The Biden admin will end up being worse than bush

Some Sudanese soldiers are using the red triangle as a patch

مثلثنا الأحمر، الذي أينما حل انتصر
Wherever our red triangle goes, we win

How long before Amerikkka engineers a shoot down of a passenger plane bound for “Tel Aviv” to blame on Hezbollah and justify troop deployment?

Westoid media is embarrassing itself greatly right now. The big, “reputable” outlets (AP, Reuters, etc) just regurgitated an old, already debunked story about a Chinese nuclear sub sinking.

Part three of my effortpost, these parts keep getting longer and longer. No proof reading as usual

Part One

Part Two, it gets continued in the first comment

The Rise of the Collective Shia Identity: Part Three

We move 25 years into the future with part three, we’re now in the period after the defeat in ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the Houthi revolution in Yemen, Hezbollah’s victory against Israel in 2006, and the failure of the Bahraini Uprising in 2011.

We start in Yemen, which was reunited into one state after the end of the Cold War. The first president of the new reunited Yemeni state is no one other than Ali Abdullah Saleh, former president of North Yemen and one of our favourite adventurers like we said earlier. The first real event in the history of Yemen is the start of the 1994 civil war, which ended in a decisive victory for Ali Abdullah Saleh’s Republican forces over the remnants of the South Yemen Communist Party. The republican victory could not be achieved without the strong support by Sunni Jihadist forces who received massive concessions by Saleh in order to secure their support in the war. The growing voice of the hardline Sunni Islamists in Saleh’s government angered the Houthi family, who returned to Yemen from Iran somewhere around reunification, with the aim of reviving the Zaydi traditions that were slowly fading away as Yemen took a more “Sunni” character. It is clear that the Houthis’ stay in Iran led to them being greatly influenced by Khomeini’s pan-Shia ideology, as they founded a youth group called the Believing Youth when they returned to Yemen. The Believing Youth was a loose collection of after-school workshops and summer camps for kids in the mountains of North Yemen, where they would read works by Khomeini, Nasrallah and Al Sadr. The Believing Youth would grow in size, and by the early 00s, their presence would be felt even in Friday prayers in the Grand Mosque of the capital Sanaa. Like a true paranoid Arab government, the Yemeni government would ultimately decide to arrest Hussein Al Houthi, the founder of the BY and brother of the Abdul Malik Al Houthi that we all know and love. The government failed in their attempt to arrest Hussein Al Houthi, who retreated to the mountains of Saada and started a large insurgency again the Yemeni government. He would be killed in late 2004, but a low-level insurgency continued until the Arab Spring hit in 2011.

Yemen had some of the largest protests in the whole region, which turned violent very quickly. The escalation of the protests wasn’t surprising at all, Yemen was the poorest and the least developed Arab nation out of all the relevant ones, and Saleh had been ruling the country in some form for 33 years while achieving literally nothing of note. The Houthis and their supporters would become one of the largest factions against the government in peaceful protest, and later in armed struggle against a government long past its expiry date. After around a year of clashes everywhere in Yemen, Saleh would resign and sign a power transfer agreement in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a place where no real peace has ever been established. An election was held in 2012, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, Saleh’s best friend and former vice president would win the election with 100% of the votes in a real democracy moment. Saleh was there again in Yemen for Hadi’s inauguration. The Houthis, the southern secession movement and the Islamists all rightfully boycotted this sham election. Two years later, the Houthis would launch an offensive from the mountains towards the capital Sanaa and capture the capital very quickly after the collapse of the government forces. The Houthis then absorbed the bulk of the Yemeni Army and essentially became the new government itself, they’re not an armed group anymore, but the Yemeni state itself. When did the Houthis become a real “Shia” force and a part of the Axis of Resistance? Good question. The founding principles of the Believing Youth were explicitly Khomeinist, in response to the gradual Sunnification of the Zaydi Shia Yemenis after the final collapse of the Zaydi Imamate in the 1960s. There’s no proof of direct Iranian involvement in the founding of the group, nor any proof of direct support until the explosion of the conflict after the Arab Spring. Shiaism itself evolved with the absorption of the Houthis into the wider Shia umbrella, as it followed a similar previous step with the absorption of Assad’s Alawite faith into a wider Twelver-adjacent umbrella. The Houthis aren’t Hezbollah, where the founding itself was influenced directly by Iran, but they became closer and closer to Iran as their war with Saudi Arabia started in 2015. Just like the Iraq-Iran War became the origin story of all of the heroes of the new pan-Shia ideology, the Houthi victory in the war against Saudi Arabia and the Arab Alliance became the mythological origin of the first “pan-Shia” generation of Yemen. One such hero is Saleh Al Sammad, the first president of Yemen under Houthi rule, who was killed in a Saudi drone strike back in 2018. He received the Khomeinist martyr treatment, which was a first in Yemen. Shia-style mourning ceremonies have entered the Yemeni mainstream, and celebration of the Prophet’s birthday is now a big day in Yemen, in a clear departure from the hardline Sunni position that forbids that. The Houthis, or Ansarallah as they should be called, are now a fully integrated member of the pan-Shia movement despite not having a direct line back to Khomeini or the Al Sadr family.

We travel to Iraq again now. In 2003, something called the Iraq War, and the American Occupation happens. The Americans basically allow anyone that hates Saddam on their team, so the team that takes over the Iraqi state post-Saddam is a very dysfunctional one where Communists, Khomeinists, Kurdish nationalists, Sunni Muslim Brotherhood members, Liberal CIA assets, and random minority representants were supposed to pretend to play politics while the Americans were robbing the country. There was one crucial group that the Americans missed while building the political playhouse. That group was the Sadrists under the leadership of Muqtada Al Sadr, son of Muhammed Sadiq Al Sadr. The Sadrists split in two sometime in the late 90s, but no one had noticed that under the media suppression in Saddam’s Iraq and the general American disinterest in Iraqi attitudes while they were planning to invade Iraq. One group of Sadrists stayed in the Dawa Party and adopted more Khomeinist and pan-Shia ideas, while poorer Sadrists under Muqtada’s leadership from the slums were more into nationalist and isolationist policies within Iraq’s border. Muqtada’s group would later be called the Sadrist Movement and its military wing, the Mahdi Army, would become the main player in the Iraqi Insurgency against the American occupation and later in the sectarian civil war phase of the occupation. Muqtada’s eccentric behaviour continues to this day and the Sadrists still get themselves into wacky situations, as the group slowly morphs into a cult that finds itself on the fringes of Shiaism itself, but that’s an effortpost for another day. The Iraqi state found itself under pan-Shia Dawa Party rule from 2005 to 2018, but nothing formative happened on a state level, mostly due to the failure of the American occupation and the grave incompetence of the new cast in Iraq. The most notable change during that period was that Iran was slowly becoming the main foreign player in Iraq, after several missteps by the US and their Arab allies. The war against ISIS is when large sections of Iraqi Shia society were absorbed into the Iranian pan-Shia network with the creation of the Hashd Al Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Units, or PMU for short). The PMU was essentially Iraq’s own Hezbollah, an explicitly pan-Shia organization that was created with a clear religious background. The creation of the PMU itself came after a ruling from Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, who is the current Grand Marja of the faith. He issued a ruling that called for global Shia jihad against ISIS after the collapse of the Iraqi Army and the fall of large cities such as Mosul, Fallujah and Tikrit into ISIS hands. Iranian government support through the IRGC was open and direct, with PMU head Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis and IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani being on the frontlines together and forming a shared war room. The pan-Shia framework of open commemoration of martyrs with clear religious messaging was fully imported to Iraq and became the dominant ideological marker in the Shia south of Iraq. I remember visiting Baghdad with my wife sometime before Covid and literally every single street in the capital had some pictures of martyrs.

cont.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/explainers/israel-war-lebanon-what-arms-hezbollah-have

A detail-light breakdown of the main equipment being used right now (drones, rockets, short and medium range missiles, and ballistic missiles). When thinking about the ranges, keep in mind the current depth Hezbollah seems to be attacking is roughly up to 80 km from the border, and “israeli” censorship begins at Haifa, roughly 80 km from the border. This depth is Hezbollah’s escalation ladder. Incredibly, they also seem to have found a Western military professor with eyes, who comments “…the Hezbollah threat [is] one that Israel cannot destroy militarily.”

https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/three-carriers-simultaneously-china

A description of PLAN deployments in its own waters. The ocean surface isn’t the only thing getting hotter in the East Pacific. For those who don’t like ship details, it’s worth noting that Kuznetsov class carriers are really missile cruisers with a flight deck. The titular Russian vessel has anti-air, anti-missile, and anti-submarine defenses as well as 12 anti-ship cruise missiles and 24 8-missile Kinzhal batteries. The USamerican Nimitz class super carrier (which admittedly has a larger flight deck) has anti-air and anti-missile batteries, and no offensive armaments. Presumably, the Chinese have their own missile systems. There is one US carrier group asea in the Pacific, and i think it’s leaving through the Straits of Malacca. Always a good time to drill and train your ships when the enemy isn’t there.

https://www.labornotes.org/2024/09/strike-threat-wins-boarding-and-retro-pay-american-airlines

A little positive news about successful labor action. Every time i’ve been to LAX since 2021 or so, there has been a billboard about labor action on Howard Hughes (the main drag that we must sit in traffic before entering the airport where we sit in traffic). Covid kind of ravaged them, but there seems to be more and more airline related labor action. While the pilots, flight attendants, and transit workers are not necessarily radical unions, every win for labor lets the snowball roll forward. The reputation shift of unions is not because of messaging, it’s because of results. Good to get in the last hits before Trump or Harris guts the NLRB (which is doing pretty good under this admin, exceptionally critical support with an eye to past betrayals).

Krauts itching to have another Kristallnacht:
https://xcancel.com/derJamesJackson/status/1839296960941142368

Our beloved mayor has been indicted for taking bribes from Turkish officials. 2024 is such a wild timeline. Adams is a piece of shit, basically his entire staff has already resigned because the FBI kept raiding their homes, and he’s still pledging not to resign. Pretty hilarious stuff.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams was indicted Thursday on charges that he took illegal campaign contributions and bribes from foreign nationals, including lavish overseas trips, in exchange for favors that included helping Turkish officials bypass a fire inspection for a new diplomatic tower in the city.

Adams, a Democrat and former police captain, faces conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery charges in a five-count indictment outlining a decade-long trail of corruption that began when he served as an elected official in Brooklyn and continued through his mayoral administration.

From: https://apnews.com/article/nyc-mayor-eric-adams-indictment-fbi-5aad135d1808cb9d049fccd74604e5d4

The Danish military has lost the ability to learn from Ukraine

The Danish military currently lacks the capacity to systematically follow and learn from the war in Ukraine. This is according to a major from the military’s development and planning staff, as stated in a September 26th article by DR (Danish state media). The piece, which also seems to serve as a promotional platform for drones, highlights a gap in the military’s ability to adapt lessons from the conflict.

No specific personnel have been assigned to gather insights from the war and apply them to the Danish armed forces. The major expresses the concern bluntly: “If we aren’t evolving, we’ll fall behind when the day comes that we’re the ones who have to stop Russia somewhere.”

An analyst from the Danish Defense Academy adds that while many in the military are following the war closely, they do so in their free time without any coordinated institutional effort.

The major attributes this failure to manpower shortages, with other tasks taking priority. He also points out that the military’s development wing was gutted by politicians in the 2018-2023 defense agreement, and rebuilding that capability will take years.

An example is given, courtesy of Danish drone manufacturers. They have amassed substantial practical experience and made lots of money by supplying drone equipment to Ukraine. Despite this, the Danish army has yet to buy any of these drones for itself, causing the Danish military to be behind on modern warfare as well as Danish drone manufacturers to be unhappy.

When a brutal fascist regime is waging a war of terror against civilians, you think of where your sympathies lie.

So has Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Denmark’s controversial foreign minister, who gave this statement to government broadcaster DR on September 26th 2024:

“I can certainly tell the difference between these countries. I know where my sympathy intuitively lies. I know which countries are democracies and which are not. But that doesn’t change the fact that, in the end, everyone has a responsibility to ensure this doesn’t spiral completely out of control.”

The statement is an example of democracy washing where the alleged democratic nature of the illegal zionist entity is used to justify their atrocities and shift blame to the victims.

Journalists from a free and independent news outlet might have asked him follow-up questions such as:

• Can an apartheid state be democratic?
• Can a state be democratic when a majority of the people it governs is denied the vote?
• How can war crimes be justified by the perpetrator’s system of government?
• Are the lives of civilians living under an allegedly “undemocratic” form of government worth less than those of people living under presumably “democratic” regimes?

Some Safed impacts (a lot if you listen to sound)

https://tankie.tube/w/6yweqvBHp1n658rPPLXoQZ

News alert from NRK (Norwegian state media), published a few minutes ago:

Norwegian in [pager explosion] case is wanted internationally

The Norwegian [Rinson Jose] who is connected to the sale of exploding pagers in Lebanon was yesterday officially reported missing. On Thursday, Kripos [The National Criminal Investigation Service] issued an international wanted notice for the person, the police said.

On Monday, NRK could report that the Norwegian was still not back at work. The employer said they were going to have a meeting with the police to report him missing.

Apparently no one, including his friends and family, has heard from him since the first terror attack in Lebanon. Rinson got on a plane for a business trip to Boston the day of the attack, but never checked into his hotel or showed up at the conference he was there to attend. All traces of him ends in the U.S.

Friends and family claim they had no knowledge of the firm (Norta Global) he was running in Bulgaria. Rinson’s social media profiles only shows him running a company called NortaLink, which is based in Norway. His profile also shows up on Founders Nation, a website that aims to connect Israeli entrepreneurs and co-founders.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/indian-foreign-minister-throws-cold-water-on-the-idea-of-a-brics-currency.html

Article on Indian reluctance and challenge associated with a BRICS currency, citing comments by the Indian foreign affairs minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar

“People have raised the issue that should there be a Brics currency. But, for countries to have a common currency, you need enormous alignment of their very fundamental fiscal policies, monetary policies, economic policies… And when you look at Brics’s standards, I think we’ve to be realistic about the extent of alignment among members.”