China.
The republican form of politics has been to block anything and everything democrats do for the past 30 years now. Of course he can't do that. Biden and the democrats are communist vampires who subsist on dead babies and the last thing a republican candidate wants is CNN talking about how the republicans reached across the aisle to make deal with literal satan. The feelings on the issue have nothing whatsoever to do with policies and everything to do with politics.
Think about Dems fundraising on protecting abortion. Had they enshrined the right in law, they would have lost billions in donations.
The question is ultimately down to wether the republican party would be able to pretend that Brandon's Bill is Bad and that seventeen trillion migrants are still moving across the border. They can't do that if they join hands with Brandon himself and implement a fascist bill.