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.
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.
so something i don't really grasp about the IDF is how their casualty figures necessitate the extraordinary draft measures. i take it for granted they must be lying and twisting the truth but still, are there any guesses what a 'real' figure is then? ~600,000 minus 700 or so admitted fatalities just doesn't seem like a very desperate situation. is there like x10 that in non fatal casualties or something they're being shy about publicizing? are they desperately filling up the ranks to strengthen the whole occupation just in preparation of things getting wider and deadlier? but then why the hell did they have to redeploy troops from Gaza against their rioters?
sorry if these are stupid questions it's just seems fishy to me
I remember in like December there were interviews in israeli media with medical staff from one of like two eye specialty hospitals, saying that the hospital was at capacity with IDF casualties. If it's true, that's just for eye injuries specifically, they must have a staggering number of overall casualties.
The IDF went house to house through kibbutzes on Oct 7 demolishing them with tanks and not checking beforehand, their Apaches ran sortie after sortie emptying their magazines into vehicles they weren't even sure were occupied by Palestinians, hoping to kill hostages instead of let them be taken to Gaza. It's been reported in Israeli media and that didn't cause mass protests or riots. The one thing that DID cause mass protests and riots was arresting IDF rapists.
they're totally hiding a shitload of losses but also keep in mind that they have a small and shrinking population, are having trouble getting a lot of them to sign up because of some religious bullshit excuse, are trying to start a two/several front war, and also keep having to move forces around between the continually resurging resistance in Gaza, the ascendant resistance in the West Bank, and to deal with homegrown rape mobs too.
cool situation! very feasible to sustain this for a while longer.
They’re relying on American kids—who will eventually be forced to fight their war for them—who happen to be the demographic that hates “Israel” the most. This is why I think “Israel” is going to bring about the downfall of the United States. They might drag out the end with a 9/11 style false flag sometime this fall, but the end is visible.
I am probably completely wrong, but Zyklon Bibi is acting like he has an ace in the hole, which I’m thinking has to be more direct US involvement. He could just be high on his own supply, though.
To get US involvement, Mossad will have to make a bunch of online posts in bad Arabic and blow something up in the US while blaming Hamas or Iran. I’m surprised this hasn’t happened already, regardless of my thinking on the first point.
There was a picture a few days ago about how half the members of a reserve squad got owned, so it does seem like their casualties are understated, by how much? I don't know.
Thanks for the correction. So that's over 2/3 dead, then that means attrition is very high. These are also reserves not regulars, so it must be even worse among those.
165,000 standing army plus 465,000 reserves and 3 million eligible for draft.
The casualties have to be far higher than they're reporting and there are likely other combat readiness problems. I wouldn't be surprised if 10,000+ occupation soldiers have been liquidated.
Not just underreported casualties, they may also need deployed soldiers to be rotated out after a relatively short while and that constant refreshing may mean more are being rotated out than fresh troops going in
I can’t imagine is on the brink of collapse. The country is exporting 5.56 ammo to the US and being sold at discounted prices. It could be Israeli greed trying to cash in before the country falls, but unlikely.
It's absolutely greed, and the entity is on the verge of collapse. Let's not pretend that exporting food for profit rather than feeding the people that grew the food isn't common during famines.