#THE REAL WORLD AL QAEDA

[resizura]

i do not like when real world events happen in a fictional universe because then now i have to visualize how this happened in-universe

[meangan-thee-lesbian]

Public apology 2.0: sorry everyone I got the straight man's identity wrong again🤦🏻‍♀️ Actually he identifies as The Victim:

[sapphiresonstrings]

I think it's fascinating that this Syrian rebel leader is presenting such a moderate image.

To summarize his claims in the interview:

Q: Can you talk about the ongoing battle?

A: No.

Q: Why have the rebels have been able to make so much progress so quickly?

A: Because the liberated areas of Syria unified politically and established institutions. The rebel factions gathered together into a single army with better discipline and better communications. This army is able to follow orders and carry out plans, where the previous chaotic rebel groups could not.

Q: Isn't it actually because Hezbollah/Iran and Russia are too busy fighting Israel and Ukraine to prop up the Assad regime?

A: I can't talk about strategy while the battle is still going on.

Q: What's your take on the Assad regime?

A: It's already dead, it's been dead for years, and the Iranians and Russians are using its corpse as a puppet.

Q: Are you going to set up a fundamentalist Islamic regime?

A: Yes, but it's not going to be as bad as you think. The important thing is that we're going to establish a government ruled by laws and institutions rather than the whims of individuals. The strong institutions we're going to build will guarantee the rights of minority groups. Syria can't have a government that favors only one sect*, because in Syria many different sects have coexisted for hundreds of years.

*The word 'sect' is the translation given in the interview. I'm curious whether he's only talking about sects of Islam or if he means all religions (including Druze and Christians), and also whether this extends to ethnic minorities like the Kurds.

Q: Isn't your group (HTS) a radical terrorist group that used to be affiliated with Al Qaeda? What's up with that?

A: HTS is just one group in the larger Syrian project. It exists to fight against Assad, and it can disband at any time. The real goal is building a new Syrian government with strong institutions**. Also, we were really young when we said all that radical stuff. Now we're in our 40's and we've mellowed out.

**He really likes mentioning institutions.

Q: Aren't you on a terrorist watch list, though? Isn't there a 10 million dollar bounty on your head?

A: Those watch lists are all political. If a terrorist is anyone who intentionally kills civilians or displaces people, then a lot of Arabic governments are terrorist organizations. I was just an unaware young man when I got involved in the Iraqi civil war, and I didn't go into it intending to become a terrorist. I just wanted to defend the Iraqi people. I'm older and wiser now that I've returned to Syria, and I don't want to allow the terrible things that happened to Iraq to happen to Syria. That's why my group has had disagreements with ISIS.

Q: Why did you do this interview?

A: Because what we've done here is good for everyone. Syria under Assad is a source of chaos across the entire world, but now that we're in charge everything is going to be sunshine and roses. All the Syrian refugees can come home as soon as we're done building houses for all the Syrians currently living in camps.

~

He seems to be trying to endear himself to a Western audience. The way he emphasizes that he's an enemy of Iran and Russia feels like he's fishing for support from the Western powers. He's even made a conspicuous effort to dress in a Western style. Previous photos of him have him wearing a headscarf and scowling into the camera, but now he's bare-headed and wearing plain army fatigues.

(By Western powers I'm referring to the ever-shifting alliances of international meddling that tend to form around the USA, France, and the UK.)

He actually seems to be trying to dress like Zelensky, which is interesting because Assad is currently taking refuge in Moscow. It makes strategic sense for the West to support the new Syrian regime, since it seems to be inevitable that they'll be bitter enemies of the Russians and Iranians.

The question is whether they'll actually follow through on the promise of religious toleration, strong institutions, and rights for minorities. I want to believe that the disparate Syrian rebel factions really did shake hands and agree to set their differences aside to create a new free Syria where everyone can live in peace and harmony. It just seems a little too good to be true.

Happy endings do happen, though, especially if there's pressure to keep Western allies happy. Just look at South Korea. They started out as a dictatorship with a military alliance with the USA, then reformed into a democratic state. That's an achievable goal, which is why I think the Western powers should look into the possibility of supporting the new regime.

[lordadmiralfarsight]

Why is Leftblr plagued by political Karens ?

And no, I can't think of any other way to refer to so, so, so many of you who gleefully cheer for Hamas, deny or justify their crimes, apply a double standard against Israel (always in favour of the terrorist organisation, always), and so on and so forth.

Make no mistake, what Israel is doing in Gaza is horrible (though I would argue there's little alternative considering Hamas' goals and behaviour so far), and it's getting especially awful and violent in the West Bank, with too little oversight and far too much political complicity from the current Israeli government.

But what I'm talking about, in your behaviour, is in direct relation to the 7/10 attack, not what's happening in the West Bank.

You don't look at their ideology. Do you know what the ideology of Hamas is ? It's the same as Al Qaeda, the same as ISIS, the same as Boko Haram. It's violent, totalitarian islamism. It is intolerant and hateful, it wants to kill all who do not fit its mold. They openly - OPENLY - said they wanted to take over the world, and that once they were done with the Jews (the Jews, not the Israeli, the JEWS) it would be the Christians' turns. Does that sound like someone you want to cheer on ? Does that sound tolerant and acceptant ?

For me, as a French, all Hamas is, is another form of the monsters that killed hundreds in the Bataclan. That sent a truck through the crowd in Nice on the Promenade des Anglais. That murdered and took hostages in the Hyper Kasher.

It's the same cruelty and hate, the same interpretation of Islam that pushed Mohammed Merah to murder children in school in 2012. Because those kids were Jewish.

And all I can think, when I watch how you react ... how you cheer on Hamas ... is that it isn't the acts that bother you. It's whether it has the right stickers, the right buzzwords associated to it.

You're like a Karen, ranting and throwing a tantrum, because the mangos don't have the little organic sticker.

It's not an organix, marx-fed terror attack, so you don't like it. But the one in Israel, oh this one, it has the sticker, you're sure of it. You put it there yourself, because it is much, much more socially acceptable, in your little social circle of murderous, bloodthirsty political Karens to stamp your little Revolution-certified sticker on that particular terror attack.

But it's the same ideology, Karen. The mangos are identical. The murders are the same. The only real difference is the numbers.

And you can go "But IDF in Gaza D:" all you want. All I hear, is that you're willing to support ISIS, Al Qaeda and Boko Haram, so long as they put the right stickers on their murders.

You don't need to cheer for the monsters. You don't need to cheer for ISIS under a different flag.

You can criticize Israel without being antisemitic, as you keep saying. Maybe you should start doing that.

[b-lysia]

Had this thought when I was looking over Mysty's shoulder a minute ago

Incomming fb post link-

If you're not gonna click the link, it's a just a post where somebody linked some twitter thread written by user @RookieDoe, talking about Adam from Hazbin Hotel's character and defending his apparent lack of misogyny. If someone can find the actual twitter thread & reblog this post with it that'd be amazing, but don't work too hard on it.

Anyway, my thoughts on it under the cut because my comment got... A little long:

Fuck. Yeah this is absolutely correct. I guess I get the Adam ships now, he and Lute are kinda cute or whatever. He actually does have redeeming qualities or rather- he's not intrinsically evil. He's just stupid, and biased against Sinners. That revelation kinda makes the show's concept overall stronger. Hazbin Hotel isn't a show that's simply flipping the "Heaven good, Hell bad" dichotomy of Christian mythos on it's head. It's a story trying to be as focused as possible on the dichotomy between fascism and anarchy, a dissection of the nature of religion/spirituality/social rules themselves, and a dialogue on the nature of what "good and evil" really mean. In fact, if Adam was personally a *malicious* bigot, rather than just being a fixture in an inherently abusive structure (that he clearly doesn't even understand). The waters would actually be kind of muddied, and it'd weaken the show. That's why Lucifer, Lute, and Sera work as Characters too; each fundamentally believing in the system that posits that Sinners are inherently valueless souls, baselessly, with their varied responses to it:

Lucifer losing himself in depression borne of a only barely subtle loathing for Sinners (it's the real reason he's immediately hostile towards Alastor, it's not just that Alastor is trying to supplant his role as Charlie's Dad and is closer to her than him, but that Alastor is doing all of this as a Sinner specifically), which has developed into an overwhelming self loathing by him being bound to Hell with the Sinners he loathes just as much as Sera and Lute. He's analogus to a self loathing queer man; rejected by the church but still believing it's toxic doctrine, and now trying to reconcile his self hatred based on it's principles with the conflicting affection he has for his openly and proudly queer kid ( I can't remember if Charlie is bi or lesbian, daughter).

Lute responding to this inherently abusive system by using being an Exorcist as a justified outlet for sadism that this system clearly instilled in her psyche. She can't see the Sinners as living things with internal worlds apart from her own. The assumptions of evil/bigotry she applies to them are just post hoc justifications after the fact, assumptions that prevent her from questioning why Heaven and Hell exist the way they in the first place. She is monster that runs conversion therapy camps, that starts and fights with "Al Qaeda," that marches down streets with tiki torches and burns crosses cloaked in white sheets. (I wonder if the fact the Exorcists all wear masks is an intentional allusion to this and the concept of The fashion/aesthetic of Evil).

Sera... Sera functions almost exactly the same way, but looks down on even the Exorcists because of their connection to Adam and her (reasonable) disdain for him and his behaviour. But fundamentally, she believes what they believe, and thinks their behavior -at least to the Sinners- is justified. She is every bit as pointlessly sadistic and cruel as Lute, but as a Seraphim she can't be an Exorcist and use the cleansing as an outlet for her worst traits. If Lute is a frothing at the mouth Christian Evangelical ember of the church, or fundamentalist equivalent to any other religion you could think of, then Sera is the Deacon (or equivalent) who lies to and performs the motions of her faith in order to keep the congregation in line as a good suit wearing fascist example. She keeps the image of Heaven clean, all the while clearly wishing she was on the front line attacking protesters and marching down the streets with pitchforks just like Lute. Sera is like the DeSantises, the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world. She hates Adam and Lute, not for their actions, but because their blatant and open disdain for Sinners make it harder to keep the image of Heaven clean to characters like Emily and the actual citizens of Heaven (the "Winners").

To that end, I almost want to say Adam is like Trump. But Adam actually has a little sense of self, confidence, and self worth. Trump will literally say anything if it'll make the loudest and most actually confident person in the room like him, he doesn't believe shit he says, he's just a fool and a narcissist. Adam is an idiot too, but he's confidently and comfortably himself; he's categorically a bigot, not performatively. Adam is probably closer to what he literally is in the show, the annoying dudebro who isn't intentionally or like... ideologically bigoted, and probably wouldn't hurt you. But he's so fucking stupid, and says bigoted stuff casually enough that you almost don't care and at least can't stand him. He's a purely a product of his environment, a redeemable person. That's actually kinda fitting considering the fact that out of all those characters, he's the only literal human soul. Adam is closest those weird misogynistic 14 yrolds watching Andrew Tate or Dr. Umar and wondering why the girls at his school (Lilith & Eve) don't like him.

[wwttcc]

This blog runs on a queue but I feel like it’s necessary for me to speak a bit about the current situation in Palestine and how it is intrinsically linked to World Trade Center history.

For 75 years, western powers have been using Israel as a tool to enforce their own interests in the so-called “Middle East” by allowing it to sow discontent and internal conflicts in the nations there, to keep them from becoming unified forces that could fight back. Groups like Al Qaeda were formed with western assistance for that very reason.

“Terrorist” acts never occur in a bubble. The 1993 WTC bombing was an act of protest against the US’s ongoing support of Israel. 9/11 itself would never have occurred without western interference in the Middle East. And Hamas—a hybrid resistance group and government leadership—would never have existed or had to fight back if Israel were not a colonial power there. And much like the US’s response to 9/11, Israel is using the actions of a group they created as an excuse to carry out horrific acts in the name of “revenge.” Unlike 9/11, though, social media has enabled the world to see Israel for what it is, and the global protests have been massive. I believe this could lead to real change in the way the west holds power in the Middle East. I encourage everyone to inform themselves about the history of Palestine and to speak out against the suffering they have endured.

[darkmaga-returns]

We’ve now had a few days to digest the sequence of events leading up to the coup d’état that has taken place in Syria, where the American-Israeli-Turkish backed al qaeda/al nusra/ISIS factions, rebranded as “HTS” (Hayat Tahrir al-SHAM), ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Many were surprised, including Alastair Crooke and Larry Johnson.

Even Judge Napolitano and Scott Ritter seemed surprised.

It should be pointed out though that there was ONE that saw all of this coming, and warned the Chief of the Joint Staff General Colin Powell about Syria over 34 years ago, at the beginning of the Gulf War in 1990. This critically important revelation about Syria’s role in end-time prophecies was then shared with the rest of the world a few years later in 1999, with the creation of the world wide web and a one-of-a-kind Website.

The following excerpt is from: A Mathematical Bible Code – Secular Proof that there is indeed an Infinitely Higher Intelligence (God) in The Universe –

And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.’

But Armageddon is a real place. It is the Greek name for an ancient city in Israel, Megiddo (not far from Endor – JAH). In Hebrew, ‘Mount Megiddo’ is ‘Harmegiddo’.

I stopped to see the ruins of this ancient fortified city when, late one night, I was en route for Jerusalem. It seemed inconceivable that this remote place would ever really be the site of a major battle.

But near Megiddo, hidden from tourists, is one of Israel’s most important Air-Force bases, Ramat David. It is in the North, facing Israel’s implacable foe, Syria. It would be on the front line of any real war in the modern Middle East.

[wack-ashimself]

Holy shit. Did you hear about #syria? Do you know about the greater #Israel plan? I'm just finding this all out this morning and every time I think it's getting real, it gets even more realer. IsRAELER. Ugh. Sorry have to joke cuz every day we are one step closer to world War 3... if you need the summary, the dictator was overthrown, but now Al Qaeda is in charge. So it didn't get better. Israel even outright said do not fight back against our troops coming in. That is so fucked up. That also means Al Qaeda and Israel are working together. And don't forget the #CIA literally created Al qaeda. Aka, YOUR TAXES PAID FOR THIS TO HAPPEN!!! ARE YOU PROUD?!

[eretzyisrael]

by Chris Jennewein

A Jewish student organization at UC San Diego said Sunday an Instagram video showing students leaving a building amid an anti-Israel protest is real, despite an earlier denial by the university.

Hillel San Diego said the video circulating on social media was taken by a student during a Nov. 1 meeting on campus.

“The video being circulated is an unaltered video from a protest that occurred while Jewish students at UCSD spoke about rising antisemitism on campus during an Associated Students meeting on Nov. 1,” Hillel said in a statement.

The organization said some of the protesters were carrying flags of Al Qaeda, the terrorist group that attacked the World Trade Center on 9/11, creating a hostile environment.

As a result, some of the students at the meeting received a police escort back to the Hillel center off campus.

[humusboii2thereturnoftheking]

A Morrocan ex-Muslim take on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

This is again taken from reddit, text was posted by user named u/Benjazzi. I found it a very insightful read and I hope you will too:

I'm from Morocco. I'm atheist but my entire family is muslim. When it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict, some muslims, sadly, can really go insane. For them, it's our tribe (Palestine moslems) against the enemy tribe.

Israel bombed South Lebanon after Lebanon bombed them ? "It never happened"

Israel stormed the holy Al Aqsa mosque because people throwing rocks took refuge inside of it ? "I don't believe it"

Mass Rapes ? "Fake news. It never happened"

"Our tribe can do no wrong" is literally how many people think.

To be fair, Jews can be tribal. But it's frankly nowhere to the same extent. The Jewish press is full of critics of the Israeli government and debates. Honestly, I have found that as long as you don't sing "Death to Israel" and are respectful, you can have very constructive conversation with most Jews and Israelis, even if you are critical. That's because they have a tradition of debate. Sadly, the muslim world lacks this.

Saudi Arabia just bought Cristiano Ronaldo for $1 billion. I have seen people on arab social media argue that Saudi Arabia doesn't help Palestinians because... the Saudi Prince is a puppet on a jewish-american string. It's totally stupid. He has publically humiliated the President of the United States.

Why he doesn't help ? Well. The explanation is simple. He doesn't give a fuck. But the idea that a sovereign arab leader might not care about "our tribe" is so shocking and so disturbing that some people need to find sinister foreign hands to explain it.

Egypt is right now shooting people who try to leave Gaza. I have seen Egyptians argue that the Egyptian President is....secretly jewish. "Sisi is a jewish dog, his mom is jewish". I mean... really 🤔 ?

The idea that a sovereign arab leader might not care about "our tribe" is so shocking and so disturbing to them that many Egyptians have to find some insane conspiracy to explain it.

This is the kind of cognitive dissonance that I sadly see all around me.

NYT publishes an investigation critical of Israeli behavior? I post it online. Reactions on social media ? "Great job ! Fucking zionist pigs. The New York Times just exposed them"

NYT publishes an investigation critical of Palestinian behavior ? I post it online. Reactions on social media ? "Fuck your propaganda. New York Times is pure zionist filth"

"Our tribe can do no wrong".

A newspaper is reliable or fake... simply depending on how it portrays the tribe !!

Then you have Islamism on top of that. The cherry on the chocolate cake.

Read the comment I posted here :

The real problem today in our world is a guy called Sayed El Qutb.

He was an egyptian intellectual who is considered the father of ALL Islamists.

In his books, he argues that the best period for muslims was under the Islamic Caliphates, when the entire world respected and feared muslims. He believes the Islamic World went through cultural, political and economic decline due to not enough Islam. According to him, only a return to PURE Islam™ can make muslims great again. Sayed El Qutb endorsed creating an Islamic State based exclusively on Sharia Law. He praised violent jihad against the non-muslims (kouffars). He opposed secularism, gender mixing, and hated jews ("filthy pigs") and atheists.

He was hanged in 1964 for attempting to murder President Nasser. But his books have spread very successfully. Sayd Qutb is to islamists what Karl Marx was to communists. Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Nosra front. All of their creators read his books and deeply admired him.

3 countries are particularly behind Islamism : Saudi Arabia, Iran and Qatar.

The first one is Saudi Arabia. In the 70s, using their oil money, they opened a special university called the University of Madinah. Anyone can go study there for free to become an Imam. Saudis will pay your tuition and boarding school. Your food ? They will pay for it. These imams all learned the ideas of Sayed Al Qutb. Westerners are filth, jews are vile pigs, women must obey men, women must be veiled, secularism is a form of mental disease.

After graduating , these Saudi-trained Imams were sent back to their country in Africa, Europe, or Malaysia, to spread Saudi soft power. And this happened for decades and decades. They were the most successful in 2 countries in particular : Pakistan and Egypt. In these countries, a generation of public school teachers received Saudi textbooks. Imagine the result on the general population.

The second country to blame for Islamism is Iran.

In 1979, a secular dictatorwas overthrowed and replaced by a religious dictator. Ayatollah Khomenei became Supreme Guide of the Revolution. He always wears a black turban on his head. That black turban means he is "sayyed", a direct descendent of Muhammed. Ayatollah Khomenei was a deep admirer of Sayed Qutb. He translated all Sayed El Qutb's work into Farsi to "educate iranian people".

His new Islamic regime started using their oil money to fund $$$ radical islamic groups all around the Middle East. In Irak, in Pakistan, Lebanon, in Syria. His successor, "Ayatollah Khamanei" has pursed his heritage. Iran published a Fatwa calling for any muslim who can to murder the UK poet Salman Rushdie for his books. Salman Rushdie has been forced to live in hiding for 20 years. He was recently stabbed during a literary festival in America.

In 1984, Iran published an official postal stamp paying tribune to Sayed El Qutb, calling him a true martyr of Islam. Also, several streets and avenues in Iran were named "Qutb" as a tribute.

The third country to blame is Qatar. They are the favorite headquarter of all islamists in the world today. Al Nosra Front, Al Qaeda, Hamas, The Afghan Talibans. You always find Qatar.

In Morocco, Qataris are big supporters of the local Islamists (حركة التوحيد والإصلاح)

I can testify that what Al Jazeera spreads in arabic is far far worse than what they actually say in english. They had a TV show with a guy called Youssef Al Qaradawi. This guy is a disciple of Sayed El Qutb. He tells people it's okay to beat up your wife, that jews are disgusting pigs, that Islam will take over Europe. His TV show was watched by 60 million people every week on Al Jazeera Arabic. 60 million people. Every week. In 1998, they published a documentary called "Ben Laden : One man standing against an empire"

Here is another thing you won't see in Al Jazeera English. Basically, the rape, slaughter and torture of Israeli civilians is just presented as "a wonderful victory" on Al Jazeera Arabic. That's it. They won't give any more detail. No pictures. Anyone who seriously studies the military tactics of Hamas, reading academic papers, comes to the conclusion that the Israelis - whatever you think about them - aren't actually lying. Hamas really does use Palestinians as Human Shields. It's never mentioned on Al Jazeera. Never. In fact, their "journalists" told a palestinian shouting this to shut his damn mouth.

Saudi Arabia, Iran and Qatar. These 3 countries have become the cancer of Islam.

And they have used their money to spread their influence, including in Morocco. Now the cancer has spread.

The question is how do we cure it? I don't know. I have small hopes for Saudi Arabia because even if their Prince is a dictator, he genuinely wants to improve his country. He is reforming textbooks to remove antisemitism, allowing women to drive, allowing music, ending forced gender segregation, etc... But the other two countries remain a major problem.

[mariacallous]

Extremist groups have begun to experiment with artificial intelligence, and in particular generative AI, in order to create a flood of new propaganda. Experts now fear the growing use of generative AI tools by these groups will overturn the work Big Tech has done in recent years to keep their content off the internet.

“Our biggest concern is that if terrorists start using gen AI to manipulate imagery at scale, this could well destroy hash-sharing as a solution,” Adam Hadley, the executive director of Tech Against Terrorism, tells WIRED. “This is a massive risk.”

For years, Big Tech platforms have worked hard to create databases of known violent extremist content, known as hashing databases, which are shared across platforms to quickly and automatically remove such content from the internet. But according to Hadley, his colleagues are now picking up around 5,000 examples of AI-generated content each week. This includes images shared in recent weeks by groups linked to Hezbollah and Hamas that appear designed to influence the narrative around the Israel-Hamas war.

“Give it six months or so, the possibility that [they] are manipulating imagery to break hashing is really concerning,” Hadley says. “The tech sector has done so well to build automated technology, terrorists could well start using gen AI to evade what's already been done.”

Other examples that researchers at Tech Against Terrorism have uncovered in recent months have included a neo-Nazi messaging channel sharing AI-generated imagery created using racist and antisemitic prompts pasted into an app available on the Google Play store; far-right figures producing a “guide to memetic warfare” advising others on how to use AI-generated image tools to create extremist memes; the Islamic State publishing a tech support guide on how to securely use generative AI tools; a pro-IS user of an archiving service claiming to have used an AI-based automatic speech recognition (ASR) system to transcribe Arabic language IS propaganda; and a pro-al-Qaeda outlet publishing several posters with images highly likely to have been created using a generative AI platform.

Beyond detailing the threat posed by generative AI tools that can tweak images, Tech Against Terrorism has published a new report citing other ways in which gen AI tools can be used to help extremist groups. These include the use of autotranslation tools that can quickly and easily convert propaganda into multiple languages, or the ability to create personalized messages at scale to facilitate recruitment efforts online. But Hadley believes that AI also provides an opportunity to get ahead of extremist groups and use the technology to preempt what they will use it for.

“We're going to partner with Microsoft to figure out if there are ways using our archive of material to create a sort of gen AI detection system in order to counter the emerging threat that gen AI will be used for terrorist content at scale,” Hadley says. “We're confident that gen AI can be used to defend against hostile uses of gen AI.”

The partnership was announced today, on the eve of the Christchurch Call Leaders’ Summit, a movement designed to eradicate terrorism and extremist content from the internet, to be held in Paris.

“The use of digital platforms to spread violent extremist content is an urgent issue with real-world consequences,” Brad Smith, vice chair and president at Microsoft said in a statement. “By combining Tech Against Terrorism’s capabilities with AI, we hope to help create a safer world both online and off.”

While companies like Microsoft, Google, and Facebook all have their own AI research divisions and are likely already deploying their own resources to combat this issue, the new initiative will ultimately aid those companies that can’t combat these efforts on their own.

“This will be particularly important for smaller platforms that don't have their own AI research centers,” Hadley says. “Even now, with the hashing databases, smaller platforms can just become overwhelmed by this content.”

The threat of AI generative content is not limited to extremist groups. Last month, the Internet Watch Foundation, a UK-based nonprofit that works to eradicate child exploitation content from the internet, published a report that detailed the growing presence of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) created by AI tools on the dark web.

The researchers found over 20,000 AI-generated images posted to one dark web CSAM forum over the course of just one month, with 11,108 of these images judged most likely to be criminal by the IWF researchers. As the IWF researchers wrote in their report, “These AI images can be so convincing that they are indistinguishable from real images.”

[cicada-and-pomegranate]

I feel like if 9/11 happened again, no one would really react.

I think a lot of people were horrified on 9/11 because they didn’t know things like that happened. The boomer generation is all like “never forget”, acting like it’s the greatest tragedy since the Holocaust, and acts like joking about 9/11 is paramount to joking about genocides, but they went to school every day to learn about how to hide from a nuclear bomb.

At the end of the day though, the most that 9/11 effected the lives of most people acting like 9/11 is the world’s greatest modern tragedy is that they have to take their shoes off at the airport. 9/11 had disastrous effects, of course, but not on the people most intimately obsessed with its tragedy.

There’s a 2002 episode of Arthur where a school fire is used as an analogue for 9/11. (I really wish they just used real 9/11 that would have been so fucking funny) One of the plots is about Buster feeling bad about not really caring about the fire. At the time that was a super important message for kids, because why the fuck would they care? They probably don’t even know how much 3,000 is or necessarily what death is or maybe even where New York is. It’s unrelated to them.

9/11 happened 21 years ago. It can legally drink in the US. If you actually remember the significance of what 9/11 was when it happened, you’re kind of old now. Young people either were Buster or they learned about 9/11 in history class. It’s a meme now.

I’m going to New York in about a month and I’ve already planned to take a photo of the 9/11 memorial and caption it “I forgor”. I don’t fucking care; I wasn’t alive in 2001. I think older people need to accept that 9/11 is now a historical event rather than a modern tragedy, and a historical event with a comparatively low body count.

The fact that 9/11 gripped the nation for decades after isn’t just a consequence of the place and time it happened; it was intentional. It was a terrorist attack; it was meant to be flashy, it was meant to be destructive, and it was meant to be scary. Making 9/11 out to be the worst thing ever projects Al-Qaeda’s strength.

We’ve now lived through entire months in which every day has killed more people than 9/11. Of course that’s always been true, but not from one collective, abnormal cause. When you become desensitized to death, it’s no longer tragic. One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.

The constant propaganda about 9/11 being the worst thing ever, counterintuitively, makes it seem less bad. It normalizes it to the point that it’s not the tragedy it once was. Especially when you didn’t live it because you were not yet alive.

This doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, I mean no one cares about the myriad obscure genocides which killed hundreds of thousands to millions, but 3,000 people who happened to have a statistically higher income (the Twin Towers housed financial offices and the flights that were hijacked tend to have a lot of business travelers, especially on a morning flight early in the week)? Greatest American tragedy literally ever.

I think people not caring about the faceless people who died on 9/11 and ended up getting turned in to patriotic martyrs and caring more about the faceless people who die every day because governments around the world think it’s in their best interests for them to is a good thing. It’s an inevitable part of moving forward in time; the sands of time erode all but the number of bones.

So joke about 9/11. It ends the era of “never forget”, and brings about that of the perpetual apathy that faces all historical events with the inevitable bored child in an elementary school classroom asking the teacher why he should care about dead people.

[bearkunin]

The Novelty of Russian Social Conservatism

Heraclitus' line "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man" is just as true when it comes to nations, religions and their traditions. Here I'm going to go into how this is the case for Russian conservativism.

One of the key concepts introduced by The Moralist International is that of 'conservative aggiornamento.' This makes use of an Italian phrase used by the Second Vatican Council essentially meaning "modernisation of religious tradition." In the Catholic context, this meant things like conducting services in common language (rather than Latin), ecumenism, tolerating religious freedom, and things generally considered "liberal." In the Russian Orthodox case however, the aggiornamento is decisively conservative.

The use of this phrase is to make clear that appeals to traditionalism are not simple returns to a real past, but very much updates of "tradition" for a modern world. It is to emphasise "the novelty of Russian social conservatism."

As a parallel, Islamic fundamentalism in the form of Sunni Wahhabism is often seen as ultra-traditionalist, as "mediaeval" even. In reality, Wahhabism springs from the mid-18th century. The ultra-reactionary ideology of al Qaeda, Qutbism, is from the 1960s. It harkens back to the past, but is very much from the present.

Similarly, the Russian Orthodox's foray into social debates and international politics is largely only twenty or so years old. In Tsarist Russia, an expansion of the church’s influence beyond its spiritual competence was undesired, and internally strong monastic currents stood for a “principled lack of interest in the world." The church has traditionally been highly ascetic, with a focus on monasticism, to the point of being described as "anti-family."

“The man who marries does well, but the one who doesn’t marry does even better"

1 Corinthians 7:38.

There were of course exceptions to this: Father Gapon helped kickstart the 1905 Revolution for example, but really that is the exception that proves the rule.

During the Soviet era, the religious authorities were heavily suppressed and censored, with little room to influence or debate social policy. Even following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it took some time for the Orthodox Church to find its own footing in social politics.

Through the 1990s, with reinvigorated contact with the Catholic and Protestant worlds (both of which had been politically active in democracy for decades), the Russian Orthodox Church began to develop a more "modern" and active socially politically role.

In Orthodox Russia, you can see the defence of "traditional values" - such as in the opposition to domestic violence legislation - as being cast in terms of human rights and "freedom". The Orthodox Church said of the domestic violence bill:

It has an obvious anti-family orientation, reducing the rights and freedoms of people who have chosen a familial way of life and birth and the raising of children.

This is not the nomenclature that would have been mobilised by pre-Soviet, Tsarist, "traditional" Russia. Even the term "traditional values" is a relatively new import into Russia, which typically spoke of "spiritual-moral values" instead. The first meaningful mention of "traditional values" in Russian press appears to be from 1983, and in direct reference to Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority in America.

Even by the 1990s, "traditional values" were associated with America. In 1991, James Dobson of Focus on the Family (a fundamentalist anti-abortion, anti-LGBT American-based group) planned a visit to Russia (it was cancelled on account of the August Coup). A Russian newspaper article anticipating the visit entitled Dr. Dobson Could Not Come at a Better Time: An American Conservative Will Advise the Soviet People, described Dobson as:

...one of the most unshakable defenders of what is called “traditional family values” in America.

Another example of the clear American influence on Russian "tradition" is the common use of the term "про лайф", pronounced "pro life", distinct from the Russian words being за жизнь (za zhizn).

These are just some surface level examples, but illustrate some of the newness and international origins of Russian traditionalism. I will probably do one more post on how these international influences are impacting Russian domestic politics and then turn to what really interests me of how these domestic Russian debates inform their foreign policy.

[exprimis]

The author's bio is a treat:

Charles S. Faddis served for 20 years as an operations officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, including as a department chief at the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and as a chief of station in the Middle East. He earned his B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and his J.D. from the University of Maryland Law School. He is the author of several books, including Willful Neglect: The Dangerous Illusion of Homeland Security and Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA.

I wonder what he identifies as the failures of the CIA? Let's see:

The CIA had no sources inside Al Qaeda to tell us about the 9/11 plot.

The CIA didn't immediately attribute COVID-19, known to be descended from bat-borne coronaviruses, to the bat coronavirus gain-of-function research in the Wuhan lab.

Bureaucracy and a risk-averse culture.

Loss of skills, but also loss of mystique: "The people who run our government [...] have done their best to turn the CIA into just another federal agency. [...] We act as if anyone can be taught to conduct espionage—as if this is no longer an arcane craft to be practiced by a select group of unique people."

"The CIA has proved unable to put a source inside a Chinese bio lab, within the leadership structure of the Taliban, or next to Vladimir Putin."

The CIA has been politicized: backing Hillary Clinton in the Benghazi inquiries, aiding the Trump dossier investigation, and former intelligence officers decrying the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian propaganda.

The first point is transparently false; read the 9/11 Report and you will learn that the CIA had "real-time intelligence" on Bin Laden as early as 1996, with a plan to capture the known terrorist financier in place by the fall of 1997. That Bin Laden was planning to hijack civilian airliners was known as early as 1998.

The second point is still a matter of contention.

The third point is true of every part of government, but is especially true in international politics, geez.

The fourth point makes Charles Faddis sound like he's been reading too many spy novels where there's no risk of war from getting found out.

The fifth point is false as to Al Qaeda and laughable as to Putin. And if the CIA had any assets in Wuhan, their existence would be so totally classified that the CIA would hesitate to use their information in public, because the CIA prefers to not have its spies tortured and executed.

The sixth point reads like the seething cope of a man whose ideology is opposed by the Deep State, whether or not his facts are right. It is incredibly ironic that he complains that the CIA, which historically reported only to the President, was a political tool of the presidential administration of a Democrat.

So what does he identify as solutions?

Fire a lot of people.

"Recruiting must be completely revamped. Quotas are absurd. Focusing on color, gender, and sexual orientation is at best irrelevant. We want the best, and that means those people who possess the unique blend of skills and abilities that enable them to do what everyone else considers impossible."

Make training tougher.

Flatten the org chart and make it all about ops, not about analysis or support.

... for a man complaining that the CIA wasn't able to put spies in specific locations, he seems awfully invested in removing the ability of the CIA to recruit people who will blend in in those locations due to their color, gender, and sexual orientation.

[yezzyyae]

Ok… I read a post of yours about hamas & Gaza and Palestine…. I’m honestly kind of disappointed….hamas is NOT the real problem here, the real problem is Israel and their monstrous actions towards Palestine. What Palestine did in WWII was during war it does NOT justify what the Isrrael have been doing and continue doing to them, Israel are the REAL TERRORIST, NOT Hamas they’re ONLY defending their people because they were left with nothing but to do so.

Israel are new Nazis that’s a fact, they’re behaving exactly how Hitler behaved with them all those years ago. Just like hitler America & Israel want to take over the world, this a fact I have KNOWN MY WHOLE LIFE.

You need to do more research and search for the actual truth, there’s literally a book about the plans Israel have for Palestine, they know exactly what they are doing and they’re following a very specific plan, that’s a FACT, we as Muslims know this and know that Allah will let Palestine to be the victories at the end of times.

Calling that the Israel prime minister a NAZI is actually STATING A FACT

No I have been doing research on this topic for the last 3 yrs because I was interested after researching WWII. I know Israel was made a country after England gave Jews that was landless after WWII half of the Palestine country. I know Jews came over in 1948 permanently and pushed Muslims from their homeland. Muslims & Jews have been fighting since 1948. “The Six-Day War” in 1967, Palestinians(Black September) kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes in Germany during the Olympics(all 11 Israeli athletes were murdered), and the Oslo Accords in 1993(which didn’t go through and many politicians from both sides were assassinated).

Palestines and Israelis have been fighting over this land for 75+ yrs. And many innocent people have died on both sides. On October 7, 2023 Hamas attacked Israel in a surprise attacks that killed 1500 Israelis and 200 hostages were taking because Hamas wants 7 prisoners released.

I feel like if Hamas is not a terrorist group and the people of Gaza and Palestine stands with them & agreed with the attack on October 7, 2023, then they can’t complain about the repercussions from their actions. If all the Palestinians in Gaza are on Hamas’ side why are they mad that Israel is attacking back. They should know that there will be repercussions and attacks from the Israelis government they attacked. They should have been prepared to take their losses because what they are trying to accomplish is bigger and sometimes ppl die.

I don’t understand how ppl are telling Israel to not attacks after they were attacked and lost citizens on October 7, 2023. If Hamas is a resistance group and the citizens of Gaza are on their side then their losses should be expected. Hamas literally has 192 hostages in tunnels while the civilians of Gaza are being bombed. This war is so deep rooted ppl are using both sides, Iran is using Hamas and America is using Israel but ppl are dying over this.

So many people have had their land taken from them literally all of Africa was taken from Africans and given to Caucasian people. America was taken from the native Americans and they were pushed to reservations. Palestinians have to decide that if they are going to fight for this land it will be losses. They can’t pick a fight with Israel then tell them how to react. That is so stupid that’s like Al-Qaeda attacking America on 9/11 then telling them how to react. That’s insane.

I am a black woman from Philadelphia I am fully on the Palestinians side but telling Israel how to react does not make any sense. The Palestinians can’t expect Israel to have any respect for their human life if Hamas didn’t. In war there are losses and deaths so if Palestinians are fully committed to getting their land back from Israel then they have to expect deaths. Having ppl say Israel are evil because they are killing then makes no sense especially after they killed 1500 Israelis on October 7, 2023. They were citizens that were killed on October 7, 2023, they had families, jobs, and lives too.

Nobody life over on the Middle East is more special than the other. Palestinians and Israelis are both humans and both of them need to be treated as much. Both sides are wrong it is so much hate in this conflict generations growing up hating each other. It’s worst than “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland from 1968-1988. Protestants vs Republicans who killed each other over one side wanting independence from England. It’s always going to be a fight over land everywhere in the world some group is fighting over land.

But blaming Israel for fighting back after they were attacked on October 7, 2023 is ridiculous to me. Palestinians have a right to fight to get the land back from Israel but they have to expect deaths. I don’t understand why they didn’t take the people from Gaza if they knew they were about to attack Israel. If Hamas is this noble group they should have prepared the citizen of Gaza that they governed over the consequences of the attack.

I stand with the people of Palestine because who knows what they want. And I stand with the people of Israel because who knows what they want. The governments of Palestine & Israel are deciding while the citizens are taking the hit. I pray for them everyday for peace. 🙏🏾

[beardedmrbean]

After Hamas’s brutal surprise attack and massacre of Israeli civilians, policymakers are searching for the most effective ways to fight terrorist organizations. They can take an important lesson from something that recently happened to Hamas when it tried to use bitcoin to finance its operations.

Hamas thought it could flout Western surveillance and international sanctions by embracing the world’s leading digital asset. It thought wrong, and the story is illuminating for those who mistakenly believe that bitcoin provides a safe space for criminals, money launderers and the financiers of terror. 

Just last week, Israeli law enforcement successfully located and froze multiple cryptocurrency accounts that Hamas had used to solicit donations. Israel then funneled the assets into its own treasury — the same treasury that is funding the war to wipe Hamas “off the face of the earth.” 

The terrorist organization’s crypto scheme backfired badly, and this wasn’t even the first time it had backfired this year. In April, Hamas begged supporters to stop sending donations via bitcoin, specifically. In a surprise press statement, it announced it was suspending bitcoin donations “to ensure the safety of donors and protect them from any harm.” The terrorist network cited “the intensification of prosecution and the redoubling of hostile efforts against anyone who tries to support the resistance through this currency” as the logic behind this decision.

So what happened? Isn’t bitcoin ideal for money laundering? Isn’t it the preferred currency of terrorists and criminals the world over?

Quite the opposite. Hamas discovered all too late that making illegal transactions in bitcoin is a financial suicide mission. That’s because the open, transparent nature of the blockchain is a panopticon for intelligence agencies, allowing them to track transactions in real time with a speed and precision that would be unthinkable in the world of fiat currency. 

Unlike paper money or computer files, the bitcoin blockchain is permanent, transparent and immutable. This means that each network transaction, whether it’s worth a few cents or millions of dollars, becomes fossilized on the blockchain like a prehistoric bug in digital amber.

These fossilized transactions include every donation to Hamas ever made through this medium. All law enforcement has to do is connect a transaction with a wallet and a wallet with an identity —a task which, in practice, it has had little difficulty doing.

It is for that reason that illicit activity makes up such a small fraction of transactions in the cryptocurrency space — about one quarter of one percent, according to a study by analytics firm Chainalysis. That is an especially small amount when compared to the 2 to 5 percent of fiat currency transactions attributed to money laundering and the like, according to United Nations data. 

In other words, if you don’t like what certain people do with bitcoin, you are going to hate the U.S. dollar. 

It’s an important lesson that certain lawmakers in Washington have yet to learn. And unfortunately, some of them are not open to learning facts that contradict their preconceived ideas.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who openly boasts of raising an “anti-crypto army,” talks about cryptocurrency as if it were terrorist blood money. She remains heedless of countless examples where Western intelligence has leveraged the public nature of the blockchain to choke off illicit financing. This includes not only the most recent example with Hamas, but also 300 crypto accounts the Department of Justice seized to throttle funding for terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS. She might also find illuminating the recent high-profile criminal prosecution of a Manhattan rapper and her husband, who were easily caught when they tried to launder billions in stolen bitcoin. Again, it was the transparency of the blockchain that exposed them.

Warren’s bill solves a problem that no one has. It that would classify nearly all crypto industry participants — from wallet providers to miners to validators — as financial institutions, subjecting them to the onerous compliance regime of the Bank Secrecy Act. Under this bill, a teenager running a bitcoin mining rig in his basement could be subject to the same compliance burdens as JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.

But wallet providers, miners, and validators are not banks. They do not hold custody of assets. They certainly should not be collecting or storing the sensitive personal financial information of individual users of an asset. They merely provide infrastructure — the open-source software and computing power to help secure the network. Much like Microsoft, which also supplies a lot of software and cybersecurity products to financial institutions, they are not financial institutions. 

It would be impossible for the industry to comply with Warren’s requirements, and she knows this. The point of her bill is not to improve national security or stop money laundering, but to kill digital asset innovation.

Instead of participating in Warren’s farce, Congress should seriously explore how to help federal law enforcement crack down on actual illicit finance. The Financial Technology Protection Act — a bipartisan bill introduced by Senators Ted Budd (R-N.C.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) — is a critical first step in that direction. It creates a working group to study and report on how terrorists actually use new financial technologies to advance their missions and ways Congress and regulatory agencies can combat them. Congress could take its findings and construct a regulatory regime that addresses actual risks, not imaginary ones.

This would help deter criminal activity such as money laundering while still preserving the ethos of personal freedom that has long defined the digital asset industry.

Terrorists and criminals — from Hamas and Al-Qaeda to the early drug runners of Silk Road — learned the hard way that bitcoin is not ideal for illicit finance. Lawmakers across the country have yet to receive the memo. So we’re circulating it today and asking that they adjust their policymaking accordingly.