I have some information from Supreme Evil Dictator Monarch Kim Jong Un: unfortunately, for revealing this information, we have decided to execute every single person in your family and arrest every single person that has ever interacted with you. Also, unicorns are real and everybody who says that they aren't will also be executed
And as always, cooking up the terms in a circlejerk amongst themselves.
I would love to know what's actually been going on at those Ukrainian peace summits that don't include Russia. Are they all just making awkward small talk there? Is it just a front for arms corporations? I legitimately don't see the point. Perhaps they're just doing the diplomatic equivalent of kindergarten stage plays like the Nativity. Were all these people just really into the model UN exercises in school?
It's hard to know because we don't know exactly what the rest of the Resistance will do as Israel approaches that brink, not to mention if Israel will even be able to maintain enough surface-level control to carry out mass evacuations nor whether Gazans would even obey and would rather flee north and hide even if the chance of death is very high, but even in the worst case scenario, it doesn't like, end the war, y'know.
Like, it's not as if, Israel expels a million Palestinians into the Sinai - Mission Complete! Final Fantasy victory fanfare sounds! History ends here! You Win! They would still have to deal with the armed groups inside Gaza - to which they have been attriting heavily to - and the aftermath of that action on a local, regional, and global level. It's a facet of defeat, but it's not The End Of Palestine™.
Hell, let's assume that every Palestinian that isn't an armed militant drops dead tomorrow. Does that end the Israeli internal crisis? No. It would continue with a mostly unchanged intensity. The civilian and military spheres of this conflict are somewhat related, but not directly, and there's no way of analysing the conflict if you can't simultaneously realize that the civilian situation is a total disaster but the military situation is going pretty well for Gaza right now, as guerrilla wars go. In anti-colonial wars, especially guerrilla wars, the deaths of extremely high numbers of civilians is basically baked in because the settlers are deranged, bloodthirsty monsters unless they experience enough violence to be forced into submission, and even then they might grumble. Algeria, Vietnam, the DPRK, Libya, Ethiopia. This conflict isn't uniquely terrible (aside from the time it's taking place and the weapons being used) - the better part of a million civilians died in Algeria. 20% of the DPRK's population perished and there were no above-ground structures left standing. Hell, some of our grandparents and great grandparents, if of a certain nationality and ideology, would have been doing bizarre TikTok dances celebrating the mass bombing of irrigation dams in the DPRK or the millions of Congo amputations had TikTok been around back then and had those atrocities been easily conveyed to the rest of the world. So it's not really right to be like "Death to fucking Israel, the death toll is now X hundred thousand people, they've expelled the native population to a different region / the concentration camps, I guess the war is lost," because such death tolls are just the historical precedent of even successful anti-colonial wars.
(To go on a brief rant, I genuinely don't believe the "Western psyche", if one can be said to exist in that general of a sense, hasn't progressed one iota since at least 1900, and probably earlier. Western liberals could very, very easily justify doing another Holocaust if it was against "people who deserved it", whether that be Chinese people or immigrants of various nationalities or certain minorities. I don't even really mean like, "We have to be constantly vigilant for fascism because the people who did the Holocaust were humans just like you and me," I mean like, the same people who are saying that we have to be constantly vigilant against fascism could themselves justify another Holocaust because "it's not really fascism to want to round up and separate those people, it's just common sense really." I mean, how many people died in American wars in the Middle East this side of the turn of the millennium? Do American liberals really, deeply care, or are they just being like "Oh yeah, uh, war is, uh, bad, now that we're not really actively fighting it anymore."? It's hard-baked into the fundamental code of liberalism. It is the black hole that isn't directly visible but is revealed by everything else orbitting around it.)
Key points from Nasrallah's speech on the Martyrs' Day of the Resistance:
The front in southern Lebanon provides pressure, support, and participation in defeating and weakening the enemy until the aggression stops. Political gains touted elsewhere will not affect them or make them cease the front.
The southern front is governed by deterrence measures and precise calculations by both sides, but there is excessive exaggeration, reaching the level of "moral decay and obscenity." Another scene of moral decay and obscenity is scaring residents of border villages through calls urging them to evacuate their homes, serving the enemy's interests.
Attention should be paid to the psychological warfare carried out by the enemy and its allies.
Providing information for free on social media to the Zionist enemy is unacceptable; they actively seek this information. Mobile phones are eavesdropping devices; thus, people are asked, especially fighters and their families in border villages, to refrain from using them to preserve lives and vital info. Mobile phones are lethal informants providing specific and deadly information. Israelis don't need to plant agents on roads; internet-connected cameras monitor all roads. Disconnecting these cameras from the internet is crucial to prevent further casualties, losses, and exposing the front to the enemy.
Hezbollah monitors all developments in the region, keeping all possibilities open, but Hezbollah’s focus is on the south of Lebanon, with their eyes on Gaza. When aggression stops in Gaza, the firing will stop in the south. Conversely, if firing stops in Gaza and the Zionist enemy engages in any action, Hezbollah will return based on the principles and equations that were previously established. The resistance's role is to deter the enemy, and their responses will be proportionate. Those who threaten Hezbollah with war expansion will be met with a similar threat. Anyone who imagines that the resistance in Lebanon feels fear or confusion for even a moment is suspicious and entirely mistaken. They build on incorrect assumptions.
Today, the resistance is more confident and has a stronger determination to confront the enemy at any level of engagement.
The Israeli Defense Minister must understand that if he starts a war against us, he will have 2 million displaced from the north, not a hundred thousand.
Israel faces 'chilling reality' of war with Hezbollah: Report
By The Cradle.
A group of Israeli think tanks partnered to draft a detailed report examining the "chilling reality facing Israel in a war with Hezbollah," Israeli news outlet Calcalist reported on 12 February. The 130-page report, which was drafted before the outbreak of war on 7 October, is the work of six think tanks consisting of over 100 terrorism experts, former senior security officials, academics, and government officials who examined Israel's level of preparedness in the event of a multi-front war.
Foremost among the many threats Israel would face in the case of a full-scale war with the Lebanese resistance movement is the thousands of rockets and precision missiles that would rain down on Israeli military bases – including airbases – and cities, overwhelming Israel's missile defenses. Calcalist stated that the report predicted Hezbollah attacks "would cause immense destruction in Israel, including thousands of casualties on both the frontlines and the home front, causing public panic, a central objective of the multi-front attack will be to collapse the IDF's air defense systems." Hezbollah would employ precision-guided munitions and low-signature weapons, such as loitering munitions, drones, and standoff missiles to destroy Iron Dome batteries.
Leading the research is Professor Boaz Ganor, who described the threat of Hezbollah rocket and missile fire: "They have an arsenal that consists of about 150,000 rockets and missiles, and our working assumption is that they would launch about 3,000 at us each day of the war, which according to our estimates, would last about 21 days." While claiming Israel would still win such a war, the report said that the Israeli public's expectations of security would be "shattered" and that the threat of Israeli retaliation would not be enough to deter Hezbollah rocket and missile fire. "The expectation of the public and of a significant portion of the leadership, that the Israeli Air Force and effective Israeli intelligence systems will succeed in preventing most of the rocket attacks on Israel, will be shattered. This is also the case regarding the public's belief that the threat of Israeli retaliation or a substantial Israeli attack on significant Lebanese assets will force Hezbollah to cease fire or significantly impair their ability to continue attacking Israeli territory," said the report.
Israeli leaders regularly threaten to destroy Beirut, including by targeting civilian areas, in the way they are currently destroying Gaza, should a full-scale war with Hezbollah erupt. Calcalist said, "Chaos will intensify when Hezbollah sends hundreds of Radwan commandos to seize towns and villages, and IDF posts along the Lebanese border. The IDF will have to fight within Israeli territory, diverting efforts from operations on the ground in Lebanon to take control of launch areas." The report added that Israel would face attacks from other armed groups from Iraq, Yemen, and Gaza, which comprise the Axis of Resistance. The report's authors also examined what an Israeli pre-emptive attack on Hezbollah could look like, but that section was prohibited from publication by Israeli military censors.
Hezbollah, PIJ chiefs meet as Israel escalates attacks on Gaza and Lebanon
By The Cradle.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah met with the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement, Ziad al-Nakhala, on 12 February in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. During the meeting, “the latest developments in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank were reviewed,” Hezbollah said via its media page on Monday. “The conditions of the support and assistance fronts provided by the axis of resistance in various arenas” were also discussed. “Discussions took place about the existing possibilities and expected developments, whether at the field level or political communications. The two parties stressed the need to remain steadfast and continue working forcefully to achieve the promised victory.”
The meeting comes three days after Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited Lebanon. On the second day of his visit, 10 February, Amir-Abdollahian met with Nasrallah and discussed developments in Gaza and the region. He also met with leaders representing several Palestinian resistance factions, including Nakhala, Hamas official Osama Hamdan, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader Jameel Mezher.
“Signs of victory are on the horizon … time is in favor of the resistance,” Nakhala said during the meeting. Amir-Abdollahian earlier held a press conference with his Lebanese counterpart Abdullah Bou Habib, during which he vowed that a broader Israeli war against Lebanon would mark Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “last day.” Israel has continued to escalate the situation in Lebanon, killing at least three in a drone strike on the town of Jadra on Saturday. The strike was much deeper into Lebanese territory than usual. According to Hebrew media, it targeted Hamas commander Basel Salah, who reportedly survived the attack. Hezbollah continues to bombard Israeli military sites daily.
Moody’s Just Told You So — Downgrades Israel, Warns That Weaker US Backing for Israel, War With Hezbollah Would Trigger Crash
By John Helmer, hosted at Naked Capitalism. Yves has a foreword:
Yves here. Helmer continues his discussion of the high and rising cost of the war in Gaza on Israel’s economy. Helmer was early to point out that Israel’s economy can’t endure a long war, even with US economic support. Too many important sectors are taking hits with no prospect of recovery under conflict conditions, and uncertainty when and if they could get back to their old level in the unlikely event that Israel backed down. Note that the ratings agencies are more timid about downgrades than Helmer indicates. For corporate issuers, the norm is to downgrade only when the bonds are already trading at a lower ratings level, as in to validate Mr. Market. Similarly, in the subprime mortgage securitization era, the agencies were extremely slow to downgrade, there out of reluctance to admit how poor their ratings practices had been. Mind you, that does not diminish the fact that presumed-late downgrades of Israel were pushed back a tad more by Israel and US temper tantrums.
Twice already the warning of the obvious has been posted in the money markets — Israel cannot survive a long war with the Arabs and Iran. In this long war, the gods do not favour the Chosen People, it was reported on October 27, three weeks after the Hamas offensive began. The decline in Israel’s export earnings from tourism and diamonds; the loss of imported supplies for manufacturing and consumption from the Houthi blockade of the Red Sea; and increasing risk to both imports and exports at the Mediterranean ports within range of Hamas and Hezbollah strikes were identified at that time. The international ratings agencies, Moody’s, Fitch and Standard and Poors, postponed announcing the obvious for as long as they could.
In attrition war, on the economic front just like the Gaza and other fire fronts, the Axis of Resistance wins by maintaining its offensive capacities and operations for longer than the US and US-backed Israeli forces can defend. Like troops, tanks, and artillery pieces, the operational goal is to grind the enemy slowly but surely into retreat, then capitulation. Last week, Moody’s had already decided in-house to downgrade Israel; for several days senior management fended off a ferocious attack from Israeli officials and their supporters in the US trying to compel postponement of the downgrade and the analytical report substantiating it.
On February 6, in a review of the shekel, bond, credit default swaps (CDS), budget deficit, and other indicators, the conclusion was there could be no stopping the money markets from moving against Israel. Negative ratings from the agencies raise the cost of servicing Israel’s state and corporate bonds, and put pressure on the state budget. A ratings downgrade is a signal to the markets to go negative against the issuer – this usually comes after the smart money has changed its mind and direction. In Israel’s case, however, there has been an exceptional delay between negative outlook and downgrade. The last Fitch report on Israel was dated October 17; Moody’s followed on October 19; Standard & Poors (S&P) on October 24. That Israeli and US tactics had forced postponement of new reports from the troika was obvious. A fresh warning was published on this website: as real estate and other tax collections collapse, Israel will have to make a large cash call on the US. This is going to come in the near future, just as the government in Kiev has been forced into calling on Congress as the Ukraine war is being lost. The longer both wars are protracted, the more obviously the loss of confidence expresses itself in Washington. Moody’s has now caught up. According to the Israeli press, this is the first credit and currency downgrade in their country’s history.
In a report dated last Friday but not issued until Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, the agency officially reduced Israel’s rating from A1 to A2, and added pointers of further downgrading to come. The Anglo-American press immediately reacted against Moody’s. “Israel hits back”, the Financial Times headlined. The newspaper added: “[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, in a rare statement over the Jewish Sabbath, said: ‘The rating downgrade is not connected to the economy, it is entirely due to the fact that we are in a war. The rating will go back up the moment we win the war — and we will win the war.’” In the Associated Press report, “Israel’s finance minister blasts Moody’s downgrade”. Rupert Murdoch’s platform Fox claimed: “Israel has a strong, open economy despite Moody’s downgrade”. “Israel’s creditworthiness remains high,” according to the New York Times, “but the rating agency noted that the outlook for the country was negative… A rating of A2 is still a high rating.”
The press release version of Moody’s report is republished verbatim so that its meaning can be understood without the propaganda. Three points have been missed in the Anglo-American counterattack and Israeli government’s bluster. The first is the warning that Israel will soon have to request enormous cash backing from the US, and if there is any sign of weakening on that in Washington, the collapse of the Israeli economy and its capacity to continue its war is inevitable. The Moody’s report camouflaged the point this way: “The related issuances benefit from an irrevocable, on-demand guarantee provided by the Government of the United States of America (Aaa negative) with the government acting through USAID. The notes benefit explicitly from ‘the full faith and credit of the US’ and as per prospectus, USAID is obligated to pay within three business days if the guarantee is called upon.”
The second point strikes at announcements from Israel Defence Forces (IDF) generals and Netanyahu of their plan to expand their operations on the northern front – the Litani River ultimatum they called it in December. According to Moody’s report, “downside risks remain at the A2 rating level. In particular, the risk of an escalation involving Hezbollah in the North of Israel remains, which would have a potentially much more negative impact on the economy than currently assumed under Moody’s baseline scenario. Government finances would also be under more intense pressure in such a scenario.”
The third point is the most explosive. After cutting Israel’s rating to A2, Moody’s warned that further and deeper downgrades may follow, but that there is presently no way the ratings agency can predict what will happen next. “The ongoing military conflict with Hamas, its aftermath and wider consequences materially raise political risk for Israel as well as weaken its executive and legislative institutions and its fiscal strength, for the foreseeable future.” In flagging those last four words – “for the foreseeable future” — Moody’s has told the markets that the strategic initiative in this war has now passed to the Axis of Resistance. Of course, the Arabs and Iranians already know.
I just don't see why people could possibly think that the USSR will fall. It's been standing pretty securely there for the better part of a century and it has nukes, so if it does fall, it's not going out peacefully. You are all delusional if you think that the Soviet Union is just gonna collapse like that.
It doesn't matter that Israel can't defeat Hamas.
With Gaza and Hamas defeated
I don't follow
Agreed. Nowhere and I intending to defend it but to understand and clarify it. You'd apply this to Stalin and supporters as well, right?
Stalin and millions of Red Army soldiers saved the world from fascism, saved tens of millions of lives, and prevented the attempted extermination of various minority groups, you little fucking weasel.
you silly goose
The Country of the Week is Brazil!
As mentioned in the preamble, feel free to post or recommend any material related to Brazil, whether from a thousand years ago or yesterday. You can post it anywhere in the thread, but you can also reply to this comment if you wish.
If you're feeling particularly ambitious and want homework, you could take on any or all of these questions (no reward, but I'll be very proud of you):
- Who are the main political actors? Are they compradors, nationalists, international socialists, something else?
- What are the most salient domestic political issues; those issues that repeatedly shape elections over the last 10, 20 years. Every country has its quirks that complicate analysis - for example, Brexit in the UK.
- What is the country's history? You don't have to go back a thousand years if that's not relevant, and I'm counting "history" as basically anything that has happened over a year ago.
- What factions exist, historically and currently? If there is an electoral system, what are the major parties and their demographic bases? Are there any minor parties with large amounts of influence? Independence movements? Religious groups?
- How socially progressive or conservative are they? Is there equality for different ethnic groups, or are some persecuted? Do they have LGBTQIA+ rights? Have they improved over time, or gotten worse?
- What role do foreign powers play in the country’s politics and economy? Is there a particular country nearby or far away that is nearly inseparable from them, for good or bad reasons? Is their trade dominated by exports/imports to one place? Are they exploited, exploiters, or something in between?
- If applicable, what is the influence of former colonial relationships on the modern economy and politics?
- Is the country generally stable? Do you think there will be a coup at some point in the future, and if so, what faction might replace them?
The previous country was Germany.
The Geopolitical Reading List is evolving...
Hezbollah announced that they've carried out 1000 attacks in total so far the other day, so they're basically just attriting Israel while Israel tries to figure out how to start a war with Hezbollah without it being seen as their fault and without the country collapsing, and Hezbollah waits for Hamas' call to start blasting