Image is of the Preah Vihear Temple on the Cambodian border. Image sourced from the UNESCO World Heritage website.
Over the last few days, Thailand and Cambodia entered into a heightened stage of conflict due to a long-running border dispute. Like many problems on this planet, Europeans are ultimately to blame - specifically France. Certain sections of the border drawn up by France about a century ago were not fully agreed upon by both sides, with the ownership of some Khmer temples being the most visible points of disagreement.
Despite interventions in favor of Cambodia in the 1960s and later 2010s by the ICJ - one of the mainly mostly useless global institutions that liberals periodically disown - the border conflict has simmered at a generally low level. Of the two countries, Thailand is significantly more militarily and economically powerful.
Last Wednesday, a Thai soldier lost his leg by stepping on a landmine, prompting a rapid escalation between Cambodia and Thailand that has since resulted in dozens of deaths and tens of thousands displaced. Cambodia was willing to come to the negotiating table fairly quickly, but Thailand was more hesitant. International pressure on the two countries by Malaysia, China, and the United States eventually forced Thailand to the table, and they have recently agreed to an immediate ceasefire courtesy of ASEAN.
Notably, Trump refused to hold trade talks with either country until they agreed to peace, which suggests that he really wants a Nobel Peace Prize - which he seems a shoe-in for given that he’s met the two most important requirements that several Nobel Peace Prize recipients have needed to meet in the past, which are: 1) start at least one war, and 2) accelerate the genocide of millions of people as billions more people watch on. His policies vis-a-vis ICE creating a domestic terror regime only further increase his chances of winning the prize.
Last week’s thread is here.
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The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. 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.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
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.
Would you rather him lose the election to Cuomo or Adams? Because there’s literally zero chance of them doing socialism, and they will increase the police budget, guaranteed.
I’d rather he just stay principled and say that police will need to be purged and rebuilt, and actually do that
Also New York has a police force that’s bigger than many nation’s armies and goes and trains in Israel. Yes they need defunded, it’s an absurd position to say they don’t need to be. New York City needs to defund the police moreso than anywhere else on Earth. The New York PD is a massively powerful cartel that runs huge chunks of the city through corruption and graft and its various patronage systems. If Zohran isn’t serious about confronting and dismantling their cartel, then he’s going to get destroyed and dog walked
Let’s be frank. He will not embark on this political project for the very simple reason that he has no military behind him, not even some socialist paramilitary. Some genuine socialist being elected to mayor of the center of capital (pop quiz: what city is Wall Street located in) is always a pipe dream. The far more likely possibility is that he’s either an opportunist/sell-out/controlled op or he’ll do whatever the NYPD tells him to do after being threatened with his life. There’s basically zero political cost if the NYPD decides to simply kill him and dump his body in a shallow ditch.
So let’s be honest about this whole charade, it’s a joke
The 2020 George Floyd uprising showed everyone who was paying attention that most major cities are de facto controlled by the police. I remember there was one police force (NYPD?) who straight up kidnapped the mayor’s kid because the mayor wasn’t saying the police needed to crack skulls. There was another city (Chicago or LA?) where one councilmember wanted to investigate their police force, so the sheriff simply sicced his goons on them. The police used some court-ordered excuse to dump the councilmember’s shit all over the sidewalk and they kept on doing that over and over until the councilmember took the hint and resigned.
A socialist could become Mayor of one of the most powerful cities on earth and your complaining that he doesn’t talk like a reddit ultra, so its a “joke”
Let’s keep this simple, if Zohran is elected do you believe he’ll crack down on pro Palestinian protesters to the same extent as Adams or Cuomo?
If we’re being honest, that depends on how the Federal government wants to fuck with the city’s budget, which I remind you, like many major American cities today, isn’t in a very good shape.
Too many American leftists have bought into the right wing Democratic propaganda that “the government is too weak to do anything” and are suddenly shocked by the Trump administration doing anything it wants with very little repercussion against the government itself.
To be clear, the US Federal government can literally confiscate the assets of every single billionaire in America tomorrow and there is nothing they can do about it, with all the wealth they have amassed. This is how powerful the federal government is and you think it’s afraid of the Wall Street city?
The only thing that could change the equation and make the federal government think twice is an organized mass movement that is prepared to fight it to the end - one that is prepared to exert mutual destruction where the damage will be too costly for the other side. Is the American left prepared to go through this?
I didn’t ask about the Federal government, I asked do you believe Zohran will crack down on protesters?
If having to confront with the possibility of severe financial constraints that would force him to cut the city’s operating budgets and infrastructures, then he’d have to do it, or resign, either by his conscience or under public and private pressure.
I think you Americans don’t think very deep about what a left wing leader would have to face when elected. Those of us from the Global South countries know exactly why many left wing governments, once elected, often have no choice but to institute austerity still, which forces them to break the pledge of reforms and then in the next cycle you get right wing dictators elected. Argentina just experienced this not too long ago.
And if you think America is so unique that it doesn’t have to confront the same principal challenges that leftists have to everywhere else, then that’s just American exceptionalism brained. I will remind you that America doesn’t even have an organized left wing mass movement. If you don’t have a base, you have no leverage. That should be the first step towards taking power.
So Zohran will crack down because the Federal Government will force him to?
You understand you’re describing a constitutional crisis and a incredible radicalizing opportunity for Zohran and socialists who back him, if the Feds come down on New York it’s won’t be done in secret and it’ll piss off more then just Zohran’s base
What exactly is the argument here? Zohran is bad, cause the Feds are bad? We want the struggle, we want lines drawn in the sand, we want to push DC into overextending its authority and alienating more of the country, fighting that fight is the goal and responsibility of the western left, bring it on
Seems to me a good way to create a mass organized movement would be to take over the largest metropolitan area in the country and have it run by a socialist. Or are you expecting the mass organized movement to just spontaneously pop into existence quoting Mao?
All 235 of us are armed and ready.
You can’t be serious, he’s literally cutting the budget by keeping it static and letting inflation do the work
Meanwhile the yearly budget increase that would’ve gone to the cops will go instead to social services
I’m sorry but that is a brilliant strategy, FUCK PRINCIPLES sneak that socialism right thru the backdoor and make the capitalists pay for it, psy-op their asses and give them a taste of their own technocratic medicine
He’s cutting the budget without “cutting” the budget and if the media tries to hit him with law and order rhetoric they’ll sound delusional to the average Joe
Do you want to win or do you want to be an ultra?
Is it “winning” when your “guy” is going to sell you out, bit by bit transforming into Nancy Pelosi? Is it winning when he drags a good chunk of leftists along with him back to DNC entryism and DSA idealism?
Yeah that’s a sad story and all, but I’ll be a little busy reflecting on the fact he won on the back of pro-Palestine sentiment and socialist policies, but by all means keep playing with that crystal ball
Yes, these four things are definitely interchangeable and carry the same political baggage, lmao by this logic Trump 2016 and Zohran are the same politician
this is identical to wanting him to lose.
Wanting to reduce the size of the New York Army means you just want to lose - radlibs in 2025
Just go be a democrat if you are this unprincipled and easily cowed
stop being disingenuous
Yes that is what needs to be done in any serious NYC political project. Everything else is just window dressing. The cop cartel runs the show. Fight it or play nice is the only question.
no shit, but you can’t say that and win an election. holding him to that standard is the same as losing. if you’d rather lose an ultra then whatever i hope you’re getting your close air support ready for when you storm the seats of power.
You can call me an ultra all you want revisionist, you won’t admit you’re wrong when he’s aocia or sanders 2.0 and is licking the boots of the DNC and the imperialist machine. If he’s not confronting the cop blob then he’s not serious. It’s all a farce then.
i’m expecting a socdem and every indication is we’re getting a socdem. shut the fuck up.
Hey don’t forget the old classic of: simply shoot at cops from alleyways at night.
This is, unironically, the traditional method of expressing principled hatred of cops in NYC.
We can and should criticise any leftist presenting candidate. That doesn’t mean that we want them to lose.