Image is of military and civilian sites across Caracas which were bombed by the United States as of last weekend.
As everybody has already known for a couple days, the US has abducted Maduro and his wife in a massive operation (of which the exact details are not currently known, but involved hundreds of aircraft and at least some bombing of military and civilian targets), and has threatened Venezuela and the socialist party with further abductions and widespread murder if they do not hand over control of the country directly to the United States. In a statement that really says it all, Trump said that Machado is not being considered for the colonial viceroy position due to her sheer unpopularity. Various parties and countries around the world - and inside the US - have expressed their disapproval, which, as we all know, will not shift US foreign policy a single iota.
A few months ago, when the pressure campaign on Venezuela began, I speculated that Maduro was going to be killed or captured eventually. Flagrantly illegal and violent American military campaigns in Latin America are not new. The US has been invading land, looting banks, assassinating democratically elected leaders, and otherwise overthrowing countries in the region for their own economic benefit for the better part of two centuries, under both Democratic and Republican parties. Unfortunately, we all know that Russia and China are unlikely to do anything meaningful to contest the US in their attempt to more violently assert hegemony in Latin America. I doubt very much that the China of today will come out to bat for Venezuela and start meaningfully pressuring the US economically. For better and worse, we are far from the days of the USSR.
However, Latin America has, historically, met the US in its radicalism, committed to wars of anti-colonial nationalism, and carried out successful revolutions against the dictators placed in control from the US. As history continues ever onwards and conditions develop, I can only assume that we shall once again enter that radicalizing cycle. In that vein, the big question on my mind, and everybody else’s, is: what comes next? Does the Venezuelan socialist party have the social and military cohesion to wage a years-long guerilla war against occupying troops? Can they quickly transition from a conventional to guerilla force as their military facilities are bombed, or will it take several years? Can they prevent the theft of their oil resources and make the attempt at foreign occupation more costly in both the manpower and economic costs than what that war will generate? Can Venezuela manufacture weapons for this guerilla war in a state of blockade? Will this military campaign begin immediately upon soldiers landing, or will it take a period of relatively unopposed occupation of months or even years? Will Cuba, Colombia, and even Mexico be in the same situation by the end of the year, with abducted leaders?
Yemen is the very recent proof that seemingly weak countries can force the American military to retreat in defeat. Can Venezuela follow? We shall see what Maduro has done to prepare the country for this war very soon. The only certain thing is that the murderous violence propagated by a trembling and dying empire shall be defeated eventually, whether it takes months, years, or decades, and the end result will be a socialist victory.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
My understanding is that Venezuelas heavy crude oil is used to make jet fuel. Is it also necessary in order to make hypersonic missiles? Is that why USA doesn’t have them?
I don’t think the US has a shortage of jet fuel, oil, or that it’s necessary for hypersonic missiles.
The US does have a hypersonic weapon, it’s called the LRHW/Dark Eagle. A ground launched weapon with over 3500km range and a hypersonic glide vehicle. As for other hypersonic weapons programmes, the US is looking at miniaturisation, for instance they want the AGM-183 ARRW to come in at under 5000lbs for the entire round so that multiple can be carried by tactical fighter aircraft, like F-35s externally, and F-15s. An F-35 would be able to carry 2x ARRWs, an F-15 at least 3x. Bombers would be able to carry substantially more. This is also true for HACM (hypersonic cruise missile for F-15s, F-18s and F-35s). Minituarisation is very difficult. The US could put a weaponised X-51 or ARRW as it exists currently in service right now, but they don’t want to, it would be a bomber launched exclusive weapon, or the US would have to exclusively modify an F-15 to launch it. With HALO, they want to do this minituarisation too, but also be safe on an aircraft carrier and fit in already existing weapons storage infrastructure while offering a justifiable capability improvement over existing weapons, which is why it’s cancelled. It can’t meet all those requirements.
Also, it depends on how you classify a hypersonic weapon. If you consider a ballistic missile that can maneuver at some point a hypersonic weapon (I don’t, but a lot of people on the internet do apparently), the US had that 40 years ago with the Pershing-II, and Israel has a large air launched arsenal of these made with US technology co-operation. (ROCKS/Black Sparrow, Golden Horizon/Blue Sparrow, Air LORA.)
So US does have hypersonic weapons, just not missiles? Or did I not understand that correctly? As you can tell, I’m sure, I have very little understanding of all this. What even is the difference? And why’s internet always telling me US doesn’t have hypersonic missiles while other countries like Russia and, as I’ve seen previously, Iran do?
The LHRW/Dark Eagle is a US made and operated ground launched hypersonic missile, yes. I used the words missile and weapon interchangeably in my previous comment.
Because they probably don’t know about the existence of the LHRW or the existence of other US programmes, and they think that anything that flies above Mach 5 is a hypersonic weapon/missile, when reality is much more complicated. China is the world leader in operational hypersonic weapons systems, but a lot of claims about Russia and Iran are exaggerated. If you want to learn about the history of hypersonic flight, reading about the North American X-15, a manned hypersonic rocket powered experimental aircraft from the 1960s, is very interesting. Neil Armstrong called it the most important experimental plane ever built.
Does the US ever use them? I think the only use I’ve seen so far is when Iran bombed Israel recently. That was a hypersonic missile I assume? Cause holy crap, I can see why it would scare the shit out of someone and not attack again…for the time being.
I don’t think the US has ever used them in combat.
On Iranian ballistic missiles, I did a post on that here
Hypersonic missiles require materials that can withstand incredible speeds. Soviet metallurgy was leagues ahead of the US. From my understanding that is where the multi-year technology gap comes from
So nothing to do with the kind of fuel, just the metals used?
I have no real idea, but I’m fairly certain US can get whatever fuel, just lack the other novel tech needed.
The easiest oil to refine is light (low viscosity) sweet (low sulfur) crude. Comparatively, heavy (high viscosity) sour (high sulfur) crude is harder, and thus more expensive to refine. As a result, heavy, sour crude usually trades for a discount relative to light sweet crude. Most crude from the US is actually light, sweet crude. However, most refineries in the US, especially the newer ones along the Gulf Coast, as designed specifically to handle heavy, sour crude. The reason for this is because, given the expertise, wealth, and technological advantage of American downstream (refining) oil companies/operations relative to the rest of the world, it’s is more profitable for American oil companies to sell the easy to refine light sweet crude to overseas markets and import the heavy sour crude, due to heavy sour crude trading at a discount.
You actually get more jet fuel and gasoline from a barrel of light, sweet crude. Heavy crude is more useful for stuff like diesel and heating oil. Generally, they are both used to make the same products, though, with maybe a few exceptions.
That’s actually really interesting/important to know and wild I’m learning this now thanks for that.
Removed by mod
But nothing in relation to hypersonic missiles? That was my first guess. My understanding of it, is that same oil can be found in Russia, and it seems like every ally to Russia has hypersonic missiles, which is how I came to the conclusion/question.