Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Aya 🎃

@melangell.bsky.social

1K followers 90 following 7.5K posts

Graduate student at LSE. Cis. She. Millennial. War is bad; that should be the baseline of human decency. Opinions are my own.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · Jun 23

Iran is now the 8th Muslim-majority country the United States has bombed and or invaded in the last fifteen years. So, from Obama, to Trump, to Biden, to Trump again. Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, and now Iran.

1 94 340

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 7h

Same.

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 8h

Oh? OK, let me know!

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 8h

Not quite correct on either count, but anyway, the point wasn't to do a deep dive on Spengler, just thought his view on Western "winter" was funny/prescient.

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 10h

Yeah, he's obviously very fatalistic. As someone who believes in progress, justice, collective action, etc. it made me instinctively recoil at times.

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 10h

I think it was Oswald Spengler who said the West wouldn’t fall to invasion, but to self-exhaustion or when its boundless drive for expansion and control eats away at its own spiritual vitality.

So so human being @anonbeing.bsky.social · 12h

Unbelievable, isn't it, how the world has changed? Eighty years it took for the American empire to crumble into a bankrupt economy with shit infrastructure, poverty everywhere and fascists roaming the streets while another country sets the political agenda. Truly surreal.

2 2

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 12h

I’m actually speechless! Esp bringing on an LGBTQ influencer after the fact who—of course—won’t question it…

1 2

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 12h

Jesus Christ.

Sam @dragonborn.bsky.social · 12h

I lived in Orlando when the shooting happened at Pride nightclub. The whole city came together and showed solidarity. There were hour long lines of people donating blood (idk they didn’t what to do). And that’s where the pride crosswalks came from. So this really pisses me off.

1 8

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 12h

Yes.

So so human being @anonbeing.bsky.social · 12h

Isn't this called "occupation"?

1 2

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 12h

2 1 3

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 12h

???

Reposted by Aya 🎃

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 1d

It exposes how much Zionism, as an ideology, depends on maintaining a moral monopoly born of historical suffering.

Calvinboo Congress @emericanjezebel.bsky.social · 1d

seeing a zionist screaming on here that joking about israelis appropriating culture is antisemitism, next to a video of Saleh laying dead on the ground in Gaza, murdered by israeli-backed terrorists during a ceasefire, is one of the more surreal moments for me

3 12

Reposted by Aya 🎃

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 1d

The next target is Iran.

1 1 1

Reposted by Aya 🎃

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 1d

The Arab regimes have conspired with the U.S. and Israel to bring down the resistance in Gaza. People. Need. To. Understand. This. About. Arab. States. And. Stop. Making. Excuses.

1 3 13

Reposted by Aya 🎃

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 1d

As Israel Katz announced today, the so-called “new international authority” for Gaza, to be led by Arab states, will aim to demilitarize the resistance and destroy the tunnels.

2 7

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 14h

But yeah. I find it likely they couldn’t stop the strike without risking everything they’ve built, being their U.S. alliance, their mediator role, and their fragile legitimacy as both a Western partner and an Arab champion.

All this theatre is so aggravating.

1 2

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 14h

3. Qatari defense officials were told not to interfere and to treat it as a “classified counter-terrorism event" or some fuck.

4. Israel executed the strike! Big surprise!

5. Doha protested publicly within scripted diplomatic boundaries.

Quite the show.

1 1

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 14h

Here is what I believe happened re: the Doha strike:

1. Israeli intelligence informed Washington that a strike on Hamas leaders in Doha was imminent.

2. The U.S. relayed a vague “regional operation expected in Gulf airspace!” notice through CENTCOM to partners, including Qatar.

1 1

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 1d

Pure evil. Just… wow.

1 6 9

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 1d

It was one of the most grassroots, broad-based mass movements of the 20th century, in fact.

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 1d

This is a bit of an oversimplification. The 1979 Islamic Revolution was a backlash against that Western-backed dictatorship of the Shah, not something “installed by America.”

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 1d

Did you know it took it about 60 years (from 1953 to 2013) for Operation Ajax to be officially exposed and confirmed by the U.S. government? 60 years.

Bishop Whitewind @bishopwhitewind.bsky.social · 1d

Iran's current government exists because they wouldn't sell the United States underpriced oil and agree to be exploited when they had a functioning westernized democracy.
In the 1950s(🤔) America had their government slaughtered and the Ayatollah installed. America literally did all of this.

1 3

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 1d

Iran’s "authoritarianism" didn’t appear in a vacuum.

1 1 2

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 1d

The U.S. and its allies created the conditions that made Iranian hardliners look like realists.

Every betrayal, from the JCPOA withdrawal to secret Israeli–Arab coordination, validates their worldview. You cannot convince me otherwise.

1 2 3

Aya 🎃 @melangell.bsky.social · 1d

Most Arab governments don’t trust Israel, they’re hedging against it. “If I can’t stop the bully, maybe I can stand close enough that he won’t hit me.” No! Fuck no! Never trust Israel!