Image is of coup supporters in Niamey, waving the flag of Niger and Russia.
While the coup in Niger is an obvious reason for this megathread’s subject, the inspiration to focus here rather than somewhere else in the world this week came from @solaranus@hexbear.net’s comment here.
Anyway, as a quick introduction to Niger - the country won independence from the French in 1960 and has since been in an alternating cycle of military governments and more democratic arrangements. In 2010, a junta took over the country from the military junta already ruling it, and then successfully transitioned the country to democracy within a year. President Issoufou was elected and then re-elected in 2016. President Bazoum was democratically elected in 2021, and has just been overthrown last week. General Tchiani looks to be the new head of state.
Like many countries that were previously colonies, outright colonialism by its imperial country has been replaced by neocolonialism by that same country. France issues their currency, thus allowing France to do what the US does with its dollar around the world but in miniature. The country is incredibly poor, surviving on subsidence agriculture, with much of its exports being minerals like gold and uranium, which many children under the age of 14 are employed in extracting. Also like other previously French colonies, the new guys in charge appear to be flipping them the bird, with Burkina Faso and Mali relatively recently asking them to fuck off. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that this is happening as internal dissent inside France itself continues to boil. Given the Russian flags being waved and Putin’s promises to supply free grain to some African countries (and though Niger isn’t mentioned, Burkina Faso and Mali notably are), one imagines that Russia also might have a hand in things.
Burkina Faso’s president, Traore, has been talking with Mali and Guinea, and now Niger - all ruled by military governments - and asking if they’re interested in federation, with Mali showing some interest. Traore follows in the tradition of Thomas Sankara, and has appointed a Prime Minister who is similarly aligned. Traore has recently met with a Chinese representative and has firmly aligned himself with Russia, saying that Burkina Faso has “one and the same outlook” on building a new world order, saying:
“Russia made great sacrifices to liberate Europe and the world from Nazism during World War II. We have the same history,”
“We are the forgotten peoples of the world. And we are here now to talk about the future of our countries, about how things will be tomorrow in the world that we are seeking to build, and in which there will be no interference in our internal affairs,”
“However, a slave who does not fight [for his freedom] is not worthy of any indulgence. The heads of African states should not behave like puppets in the hands of the imperialists. We must ensure that our countries are self-sufficient, including as regards food supplies, and can meet all of the needs of our peoples. Glory and respect to our peoples; victory to our peoples! Homeland or death!”
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
This week’s first update is here in the comments.
No update on Wednesday because I am still busy.
Friday’s update is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
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.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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
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.
Last week’s discussion post.
Since we are federated time to do this:
I’ll scream it again the US alone has so far given 100bn USD to Ukraine, it’d take 37bn USD a year to end world hunger. I’m also sure that if you are a ghoul and don’t care about that 100bn in investments would have a far bigger return on investment if they I dunno fixed their failing infrasctructure, used it to offer free healthcare, free education or literally anything.
Capitalists wouldn’t be capable of solving world hunger even if they wanted to. The only things capitalists know how to do are financial crimes, war crimes, sex crimes, eat hot chip and lie.
Well where’s the profit in that 🤔?
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I get that you are a Bit account but must you do it so well? Bits are supposed to be funny and every freaking time you manage to get me infuriated and every time I ask myself if you are really a bit account or just a delusional nitwit. I never laugh.
Please for the sake of my blood pressure either tone it down a notch or push it up 2 more. Either side of the Uncanny Valley would be preferable to your simulation.
Ok i’ll stop, just because you asked.
I don’t believe you
Simulation has ended prematurely.
Reason: potentially adverse health effects to user(s) from reading simulated liberal comments.
Final evaluation of Hexbear’s performance against liberal arguments (trained with 12564 comments from Reddit and Lemmy): Sub-par (final score unavailable due to insufficient data points)
Forecast of Hexbear’s performance against (non-handicapped, non-simulated) liberal arguments: Concerning
I mean I could smite you. I’ve smote bigger libs for less. Are you really wanting that? Are you not making jokes and really wanting to play devils advocate?
yeah it could be a case of
simulated civility
you know it’s a good bit when it genuinely pisses you off every time you read it
I mean, it’s true. It just ignores the other manchild-ruled nation that rules the empire, has been trying to threaten the world with nuclear war for the last 30 years (as an extension of the half-century prior), could have easily de-escalated at least up until sometime last year and possibly still could, and whose very spending is being criticized here. What’s so enraging about outright ignoring the vast majority of the problem?
Going to take more than $37B now that we’ve bombed the Bread Basket of Europe into slurry
Why doesn’t Obama simply invite the leaders of Niger to Martha’s Vineyard for a beer summit?
i hope we are all ready for the big influx of liberals that are going to inevitably make their way here
The libs are already inside the house
Maybe the real liberals are the friends we made along the way.
Family reunion mode?
Whenever someone comes here and becomes outraged about Russia we need to heavily quote the Muad’dib from Frank Herbert’s Dune and we heavily upvote those quotes as though the person made an excellent point.
My name is a killing word
Lemmygrad will help
@CredibleBattery@hexbear.net SUPORTS A FACHIST GENOCIDAL REGIME !!! Omg what is this place ? this is not okay ! think about the Values!
Logging back on after a week of touching grass to find a 1000 plus comment news thread
Lmao stockholm pride is running nato pr by trying to distance themselves from pro-kurdish and anti-erdogan flags and signs at saturdays pride parade.
This sucks lol, worse than usual.
This seems like a decent english summary, though it doesnt include statements from the pride org itself about it.
I’m sorry but we had to reject your application. We needed a Ukraine-Russia-Niger-Burkina Faso-Mali expert, not a Ukraine-Russia-Niger-Burkina Faso-Libya expert.
https://www.rt.com/russia/580868-world-without-russia-how-hundreds/
The Russian sovereign citizen, USSR was never dissolved or some shit,. So much better than our Q conspiracy.
The accumulated resentment has resulted in the formation of ‘Citizens of the USSR’ – a radical organization convinced that the Soviet Union continues to legally exist, while considering the government of the Russian Federation to be illegitimate.
These beliefs lead to illegal behavior. The adherents of the movement refuse to pay taxes, don’t comply with Russian laws and don’t want to live according to the principles of a capitalist society. They also don’t pay utility bills or honor previously obtained bank loans.
Braver than the troops
every russian state post rurik is, in fact, illegal
And remember everyone, the Soviet Union did a bad thing once therefore it is correct to put them alongside Nazi Germany. The United States, on the other hand, might have done some “oopsies” but they did it on bad people who do even worse things.
This is so true, literally facts, 100% no cap
There’s a kitten in a Russian position in Patrick Lancaster’s newest report. Say hello to Machine Gun
Not shown are the two other cats, Lazy Eye and Plumber.
https://twitter.com/rapmusic/status/1688263038686609408?t=Oeg1ANy4rYmkIynYHg2PFQ&s=19
🎺🎺🎺🎺
Gonna make the Hardy Boyz entrance the official anthem of the Communist States of America.
So another proxy war in the imperial periphery is about to happen
So does the Nigerian senate have 0 power? I thought they told the president to go pound sand, and from what I’ve read there’s no way ECOWAS could do this without Nigeria, especially if Algeria is posturing that it might help alongside Mali and Burkina Faso
From what I’ve found it sounds like the president of Nigeria has control over foreign policy, but the senate is required to consent to any treaties that are signed with foreign countries. Outside of that the president has final say and a military intervention would probably be under his jurisdiction without requiring the consent of the senate.
I don’t know if that totally accurate, I’m not from Nigeria, that’s just based on a quick reading
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Link isn’t working for me. I think the tweet might have been deleted.
I’m scared to check in on The Adam Friedland Show since the Niger news dropped
Chris Christie was on CNN this morning talking about how he saw massacred civilians in Ukraine done by Russian forces
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I’ve been Federated to my old user name
What the fuck? I’ve been federated to my less old user name.