The r/China subreddit has been a ghost town lately with mostly positive to neutral comments. One of the top posters has nothing new posted after January 19th lol

Assalamu Aleykum to the good people of Hexbearistan. Finally back from my Iraq trip with my wife and the kid. Absolute top tier travel destination, would recommend for sure if you’re thinking about doing a lil Middle East trip one day. Here are some little notes on the trip:

• Flew from my city to Istanbul, spent a few miserable hours in Istanbul’s expensive ass airport, then flew to Baghdad. My kid was surprisingly chill during almost the whole trip, no extended periods of crying or anything. The plane from Istanbul to Baghdad was filled with non-Arab foreigners, which was quite surprising honestly. Lots of Chinese people for some reason, which usually leads to new schools and ports spawning in any country that the Chinese visit.

• Baghdad Airport is functional but quite rundown. I went in with my Lebanese passport which technically needs a paid visa on arrival, but the guy on the counter waived the fee for me and just said welcome. My wife’s uncle was waiting for us outside and we were on the highways of Baghdad after a few kisses and hugs. The first few kilometers must be a shock for every new visitor to Baghdad, as it is filled with posters of Qassem Soleimani, Yahya Sinwar and Hassan Nasrallah. Iraq is still a very anti-imperialist country, you will finds flags of Yemen, Palestine and Lebanon in every corner. I thought it was super cool that one could find posters of the Houthis on billboards and shops selling Hezbollah memorabilia.

• Baghdad as a city has recovered well from the American invasion and occupation. New roads and bridges spawning everywhere, barely any armed military presence, new and shiny malls and restaurants everywhere, massive international schools and it’s just alive in a way that only Beirut can reach. The biggest problem is the traffic congestion, which the new Baghdad Metro project hopefully solves in a few years. The trash situation is also annoying, Baghdad is a quite dirty city, the people are as responsible as the government there honestly.

• The food was fucking amazing, but I’ve gained a few extra kilos from all the fatty foods. Some of the new restaurants are insanely good, and white people will never understand the appeal of a nice proper cafe with hot tea, diabetes-inducing sweets and hookah. Internet was decent, but this website barely loaded without a VPN for some reason. I paid around $10 for a week of unlimited 4G data.

• Made a quick one-day trip to Erbil, capital city of Iraqi Kurdistan. Took a smooth four hour drive there and crossing the inofficial “border” was pretty straightforward. Very beautiful city with great markets and more good food. Lots of new exciting construction projects in Erbil and it’s cleaner than Baghdad, but same traffic issues. It’s a good intro city for someone that wants an authentic Middle Eastern city, but not too “complicated”, nor too artificial like the Gulf cities.

• Finished the trip with a Shia Islam religious pilgrimage megatour with my wife’s family. We started in Baghdad and visited the Shrine of Imam Musa bin Jafar Al Kazim, then we drove around two hours to Karbala and visited the Shrine of Imam Hussain and Imam Abbas, then another hour to Najaf and visited the shrine of the greatest Muslim to ever live, Imam Ali bin Abu Talib. Was a great trip even if I’m not really the strongest believer out there. The shrines were magnificent, definitely something I’d recommend to everyone here.

• Overall summary is that Iraq is worth visiting, especially if you want to give your tourist dollars to a country that 100% doesn’t use them to murder Palestinians or buy American senators. It will be a culture shock for sure, but Baghdad is a nice and historic city, with the added bonus of having top tier food. I’ll upload some pics if I figure out how to do it in a non-doxxing manner.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-netanyahu-washington-ceasefire-1c8deec4dd46177e08e07d669d595ed3

Note the number of Gazans proposed to be ethnically cleansed - 1.8 M. The 2023 population of Gaza was 2.3 M give or take. That is a lot of death. Thanks Biden.

Lmao America boycotting the G20. Basically giving hegemony to China on a platter

I will NOT attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg.

South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote “solidarity, equality, & sustainability.” In other words: DEI and climate change.

My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism.

https://xcancel.com/SecRubio/status/1887288685517021298#m

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says that the freezing of USAID funds has plunged entire NGOs, media outlets and journalism (🤣) around the world into chaos. They readily pronounce that much of the world’s “journalism” is paid for by Washington’s dollars.

“In Ukraine, 9 out of 10 media outlets rely on USAID funding” USAID programs funds US interest media in more than 30 countries The agency funds at least 6,200 journalists, 707 “news outlets” and 279 media-sector “civil society organizations”. Any sovereign country has already prohibited this.

The best part is that RSF’s director came out, pearls clutched, to say that the foreign aid industry IS in fact very much in line with U.S. interests.

• Camila Kawsachuan News

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Byg8VZdKK88 “Trump can’t be a fascist because he’s simply working within our system of government” is quite a take from Jon Stewart and his writers.

CIA sends ‘buyout’ offers to entire workforce

The Central Intelligence Agency on Tuesday became the first major national security agency to offer so-called buyouts to its entire workforce, a CIA spokesperson and two other sources familiar with the offer said, part of President Donald Trump’s broad effort to shrink the federal government and shape it to his agenda.

Trump and his allies have claimed at different points that intelligence officers at the CIA have been part of a “deep state” determined to undermine him, and some critics have described the deferred resignation program as a purge – something Trump officials have denied. Some national security officials in Trump’s orbit believe that the CIA in recent years has become too heavily weighted towards analysis at the expense of clandestinely collecting intelligence and carrying out covert operations – functions of the agency’s much smaller Directorate of Operations. Ratcliffe during his confirmation hearing vowed to reinvest in both. “To the brave CIA officers listening all around the world, if all of this sounds like what you signed up for, then buckle up and get ready to make a difference,” he said in his opening statement. “If it doesn’t, then it’s time to find a new line of work.”

Every day a frightening new development of fascism, but also every day, more of the empire apparatus getting hollowed out. I wonder where the critical point is for this to collapse and reform into a new state.

I don’t want to get all “muh constitution” but if the president can just unilaterally decide to eliminate federal departments there really isn’t a constitution at that point is there? Like that’s so far out of bounds of what’s legal in any way. Looks like it’s just going to happen?

I also don’t understand any of the reporting or statements regarding being denied access to the buildings either. Every report I have read (and I have gone intentionally searching for this) has said that they were told no. It does not specify who told them no, the democrats are not specifying who is telling them no. The closest I have been able to find is an article The Hill saying the dems were stopped by “security forces”. WHO ARE THOSE PEOPLE? Is anyone going to ask who the fuck they are working for or under whose authority? What answer could they possibly give you that would be acceptable to pack up and leave?

If I drop you off at a gas station and 20 seconds later you came back and said “they said no.” I would be like "who said no? What did they say? And you just keep repeating “they said no” I would get actually pissed at you! Yet that’s what were getting for some reason?

There was this story in the guardian

• “They apparently just sort of walked past security and said: ‘Get out of my way,’ and they’re looking for access for the IT systems, as they have in other agencies,” said Andrew Rosenberg, a former Noaa official who is now a fellow at the University of New Hampshire. “They will have access to the entire computer system, a lot of which is confidential information.”

What is even going on here?!?! If you walked into where I work and were like “hey were taking over?” I would be like “who the fuck are you? what the hell is going on?”. Even if I don’t give a shit about my job I’m not just going to leave my post because some goofball told me to. Could I actually just walk into any federal building and say I’m with doge and they just let me in? Because that’s legitimately what it feels like here!

So we have people we know nothing about, closing down federal office buildings, locking everyone out and nobody cares who is doing that? Do they have names? Are they security for the agency? Who gave them the orders? Are they just random people? I feel like these are kind of important questions that are being completely glossed over!

It’s so cool how the state has so successfully created a mechanism to shield the rich from consequences that they managed to create an entire class of failsons who believe they’d do even better without that mechanism.

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei: ‘Negotiations with the United States are useless, and will not benefit the country in any way’ In his speech today, the Supreme Leader once again emphasized that negotiating with the U.S. is not of any benefit to the Iranian nation:

“For some time now, you have been hearing, in newspapers, in cyberspace, and in the words of various people, that there is discussion about negotiations with America. They mention the word ‘negotiation’, saying, ‘Sir, negotiation is a good thing,’ as if someone is opposed to the goodness of negotiation. Today, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is one of the busiest foreign ministries globally. That is its job, after all. It negotiates with countries around the world — Eastern, Western, all kinds — it travels back and forth, speaks, and signs agreements.”

“The exception that exists is America. Of course, I do not mention the Zionist regime because it is not a real country. The Zionist regime is a gang of criminals who came and occupied a land and are committing crimes. That is not a subject of discussion. The exception is America. Why is it an exception? What is the reason? Negotiating with America has no effect on solving the country’s problems. We must understand this. They should not make it seem as if sitting at the table with that government will solve this or that problem. No, not at all.”

“No problem is solved through negotiations with America. The reason? Experience. In the 2010’s, we sat down and negotiated with America for about two years. A treaty was formed with them (JCPOA). Our government sat down and negotiated. They went, came, sat, stood, negotiated, talked, laughed, shook hands, became friends — they did everything. A treaty was formed. In this treaty, the Iranian side was very generous. It gave many concessions to the other side. But the Americans did not implement the treaty.”

“The very person who is now in office [Trump] tore up this treaty. He said, ‘I will tear it up,’ and he did. Even before he came, those with whom this treaty was signed did not implement it. The treaty was meant to lift U.S. sanctions. The U.S. sanctions were not lifted at all. We should learn from this experience. We gave concessions, we negotiated, we compromised, but we did not achieve any result. That is what happened. Even this treaty, with all the concessions we gave, was still undermined, violated, and torn apart by the other side.”

“Negotiating with such a government should not be done. Negotiation with them is neither wise, nor intelligent, nor honorable. We must solve our problems internally, not relying on outside factors. As for the Americans, they comment on us, they talk, they express their opinions, they issue threats. If they threaten us, we will threaten them. If they carry out their threat, we will carry out our threat as well. If they violate the security of our nation, we will undoubtedly violate their security as well. This is our duty.'”

WhatsApp hacked by Israeli spyware firm - and you don’t even need to click a link. Just receiving the message leaves you vulnerable.

Israel targeted around 100 journalists in the attack, according to Meta.

So yeah, if you have WhatsApp, it’s time to not have WhatsApp.

What we know about China’s retaliatory measures against the US

As we reported earlier, China’s Finance Ministry has slapped tariffs on certain American items in retaliation for the Trump administration’s 10 percent tariff on all Chinese goods entering the US.

Here are more details on China’s tit for tat levies:

• Starting on February 10, China will impose levies of 15 percent for US coal and LNG and 10% for crude oil, farm equipment and some autos.

• China’s Commerce Ministry and its Customs Administration said the country is also imposing export controls on tungsten, tellurium, ruthenium, molybdenum and ruthenium-related items to “safeguard national security interests”.

• China’s anti-monopoly regulator has also announced it is launching an investigation into Google, without offering details. Google products, including its search engine, are blocked in China, but it works with local partners, including advertisers, in the country.

It’s so fucking funny that the cia is being declawed and yet trump is posturing to project American imperialism simultaneously like they are so fucking stupid and lost. It’s like they have the instincts of the Israeli right but imagine if the Israeli right decided the mossad was bad but for incoherent reasons and fucked it over leading to them fucking themselves over

The Saudis already pouring cold water on this plan.

I don’t doubt Trump wants to do this, he’s had Bibi whispering in his ear all day about it. Just like how he wants to take over Greenland, the Panama Canal, and fucking Canada. But operationally this plan is DOA. The Saudis aren’t on board, Sisi knows he will get coiled by the military if not murdered by his own people if he goes along. And I think most actually knowledgeable people in the deep state know how bad it’s gonna look when Qassam starts releasing videos of US soldiers getting got.

Trump wants a lot of things, but there is no way this happens. Honestly IMO I think even Bibi knows this and he’s only hyping this up to Trump to try and torpedo the ceasefire deal.

DEATH TO “AMERICA”

DEATH TO “ISRAEL”

GLORY TO THE RESISTANCE. GAZA AND PALESTINE WILL WIN.