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Bulletins and News Discussion from April 28th to May 4th, 2025 - Competent Fascism? - COTW: El Salvador

Image is from the Britannica article on CECOT, known as the Terrorism Confinement Center in English.

This megathread's topic is inspired by our lovely news regular, @Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net, who talks often about the conditions inside El Salvador and gives nuanced and informative takes.

As the Trump administration continues to make foreign policy blunders that would make even the staunchest anti-imperialist accelerationist blush - and we are barely three months in! - it's interesting to compare and contrast his policies of incompetent imperialist and domestic management to the dictators in other countries.

Bukele is somewhat unique among fascists, in that he seems to not hide - and seems to even admit to - his evil, self-describing as the world's "coolest dictator". El Salvador has no particular shortage of prominent fascists in their history, but one major example is Maximiliano Martínez, who led the country over much of the 1930s and the early 1940s. He was responsible the deaths of many thousands of communists and indigneous people, and yet joined World War 2 on the side of the Allies and against the Nazis.

The comparisons between Martínez and Bukele - and, indeed, between Bukele and Trump - in terms of their impact on minority groups are slowly growing as world attention is being drawn to the country. The recent meeting between Bukele and Trump has shifted a spotlight onto El Salvador's crime policy; the internal conditions of El Salvador's prisons are genuinely monstrous. One gets a similar feeling as when reading descriptions of the conditions of Holocaust victims in German concentration camps. Trump has made statements to the effect that he want a similar crime crackdown inside the United States, and I certainly believe that he wants this (ICE is already just kidnapping people off the streets into vans), but his administration has been so chaotic and mismanaged that it's difficult to determine whether this will be an interest he rapidly drops in favor of some other hair-brained scheme.

Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

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730 comments

  • TASS: Trump vows to reduce customs duties for China

    "At some point, I’m going to lower them because otherwise, you could never do business with them. And they want to do business very much. Look, their economy is really doing badly. Their economy is collapsing," he told NBC News in an interview.

  • Trump is sending his Sanctions Coordinator, David Gramble, to Brazil on Monday to negotiate "punishment" for one of Brazil's 11 Supreme Court Justices, Alexandre de Moraes. People like Trump & Greenwald accuse Moraes of censorship but sanctioning a judge IS a form of censorship.

    Moreas oversaw the criminal investigation of Trump's buddy Jair Bolsonaro. When sanctions are levied against a foreign judge as a direct response to their rulings, they function as a tool of censorship by seeking to control or punish judicial speech (i.e., legal decisions). Moraes is also the Supreme Court Justice behind the temporary ban of Trump overlord Elon Musk's X platform, when it failed to abide by local laws.

    According to Brazilian journalist Paulo Capelli, the Trump administration is thinking of barring Moraes from visiting the US (as if he cares), and freezing any US assets (of which he doesn't have any).

    Silicon Valley technofash and their puppet-journalists have wasted so much effort pushing the false, Moraes as dictator narrative, they don't seem to realize that if he were deposed tomorrow, it wouldn’t affect Bolsonaro’s trial. Only 2 Justices are expected to vote 'not guilty'.

  • Looks like the Romanian election's second round's gonna be Simion (fash de facto replacement for the fash guy who got his victory last time around annulled) vs Antonescu (hazy centrist neocon), opinion polls heavily favor Antonescu for the 1v1 Dan (hazy centrist running hard on an anticorruption platform, basically prewar zelenskyyy), Dan’s ahead in the 1v1 polls but it’s too close to be completely sure

    I would lament how Romania has a depressing party system but as a resident of Amerikkka theirs is still three tiers above ours lmao

  • Trump: "We were losing hundreds of billions of dollars with China. Now we're essentially not doing business with China. Therefore, we're saving hundreds of billions of dollars. It's very simple."

    wow

  • Big news from Iran, with the suspension of negotiations between the USA and Iran. Iran has unveiled a new Anti Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) called the Qassem Basir. This is the ASBM version of the land attack Haj Qassem ballistic missile, with a range of 1400km for the land attack version, Iran claims a range of either 1200km or 1300km for the anti ship version (conflicting information currently). Yes, these missiles are named after Qassem Soleimani. This is big news as the current longest range dedicated ASBM in the Iranian arsenal (and potentially Yemeni arsenal) is the Zulfiqar Basir, with a range of 700km, so we're looking at nearly double the range.

    Qassem Basir ASBM variant:

    View of the target in the bottom half of the image from the missile's electro-optical seeker:

    Haj Qassem land attack original variant:

    Now, the Zulfiqar, Dezful, and Qassem missiles are all part of the same family of ballistic missiles (which I will call the Zulfiqar family), in that they all use a Maneuverable Re-entry Vehicle (MaRV) of similar design, with Dezful and Qassem being ways to extend the range of the Zulfiqar MaRV, from 700km, to 1000km with Dezful, to 1400km with Qassem. With an ASBM version of Zulfiqar already in existence, it makes sense to use the Qassem as a longer range ASBM platform.

    How this missile works and acquires it's target is similar to how other Iranian shorter range ASBMs work, and an extension of the Pershing-II concept (first ever MaRV equipped land attack ballistic missile). The missile is targeted at an appropriate re-entry point, near the actual or predicted location of a ship. During re-entry, the MaRV performs a "pull up" maneuver, then a "glide phase". During this glide, the electro optical seeker, likely an infrared camera, acquires it's target using image matching techniques (Iran calls this AI now, yes the AI mind virus is everywhere), and them plans a trajectory towards it, before performing a final dive to the target, ideally with an impact velocity above Mach 2.

    The big breakthrough here is getting the seeker to survive the higher speed and higher altitude re-entry associated with longer range. The Zulfiqar Basir had a burnout and initial terminal velocity of over Mach 7, and the Raad-500/Tankeel of Mach 8. So that was the previous limit. The land attack Haj Qassem had a peak velocity of Mach 12. With the range being reduced slightly for the anti ship version, likely to reduce velocity to ensure survival of the electro optical seeker, peak velocity is likely not as high. But I'd guess a safe estimate is that the seeker can now survive Mach 10+ speeds, a noticeable improvement.

    Iran has unveiled this very covertly, under the guise of a "new missile to target Israel and evade THAAD", but the Basir designation (means to see or perceive in this context, used for Iranian ballistic missiles with electro-optical seekers,), and presence of an electro-optical (likely infrared) seeker on the MaRV, tells a different story. This is an ASBM that works in the same ways as other Iranian ASBMs. Yes it can be used to strike land targets in Israel with higher accuracy in GNSS jammed environments (like shorter range Iranian missiles have done in the past versus US military bases, but now at long range versus Israel, solving the accuracy problem for long range Iranian ballistic missile attacks), but that's a dual use capability that could make a hypothetical "Operation True Promise III" counterforce attack more viable in future. The real question for now is, if Ansarallah/the Houthis in Yemen will get their hands on it.

    This is a card that Iran has had up it's sleeve and is now being played, the question is, how will they play it. Exclusively for themselves, or will Yemen get it to strike US Navy warships. Without further modifications to increase range involving lighter payloads and suboptimal minimum energy trajectories, it's not viable to hit targets in Israel from Yemen (2000km range is needed for that), and I can't see the electro optical sensor surviving re-entry under those conditions.

    4 minute long video is included in the article:

    Iran unveils its latest ballistic missile 'Qassem Basir', May 4 2025

  • As the UK Labour right's increasingly circular firing squad intensifies after expected blowouts across recent local elections they're announcing (via the political editor of The Times) that they're going they're going to chainsaw - as in shut down - the Department for Media, Culture, & Sport, while their ministers are on Twitter screaming about how they have to do "more deportations, faster".

    The DfMCS supports and strategises for a huge amount of sport and tourism in general, but it also oversees two very obvious and important things that the far-right (in Labour, Reform, and the media) are desperate to be able to sack and dismantle...

    The first is that it oversees funding and provides support for things like galleries, museums, their links with education, and also things like music and the arts. It's a massive culture war target for the frothing at the mouth fash who believe that anything other than white-supremacy and the glory of the British Empire is critical race theory and the woke mind virus. It's history rewriting time folks, not to mention that no doubt the government is probably eliminating it at least in part for retribution against artists like Kneecap (who the Met Police anti-terrorism task force have now assigned units to trawl through every online video of the band ever posted to try and find grounds to charge them with offences, it was revealed the other day) as well as literary and art figures who have spoken out against the genocide in Palestine.

    The second is that it also oversees matters of press freedom and media regulation. Dismantling it provides a perfect attack vector for not only directly forcing media to follow the party line (as oppossed to implicit method of it being one big club of about 300 privately educated lunatics funded by foreign billionaires at the moment), but also eliminating whatever tiny sliver of regulation there is on the right-wing newspapers and television news, the protection of journalists, and defence of ordinary people / groups from smear campaigns and libel (& frivolous libel suits too).

    I've been saying for months that Starmer's government is following the Trump policy agenda in everything but speed and tone and here we have the tone shifting as they scream to speed up the process.

  • US airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 50th night in a row. The following governorates were hit by airstrikes:

    Hodeidah:

    • 2 airstrikes on Kamaran Island.
    • 1 airstrike on As Salif District, near Ras Isa Fuel Port.
    • 2 airstrikes on Ras Isa Fuel Port.

    Ma'rib:

    • 6 airstrikes on Medghal District.
    • 5 airstrikes on Majzar District.
    • 3 airstrikes on Majzar District in a second round.
    • 2 airstrikes on Baraqish area in the Majzar district in a third round.
    • 3 airstrikes on Majzar District in a fourth round.

    Saada:

    • 3 airstrikes on Sahar District.
    • 8 airstrikes on the Takhiya area in the Majz District.

    Al-Jawf:

    • 2 airstrikes on Al-Mahzamat area.
    • 10 airstrikes on Al-Hazm district.

    Very intense rounds of airstrikes tonight, almost 50 total. None on Sana'a though.

    Warning for potential graphic imagery during ongoing airstrikes:

    Al Masirah TV twitter

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    I hope to get a post out tomorrow on "frankenSAMs" using air to air infrared guided missiles converted to a surface to air role, passive infrared detection systems and unmanned surface vessels, and why 5th generation aircraft capabilities combined with weapons that use multiple forms of guidance to track moving targets are important for modern air forces, in the context of Ukraine and Yemen, given recent events (Ukraine shot down a Russian Su-30 over the Black Sea). No promises though.

  • The Washington Post reports that Mike Waltz was dismissed due to his extensive communication with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about military action against Iran. Officials in the Trump administration believed he was trying to 'tip the scales in favor of military action' and was closely collaborating with the Israelis.

    • Telegram

  • The HTS-led government in Syria has arrested the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) and shut down all of its offices. This follows the Syrian government's arrest of two commanders from Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) just two weeks ago, who still remain in custody with no charges.

    • Telegram

  • The U.S. says that Iran continues to assist the Houthis with 'crucial intelligence' needed to bomb Israel and attack American aircraft carriers in the region, with satellite imagery showing Iranian military-affiliated ships, likely acting as IRGC Navy forward bases, anchored off the coast of Yemen in the Red Sea. The Americans have previously threatened to sink these Iranian vessels if they continue to provide Ansarallah with intelligence that disrupts 'international shipping' and assists in the guidance of missiles headed for Israel or U.S. vessels.

    • Telegram

  • India suspends mail, parcel services with Pakistan through air, surface routes - The Hindu

    The order suspending the services was issued by the Department of Posts that operates under the Ministry of Communication. India on Saturday (May 3, 2025) suspended exchange of all categories of mail and parcels from Pakistan through air and surface routes amid escalating tensions between the two nations over the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 people.

    The order suspending the services was issued by the Department of Posts that operates under the Ministry of Communication. Citing "cross-border linkages" to the April 22 attack, India has promised severe punishment to those involved in the strike. In a high-level meeting with the top defence brass, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday asserted that the armed forces have "complete operational freedom" to decide on the mode, targets and timing of India's response to the terror attack.

    The Prime Minister affirmed that it is a national resolve to deal a crushing blow to terrorism, they said after the meeting. India on April 23 announced a raft of punitive measures against Pakistan including suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, shutting down of the only operation land border crossing at Attari and downgrading of diplomatic ties in view of cross-border links to the attack.

    In response, Pakistan shut its airspace to Indian airliners and suspended all trade with India, including through third countries. Pakistan rejected India's suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty and said any move to stop the flow of water will be seen as an "act of war".

  • Al-Quds Brigades announce two operations against Israeli occupation forces

    In a statement, the Brigades reported that their fighters, upon returning from the frontlines, confirmed the detonation of an MK84 bomb—originally left behind by the Zionist enemy—which had been pre-planted to target an enemy military convoy in the same area last Saturday.

    The group also claimed responsibility for the precise bombing of an Israeli military D9 bulldozer as it advanced east of Al-Tuffah, emphasizing the operation's high accuracy.

    MK84 is a 2,000lb bomb. Congratulations to Palestine on their new space program

  • US airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 49th night in a row. The following governorates have been hit by airstrikes:

    Hodeidah:

    • 4 airstrikes on the Ras Isa Fuel Port.
    • Multiple rounds of airstrikes on Al Salif District on the surroundings of Ras Isa Fuel Port.

    Al-Jawf:

    • 8 airstrikes on the Khab and Al Sha'af Districts.

    Sana'a:

    • Airstrikes on the capital.
    • 1 airstrike on Bani Hushaysh District.

    Amran:

    • 3 airstrikes on Harf Sufyan District.

    Warning for potential graphic imagery during ongoing airstrikes:

    Al Masirah TV twitter

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    Two statements by the Yemeni Armed Forces on two separate ballistic missile launches on Israel yesterday. The "Palestine-2" missile appears to have been intercepted by THAAD last minute in the terminal phase, debris/shrapnel ended up landing near the airbase, causing a large fire. The other non MaRV ballistic missile was intercepted at high altitude.

    Another ballistic missile launched from Yemen minutes ago.

  • Israel is on a home demolition rampage in the West Bank. Its aim is to force Palestinians to leave. Hexbear Post

    Elsewhere in the West Bank on that same day, Israeli forces moved to demolish several more Palestinian homes: in Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, a seven-floor residential building was demolished, and in Anata, north of Jerusalem, 14 Palestinian properties received demolition orders. Later in the week, Israeli forces demolished a three-floor residential building in the village of Za’tara east of Bethlehem, in addition to several water wells in Tarqumia, west of Hebron.

    The demolition of Palestinian homes is the other side of the coin of Israel’s seizure of Palestinian land for settlement expansion. Since 2023, home demolitions have displaced 7,392 Palestinians.

    How the feds abandoned reservations to burn Hexbear Post

    The Colville Reservation is one of the many Indigenous tribal communities protected by its own tribal wildfire fighters with funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). In 2019, about 80% of tribal forests were managed in part or fully by tribal programs funded directly by the BIA. Tribal communities that lack their own programs can opt for direct management by the BIA.

    However, these tribal wildfire fighters, who protect some of the nation’s most vulnerable communities, are stretched to their limits. Long-term federal land mismanagement and climate change have caused the number and intensity of reservation fires to soar. About 7% of the 4 million acres of tribal lands in the country burned between 2010 and 2020.

    Wildfire-fighting programs across the nation all struggle with low pay, funding and recruitment. But on tribal lands, the pressure is even more acute.

  • The US Army has just canceled their bloated assault gun "M10 Booker", one year after entering limited production. After eight years of development they finally realized that 42 tons is an excessive weight for convenient air transport. For comparison, the M1128 Stryker MGS it was meant to replace, the Chinese ZTL-11, and the Russian Sprut-SD all weigh around 20 tons.

  • The 'Gaza Freedom Flotilla' aid organization has announced that approximately six hours ago, one of its ships was attacked twice by Israeli drones while in international waters near Malta There are reportedly 30 aid workers onboard.

    This is the second time since the outbreak of the war on Gaza that Israel has sabotaged the aid organization’s plans to deliver aid, the first being in April 2024, and the fifth instance overall.

    • Telegram

  • brits yearn for the commodity trader rule

    also, how come they manage to break two party duopoly, while seppos are just "meh meh cannot be done"

    *a note

  • Israel has used drones to attack a Gaza humanitarian aid flotilla in International waters off the coast of Malta.

    UPDATE from Thiago Ávila, coordinator of the Freedom Flotilla still in Malta:

    We had another mission 15 years ago that was attacked, and 10 of our participants were killed in this mission of the Mavi Marmara. And right now we just suffered another attack, where two drones attacked our boat and put our boat on fire and created a big hole on our boat. There was a distress signal that was sent to all neighboring countries, to all the vessels nearby.

    And until very early in the morning, no one had responded to this. This happened now six hours ago. And now that we finally — the fire was put down, and finally, the drones that attacked the boat are out of the region.

    But we are very concerned for our participants. This is part of a humanitarian mission that was carrying food and medical aid to Gaza, because Gaza has now been for 58 days under total blockade — that not a single bag of flour, not a single bottle of water has entered Gaza for 58 days under a state of famine in the Gaza Strip.

    So we were trying to break the siege and create a people's humanitarian corridor, with people from over 20 different countries and carrying all the aid we could carry. We had members of parliament, we had actors, we had doctors, we had news outlets, we had influencers, we had grassroots solidarity movement activists as well for Palestine.

    And we were doing our best. This was a confidential mission. Because they've been attempting bureaucratic warfare on us, we were not disclosing the information until then that we were going, because they've been trying to hinder us. We were supposed to be on the boat three days ago now, and we've been hindered. And now, a few hours before we depart, we were attacked.

    And so we are due to share this information, to contact local politicians, to contact everyone you can, so that the Maltese government organize a proper rescue operation, which is not ongoing until now, and it's been many, many hours. We don't want to antagonize this government.

    We actually think this government needs to be an ally on a rescue mission, but we really need to denounce the war crime that happened because the boat was 13 nautical miles from Maltese territory, so it's in international waters, but it's nearby Malta, and we need people to denounce this attack, this war crime that just happened against a peaceful humanitarian mission to Gaza. And we need people to put the spotlight as well on the total blockade that Gaza has been suffering for 58 days.

    We only went to the boat because we knew there was no other choice to open a humanitarian corridor, so the people of the world were willing to open it.

    And we were attacked. So we were urged for your help, and Nicole here is part of our delegation, has been doing an amazing, amazing job, and we count on you to follow up with her, because we really need you right now, and especially the people, the Palestinian people in Gaza need you more than ever.

    From elsewhere on Twitter:

    We spoke with Jasmine, one of the organizers of the Freedom Flotilla.

    She reports that the 30 people aboard the ship are afraid to board lifeboats—fearing Israel will strike them again once exposed. As of now, there are no confirmed injuries, but communication with the ship has been lost.

    Jasmine is currently organizing an independent operation with others to reach the Freedom Flotilla after 7 hours without any response to the ship’s SOS. Authorities, embassies, and officials have remained silent.

    The ship is sinking in international waters.

    Despite multiple calls to embassies, media, and an SOS call and beacon no countries responded for over 6 hours until a Cypriot vessel picked up the SOS call and sent help.

    I don't have the national makeup of activists on board for obvious reasons, but if any of them were British then it's highly likely that the British government has actively assisted in the illegal drone striking of one of its own citizens since they provide radio surveillance of that area, as well as surveillance flights and targeting for Israeli drones from RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus.

    History is repeating itself again, as a reminder; in 2010 Israeli military boarded and stormed a previous Gaza humanitarian flotilla and executed at least 10 activists, all unarmed, some at point blank range, including UK and US citizens.

  • US and UK airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 48th day and night in a row. The following governorates have been hit by nighttime airstrikes:

    Sana'a:

    • 2 airstrikes on the Attan area in Bani Matar District.
    • 1 airstrike on the Asr area in Al Wahda District.
    • 1 airstrike on Hamdan District.
    • Airstrikes on Sana'a city centre itself.

    Al-Jawf:

    • 4 airstrikes on Khab and Al-Sha'af district.

    Saada

    • 5 airstrikes on the outskirts of Saada city.
    • 3 airstrikes on Kitaf District.

    Al Mahwit and Amran Governorates:

    • Unkown amount of airstrikes and locations.

    The following governorates were hit by daytime airstrikes:

    Al-Jawf:

    • Multiple rounds of airstrikes on Khab and Al-Sha'af district

    A ballistic missile was fired from Yemen towards Israel, the first in about a week. It seems to have been intercepted at high altitude and videos/photos of debris re-entering the atmosphere over central Israel are now circulating, along with the launch of the missile from Yemen. I will not be sharing the latter for OPSEC reasons, even if prominent resistance or pro Ansarallah/Houthi journalists in Yemen are posting it.

    Best video of missile debris re-entering the atmosphere over central Israel

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    Warning for potential graphic imagery during ongoing airstrikes:

    Al Masirah TV twitter

    Xcancel mirror

    As for the US Navy strategy in Yemen, while a more permanent corridor to directly bomb Yemen with stand in weapons like JDAMs and Paveways for non stealth 4.5 generation aircraft like F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, and the UK's Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4s, is open from the west and the Red Sea side, a more permanent corridor is not yet open from the east, F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft onboard the USS Carl Vinson in the Gulf of Aden are still using plenty of stand off munitions to minimise risk and stay out of range of Ansarallah/Houthi air defencea. The majority of aircraft carrying stand in weapons like JDAMs from the Carl Vinson are the F-35C 5th generation stealth fighter aircraft. Only a small amount F/A-18E/F aircraft from the Carl Vinson are carrying stand in weapons. Before people get their hopes up, I think similar to how the US Navy eventually opened the corridor from the east for large amounts of stand in bombings with 4th generation non stealth aircraft, they will eventually open a corridor from the west, it's just that the campaign from the east hasn't gone on long enough to do so, the USS Carl Vinson has only arrived recently. I also think that Ansarallah has reinforced their air defence systems in other areas to try prevent any more corridors from opening up.

    F/A-18Es from the USS Carl Vinson, armed with two AGM-84K SLAM-ER ATA subsonic cruise missiles, maximum range: 270km/170 mi.

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