(She/Her) Pakistani, transgender, a socialist, and a social scientist.
I’ve been a bit too busy to comment for the last few days but I have to step in to appreciate you for blessing me with ‘racist manifesting’ - amazing term, thank you.
And yes, I have no idea how they imagine a land blockade would work.
I imagine most people here know about this by now, but there is lots of evidence that the Patriot system’s interception rate, even with the most advanced PAC-3 interceptors (which are rapidly running out) against ballistic missiles is actually extremely low. Theodore Postol is an expert in this field and has been in key positions advising the US military in the past, and he has been giving a number of important interviews with evidence presented on this topic, I’ve picked out one that I’ve found to be a good summary of the overall case that he’s been making.
So keep that in mind when the mainstream media keeps babbling on about supposed interceptions of missiles by all these collaborator regimes in the Persian Gulf and by Jordan and ‘Israel’. ‘Israel’s’ own air defence and ballistic missile defence systems draw heavily on US tech and existing systems’ engineering so much of this applies to their systems as well like the Arrow-3, as seen in previous rounds of the war.
It’s easy to get frustrated with Iran’s restraint and want them to do more, and at times arguably it hasn’t served Iran’s interests well, but I would say that much more often than not, diplomatically, economically, militarily that restraint has greatly strengthened Iran’s position.
As you say, avoiding alienating the Arab public is the smart move, it turns them against their own rulers for standing with the US and ‘Israel’ and it creates the opportunity for a better diplomatic settlement in the future. Iran recognizes, unlike ‘Israel’ and the US, that regional and global public opinion does matter a lot actually in a variety of ways - and innocent blood is easy to spill but hard to wash out.
When the IRGC starts counting the waves of drones and missiles as part of a named operation, the US should seriously reconsider whatever the hell it thinks its doing. Just saying.
Please don’t apologize, you’ve been consistently keeping this thread alive with great updates, I was planning to post updates as well and there are others who can and should step forward too, it’s easy to lean too hard on a couple of volunteers who also have to live their lives but this community should strive to be better than that.
I’m not a big football person but combined with Trumps tampering with the US game, I genuinely think he was trying to engineer a situation where teams from Trump allies win - so US and Argentina, and teams from countries he has a grudge against (like Spain) and teams from majority brown and Muslim nations lose. There has been consistent discrimination against black and brown people in general in the World Cup, like with the Somalian referee being denied entry.
Has something this blatant happened in previous World Cups? It’s incredibly pathetic.
This is what happens when this violent US filth is stationed anywhere around your country. I can’t imagine why they would shoot this down but I’m not assuming anything - bastards, 5 fellow Pakistanis wiped out in a second with no defence, and I expect our bootlicking army rulers to do precisely nothing. One of my cousins is a commercial pilot operating in the region so this hits close to home. Not the first time the US has spilled innocent people’s blood here obviously.
After weighing and considering this analysis for hours, I would suggest that they should also:
Bomb them more.
I would love to understand better the mood in Lebanon towards this sellout ‘government’. I know its a complex picture but I would be astonished if the public is not drifting away from them. Does anyone have any insight or materials on this?
Italian unions have been absolutely exemplary in how they have responded to the genocide, from what I understand of the Italian political scene, they’ve several times influenced Italy’s position on this despite the fascist Meloni government.
This is real, consistent solidarity and it’s wonderful to see.
sees explanation
Slowly puts down pitchfork.
This is actually incredible news. Given their effort to erase every aspect of Palestinian history, heritage, and culture, having these records slip through their fingers is a setback for ‘Israel’. Well done to the UNRWA staff involved, they pulled this off under genuine threat of violence and persecution by the zionist entity. This way, these documents remain a potential legal threat-in-being to the apartheid colony.
Lmao, that’s very true, a lot of Russian commentators and analysts target the right leaning crowd, so we’re left dodging anti-woke bullshit and casual slurs. Some of them are still worth listening to, but it really puts the ‘critical’ in critical support.
Honestly I can only view modern Russia as a painful reminder that the revolution was ultimately betrayed. I keep wanting to poke it with a stick like “cmon, do something, become the USSR again” sigh
I appreciate that they’re helping dismantle western hegemony at least.
Iran’s messaging continues to be exceptional throughout the war, and for the first time in a long time it feels like Iranian perspectives are widely known and often appreciated even in the west.
I’m fascinated to see this: “And to those who follow no formal religion but hold deeply to the universal values of peace, justice, and human dignity:”
It aligns with the tolerant, inclusive tone I’ve been seeing from their official messaging and through non-official channels like Prof. Marandi and others. I’ve also yet to see any anti-LGBTQ insults from any of these channels, it’s been helping people get past their preconceptions about Iran and about Muslims in general to engage with the core messages. They often address the western public too, appreciate the pro-palestine, anti-zionist movements and protests, and draw a distinction between Zionists and Jews.
I’m impressed at how they’ve shaped all this and I admit, my opinion of the Iranian system as it stands now has gone up although of course I can never fully support a non-socialist theocracy. The Islamic revolution has mellowed out significantly compared to the early years and has shown flexibility and the ability to prioritize the needs of the general public and to make good strategic moves.
That’s Hamas, and Iran seems to avoid medical targets too, even military medical facilities.
However, Hezbollah has been directly targeting helicopters engaged in military casualty evacuations throughout this phase of the conflict, there was the recent video of them narrowly missing a blackhawk with an FPV drone due to rotor wash while 20 Israeli terrorists were clustered around loading casualties. I’m fairly sure Hezbollah has mentioned this in earlier lists of operations that they’ve released as well.
It’s admirable that Hamas and Iran don’t target medical facilities and vehicles, but apart from the fact that international law is burning in a rotten pile in the corner now thanks to ‘Israel’ and the US, the laws of war are meant to establish baselines for military conduct for both sides, as a mutual agreement to maintain a baseline of humanity in conflict. Against an enemy like ‘Israel’ that has demolished healthcare facilities and targeted health and rescue workers directly in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran to be frank I don’t blame Hezbollah for not drawing this line at all especially for military casualties.
The South is facing a genocide, at this point everything must be done to push the terrorists back. I believe a Hezbollah official has even said during an interview with Al-Jazeera that they are prepared to resort to suicide bombing as well. I don’t blame them.
You’re correct that they haven’t stated what type of helicopter this was and what it was doing, but it would be in line with the earlier pattern, that’s why I’m making the assumption that it was casualty evacuation.
Confirmed hit on a helicopter? I think that’s the first such kill in this phase of the war. Well done to them, so gratifying. Losing their easy path back to medical aid will likely have a morale impact, and a practical one on survival too. Let them drag their casualties back on land while being chased by FPV drones.
PressTV: Two missiles hit US Navy vessel after it ignored Iran’s warning: Report
So this just happened! Looks like this time around they ignored Iran’s warnings for just a little bit too long when playing chicken with the Hormuz defences and didn’t turn around in time.
CENTCOM is denying this but it’s being reported by Fars and Al-Jazeera as well, I imagine we’ll have more information soon. I’d love to find out what weapons were used and the circumstances of the strike - I’m assuming that this is an Arleigh Burke. Sending in a ship for this kind of high-risk political signaling must be really unpopular in US military circles, no faster way to tank morale than to take wild and unjustified risks with sailors’ lives for media stunts.
This could spark out of control fast unless the US decides to continue denying it to save face and then de-escalates. Let’s see.
The real problem isn’t rebuilding the ammunition exactly. The reality is that the US is facing two crushing problems from a military angle.
One is that the entire 1980s era doctrine that they’ve built their military around has been shattered, in the air, at sea, and on land. Nothing they had on hand had an answer for fortified underground facilities, for dispersion as a general strategy, for cost efficient drones, and for an at-scale ballistic missile programme. Their ships can’t approach, their planes can’t operate freely over dispersed ambush air defences, and their military isn’t built for countering fiber-optic FPV drones and one-way drones. Every aircraft will need to be underground or in hardened shelters. Every ship needs covered docking space, if they’re operating anywhere in range of an enemy with these capabilities. And they need an actual answer to the issue of being able to penetrate and destroy underground facilities.
The second problem that they have is that they have to solve these massive problems and pivot their entire military establishment around the solutions they find, using a deeply corrupt and monopolistic military-industrial complex that exercises deep political influence both in government and in the military bureaucracy. This entity has already proven increasingly incapable of delivering next generation equipment across all domains. There is a reason that the US is operating ageing 80s equipment. The Zumwalt programme failed. The mobile artillery programme failed. The light tank programme failed. The LCS programme failed. They have failed to develop effective and practical hypersonics. They have yet to introduce a truly current-gen ship-to-ship missile. The constellation programme failed. Their 6th gen aircraft programme is limping along, massively behind the curve. Ukraine has generally found their drones to be impractical and ineffective. The next generation naval fighter was entirely cancelled. Both the F-22 and F-35 programmes have massive issues around cost, maintenance, availability, and more. On top of that, the US is continuing to suffer from a significant decline in industry, education, and research.
Given all this, the reality is that the US is not equipped to face any country wielding these next generation warfighting capabilities - they’ve gone from asymmetrical responses to the future of warfare.
So they can slowly rebuild their tomahawk inventory by hand over the next 5 years to bomb more schoolchildren if they like, it doesn’t change the fact that their complete inability to fight Iran, China, or Russia has been exposed.
That sort of blockade would definitely not work for the reasons provided. What they could do however, is hunt down ships shipping oil from Iran and shipping items to Iran from further away than Iranian drones and missiles can target.
The problem with this is that it will further exacerbate the global energy crisis and piss off multiple countries benefiting from Iran’s exports. Iran can also respond to this kind of blockade with strikes on US and US allies assets elsewhere to inflict harm, while continuing to keep hormuz closed. That’s assuming China, Russia or another country doesn’t apply pressure or send its own ships to help transport Iranian oil and trade, which the US could not target without it being an act of war it can’t afford.
So this is really not a good option from multiple angles.
I just wanted to say, thank you for posting about (and ranting about) these updates from the situation within Syria, as an English speaking Pakistani it’s quite hard to get a sense for what exactly is going on and this helps paint a picture.
I also really empathise with your pain and frustration. The situation in Syria is worse than in Pakistan, but the sense of frustration at watching the state of the country continuously decline, going from one negative development to the next, while common people suffer, well I can certainly relate to it given how its been growing up in this country.
I’ve long held the view that the revolution was hijacked by the west (including ‘Israel’) in order to depose Assad and while as you say I’m not a huge fan of him, replacing him with these west aligned wahabbists is a definite loss. It is good to hear from others who share this perspective. I hope that a path to a better, sovereign, Syria that works for all of its people can emerge, it’s been painful watching the suffering of the country for all these years even from the outside.