Georg Bauer

What is striking to see is how widespread the support for this resistance is across this region. Almost every village, even the ones of only a couple dozen people, have memorials like this, dedicated to local men (and sometimes women) who died in the ranks of the PDF resistance.

When a warplane comes the children are instructed to leave the classrooms through the emergency door and jump into the trench to take cover. A bell on the school ground serves as the alarm system. The students all know its sound very well.

I have just come back Myanmar 🇲🇲 where I spent two weeks traveling around the resistance-held territories of the Sagaing region. Its a remote region which no other foreign press has managed to visit since the start of the war five years ago. I'll share some impressions below 🧵

What I found especially shocking was the obvious and deliberate targeting of hospitals in resistance-held territories. I visisted a number of facilities, and all had been bombed out of service by the junta. All the deny people living here any kind of medical care.

Raviv Drucker, an Israeli journalist who presents an investigative program on Israel’s Channel 13, doesn’t mince his words and offers what must be said by those who actually care about Israel’s democratic ethos and rule of law: "When dozens of masked people beat Palestinians for no reason, other than wanting to expel them, that's Jewish terrorism. When there's a Telegram group where they proudly boast about the number of houses set on fire and cars burnt every week, that's Jewish terrorism. Arab terrorism is much more serious. The number of victims from Palestinian terrorists is immeasurably high. But at least the state is fighting Arab terrorism. Against Jewish terrorism, we’re not so sure. "The Shin Bet, with or without connection to the identity of the organization’s new head, is not felt. The Judea and Samaria District Police is not involved. The Minister of Defense forbids the issuance of administrative orders, and the army seems to be content with lip service."

“If regime kills me in Iran, my family must pay money to get my body back and be forced to do a false confession on TV. But if I die in a U.S. strike, at least no one will force my family to pay money or lie.” This is the frustration Iranians live with.

Crisis in Sagaing 🚨 The junta bombed the Maha Four-Story Monastery where displaced families sought refuge killing nearly 80 monks and IDPs. #Burma remains unstable, relentless airstrikes, massacres, and crimes against humanity continue. #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar

Ukrainian instructors were shocked by the reckless use of air defense systems in the Gulf countries. According to Ukrainian military personnel, multiple missiles are often launched at a single target — up to eight Patriot interceptors costing around $3 million each — even when dealing with relatively simple threats. There have been cases where SM-6 missiles, costing about $6 million, were used to destroy inexpensive drones, even though the “Shahed” drones themselves cost roughly $70,000. In interviews, Ukrainian specialists emphasized that their approach is based on efficiency: using the minimum number of missiles per target whenever possible and avoiding the unnecessary use of expensive interceptors. “I have no idea what our allies were watching for four years while we were at war,” said Ukrainian military instructors currently in the Middle East. Notably, in the first 96 hours of operations against Iran, the U.S. and its allies used about 5,200 munitions of 35 types, including 168 Tomahawk missiles in 100 hours. Over 12 days, total costs reached $16.5 billion. According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Middle Eastern countries launched more than 800 Patriot interceptors in just three days. Ukraine, over four years of war, has received just over 600 such interceptors. Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger noted that, at this pace, the U.S. could run out of air defense missiles within a month. It turns out that in the conflict with Iran, Washington’s main challenge is not finances but production capacity. The U.S. defense industry cannot rapidly scale output because: • missile production can take up to 36 months; • supply chains depend on critical components largely sourced from China; • there is outdated equipment and a shortage of skilled labor. The current ammunition shortage poses risks to other priorities, including support for Ukraine and the deterrence of China. Source: Anton Gerashchenko, The Times

"My father survived Russian captivity, but his heart gave out." Ukrainian marine Oleksandr Savov died eight months after surviving nearly three years of Russian torture. Today marks one year since the release he did not live to commemorate.

A Lebanese message to the world: This is NOT OUR WAR 🇱🇧 By Saleh Machnouk

My friend in Iran wrote: “We are in the middle of a war. The Israeli army sends warnings so civilians can protect their lives. Meanwhile our own government threatens to kill us 24/7. [So tell me] who is really the enemy?”

The Islamic Republic has spent 45 years screaming about war and “fighting enemies,” even after dragging Iran through Iran-Iraq war for 8 years. Yet it has done absolutely nothing to protect civilians. No shelters. No warning sirens. Nothing. And now they have completely shut down the internet, the only way people had to warn each other and share information that could save lives. They have taken even that away. Meanwhile, people on the ground with connections are reporting a heavy presence of Basij and security forces in every street and every alley, armed with military-grade weapons clearly meant to be used against civilians if unrest breaks out. People are left defenseless and in the dark while the regime prepares to kill more of its own people instead of protecting them.

Weirdly, Iranian embassy in Pretoria notified us, Ukrainian diplomats, about opening a book of condolences in memory of ayatollah Khamenei and the military leadership of Iran. I decided to respond - and do it in a public way. The letter explains why. Your Excellency, Mr. Ambassador,   Since you notified the Embassy of Ukraine of the book of condolences for deceased Ayatollah Khamenei and Iran’s military leadership, I feel compelled to remind you the following.   As military allies of the Russian Federation, the deceased leaders of Iran had on their hands the blood of thousands of Ukrainian citizens – men and women, children and elderly – killed with the help of the infamous Iran-made “Shahed” drones and other military know-how so eagerly provided to Russia by your government. Your leaders were complicit in bringing endless grief to Ukrainian civilians.   Being a person of faith, I try not to rejoice in the death of other people, even those who chose to be tormentors of my country that did nothing bad to theirs. But as someone who has spent three years to the tune of Iran-created machines of death howling every night in the sky over Kyiv and other peaceful Ukrainian cities, I cannot help but wish for every culprit to meet the justice they deserve. If not by human law, then in the face of God Almighty.   Ambassador, I do not know you personally and have no grudge against you. Sometimes good diplomats must speak for bad leaders and their policies. But I hope you understand that I won’t express condolences for someone whose death I do not mourn.   Sincerely, Dr. Olexander Scherba Ambassador

I've said it before and I'll say it again No one has done more damage to the prevention of real genocidal acts than the hateful, bigoted antizionist left who uses the legal term "genocide" as a rhetorical weapon against democracies These people care not about genocide prevention The fact of the matter is: the more people misuse this word, the less resonance it will have

As missile sirens wail over Jerusalem and families crowd into bomb shelters, this episode asks what war are we really watching? Perhaps what looks like a Middle Eastern conflagration is in fact a pivot in a far larger US–China confrontation. What world may emerge from this fire?

Iranian here! I want to thank American leftists for educating me these past few days & correcting my understanding of Iran & radical Islam I almost trusted my own experience, my parents’ trauma, and what my family in Iran endures daily instead of your wisdom. What would I have done without your tweets & tiktoks ❤️

Sharing this (by Iranian musician Peyman Salimi) because I can relate to it. „Back in January, when the Iranian regime massacred over 32,000 people, almost none of my non-Iranian friends reached out to ask if any of the dead were my family or friends. In the past 48 hours, I've received more than 200 texts from my non-Iranian friends expressing solidarity. And now probably 200 innocent people have died in the strikes, if we count the Minab elementary school poor kids, and we still don't even know whether that was an IRGC crime or a U.S.- Israel strike. It makes my blood boil. Of course my friends would have reached out in January if the media they follow, or the algorithm they're stuck inside had shown them wtf was going on in Iran. But that didn't fit in the left narrative. It wasn't anti-imperialist enough.“

I avoid shaming people on social media, as I don't want to contribute to making this space even more toxic. But I think there is a need to address this phenomenon of Western leftists who ignore and even shame voices from inside Iran and other countries suffering the blight of Iran's militias wishing for foreign intervention to free themselves of these oppressive forces. Their support for foreign intervention is a result of the failure of all other means to topple these regimes or uproot these militias: protesting, voting against them or negotiating with them. Support for foreign intervention is a sign of desperation and the insistence of the Iranian regime and its militias to impose itself by force on the populations of these countries. After the 12 Day War, Iranians inside the country mostly united in their rage against foreign intervention. Then they came out to protest peacefully against the regime and were slaughtered in the thousands. Over 50,000 Iranians have been arrested, subjected to horrific torture, including widespread use of rape, and some have already been executed after sham trials. Anyone who hasn't experienced these horrors, who hasn't struggled for freedom knowing she/he may be killed at any moment, is privileged and lucky. From this position of privilege, they are not entitled to criticize Iranians, Iraqis, Lebanese, Syrians, Yemenis, who are welcoming foreign intervention against this vile regime. Moreso, leftists/liberals who consider themselves to be humanists, should take the desires of locals and their suffering into account when determining their position regarding war on the Iranian regime. There are legitimate reasons to oppose the war, and it is not guaranteed to bring down the Iranian regime, but looking at everything through a U.S.-centric lens is anti-humanist and anti-liberal. Is slaughtering your own people legal? Is it legal to establish sectarian militias that besieged and starved towns in Syria, ethnically cleansed swaths of Syria and Iraq, or slaughtered unarmed protesters in Iraq? Is it legal to execute mass-casualty attacks against civilians across the world and assassinate peaceful dissidents, as the IRGC has done?

The people of Myanmar stage another nation-wide massive Silent Strike on December 10, defying junta and rejecting sham elections. The people’s will has never been stronger.

Mandalay remains unbowed. Watch: how the resistance marks Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s 80th birthday, defying both the junta’s brutality and a devastating earthquake.