#extra judicial killings

[colddeadfingerpeeler]

Why is no one watching "Argentina, 1985"?

Is it banned yet?

You know, it's a funny thing, how savagely cruel juntas can bar you from seeing the kind of atrocities they're capable of, and get away with murder and torture.

And you think it can't happen here.

[news4dzhozhar]

[hussyknee]

Transcribed Twitter thread by Mouin Rabbani about why Israel has suddenly stopped equating Hamas with ISIS.

About a week ago the US and Israeli suddenly stopped comparing Hamas to ISIS. The term “Hamas-ISIS” had become de rigueur among Israeli officials in their public statements, and along with their partners-in-crime in Washington they often insisted Hamas is worse – much worse even – than ISIS. It’s a familiar playbook. In 2001 the Twin Towers had barely collapsed and Ariel Sharon immediately began insisting the PLO was no different than Al-Qaeda and that Yassir Arafat was worse than Usama Bin Laden. Israel’s flunkies and apologists immediately and dutifully followed suit.

But “Hamas-ISIS” is no longer. Israel’s acolytes have for the most part yet to receive the message, and continue parroting a line that has gone out of style with their leaders, but will probably follow suit at some point within the next 24 months.

So, what happened? Most obviously, the US and Israel have been negotiating, concluding, and implementing a series of agreements with “Hamas-ISIS”. It’s not a particularly good look to be in intensive discussions with, and make one concession after the other to, a movement that is purportedly more vicious and brutal than an organization that not only the West but also the international community considers entirely beyond the pale. Especially at a time when a broader agreement, extending beyond an exchange of captives, is reportedly being discussed in Doha by the CIA and Mossad chiefs – the city where not only the Qatari mediators but also Hamas’s current and former political leaders, Ismail Haniyyeh and Khalid Mashal, also reside.

The fact that Hamas is negotiating exchanges of captives and releasing not only foreign but also Israeli Jewish civilians, rather than slitting their throats in gruesome snuff videos also doesn’t help the cause. Nor do testimonies by released captives that, the violence and abuse of their initial seizure notwithstanding, they have generally been treated humanely. Of course, no civilian deserves to be held captive unless convicted of a specific crime by legitimate authority, yet the contrast between the testimonies of released Israeli and Palestinian civilian captives is enormous. Released Palestinian women and children speak of constant physical and verbal abuse, particularly since 7 October; all manner of deprivation; and an escalation of abuse once it became apparent they would be released. Furious at Palestinian joy at the release of their own captives, rampaging Israeli forces have also shot and killed several Palestinian well-wishers, enveloped most others in clouds of tear gas, and raided the homes of receiving families to evict journalists and warn against celebrations or even “expressions of joy”.

Palestinians are not ruled by the Israeli government in the same sense that Israelis within the pre-1967 boundaries are. Rather, they are subject to military government, effectively an Israeli military dictatorship whose rule is best described as totalitarian. It has for example banned flags, even particular color combinations (in clothing and painting for example), and in 2023 also “expressions of joy”.

Hamas videos of the release of their captives, in which they assist the elderly, provide water bottles, and wave goodbye (not quite ISIS-friendly optics) have been criticized as political theatre and propaganda. Fair enough. But it is still quite the contrast with the scenes outside Ofer Prison where Israel releases Palestinian captives. There, the best that Israeli propaganda can achieve is clouds of tear gas, intimidation of journalists, live ammunition, and bullet-ridden corpses. (And, for good measure, arresting more civilians than it releases.)

So not only did the US and Israel want to avoid the accusation they were negotiating with ISIS, the available imagery is also unconducive to the narrative. Joe Biden will go to his grave insisting he has seen videos of infants beheaded by Hamas, but it’s gotten to the point where even poor Jill rolls her eyes. Other Israeli and US claims have also drawn the short end of the stick. For example, the Israeli authorities recently reduced their tally of Israelis killed on 7 October from 1400 to 1200. The reason is that 200 corpses, burned beyond recognition, belonged to Palestinians rather than Israelis. This suggests Hamas was not systematically setting fire to live humans. Similarly, Israeli intelligence (or what’s left of it) has now concluded that Hamas did not have prior knowledge of the rave organized close to the boundary between Israel and the Gaza concentration camp. Therefore this could not have been a premeditated atrocity. I am of course not claiming no atrocities were committed on 7 October, but rather that as more facts become available the “Hamas-ISIS” propaganda line becomes increasingly untenable.

If we put aside Biden’s hallucinations and take Netanyahu off endless repetition for a moment, the ideological, organizational, and political relationship between Hamas and ISIS remains a legitimate field of inquiry. It’s also pretty conclusive. Hamas and ISIS are indeed both Islamist movements. But that’s pretty much where the comparison ends. To suggest they are equivalent or identical is akin to claiming there is no difference between constitutional and absolute monarchies because their heads of state acquire office in the same manner. Hamas is the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, a regional Islamist movement formed almost a century ago. Its various national branches have sought to achieve political power through mass mobilization, and as such have formed political parties; provided social services; participated in elections, coups, and uprisings; engaged in armed campaigns against domestic autocracy and foreign domination; and in a number of cases formed internationally-recognized governments. It’s a fundamentally different template than that pursued by ISIS.

Hamas was established in the cauldron of the Israeli occupation, and like other Palestinian organizations actively participated in the struggle to end Israeli rule. In 2006 it participated in Palestinian legislative elections, fully certified by the Carter Center, which it won. In 2007 Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip after a year during which its various domestic and foreign adversaries, to put it politely, actively worked to undermine it. In the intervening years it has in addition to attacks which have garnered global headlines developed relations with states as diverse as Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Russia, and Qatar; negotiated prisoner exchanges and ceasefires with Israel; freed and released foreign hostages (including BBC journalist Alan Johnston) abducted by rivals and criminal gangs; endorsed a two-state settlement with Israel; and cooperated with a variety of UN agencies and international organisations. Its governance of the Gaza Strip years has, to varying degrees, been hegemonic and repressive, but like its politics and policies defies any comparison to that experienced under ISIS’s self-styled caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

ISIS has in fact been bitterly critical of Hamas, and considers the group in its entirety, as well as its individual members, “apostates” and “polytheists” – its most serious transgressions of all. This is on account of, among other mortal sins, Hamas’s participation in democratic elections, its failure to govern solely in accordance with shari’a (Islamic law), relations with Iran and other regional states, and prioritization of Palestinian liberation. Perhaps for this reason Hamas made short shrift of attempts by the Islamic State movement to establish a foothold in the Gaza Strip, primarily in Rafah, during 2015-2016.

END. Postscript: @rao2of has kindly pointed out a significant oversight on my part: that in its efforts to normalise relations with Egypt after initial post-Sisi coup hostility, Hamas began cooperating with Egypt's anti-ISIS campaign in Sinai, drawing even greater fury from it.

[tumblezwei]

Re: Villain Deaths in MHA, the narrative treats most of the villain deaths as being bad things. The execution of the concept is very flawed but it's not a "Ra ra kill the villains" kind of story

I mean, tell that to the fans I saw trying to justify Hawks' actions and claiming he was completely in the right to kill Twice

[sforzesco]

i love ur latest piece !! do u think you'll draw catilina and caelius rufus more in the future? ^^

the magic 8 ball says yes, but it might be a minute

[unproduciblesmackdown]

payoff of being embedded in a unit of authoritarianism since birth is sure then being able to go like "wow this is just like dynamics & phenomena i experienced up close & personal, repeatedly, in many contexts & configurations in my first two decades of life" plus also beyond that in abuse culture world & the noncoincidence that even interactions beyond the confines of the home(tm) reinforced / did not contradict the hierarchy & concomitant abuse within....but then like hey yeah also the Larger Units of hierarchy & abuse / authoritarianism (ft. their logics & practices necessary for continuously & continually shoring up that hierarchy) can also make it like hey yeah the Two Parent abusive nuclear family more like the Two Party [the US is also a one party state but in typical american extravagance they have two] where right wingness is defined by the degree of directly embracing white supremacy & "left wing" is "anything else" hence like wow The Left is always infighting (everyone with any ideas besides "umm christofascist white ethnostate?" so like yeah there are many other ideas) vs The Right's admirable cohesion (simply re: the white supremacy idea which also necessarily embraces all other Out Group / Nonperson paradigms & practices b/c that's what all already has been necessary for shoring up the [when has the US been a nongenocidal non white supremacist non oligarchy])

like obviously individual experiences & contexts vary but like narrowing in on [the Family as immediate relations ideally cordoned off into nuclear households] ft. [Parental Authority the top priority of which is preserving that authority, ideally patriarchal, an abusive mother e.g.? hey, that ought to be the father] times it's like, think people tend to struggle re: having the "nicer" / "safer" parent who was also shitted on as well but also at the end of the day would always side with the "meaner" "more dangerous" parent, even in whatever terms most sympathetic to the abused parties, with the underlying logic that we're always just going to have to deal with them so some secret strategic mitigation is the best that can be done, perhaps the equivalent of being sent a ":(" after an Onslaught Of Expressed / Enforced Authority(tm) event....the tendency to see the best in any lack of actual intervention / protection on the assumption That Could Never Happen Anyway & forever At Least that the one parent isn't as bad as the other [the Not That Bad / Could've Been Worse infocation, like free bingo square in manifestations of minimization if not outright abuse denial] & all the sympathy for, you know, being human & doing their best(tm) &c which sure might all be true but the abused parties (oft children, more vulnerable than adults, by virtue of being children i.e. considered legal property of some specific adults & theoretical property of any adults in general (the paternal logic in any "protect [xyz]" like maintain one group's supposed ownership / control over [xyz] "for their sake" then? great) & also generally smaller & newer at being alive in this world) but who are liable to not extend that sympathy to themselves (or certainly not be extended that sympathy....when is "they're doing their best / they're only human / they mean well or whatever / they love you, they're family" successfully deployed the Thwart an abusive parent like it is to tell an abused child to not be too resentful of this situation, when is it actually deployed toward the abusive parent at all really. & again in the lack of boundary between the authoritarianism within many individual family households & that of the state they exist in (here re: the US) like that naturally one encounters the logic of abuse expressed just as "common knowledge" & the Assumptions of other people, e.g. the rejection of a parent having zero access to a child, the reinforcement of automatic apologia deployed for whatever a parent could possibly do, argued for "family", yet not deployed the same way to automatically defend anything thee child(tm) could do, thinking emoji lol....see: like the non boundary between [the Patriarchal home/family(tm)] & capitalism when uh oh capitalism the system of continuously maximizing exploitation Needs various forms of labor to be unpaid, uh oh another lack of boundary when white supremacy is used to also shore up the patriarchy that shores up the white supremacy, e.g. that even if in some "inferior" class it's treated as More Important that at least you're not that And black, the theoretical ideal/normal white man is a person while a white woman is a woman while a black woman is black, white women could have any legal property via chattel slavery which needed white women's participation to help enforce, the specter of sexual violence all coming from nonwhite & especially black men & it's up to the genteel white man to Protect Women (see prev, implicitly white or you'd have to specify otherwise)

anyway that is to get around to pointing to the Two Parent System wherein so shockingly the results are the same as the One Parent System re: abuse maintaining The Family (properly, i.e. unquestionable & certainly undeniable parental access to children, & "ideally" ofc again the patriarchal Father as ultimate authority w/ownership over the Mother, who in turn is theoretically honored for that motherhood (at least you own your children, insofar as it doesn't contradict w/what the father wants to do with his superior claim to ownership) & then finally all the obviously shittiness from being in that position in a patriarchy is in turn dumped on The Children who are ungrateful & owe the mother everything Because of what the broader society & immediate personal expressions of that abuse have done to her. see also ofc that two adults likely don't have the resources to raise a child in time or money or energy, maybe there's only one but also even an extended family's worth of adults aren't enough, is it enough when a child is sent to school for some other adults to be in charge most of the day, or even if someone is hired to look after them beyond that, all this ofc with the assumed premise that a child is always limited to the various Domains of The Adults In Charge, & from there i segue into how naturally being in gay baby jail unless & until adults are no longer recognized as Legally In Charge Of You (the grand like 5 minutes it's relatively been since the ideal timeline of a woman's life wasn't being legal property of her father until asap passed along to legal property of her husband. still considered ideal ofc but like with "maybe you can have a bank account" now & "maybe you can become 29 before you're in Old Maid danger" Maybe, i said, Maybe....anyway that obviously adults(tm) being divided up (atomised. spritz) into Households isn't even supposed to be enough to live on their own, re: necessitating Marriage, much less uh oh having kids who are stuck with their parents who are stuck with them, but then all the obvious actual problems & abuses inflicted on Adults to have to have their family households & exploited jobs are dumped on the children who Must appreciate & be loyal to the parents (i.e. never Deny Access) while yknow kids have Fake Problems they're whining about, the one Real Problem of having to pay a bill gets the payoff of leverage to tell your children to shut the fuck up or perhaps the more vulnerable spouse

hm didn't segue right into "so shoutout to like The Ratchet Effect diagrams lol, the "Two" Party System where its supposed left wing Blocks Movement To The Left, right wing Moves Everything To The Right" but even that is like, mm, conferring a passivity to what democrats do in the continual movement to the right (won an election? lost an election? the lesson either way is The Right Is Right; exact same logic as in "winning or losing" "the war on crime" like the collection & analysis of whatever statistics show the trend of some "crime" is increasing in frequency or magnitude? show that it's decreasing? the lesson either way is Cops Need More Power) like the institutional effort of democrats to push a candidate nobody wants through primaries (did we even do that this time around. oh great that the assumed candidate even graciously agreed to not force themself as The Candidate, & now like 5 min left with the Next In Line candidate dumped on everyone now with the lesson for the left(tm) to shut up already lol) & then it's up to Grassroots Voters. it's up to Unity & well we all Need to listen to the white supremacists, points were made, in the "elections" with voting as limited as possible & with the electoral college & supreme court as Safeguards against democracy & here's the senate, eternally thus, & again the conclusions will always manage to be moving To The Right, paraphrasing from twitter like democrats are about to be or already at the point of "in the name of unity we will no longer be running against republicans; it's too divisive :(" which yknow is already The Statements of all of yesterday from various like "i'm the republican official white supremacy agree-er now" after also the entire campaign of "no, I'm the fascist" where like wow shocking that the appeal to the fascists didn't win a) the fascists who will ofc want the even more overt fascism, why wouldn't they or b) the people who want antifascism actually, and do not want fascism; who could have foreseen? & it's always the fault of being Too Antifascist for the actions of the fascists or the Diplomatic Comprimises the other party makes with the fascists &/or their Failure to thwart them....the Nicer, Safer party in power is surely doing their best & at least they're not the Meaner, More Dangerous one but at the end of the day they'll always side with that party over america(tm) & those bearing the brunt of the actions of State Power can be told to keep their chin up or else to stop acting out b/c how do you expect that state power to respond, cmon, you bring it upon yourself, & you Have to work with them & understand all their feelings & your role in resolving those feelings by being lesser inferior property, you do Have to understand, b/c in the end this is All About Family, surely Good & Necessary, whoops i mean in the end this is All About America

anyway yeah i'm like damn my "nicer" (also shitty) father who was also the even more sexist & racist (& certainly no Less ableist, queerphobic) parent was basically the democratic party of the Two Parent System of Family Government lol. b/c we Need to perpetuate this Family, no other logics much less actions are acceptable....& people struggling with the Parent / Adults in their life like that who were the "safe" & "protective" ones who markedly failed to protect & minimized the harm afterwards but also in general, never to confront the reality of the situation, or do damage control like "aw some points were made at all :( ah i see you have Feelings about this :( hmm yes the Parental Power is gonna have to make some changes" & then as soon as possible (assuming reeling in the party who was deviating too much) these changes(tm) are already compromised or diminished if done at all, & then oops things incrementally might be right back to how they always were, no guarantees it won't be Worse b/c the Power is even more insecure / aware of weaknesses, & the only way this is thwarted is if the Wayward Parties can actually leverage new boundaries / less vulnerability, not b/c the supposedly sympathetic parties, who never came through where it counts & likely would also become overt antagonizers / wielders of whatever power within the Family hierarchy / turn on the more vulnerable parties to Get Them In Line, actually came through. movement Away (more disruptive to the maintenance of The Family, The State) is blocked, incrementally only ever moving everything back, & then Further....& despite this being what the power structures are, & do, the Disruptive parties liable to be scapegoated lol, can't believe the scapegoat child is ruining everything for everyone, this Family would totally improve & start being everything it could be otherwise & we ignore who actually has the power & is actually enforcing the hierarchy harming everyone to point to that scapegoat; can't believe thee left is destroying america (republican voice) can't believe the left is destroying america (democrat voice) So You See? The Undeniable Consensus. just like how i believe it was my fault my family unit was Like That & i had those experiences, according to the vast majority of Input from that family & even others who, knowing nothing, would say how Lucky i was to be relatively close to home, or just of course that oh well parents love their children & mean well & try their best. just like how i believe that being treated like i've been generally as a neurononconforming person, i.e. hated & the interpersonal abuse & bullying & ostracization & [attention possibilities: ignored, responded to but negatively, interacted with to get something from] & actually rewarding interactions or just actions being liable to get Deluxe authority responses as disruptive(tm) & ofc disobedient(tm) like hell fuckin yeah lol. just as i don't think that other people who have similar experiences or ones i don't have, i.e. assessed race being automatically seen as wrong / inferior, being isolated & undermined from all around? well gotta be their fault then, cmon lol....Abuse is actually normative, not extraordinary, in every Arena of interactions, & so are the logics / apologia / assumptions

anyway lol re: like yeah people struggling with the like betrayal of the "nooo i'm on your side, i sympathize, i'm the one who's nicer & you Need so that things aren't even worse" party, not even One Big Novel betrayal, but rather that that's what's Been done the whole time & doesn't stop. that supposedly if you have Any sympathy for that party you have to be like aw :( keep doing your thing (necessarily reining everyone in) or if you have Any sympathy for the people who also want things to improve but blame & take it out on the more disruptive parties (more disruptive to an abusive family e.g., btw. & not like i see Cohesion as necessarily some Good rather than neutral? when i'm autistic / my existence is supposedly antithetical to this? or when i'm able to look at a zillion hypothetical or actual situations & recognize how "cohesion" isn't the best goal / a destructive one / a vague concept anyways like cohesion Between Whom? on what basis? recognized & pursued how? why? up next: same as vague shit like "family" or "community" &c) then it's like yep gotta be Responsible for their feelings too if you're at all sympathetic & capitulate, The Only Possible Action, vs the idea of those in power actually making things shit stopping, much less being stopped / having to stop in the various ways that can happen....one way being "oh no, adult children who choose to be no-contact with parents" which is seen as A Tragedy, & sign of a Deteriorating Society, take me back. ah jeez oh no, look at the divorce raaates....Oh No, twentysomething women aren't pursuing marriage enoughhhh....again the undetectably identical echo when people peak vaguely talk about "conflicts" that thwart "community" or whatever, ugh nobody will date anymore, commit anymore, be friends anymore, hang out as coworkers anymore, talk to me if i want to talk to them anymore, &ccccc....

the real tl;dr is like wait ""two party"" (one party) US electoral system, just like ""two parent"" maintenance of thee family lol. ratchet effect raise your hand if you've only ever experienced Movement Away from the abusive family blocked, forever incrementally ratcheted back in to the desires & pursuits of those most in power / top of the hierarchy / thus of course most invested in the abuse, that's what the power & hierarchy is made of, sustained by, perpetuates....sorry doing our best :( sorry that's just all that's realistic, no other choice Really. cmon. kind of Your Fault if you don't agree to that & whoops now Everything is the fault of whoever doesn't agree & cooperate enough :( now look what you've done & brought upon yourself :( & we'll just forget the eruption of violence suppression happened & will happen again & be the overhanging threat all in the meantime

[iakshaysrivastav]

Bahraich Encounter: Law, Order, and Politics in Uttar Pradesh

In the fast-paced and ever-evolving political landscape of India, law and order situations often serve as fuel for political discourse. The recent encounter in Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, involved police shooting dead an accused criminal. This event has reignited the age-old debate on police encounters and human rights. It also brings up the fine line between justice and abuse of power. As this…

[legally-allowed-to-slime]

MAJOR spoilers for doc’s vod under the cut

as you know, doc’s skyblock banishment stipulates that his feet cannot touch the ground, or one week will be added to his sentence.

this is relevant

in his latest vod, pearl shows up to doc’s skyblock base and explains that she wants to do a hermit tour for her flower shop.

doc is understandably confused since he can’t touch the ground

pearl points out a llama she brought and says that doc wouldn’t be touching the ground if he was riding it.

doc is VERY suspicious about her motives, and so is chat

pearl demands to know what warrants his distrust

“it’s always the innocent-looking ones” doc says wisely

but anyway

pearl bribes doc with golden carrots and he eventually water pillars to the ground and onto the llama.

pearl reassures him the whole way while doc makes incoherent panicked noises.

pearl reminds doc to NOT press shift

doc is too busy panicking to listen to pearl when they’re touring the shop.

except for one bit she did with fireworks which he is moderately impressed by

anyway, he spots an ender chest, and pearl agrees to give him two seconds to grab anything.

doc takes the “that’s amazing!” horn, and is pulled away by pearl before he can take more.

and here’s the punchline:

eventually pearl brings doc back after he freaks out a bit more, and as she leads the llama out the entrance, doc desperately reaches for the ender chest to try and grab more useful stuff

in doing so he accidentally presses shift

…and GETS OFF the llama

his feet are definitively planted on the shop steps

pearl stares at him in horror

he starts swearing and jumping around and calling everything stupid

once he’s done he grumpily gets back on the llama and a very apologetic pearl leads him back

then:

just as they’re leaving the shop

like not ten seconds after the shift incident

a creeper comes out of nowhere and kills him.

it’s literally the middle of the day. this man cannot stop losing

false says “gg” in chat, and pearl a “D:”

this time doc explodes a bit more, much like the creeper

he respawns in his base and drops an f-bomb. he is absolutely beside himself

the aftermath:

pearl comes back with his gear. she is very sorry about the whole thing

doc plays the “that’s amazing!” horn with a sardonic chuckle

“that’s not amazing” pearl responds miserably. probably the first time she’s said no to gem even if indirectly

pearl offers to give him anything he wants, and doc requests a moss block

she leaves to get it and doc sulks a bit more before someone in chat points out to him that he didn’t touch the ground: he touched the steps of pearl’s shop

which is what i was thinking too

anyway doc is jubilant at this realisation and yells “LOOPHOLE” a few times

pearl returns with the moss

she still feels bad but threatens doc not to sue her

doc tells her it’s cool

he’s confident that the loophole means he doesn’t get an extra week

pearl spews a few more apologies before leaving

the moment she leaves doc rubs his hands together like a cartoon villain and says “the whining strat works”

doc i don’t think that was a strat

and for reading all this way:

not very funny but i can’t beat the comedy of doc coping for five solid minutes and the entire premise of pearl risking the wrath of hermitcraft’s judicial system and doc’s sanity to show off her interior design.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[BBC is UK State Media]

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has funded politically-motivated assassinations in Yemen, a BBC investigation has found, exacerbating a conflict involving the Yemeni government and warring factions which has recently returned to the international spotlight following attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

Counter-terrorism training provided by American mercenaries to Emirati officers in Yemen has been used to train locals who can work under a lower profile - sparking a major uptick in political assassinations, a whistleblower told BBC Arabic Investigations.

The BBC has also found that despite the American mercenaries' stated aim to eliminate the jihadist groups al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS) in southern Yemen, in fact the UAE has gone on to recruit former al-Qaeda members for a security force it has created on the ground in Yemen to fight the Houthi rebel movement and other armed factions.

The UAE government has denied the allegations in our investigation - that it had assassinated those without links to terrorism - saying they were "false and without merit".

These are largely between the two parts of the "real" "legitimate" "internationally recognized" coalition govt of Yemen you've been scolded so much about over the last month btw [22 Jan 24]

Continued after the cut

The killing spree in Yemen - more than 100 assassinations in a three-year period - is just one element of an ongoing bitter internecine conflict pitting several international powers against each other in the Middle East's poorest country.[...]

In 2015, the US and the UK supported a coalition of mostly Arab states led by Saudi Arabia - with the UAE as a key partner - to fight back. The coalition invaded Yemen with the aim of reinstating the exiled Yemeni government and fighting terrorism. The UAE was given charge of security in the south, and became the US's key ally on counter-terrorism in the region - al-Qaeda had long been a presence in the south and was now gaining territory.[...]

Under international law, any killing of civilians without due process would be counted as extra-judicial.

The majority of those assassinated were members of Islah - the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It [...] has never been classified by the US as a terror organisation, but is banned in several Arab countries - including the UAE where its political activism and support for elections is seen by the country's royal family as a threat to their rule.

Leaked drone footage of the first assassination mission gave me a starting point from which to investigate these mysterious killings. It was dated December 2015 and was traced to members of a private US security company called Spear Operations Group.[...]

Isaac Gilmore, a former US Navy Seal who later became chief operating officer of Spear, was one of several Americans who say they were hired to carry out assassinations in Yemen by the UAE.

He refused to talk about anyone who was on the "kill list" provided to Spear by the UAE - other than the target of their first mission: Ansaf Mayo, a Yemeni MP who is the leader of Islah in the southern port city of Aden, the government's temporary capital since 2015.[...]

Mr Gilmore, and another Spear employee in Yemen at the time - Dale Comstock - told me that the mission they conducted ended in 2016. But the assassinations in southern Yemen continued. In fact they became more frequent, according to investigators from the human rights group Reprieve.

They investigated 160 killings carried out in Yemen between 2015 and 2018. They said the majority happened from 2016 and only 23 of the 160 people killed had links to terrorism. All the killings had been carried out using the same tactics that Spear had employed - the detonation of an improvised explosive device (IED) as a distraction, followed by a targeted shooting. The most recent political assassination in Yemen, according to Yemeni human rights lawyer Huda al-Sarari, happened just last month - of an imam killed in Lahj by the same method.[...]

Mr Gilmore, Mr Comstock, and two other mercenaries from Spear who asked not to be named, said that Spear had been involved in training Emirati officers in the UAE military base in Aden. A journalist who asked to remain anonymous also told us he had seen footage of such training.

As the mercenaries' profile had made them conspicuous in Aden and vulnerable to exposure, their brief had been changed to training Emirati officers, "who in turn trained local Yemenis to do the targeting", the Yemeni military officer told me.

Through the course of the investigation, we also spoke to more than a dozen other Yemeni sources who said this had been the case. They included two men who said they had carried out assassinations which were not terror-related, after being trained to do so by Emirati soldiers - and one man who said he had been offered release from a UAE prison in exchange for the assassination of a senior Yemeni political figure, a mission he did not accept.

Getting Yemenis to conduct the assassinations meant it was harder for the killings to be traced back to the UAE.

By 2017, the UAE had helped build a paramilitary force, part of the Emirati-funded Southern Transitional Council (STC), a security organisation that runs a network of armed groups across southern Yemen.

The force operated in southern Yemen independently of the Yemeni government, and would only take orders from the UAE. The fighters were not just trained to fight on active front lines. One particular unit, the elite Counter Terrorism Unit, was trained to conduct assassinations, our whistleblower told us.

The whistleblower sent a document with 11 names of former al-Qaeda members now working in the STC, some of whose identities we were able to verify ourselves.

During our investigation we also came across the name Nasser al-Shiba. Once a high-ranking al-Qaeda operative, he was jailed for terrorism but later released. A Yemeni government minister we spoke to told us al-Shiba was a known suspect in the attack on the US warship USS Cole, which killed 17 American sailors in October 2000. Multiple sources told us that he is now the commander of one of the STC military units. Lawyer Huda al-Sarari has been investigating human rights abuses committed by these UAE-backed forces on the ground. As a result of her work, she would frequently receive death threats. But it was her 18-year-old son Mohsen who paid the ultimate price.

He was shot in the chest in March 2019 while on a trip to a local petrol station, and died a month later.[...]

A subsequent investigation by Aden's public prosecutor found that Mohsen was killed by a member of the UAE-backed Counter Terrorism Unit, but the authorities have never pursued a prosecution.

Members of the prosecutor's office - who we cannot name for safety reasons - told us that the widespread assassinations have created a climate of fear that means even they are too afraid to pursue justice in cases involving forces backed by the UAE.

Reprieve has received a leaked UAE document that shows Spear was still being paid in 2020, though it is not clear in what capacity.

[disniq]

heyyy it's the tropes jason anon again back at it with a new question! what quotes from the comic books would you say describe jason & his philosophy well? thank you so, so much for helping me out ❤

Hi again Anon!

Full disclosure here; I don't think Jason has been written consistently enough over the years to necessarily have one set, inarguable philosophy. But I do think there are certain themes that carry through.

So;

Red Hood: Lost Days #3

This is, notably, the first time Jason kills. (I'm not including Garzonas, which is debatable, or the Cheer incident, which is a retcon) He finds out his hand-to-hand teacher has a barn full of drugged children about to be sex trafficked. The cops and politicians are in on it, making lawful justice extremely unlikely, but taking out one man takes out the system. Jason crosses that line for the first time because nobody else is there to stop it, and this is the most practical route.

He does not see it as "murder" because he feels it was deserved.

Red Hood: Lost Days #4

After that line has been crossed - as Talia points out here - a pattern emerges. It's notable that Jason does not kill all his dubiously skilled teachers, only the ones he deems the worst of the worst - people deliberately and repeatedly harming everyday people, especially children.

Jason reiterates this in his famous utrh speech. He's not talking about killing every rogue, every criminal. He's talking about killing the worst of the worst, the people who can finagle their way out of the system, the people the system fails to catch.

Under the Red Hood

It would be remiss of me not to include that one time Jason killed a nazi. Good for her dot gif.

To Jason, these people are beyond the regular means of justice, so he provides his own. He stops them from hurting anybody else.

This is not an exclusively post-resurrection opinion of his, either. Jason expressed similar thoughts during his Robin run.

Batman #422 (thank you @benbamboozled 😘)

This woman, Judy, baited her sister's murderer into attacking her too and then slits his throat. She's unrepentant, and Jason agrees with her decision. (Bruce, for the record, gives a speech on how "nobody is above the law" which is. An interesting stance for an illegally operating vigilante to take lmao)

It makes sense to me that Jason, as someone who has seen the system fail repeatedly (both as a civilian and as a hero), would have those kinds of doubts. The system doesn't always work. The system often fails the most vulnerable people.

When Bruce was failed by the Gotham justice system, he became his own extra-judicial system. When Jason is failed by both the justice system *and* Bruce's own vigilante system? Why wouldn't he do the same.

Unfortunately, this thread is mostly dropped for a while with the wave of writers who either actively hate Jason and try to make him capital E Evil or who are playing shameless self insert with him, but there are two more recent panels that I want to include too;

Task Force Z #12

So, in TFZ, Jason pushes who he thinks is Bane off a roof for killing Alfred. It... is not actually Bane, but instead the brainwashed former corpse of Gotham re-reanimated via comicbook science and. You know what, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that Jason regrets killing Gotham because he didn't deserve it, but reiterates that he will kill the real Bane if he gets a chance.

Jason sees killing as something he can do that others can't, that others maybe *shouldn't* have to do.

The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #8

And finally, I adore this little beat in JTMWSL. This is something Jason thinks about. He's not just some brute that doesn't understand that "killing is bad". He thinks about it, reads theory about it. He sees that between the black and white, there are many, many shades of gray.

He understands that people who don't kill with their own hands aren't necessarily good people - like these cops here, gleefully waiting for him to be killed in prison. And that the people who *do* get their hands dirty aren't necessarily the bad guys - like poor Judy.

And I think he probably varies where he places himself on that scale at any given moment.

[endollvors]

Taking a Propaganda

Propaganda is definitely a thing. It's been covered before, probably more throughly, that the Auradon sponsored Posters and Television channels on the Isle are, kinda wack. Like, that's a section of the budget that's being used judiciously when the main source of food is canonically garbage.

Consider also, the way that Mal, is framed in news footage in Descendants 2. (Rags to riches success story. Aspirational, A triumph of Auradon, look at her now. She's an example. etc.)

VK day in D3 being a holiday. The fact that the applications are Collected the same day as the children are Selected.

That's not what we're here for though. I'm taking you on a journey.

Ok, so School of Secrets, the promotional youtube shorts, not the book series, is I think, technically canon. It's canon the same way a guest passed out in the laundry room at a house party is still attending. They're a minute long and they fascinate me.

This is a screenshot from Episode 9. Where PC culture cancels the school play, (Weird series) which was Supposed to be an adaptation of What's that Spell? a stage dramatization of Maleficent's attack on Aurora's kingdom. Other provided options are 12 Angry Dalmatians, Book of Sultan, and 7 Brides for 7 Dwarfs before they settle on My Fair Lady and the Tramp. May I just say before I get going, fun puns. I would watch the hell out of Tramp's Pygmalion arc.

This begs an interesting question though. Because this isn't, in the world of the series, fiction. Not only are all the plays about a terrible thing that happened, they are about terrible things that happened within living memory to specifically the parents of these kids' peers. Things that caused so much damage that a Generational Prison Island was considered a proportional response and it's an incredibly unpopular policy decision to want to change that. Now, imagine for a moment, being a parent, and going to see your darling pumpkin be an extra in the school play, and then its about how your best friend's stepmother tried to get her killed when she was 14, and also you're a character. Your kid didn't get the role.

They do this twice a year.

Twice a year, the AKs go on stage to replay their parents' story and celebrate the overthrow of a villain. This is some 9/11 Never Forget shit.

[illarian-rambling]

what is your favorite thing about twenari?

Wyked, you flatter me with asks :3

My favorite thing about Twenari is how utterly insane she is. Yes, she's the most responsible member of the Outcasts (which is crazy in and of itself) but let's take a closer look at my baby girl:

Twenari has the highest on-page kill count of any of my characters. At age twelve, she had assisted in running one of Illaros's most lucrative smuggling empires for years, escaped said smuggling business with a bounty on her head, broken into an extra-judicial siren prison, helped to assassinate one of the most powerful religious and political figures on Illaros, and faked her own death. She's never talked to another kid her age. She's the most powerful sorcerer of a generation and has survived communing with a magical spirit no one understands or has survived communing with in centuries. She has acne and her locs are in that awkward middle phase before they've dropped. She's scrounged up secrets on a being the church has actively suppressed all knowledge of. She gets nervous about getting her ears pierced and is extremely neurotic about how the dishes get done. She doesn't understand her homework. She cries over middle school gossip because she doesn't know how to make friends for the life of her. She's saved the world on multiple occasions and yet, she's still struggling to pick a college she can afford.

Simply put, I love the dichotomy between Twenari the peerless sorcerer, and Twenari the teenage girl who doesn't know how to be a teenage girl. Here's a character who's frighteningly capable in areas most would consider terrifying and woefully unprepared in ones most would consider mundane. She's a little weirdo who's doing her best to learn to be a person despite the monumental ambition she still feels to be the greatest mage she can possibly be.

So yeah, I like both how scary and how sweet she can be. Just try to put yourself in the shoes of her 8th grade science lab partner. I think that really puts in perspective what a deeply distressing yet endearing person she is.

Thanks for the ask!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Radley Balko at The Watch:

Here’s a sentence I never imagined I’d need to write: It would be a bad idea for the U.S. to go to war with Mexico. And yet here we are. The thing about a candidate as historically dangerous, impulsive, and incompetent as Trump is that he routinely proposes stuff so off the wall that it would tank virtually any other campaign. But because of this, some of his nuttier ideas are overshadowed by everything else he does. In a previous post, I looked at one of these under-the-radar ideas — Trump’s catastrophic promise to deny federal funding to any school that requires kids to be vaccinated. Today, we’ll look at another — the Trump/Republican vow to bomb or invade Mexico. Trump has repeatedly threatened that, if elected again, he will bomb drug cartels and fentanyl manufacturing facilities in Mexico. He has also proposed sending assassination teams or special forces units into the country. He vowed to take these actions with or without the consent of the Mexican government. The Mexican government has been pretty clear about where it stands on this: They would not consent. So let’s be clear about what Trump is proposing: He’s proposing an invasion of Mexico. Which means he’s a proposing a war with Mexico.

Trump’s history with this threat suggests we should take it more seriously than the typical bluster he spouts during one of his campaign rally monoglogues. Rolling Stone reported last year that even then he had already asked his advisors to assemble a “battle plan” to enact shortly after he’s elected. He also reiterated his promise in an interview he and running mate JD Vance did with Fox News last month (Vance is also all for it). The origin of the war with Mexico idea dates back to the end of Trump’s first term, when, in response to rising fentanyl overdoses, he attempted to designate drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, despite the fact that they don’t fit any reasonable definition of a terrorist. He apparently thought this would allow him to bomb the cartels as if they were ISIS cells. It turns out that it isn’t that simple. You can’t simply call people “terrorists” and immediately start bombing the countries where said “terrorists” are operating without first consulting with the leaders of those countries. Mexico’s president promptly and resoundingly dismissed the idea. This apparently irked Trump enough to take the position he advocates today: Just bomb them, anyway.

[...] Destructive, counterproductive policy that treats foreign lives as disposable has long been the hallmark of U.S. overseas drug interdiction. We’ve funded the extra-judicial execution of drug offenders in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. We partnered with South American governments to shoot down suspect drug running planes without regard to the possible loss of innocent life — that is, until the policy claimed the lives of a U.S. missionary and her daughter. In Panama, the CIA (specifically, George H.W. Bush) propped up and facilitated the drug-running operation of brutal dictator Manuel Noriega. When Noriega was no longer useful for fighting communism, the U.S. then indicted him for said drug running, then (specifically, George H.W. Bush) invaded and bombed his country. We killed hundreds of Panamanian citizens in the process.

As for Mexico itself, in the mid-2000s the U.S. incentivized the country’s government to enlist its own military in the drug war. That policy toppled some cartels, but also spawned destabilizing turf wars and violence as rival factions vied to replace them. The winners then and the military have since been fighting for nearly two decades. The death toll is now approaching half a million people. When asked about the carnage, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton basically said in 2011 that tens of thousands of dead Mexicans was a price the U.S. was willing to pay to keep harmful drugs away from Americans. (It did not keep illicit drugs away from Americans.) The arguably most destructive U.S. overseas anti-drug program was Plan Colombia, Bill Clinton’s drug eradication program that poisoned farmland, fostered rampant corruption, and pushed that country into a civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people. This too did not keep illicit drugs away from Americans.

[...]

It will backfire

Even drug cartels have a code. They go out of their way to avoid harming U.S. law enforcement, and they don’t target U.S. citizens. When underlings have violated this code, or when U.S. citizens have suffered collateral harm, the cartels have bent over backwards to make amends. The last thing they want is to bring the full force and weight of the U.S. government upon themselves. This of course doesn’t excuse the times drug violence has harmed American citizens. We should naturally seek justice in those cases. But while what Trump is proposing won’t end the illicit drug trade, it will create an existential threat to the current cartels. It will back them into a corner. Cartels avoid U.S. casualties because they want to remain in operation. If they know the United States is sending its military to kill them, there’s no incentive to adhere to the code. They’re likely to lash out — against U.S. law enforcement, U.S. citizens, possibly U.S. politicians.

[...]

Mexico isn’t our enemy

Depending on how you measure it, Mexico is either our first, second, or third biggest trade partner. Any military action taken without consent of the Mexican government would bring most of that trade to a screeching halt. That risks about $855 billion in annual commerce. It would threaten millions of jobs, particularly in California, Texas, Louisiana, and the industrial Midwest. When Trump threatened to completely shut down the border during his first term, economists warned it would result in a shortage the goods from Mexico, including computers, cars and car parts, gas, chemicals, and produce (goodbye avocados!). Mexico is also a big consumer for U.S. agriculture. So corn, soybeans, poultry, pork, and dairy farmers would also take a hit. We’d also see major interruptions in supply chains that flow through Mexico. When the Border Patrol shut down just one official crossing in San Diego for just a few hours in 2019, businesses in that city lost $5.3 million. All of this economic damage would come in addition to the calamitous economic effects of Trump’s other disastrous campaign promises, like across-the-board tariffs and mass deportations.

Radley Balko perfectly describes why going to war with Mexico is a reckless and costly idea.

[fipindustries]

i dont know man, i just cannot see mia as being in the wrong here, like she is in the wrong in the same way that someone extra judicially killing the guy who killed your daughter is wrong. there is a reason why a society cannot function with vigilantism and justice done by your own hand, there is a reason why we have laws and institutions and we dont leave it up to individuals to ennact their own sense of justice. but then wildbow goes to such great lengths to make it logically and emotionally compelling and, i feel, he does so very little to show a convincing or emotionally persuasive argument for the institutional side of things. and even less of all in this world where he made it clear institutions are collapsing and police cannot be trusted or relied on.

it really annoys me when a writer makes a characters position so incredibly compelling and easy to sympathize with, but then they have to be in the wrong simply because of the principle of the thing, because it is "good ethics", without really making a strong case for that principle.

[karapatangpantao]

Usaping Karapatang Pantao at Katarungang Panlipunan

Sa panahon ngayon, mahalaga ang pagbibigay pansin sa mga usaping may kinalaman sa karapatang pantao at katarungang panlipunan. Sa blog na ito, tatalakayin natin ang mga mahahalagang isyu tulad ng diskriminasyon, karahasan, at kawalan ng patas na oportunidad, upang magbigay kaalaman at magbukas ng diskusyon sa bawat mambabasa. Nais kong maging daan ito upang higit nating maunawaan ang tunay na halaga ng dignidad, pagkakapantay-pantay, at karapatan ng bawat indibidwal.

Ano Nga Ba ang Karapatang Pantao?

Ang karapatang pantao ay ang mga karapatan at kalayaang dapat matamasa ng mga mamamayan anuman ang kanilang lahi, kasarian, relihiyon, o estado sa buhay. Ang mga karapatang ito ay dapat igalang at protektahan ng bawat estado at mga miyembro ng lipunan. Kabilang dito ang karapatan sa buhay, kalayaan sa pagpapahayag, karapatan sa edukasyon, at ang karapatang maging malaya sa anumang uri ng diskriminasyon o pang-aabuso.

Mga Kasalukuyang Isyu sa Karapatang Pantao sa Bansa

Diskriminasyon - Hanggang ngayon ay may mga nakakaranas parin ng hindi makatarungang pagtrato na pag-apak sa karapatang pantao. Kabilang na sa mga nakakaranas nito ang mga kababaihan, miyembro ng LGBTQ+ at mga katutubong komunidad. Ang diskriminasyon ay harang sa pagkakaroon ng pantay-pantay na pagtrato sa lipunan.

2. Kahirapan - Ang mga mahihirap ay kulang sa oportunidad sa edukasyon, kalusugan, at disenteng hanapbuhay. Ang pagkakaroon ng access sa mga "basic needs" ng tao ay nararapat sa karapatang pantao.

3. Karahasan - Kabilang sa mga isyung pangkarapatang pantao ang pagprotekta sa bawat indibidwal laban sa karahasan, gaya ng pag-abuso sa kababaihan at mga bata, extra-judicial killings, at iba pang uri ng pang-aabuso.

4. Kalusugan at Edukasyon - Madami ang walang access sa sapat na kalusugan at edukasyon, lalo na ang mga mahihirap at ang mga nasa malalayong komunidad. Ang karapatan sa sapat na kalusugan at edukasyon ay pangunahing pangangailangan at kasama sa karapatang pantao.

Ano ang Maaaring Gawin?

Upang maisulong ang katarungang panlipunan at karapatang pantao, mahalagang magsimula sa pagpapalaganap ng kaalaman at edukasyon. Narito ang ilang hakbang na maaaring gawin upang makatulong sa pagsusulong ng karapatang pantao:

Maging bukas sa katotohanan - Alamin ang mga isyu na kinakaharap ng mga tao sa ating paligid. Mahalaga ang malawak na pag-unawa upang malaman kung paano makakatulong sa kanila.

Makiisa sa mga kampanya at mga adbokasiya - Tumulong at makibahagi sa mga organisasyon o mga tao na lumalaban upang mapanatili at hindi maabuso ang mga karapatang pantao ng mga mamamayan.

Suportahan ang mga biktima - Ang pagsuporta at pagtulong sa mga biktima ng pagaabuso ng karapatang pantao ay mahalaga para sa kanila upang mabangon ang kanilang mga sarili.

Pagtutulungan para sa Pantay na Lipunan

Mahalaga na tayong lahat ay magkaisa sa pagpapahalaga at pagsulong ng karapatang pantao at katarungang panlipunan. Sa bawat maliit na hakbang—mula sa pagrespeto sa kapwa hanggang sa pakikiisa sa mga kampanya—may ambag tayo sa pagkakaroon ng mas patas at makatarungang lipunan. Sana’y maging inspirasyon ang ating mga nabasa upang patuloy na kumilos para sa kapakanan ng bawat isa.

[nesiacha]

A Few Points to Correct Regarding the September Massacres of 1792

The massacres at Châtelet and Bicêtre. Anonymous engraving, Paris, BnF, department of prints and photography, 1792

Contrary to a widely held belief, it was not the poorest people of Paris who carried out the September Massacres (or not as many poor people participated as legend has it). Among the "Septembrists" were artisans, small business owners, and small property owners. In fact, contrary to Heffron’s film, which portrayed the massacres as spontaneous and instantaneous, these Septembrists gathered in improvised commissions, conducting swift judgments, and ended up killing up to 1,300 people, if I'm not mistaken. However, during the same period, approximately the same number of prisoners were spared. For instance, the Marquise de Tourzel was spared.

Do not take this fact as an absolution of those who committed these massacres. It actually makes it even more frightening, considering the expedited nature of these commissions, especially since many of the prisoners were common criminals. Even in the case of prisoners who were counter-revolutionaries, extra-judicial killings should never be condoned, and these massacres remain an indelible stain on the Revolution.

Moreover, both the Girondins and the Montagnards are responsible. The Girondins accused the Montagnards (particularly Danton, Marat, and Robespierre) of being responsible for the massacres, but the Girondins did nothing to stop them. In reality, it suited them quite well, as many of their enemies were eliminated. However, they condemned the massacres for political reasons, using them against the Montagnards.

As for the Montagnards , they did not condemn the massacres and therefore tacitly endorsed them. Later, people like Danton acknowledged that to avoid such problems, it was necessary, in his own words, to "administer terrible justice to prevent people from doing so themselves." Indeed, with the Battle of Valmy, the perception that justice was not proceeding quickly enough against those suspected of counter-revolution, and the collapse of the old regime, it became clear that strict oversight was needed to prevent such excesses.

One should remember the second revolution in Russia, which deposed the Russian monarchy. There were quick lynchings, including in Kronstadt, to the point that Kerensky (if I'm not mistaken, or at least the Russian provisional government) had to promise exemplary judicial punishments. So, ultimately, this is not surprising.

Now, regarding the suspects of counter-revolution in France, the case I have in mind is that of the Princess de Lamballe. On the excellent website "Les Amis de Robespierre," Stefania di Pasquale explains that Marie Antoinette's friend was a counter-revolutionary spy, which I can believe given her frequent travels to England. But Madame di Pasquale believes that she was assassinated because of her role as a spy and because she "had numerous contacts with foreign spies and members of the Legislative Assembly and the government" and may have known too much about the Girondin government in power. Here is the link: https://www.amis-robespierre.org/La-Princesse-de-Lamballe-grande.

Sources: Antoine Resche Stefania di Pasquale