Image is of Rixi Moncada of the LIBRE Party voting in the election.
On November 30th, Hondurans voted to choose their next President, as well as deputies to the Congress, councillors, and other candidates. Like all elections in Latin America, the looming shadow of American intervention will be a major factor in deciding the winner. In this election, that intervention has been fairly naked, with Trump literally stating who he wishes to win (the far-right nationalist guy, Nasry Asfura). Asfura has said that if he does not win, American funding to the country will dry up - a clear threat - and Trump has additionally pardoned the former Honduran president and US ally Juan Orlando Hernández, imprisoned for smuggling cocaine into the US.
The other candidates in this election are Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party, who is essentially running on the same platform as Asfura with some differences (such differences would inevitably vanish if he were to win); and Rixi Moncada of the progressive (self-described as democratic socialist) LIBRE Party. The narrative about this election is - try not to yawn - the neverending battle of democracy against communism. This narrative is obviously very important to uphold in the current environment of accelerated aggression against Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, and others.
Who is going to win? As of me writing this sentence, the results have not yet been fully reported. However, there has been something of a scandal in regards to a plot - with recorded voices, though those guilty plead AI tampering - to show the best possible preliminary results for the right wing, so as to manipulate the narrative and morale of the population. The idea, is presumably, that if LIBRE were to win, the fascists could say “How did LIBRE go from 20% of the vote (which is what the preliminary results showed) to a victory?! It must be communist meddling!”
Of course, it’s entirely possible that LIBRE won’t win anyway, or get particularly close. We shall see how things turn out very shortly.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Looking for good posts? Consider the NewsMegaMeta thread for discussion and feedback on comm policy
DM me to feature effort posts and good threads in the newsmega/newscomm here (including your own posts)
@cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml on the wretched state of the Green party in Germany
@weeb_lenin@hexbear.net on Honduran elections and Nasralla (not the cool one)
@jack@hexbear.net on ideological reasons for the American empire to target Venezuela
me on Seth Harp’s Fort Bragg book as well as the excellent Azov 9/11 article posted by @Tervell@hexbear.net .
Previous posts of the week: Oct 27 | Nov 3 | Nov 10 | Nov 17 | Nov 24
I put effort into this post and I wasn’t even stoned https://hexbear.net/comment/6723644
this is a great post, but I can’t help thinking about much greater it could have been if you were stoned
It would be 30% longer and 40% less coherent
thanks for flagging this one, I thought it was good as I read it but couldn’t find it again when I went to update the POTW comment
Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry are dating. Making it “Instagram Official.”
Does this make Trudeau Canada’s JFK?
Pope Leo has urged Donald Trump not to attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, using military force, and to instead seek dialogue.
Trump’s administration has been considering its options as it steps up its campaign against Maduro, who it accuses of links to the illegal drug trade. The country’s authoritarian leader has denied the accusations.
The US has gathered its biggest military presence in the Caribbean since the 1989 invasion of Panama, and launched 21 strikes on suspected drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing at least 83 people.
Trump reportedly gave Maduro an ultimatum to immediately relinquish power during a recent call, but the Venezuelan leader declined, demanding a “global amnesty” for himself and allies.
Speaking to reporters onboard the papal flight as he returned from his first overseas trip as pope to Turkey and Lebanon, Leo said the Catholic church was “trying to find a way to calm the situation” because “in these situations it is the people who suffer, not the authorities”.
“On the one hand, it seems there has been a telephone conversation between the two presidents,” he added. “On the other hand, there is this danger, this possibility, that there could be an action, an operation, including an invasion of Venezuelan territory.”
Leo said that if the US wanted to bring about change in Venezuela then it should not use military force, but instead “seek dialogue, including economic pressure”.
The Chicago-born pontiff was elected in May after the death of Pope Francis. During the flight, he also criticised anti-migrant activists who stoke “fears” of Islam and said cooperation between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon should be an example for Europe and the US.
The main purpose of his six-day trip, during which he met a host of religious and political leaders, was to urge peace amid heightened tensions in the Middle East. At the start of the visit, he said a world war was being fought “piecemeal” and was endangering the future of humanity.
Leo also spoke publicly for the first time about what it was like to have been picked to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. He said that during the secret conclave he began to realise that he might be chosen.
“I resigned myself to the fact when I saw how things were going – I said, ‘This could be a reality’,” Leo, 70, added. “I took a deep breath. I said, ‘Here we go, Lord, you’re in charge and you lead the way’.”
He also discussed plans for future foreign trips, and said Africa could be next, including Algeria.
China’s Long March 12A reusable space launch vehicle is scheduled to launch sometime this month, after a successful static fire test.
They have a chance to mog their private SpaceX wannabe, Landspace, who launched their own reusable rocket a few days ago, and failed to recover it.
Doctor mike debating RFK supporters
Nah jubilee is a menace
Hezbollah media releases video with the title 'We were and we will remain the people of strength
Green Party UK found the smallest of backbone against the Zionazis.
The chairman of Britain’s Green Party has taken a swipe at the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, saying that the Orthodox rabbi speaks in the interests of the Israeli regime.
Speaking on The Rest Is Politics podcast hosted by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart, Zack Polanski identified himself as proudly Jewish, though not religious. He noted that he feels “less safe” in the UK due to what he perceives as attempts to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
“I am outraged that there are British communal organizations — in fact, I’ll go further — we have a Chief Rabbi who I think has overstepped the mark many times. He is not speaking for the British Jewish community,” Polanski said.
“He is certainly not speaking for me,” he said. “I don’t think he’s speaking for the wider community.”
Polanski added that Mirvis is evidently advocating in defense of Israel.
While he has every right to express his personal perspective, I equally have the right to oppose his stance, the leader of the UK Green Party said.
“But for someone with the role of Chief Rabbi to politicize what is happening in Israel as a defense of the Jewish community in Britain, I think, is deeply damaging,” Polanski stated.
The Burgerization of British MPs:
https://nitter.net/MattZeitlin/status/1996962069720031440after chatgpt was released, british MPs started using phrases in their parliamentary speeches that american congressmen use in their floor speechs
The Burgerization of football:
https://nitter.net/Footballtweet/status/1996993532096319633🚨 𝗢𝗙𝗙𝗜𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟: There will be a World Cup final HALF-TIME show just like the Super-Bowl. 🎶
An absolutely DISGUSTING development.
Reuters: Exclusive: US sets 2027 deadline for Europe-led NATO defense, officials say
WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (Reuters) - The United States wants Europe to take over the majority of NATO’s conventional defense capabilities, from intelligence to missiles, by 2027, Pentagon officials told diplomats in Washington this week, a tight deadline that struck some European officials as unrealistic.
The message, recounted by five sources familiar with the discussion, including a U.S. official, was conveyed at a meeting in Washington this week of Pentagon staff overseeing NATO policy and several European delegations.
The U.S. officials told their counterparts that if Europe does not meet the 2027 deadline, the U.S. may stop participating in some NATO defense coordination mechanisms, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
“Get ready to take over NATO responsibilities, or else… we’ll leave NATO.” US influence over its European vassals is reduced to a tautology. The sad part is that they will still do as they are commanded, regardless of this non-logic.
The deadline is no coincidence, by the way. 2027 is also the year that the US expects a war with China (that they will likely provoke themselves).
Push through Minsk 3 deal in Ukraine -> quickly pull out of Europe -> shore up the Western Hemisphere -> proxy war with China (Taiwan/Japan/Philippines) -> ??? -> resume proxy war with Russia
taking a minor yet important step towards ending the ongoing genocide against Indigenous people, with a bill to repeal a key blood quantum provision of the Indian Act passing the senateThe Senate voted unanimously Thursday to advance Bill S-2 with an amendment calling for the removal of the second-generation cut-off from the Indian Act. Subsection 6(2) or the second-generation cut-off refers to a rule in the Indian Act where children are not eligible for Indian status after two generations of one non-status parent. It was added to the act in 1985. Bill S-2 was originally designed as the latest in a series of amendments to Indian Act to address remaining sex-based discrimination in registration, often tied to historical enfranchisement, the surrendering of status to become a “full citizen.”
“It was an assurance that we would be eventually assimilated into Canadian society, as the lawmakers of the day knew that we could not survive if we were relegated to only marrying among ourselves to preserve status,” Paul Prosper, a Mi’kmaw senator representing Nova Scotia, told the Senate in an address ahead of the vote. Prosper told the Senate the impact of the amendments could affect approximately 300,000 people over the next 40 years.
more inside baseball from APTN from a couple days ago
now the bill goes to parliament. this actually is a big deal for Indigenous people in Canada. Canada’s relationship with Indigenous nations is very legalistic, so legal recognition of status for a lot of living and future people is important. 300k people is about 1/6th of the current Indigenous population of Canada
canada’s czar of slava ukraini, chrystia freeland in the news (archive)
Freeland calls Ukraine a ‘fantastic investment’ as Ottawa pledges $235 million
“It is a country that will be a fantastic partner for us all, a fantastic investment for the businesses that have the courage to invest now,” she told the conference. Freeland said while Ukraine missed out on an economic boom when it secured independence in 1991, it can unleash its potential once the war Russia launched ends, through innovation and “the entrepreneurial approach that Ukrainians are taking to fighting this war.” Freeland also said that the ongoing corruption scandal in Ukraine is proof of a healthy democracy doing the hard work of investigating possible wrongdoing and seeking accountability.
definitely not the way you talk about a failed state. her overall tone in this is grim. she knows the war is lost even though she is zealous enough to never admit it. she must just be seething, getting the boot by Carney and left a backbencher to stew in her defeat. she was talked about as the architect of the first sanctions package against Russia in 2022.
Ottawa’s $235 million package for Ukraine includes $200 million for what it calls the “prioritized Ukraine requirements list,” which will be used to purchase a half billion U.S. dollars worth of goods from American suppliers. The remaining $35 million will go to NATO’s comprehensive assistance package for Ukraine.
literally just graft for contractors in the US. $200m directly to the US, and then how much of the NATO package is ultimately purchased from US weapons manufacturers? Half? this is what trump means when he talks about getting allies to invest in America. it’s simply a tithe
Maduro is still making public appearances right now and it has my anxiety quite high. Why’s he so confident that he won’t get bombed or shot? He shouldn’t be out right now he should be doing Assad’s old routine that kept him alive so long.
I finished reading Seth Harp’s Fort Bragg Cartel book recently. it’s good and touches on a lot of stuff we cover here. The book talks about the nexus of special forces operators doing death squad work in Afghanistan getting involved in drug dealing and crime around Fort Bragg. A couple of unsolved murders of operator types are used as a vehicle to tell the story. I wished there had been more big picture analysis over more detail about individuals’ rap sheets, but I found it compelling nevertheless. Fair warning that the book opens with some really disturbing accounts of death squad activities and the absolute brutality of these cowboy operator types. Lots of descriptions of violence and cruelty, so be mindful if you are triggered.
spoiler to keep the thread manageable
The theme of the book is blowback. America went to war in Afghanistan, was unable to achieve goals with conventional means, attempted to achieve goals using unaccountable death squads, the lack of accountability provides structural support for other crimes like drug trafficking, drug abuse and casual violence, then members of death squads come home. Blowback stateside comes in the form of drug violence, domestic violence, deaths of despair/addiction, PTSD, and ex-operators that act as a reserve pool of labour for clandestine wet work, foreign and domestic.
The best part of the book was his discussion of the evolution of the war in Afghanistan/Iraq and the growth in the importance of JSOC in the invasion/occupation. Harp paints a good picture of this trajectory. I wish this aspect of the book had been expanded as I think there is a lot to dig into there: the distribution of opium from Afghanistan out and connection to real international cartels, the budgetary/decision making implications for this unaccountable state-within-a-state, the implications of reliance on special ops on American force projection (I don’t think the US could fight a peer war now, let alone win). The book focuses on specific people and crimes, not broad analysis. For newsheads who don’t need to be convinced that these people are monsters, the relative absence of structural analysis is a bit disappointing. Maybe in a followup book.
Early in the book Harp makes a throwaway comment about how there are two types of special forces operators: heavily tattoo’d outlaw biker types and straight laced, religious teetotalers. The book centers on the outlaw biker types, specifically the three guys whose murders are discussed. Crashing out into spectacular murders and wild drug crime is by definition more visible and high profile than not crashing out and continuing to quietly do the work of empire. The current activities of JSOC/special forces/general black ops is discussed in the book in general terms, but is not the focus because by definition these things are not as visible as a tweaked out operator murdering his friend in front of both their daughters. The spectacular crashouts by the outlaw types are like the visible portion of the iceberg while the quieter, more stable work lurks invisibly.
Another thing that struck me is that the imperial machine really chews these operator types up and spits them out. I frankly have no sympathy for them on a moral basis, but nevertheless I think it is correct to identify how the machine does not support its elite soldiers as they crash out. I have a bit more sympathy for the young women who joined JSOC and were sexually harassed while they provided administrative support to facilitate the act of extrajudicial murder, but also is it your first fucking day? Who do you think these guys are?
After reading this book I rewatched Sicario from 2015. It is a glamorization of these kinds of guys applying the skills of war crimes against Mexican cartels. The disdain for anyone not part of the unit, the culture of bravado and machismo, insider/outsider attitude, and brutal violence all line up with the world that Harp portrays, though of course that movie is generally dumber and not grounded in any kind of geopolitics the way that Harp’s book is.
To tie this back to news and future blowback, this article “Azov 9/11” posted earlier this thread is worth reading as a historic analysis of what this class of death squad soldiers and compradors get up to after The War is over. We’ve already seen a taste of that with (attempted) perpetrator of stochastic violence Ryan Routh, but he wasn’t actually any kind of operator. As the American rug is pulled from Ukraine, there will be a lot of skilled combat veterans left high and dry that will disseminate into the west. some will be angry nationalists driven by ideology, but others will be more mercenary soldiers of fortune who gravitate towards around these secretive flows of money and weapons like remora.
lol. lmao. https://archive.ph/AafnQ
US raid allegedly killed undercover agent instead of IS official
A raid by U.S. forces and a local Syrian group aiming to capture an Islamic State group official instead killed a man who had been working undercover gathering intelligence on the extremists, family members and Syrian officials have told The Associated Press.
more
The killing in October underscores the complex political and security landscape as the United States begins working with interim Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa in the fight against remnants of IS. According to relatives, Khaled al-Masoud had been spying on IS for years on behalf of the insurgents led by al-Sharaa and then for al-Sharaa’s interim government, established after the fall of former President Bashar Assad a year ago. Al-Sharaa’s insurgents were mainly Islamists, some connected to al-Qaida, but enemies of IS who often clashed with it over the past decade. Neither U.S. nor Syrian government officials have commented on al-Masoud’s death, an indication that neither side wants the incident to derail improving ties. Weeks after the Oct. 19 raid, al-Sharaa visited Washington and announced Syria would join the global coalition against IS. Still, al-Masoud’s death could be “quite a setback” for efforts to combat IS, said Wassim Nasr, a senior research fellow with the Soufan Center, a New York-based think tank focused on security issues. Al-Masoud had been infiltrating IS in the southern deserts of Syria known as the Badiya, one of the places where remnants of the extremist group have remained active, Nasr said. The raid targeting him was a result of “the lack of coordination between the coalition and Damascus,” Nasr said. In the latest sign of the increasing cooperation, the U.S. Central Command said Sunday that American troops and forces from Syria’s Interior Ministry had located and destroyed 15 IS weapons caches in the south.
Confusion around the raid
The raid occurred in Dumayr, a town east of Damascus on the edge of the desert. At around 3 a.m., residents woke to the sound of heavy vehicles and planes. Residents said U.S. troops conducted the raid alongside the Syrian Free Army, a U.S.-trained opposition faction that had fought against Assad. The SFA now officially reports to the Syrian Defense Ministry. Al-Masoud’s cousin, Abdel Kareem Masoud, said he opened his door and saw Humvees with U.S. flags on them. “There was someone on top of one of them who spoke broken Arabic, who pointed a machine gun at us and a green laser light and told us to go back inside,” he said. Khaled al-Masoud’s mother, Sabah al-Sheikh al-Kilani, said the forces then surrounded her son’s house next door, where he was with his wife and five daughters, and banged on the door. Al-Masoud told them that he was with General Security, a force under Syria’s Interior Ministry, but they broke down the door and shot him, al-Kilani said. They took him away, wounded, al-Kilani said. Later, government security officials told the family he had been released but was in the hospital. The family was then called to pick up his body. It was unclear when he had died. “How did he die? We don’t know,” his mother said. “I want the people who took him from his children to be held accountable.”
Faulty intelligence
Al-Masoud’s family believes he was targeted based on faulty intelligence provided by members of the Syrian Free Army. Representatives of the SFA did not respond to requests for comment. Al-Masoud had worked with al-Sharaa’s insurgent group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, in its northwestern enclave of Idlib before Assad’s fall, his cousin said. Then he returned to Dumayr and worked with the security services of al-Sharaa’s government. Two Syrian security officials and one political official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, confirmed that al-Masoud had been working with Syria’s interim government in a security role. Two of the officials said he had worked on combating IS. Initial media reports on the raid said it had captured an IS official. But U.S. Central Command, which typically issues statements when a U.S. operation kills or captures a member of the extremist group in Syria, made no announcement. A U.S. defense official, when asked for more information about the raid and its target and whether it had been coordinated with Syria’s government, said, “We are aware of these reports but do not have any information to provide.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive military operation. Representatives of Syria’s defense and interior ministries, and of U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack, declined to comment.
Increased coordination could prevent mistakes
At its peak in 2015, IS controlled a swath of territory across Iraq and Syria half the size of the United Kingdom. It was notorious for its brutality against religious minorities as well as Muslims not adhering to the group’s extreme interpretation of Islam. After years of fighting, the U.S.-led coalition broke the group’s last hold on territory in late 2019. Since then, U.S. troops in Syria have been working to ensure IS does not regain a foothold. The U.S. estimates IS still has about 2,500 members in Syria and Iraq. U.S. Central Command last month said the number of IS attacks there had fallen to 375 for the year so far, compared to 1,038 last year. Fewer than 1,000 U.S. troops are believed to be operating in Syria, carrying out airstrikes and conducting raids against IS cells. They work mainly alongside the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast and the Syrian Free Army in the south.
Now the U.S. has another partner: the security forces of the new Syrian government. Airwars, a London-based conflict monitor, has reported 52 incidents in which civilians were harmed or killed in coalition operations in Syria since 2020. The group classified al-Masoud as a civilian. Airwars director Emily Tripp said the group has seen “multiple instances of what the U.S. call ‘mistakes,’” including a 2023 case in which the U.S. military announced it had killed an al-Qaida leader in a drone strike. The target later turned out to be a civilian farmer. It was unclear if the Oct. 19 raid went wrong due to faulty intelligence or if someone deliberately fed the coalition false information. Nasr said that in the past, feuding groups have sometimes used the coalition to settle scores. “That’s the whole point of having a hotline with Damascus, in order to see who’s who on the ground,” he said.
