Image is of the King of Morocco meeting with John Kerry (a species of demon that plagued Hexbear in the misty past).
This preamble comes courtesy of @LargePenis@hexbear.net:
Morocco (Al Maghrib), or more officially the Kingdom of Morocco (Al Mamlaka al Maghribiya), is a country located in the northwestern edge of the African continent. The name Morocco comes from the Spanish name Marruecos, which itself comes from the name of the city of Marrakesh. In Turkish for example, Morocco is known as Fas, mainly because Turks knew the land of Morocco through the city of Fes. Morocco is regarded as part of the Arab World and Arabic is the main language amongst the population, with French and Berber languages also widely spoken in the country.
Morocco was the home of mostly Berber tribes until the Muslim conquest and the subsequent Arab migrations in the 700s under the Umayyads drastically changed the character of the country. A Berber commander, Tariq ibn Ziyad, would later cross the Strait of Gibraltar (Jabal Tariq) from the northern shores of now-Morocco and conquer Andalusia, which remained under Muslim rule for nearly 800 years. The country emerged as a significant regional power during the Almoravid and Almohad dynasties in the medieval period, known for their contributions to architecture, philosophy, and trade across North Africa and southern Europe. The current ruling dynasty of Morocco, the Alaouite dynasty, came to power in the late 1600s. The Alaouites claim descent from the Prophet Muhammad through his grandson Hasan ibn Ali, giving them religious legitimacy and political authority in the region. Despite the Shia-coded claim to legitimacy, the Moroccan royal family and the population mostly follow the Maliki school of Sunni Islam.
In the early 20th century, the Treaty of Fez (1912) created the French Protectorate of Morocco, negotiated largely without input from the Moroccan people. Moroccan lands were completely divided under French and Spanish zones, with thousands of colonists pouring into the country. The royal family frequently collaborated with colonial powers, suppressing local resistance movements and prioritizing European interests. Prominent anti-colonial uprisings, like the Rif War (1921–1926), were met with brutal crackdowns, enabled by Western-backed forces. Post-independence in 1956, Morocco maintained close ties with its former colonizers, fostering economic dependence on France and Spain. The monarchy’s alignment with Western geopolitical interests often undermined Pan-African and Arab unity movements.
During the Cold War, Morocco positioned itself as a staunch ally of the West, marginalizing leftist and nationalist factions within the country. The Green March of 1975 was a Moroccan state-organized movement to assert control over Western Sahara, a territory decolonized from Spanish rule but still awaiting self-determination. This march, supported by Western powers, particularly the United States, is often criticized as a colonial expansion disguised as a popular movement. By settling Moroccans in the disputed territory, the march disregarded the Sahrawi people’s right to sovereignty. U.N. resolutions on Western Sahara have seen limited enforcement, largely due to Morocco’s Western alliances shielding it from accountability. Western-backed security and intelligence partnerships continue to be the cornerstone of Morocco’s repressive nature towards any anti-colonial and leftist movements. In 2021, Algeria again severed diplomatic ties with Morocco, citing hostile actions and concerns over Morocco’s ties with Israel, which Algeria views as a betrayal of pro-Palestinian solidarity. The two countries have mostly clashed over the issue of Western Sahara other than a short war in the 60s over a border dispute, with Algeria continuing to support the Sahrawi independence movement.
Morocco’s relations with Israel have historically been discreet but significant, rooted in the presence of a large Moroccan Jewish diaspora in Israel. Former King Hassan II played a significant behind-the-scenes role in fostering covert ties between Morocco and Israel during his reign. King Hassan II is reported to have allowed Israeli intelligence access to critical information from a meeting of Arab leaders in Casablanca in 1965, which may have helped Israel prepare for the Six-Day War in 1967. His government provided a platform for discreet diplomatic exchanges and intelligence-sharing, including Morocco’s facilitation of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s visit to Israel in the 1970s. In 2020, Morocco formally normalized ties with Israel through the Abraham Accords, brokered by the United States, in exchange for U.S. and Israeli recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. Diplomatic and trade relations have since deepened, with agreements in fields like defence, agriculture, and technology. Despite official ties, Moroccan public opinion remains largely sympathetic to Palestinians, but such opinions are rarely considered by the royal family.
Morocco’s future is split between ambitious global aspirations and permanent domestic issues. The country’s co-hosting of the 2030 FIFA World Cup with Spain and Portugal is seen as a significant opportunity to showcase its shiny infrastructure and global presence. However, these achievements are often overshadowed by criticisms of its political culture, including the monarchy’s ceremonial practices, such as the humiliating tradition of publicly kissing the crown prince’s hand. Allegations surrounding King Mohammed VI’s personal behavior, including incidents of public drunkenness and alleged homosexuality continue to be a hot topic within opposition circles.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
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 Telegram Channels:
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.
I have been watching it closely as I’m convinced the US wants to install libs there and make another Taiwan.
It’s in the ideal location to take advantage of a region of China(Yunnan) with the most different indigenous groups, the potential for driving separatism and conflict there is higher than Xinjiang now.
Map of Yunnan’s ethnic groups:
You know the cia is salivating at that shit.
They can try, but it’s not the same as Xinjiang or Tibet. For those two, there’s a single non-Han ethnic group that is a plurality (for Xinjiang) or a supermajority (for Tibet). There’s also history, especially for the case of Tibet, where they had an independent polity which modern separatist movements can draw upon no matter how tenuous the link is. Yunnan is too ethnically diverse with the majority being Han anyways. For former feudal polities, you have Nanzhao and Dali, which had ruling Yi and Bai families respectively, so to have a secessionist movement, you would have to somehow rope at least those two ethnic groups plus other ethnic minorities together. At best, you might have a particular ethnic group try to venture off on their own with their own separatist movement, but they would still have to contend that the Han form a solid percentage of the population and that other ethnic minorities might not agree with their separatism.
Take 16. 16 is here, and here’s the demographics. The Dai by themselves are only around 30% of the population with the Han a little behind and the Hani around 20%. 30% isn’t that much. Now if the CIA was somehow able to convince both the Dai and the Hani to form their own separatist movement, then that might cause more trouble, but it would easily lead to infighting between the two (which separatist movement gets the prefecture?), making them much easier for them to be crushed by the PRC. And as for a joint Dai-Hani separatist movement for a Dai-Hani nation-state, they are two completely different ethnic groups with different languages and cultural customs. Apparently, a minority from both ethnic groups are Buddhists, but that’s pretty much it.
Having said that, Yunnan is also super mountainous and borders multiple countries with parts that are also fairly mountainous, which is prime territory for insurgency.
I don’t know who is actually growing the poppies, as I’ve seen allegations about both sides, but the fact that one of the main rebel group is in the same province where most of the drug production is (Shan State) and are part of what’s call the “Northern Alliance” is also very 👁️, although I believe there’s more evidence of the junta being involved in drug trafficking than the rebels.
I don’t think Hexbear notifies edits, so I’ll just write a new comment. You are absolutely right the CIA has been eyeing this region. They’ve send their anthropologists to map out the region. The author is one of those anarchist-adjacent feds. From his NATOpedia page where he snitched on communists for the CIA:
Extremely suspicious shit. The mountains are perfect for sending people over the borders too, it will be totally impossible to police.
It might be necessary for China to carry out a similar education and uplifting program. I haven’t looked at poverty or development in the region yet but if it’s low then the weakest link might simply be the same as Xinjiang where improving the region will eliminate the ability to do counter-rev shit through it.
Yunnan is poorer relative to the rest of China, and part of the reason why is because the province is so remote and mountainous. I checked all the prefectures, and there’s actually one prefecture where there’s a majority that’s non-Han: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nujiang_Lisu_Autonomous_Prefecture. It also borders Myanmar. Perhaps the CIA will try recruiting Lisu separatists.
That’s probably the weakest link but it’s one prefecture with only a population of 500,000. It hardly makes a dent.
What they’ll use it for is pushing the whole “han supremacy” bullshit though and try to expand it into the kind of ethnic infighting america has. It’s also exactly the kind of shit that convinces libs that other countries are bad.
Not another Taiwan.
The purpose of driving instability in Myanmar is to disrupt Belt & Road initiative projects in the region so that China cannot easily work around a blockade of the strait of Malacca. It’s the easiest route for China to avoid naval encirclement.
This is why a US puppet regime hasn’t been installed. A military junta regime (however friendly to Western interests) is perfect for keeping the region embroiled in violence such that infrastructure projects cannot develop.
This is why no one in the west cares about this conflict and why western media hasn’t received marching orders. It matters little who wins, Myanmar’s relationship with China is neither exceptionally good nor exceptionally bad, and there isn’t a faction whose rule would be more detrimental to China than the current state of turmoil.