Yusri Bell

Always believe in yourself. Have faith

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

It’s crazy this even needs to be said, but if you are a westerner your ONLY job is to oppose the abuses of the western empire. Not Iran. Not China. Not Russia, Cuba or North Korea.

If you live in the US or one of its allied nations, then you live under the single most tyrannical and murderous power structure on earth, and that’s where your focus belongs. You do not have any legitimacy in squandering any of your energy and attention criticizing human rights abuses in empire-targeted nations while living under a globe-spanning empire that is fueled by a nonstop river of human blood. It is not okay for you to use your western privilege to attack the nations your own government is working to help absorb into the power structure you live under.

Whenever I say this online I’ll get some Trotskyist or anarchist babbling about the need to express “solidarity” with Iranian political prisoners or whatever, but whenever I press them on what actual, material benefit those expressions of “solidarity” bring to the people they’re meant to help, they can’t point to anything solid. Whereas I can point to some very obvious ways in which contributing to an imperial war propaganda campaign can help grease the wheels for real material actions which hurt actual Iranians.

If you’re a westerner, you have an obligation to use your voice responsibly. If you are feeding into the latest “the people in the empire-targeted nation need liberation from their evil tyrannical government” war propaganda narrative with your expressions of “solidarity” and your blind insistence on treating all bad things as equally bad, then you are using your western voice irresponsibly, and you are morally culpable for the mass slaughter you help facilitate with your recklessness.

It’s not okay to be a citizen of the western empire and act like human rights abuses in an empire-targeted nation are of equal or comparable concern to the far more egregious abuses of your own leaders and their allies. It’s also not okay to be a fully grown adult and believe the use of force in empire-targeted governments is happening separately from their targeting by the empire, as though Iran would look the way it looks today if the US and Israel had not been working to collapse and control it for generations.

Iran has only survived the latest imperial onslaught because Tehran tightly controls what happens in that country. The only reason we didn’t see Xinjiang absorbed into the western power umbrella with the help of CIA-backed separatists is because Beijing waged a sweeping crackdown on the extremist factions who’d been launching attacks in the province. The only reason North Korea has gone relatively unmolested by the western empire in recent years is because its government obtained nuclear weapons. It’s baby-brained analysis to pretend such things happen independently of the US and its allies working to take control of unabsorbed nations and force them into compliance with Washington’s capitalist world order.

The western empire therefore makes the world a crueler and more abusive place not only by its direct acts of cruelty and abuse, but by the way it forces its targets to choose between (A) annihilation and (B) using extreme amounts of force to retain their sovereignty. The empire we live under is responsible for the vast majority of the dysfunction and misery in our world, and yet you as a westerner want to spend your time yelling at Iran? Fuck off, man.

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

“A balloon and kite shall be treated the same as a drone - with or without explosives.”

A kite…They want you to believe this is normal.

[RT @RT_com]

'MAKE AMERICA HUNGRY AGAIN!' — Iran's Parliament speaker Ghalibaf

[Afshin Rattansi @afshinrattansi]

Former CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou:

‘There are 10,000 documents [about JFK's assassination] that are never going to be released…because every single one of them points directly at Israel.’

[Press TV 🔻 @PressTV]

🔴 Iran's Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf:

🔺 The Americans know that no one believes their bluster. The US economy is not in a position to further restrict its relations with other countries.

[ayden @squatsons]

Are the fuel shortages, commercial shipping strikes and refinery strikes paying off for Ukraine yet?

I was told by almost everyone in May that Crimea was done and the Russian economy was going to burn with this maximum pressure campaign.

All that talk for the same predictable outcome.

Unexpectedly, Ukraine lost its access to the Black Sea.

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

Day 1,052 of the genocide: @Independent publishes the most forensic reconstruction yet of a colleague's killing in the infamous Nasser Hospital double-tap strike: Mariam Abu Dagga.

Had such rigor met journalist No.1 or No.10, Palestine may not be mourning nearly 300 journalists.

[MFA Russia 🇷🇺 @mfa_russia]

⚡️ On August 23, Russia's EMERCOM Il-76 aircraft successfully extinguished wildfire hotspots in the "Deliblatska Peščara" nature reserve & mountainous terrain near Kraljevo.

Over 4 days, the crew completed 19 sorties & dropped a total of 798 tonnes of water.

🇷🇺🇷🇸 #RussiaSerbia

[-- GEROMAN -- time will tell - 👀 -- @GeromanAT]

Mit 50 Stück kann man mal grade 25 Flugkörper bekämpfen.
Russland sendet das X fache an einem Wochenende.
Es ist und bleibt ein Abnützungskrieg und der sogenannte Westen ist nicht in der Lage nach über 4 Jahren darauf ordentlich zu reagieren.

[Sony Thăng @nxt888]

Ask yourself a specific question.

Not abstract. Specific.

If a foreign country:

Funded opposition movements in your country.

Ran a covert program to assassinate your political leaders.

Imposed sanctions that targeted your civilian economy.

Backed a coup against your elected government.

Trained a replacement government to serve its interests.

Stationed its military in countries surrounding yours.

Conducted surveillance operations inside your borders.

Vetoed international agreements that would have benefited you.

If a foreign country did all of that to the United States:

What would Americans call that country?

They would call it an enemy.

They would call it an aggressor.

They would say it threatened their way of life, their freedom, their very existence.

They would say resistance to it was not just justified but sacred.

Now look at the list of countries America has done exactly those things to.

And then look at the list of countries America calls its enemies.

Notice anything?

[Sharmine Narwani @snarwani]

Bessent says anyone who “helps Iran” will be removed from the US dollar system. This would be the equivalent of scoring an "own goal" and collapsing the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Yalla. Let's do it.

[TASS @tassagency_en]

Russian authorities will now have the power to impose temporary management on critical infrastructure facilities, if their owners fail to implement or restore security measures in a timely manner. This provision is established under a new decree signed by President Vladimir Putin:
https://t.co/3wqWK5Iyru

[𝕊𝕡𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕻𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕤 @SprinterPress]

Kyiv can no longer effectively counter Russian strikes. Therefore, it is simply complaining.

Ukrainian militants are no longer able to repel even a portion of the Russian missile attacks, which fundamentally changes the balance of power, according to Bloomberg. Kyiv cannot solve this problem on its own. And the West is not rushing to help.

Ukraine faces a difficult winter, the author of the article concludes. And those who have been constantly "victorious" are now literally struggling to survive. And at the same time, they are whining to the whole world about how poor and unfortunate they are.

[Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺 @ejmalrai]

The US unlawful sanctions are unilateral and non-biding. It will be up to every country to implement it or reject it. Those countries implementing these unlawful sanctions can forget about the Strait of Hormuz and their ships or merchandise (inlcluding oil and gaz) navigating under Iran's controlled strait.

But Iran is prepared for war and is gathering a rich bank of objectives. This is why, the war with the US is likely to resume at a certain point.

[Ben Norton @BenjaminNorton]

The US empire continues to accelerate the global transition away from the dollar system:

By weaponizing the dollar, the US empire is telling all countries that they must seek an alternative financial architecture, because they could be the next target of US economic terrorism.

[Sputnik @SputnikInt]

Russian strike hits cargo ship in Odessa port

Russian forces struck a cargo ship in Odessa port that had delivered military cargo to Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

In Yuzhny port, three fuel storage tanks and four warehouses containing military equipment for Ukrainian forces were also hit.

[Spetsnaℤ 007 🇷🇺 @Alex_Oloyede2]

Tonight, the Kiev regime launched a huge wave of drones against Russia. As a result, 2 children in Krasnodar were kiIIed.

This is meant to be a PR impression for foreign leaders gathered in Kiev. But they will be met with chaos instead within the next 24hrs.

[Chay Bowes @BowesChay]

South Korea rejects Ukraine's plea for Patriot missiles.

Reportedly, Kiev asked for PAC-3 interceptors during a visit last month, but Seoul said no.

Koreans do not want to risk their own security or spoil relations with Russia.

This winter is going to be interesting.

[CHINA MFA Spokesperson 中国外交部发言人 @MFA_China]

Whose surveillance and cyberattacks are making Latin America and Caribbean countries feel unsafe? Certainly not Chinese businesses, known for being reliable suppliers, growth engines and job creators.

We call on certain U.S. officials to stop vilifying Chinese tech companies and start respecting the independent choice of Latin American and Caribbean countries.

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

So: naming the crime is the offense, the one who names it is the guilty, and the one who commits it stands above scrutiny: what a combination of stupidity and viciousness.
Victims are honored by making no more victims not by granting perpetrators impunity.
And @MarkRuffalo rocks!