Winter_Rain

It's been pretty rare that I've seen people in this country this united on a topic lol. But that's because essentially every single non-rich person in this country has been impacted in a negative way for our for-profit healthcare system. This shooter is the hero people didn't know they were looking for, the embodiment of all their despair and rage against the system. Because these bigwigs who kill with callousness and greed are still killers all the same.

IDK how I feel about this. On the one hand there are definitely shady political motives behind this. On the other hand everything I know about TikTok is against my will and it seems to amplify the voices of incredibly dumb and/or misinformed people without offering much of value to society.

Also, speaking of Russia...unsurprisingly, Rusnet is talking a lot about Syria today. Military bloggers are reporting that Russian troops have already begun withdrawing from their bases there. Uncertain if there's any longer term plan but for now at least it seems clear that Russia is giving up on Syria for now. Which is probably bad for Ukraine, short term at least, because most likely that's where all those Russian soldiers and ships are heading next, although I'm not sure if it's enough to make a significant difference in the front lines. Some Russians are feeling similar about Syria to how Americans felt watching Afghanistan fall to the Taliban --- you know, the shock and disgust of watching guys you armed and supported for years just fold immediately like a house of cards, rendering all those years of soldiers and money and resources completely pointless. 😅 Would be interesting to see if this withdrawal (plus a likely withdrawal or stalemate with Ukraine in the future) leaves an impact on Russian mindset for a while like Iraq and Afghanistan have done with Americans.

Regarding Assad's downfall, there's an interesting detail that makes me go 🤔Which is --- that Assad was actually just in Moscow a week ago. Right when the rebel offensive started up again after remaining on the DL for like five years, in fact... Now... it's of course possible that it's all a coincidence, but the to me the timing is veeeerry suspect and I think there was stuff going on behind the scenes that we aren't privy to yet. My guess is that the winds shifted both due to the war in Ukraine and due to Iran (the other major ally in the region) being weakened by its proxy conflict with Israel. And so Putin cut Assad off and gave him the option to live in exile in Russia or to risk dying in disgrace a la Saddam and Qaddafi. It wouldn't be unprecedented. Putin has done it before. With Yanukovych, former president of Ukraine, for example. I also strongly suspect that someone got wind of the something and that this is why the war just happened to start back up again while Assad just happened to be out of the country in Moscow. (Most likely scenarios to me --- either the rebels received a tip off intelligence/orders from a foreign power that Assad no longer had support and it was the best moment to attack, or Russia itself picked up indicators that something was about to happen and tipped off Assad that he better make his final preparations because they would no longer support him).

Very hard to tell at this early of a stage. On the one hand, Assad's downfall undoubtedly weakens his allies Russia and Iran. He gave Russia a foothold in the Middle East as well as access to important military and naval bases. And he gave the generally isolated Shia Iranians a valuable ally in the region as one of the only non-Sunni leaders. On the other hand, the Syrian rebels are mostly Islamists. And I think we've seen enough of what Islamists are like in recent history to know that things could go south reaaalllllyyyy fast. Syria, like Iraq and the rest of the Levant, is a diverse country. In addition to Sunni Arabs there are other significant ethnic and religious minorities like Kurds, Yazidis, Christians, and assorted smaller breakaway Muslim sects such as Druze and Alawites. (Extreme Islamists tend to consider these guys "blasphemers" and as not real Muslims). So imo this makes the risk both of ethnic cleansing and of the country devolving into factions fairly high. Needless to say, Islamists don't exactly have a great track record with how they treat people who are not them. A big wild card and potential kingmaker in this situation is Erdogan. He is the one backing the Syrian rebels and it would certainly benefit him to have a friendly allied Syria, especially since they share a border and since Erdogan is interested in expanding Turkey's power and sphere of influence. Turkey already has NW Syria under its control. Erdogan also has political motivation at home because a lot of Turks resent the prolonged presence of Syrian refugees there and want them to GTFO so if he's perceived as successfully helping to rebuild Syria he could get a ton of goodwill. A big question is how much control Erdogan actually has over the situation. He is backing the rebels but of course that could always backfire on him (like how bin Laden backfired on us big time). Also a Turkish-supported Syria would almost certainly have very negative consequences for the Kurds. Other possibilities are that pieces of Syria could break off (Syrian Kurdistan for instance, it is already under Kurdish military control anyway), that it could devolve to a Libya/Somalia state run by different factions and warlords, that some random general or whatever will declare himself the new strongman and Syria will be relatively stable but the strongman cycle will repeat for a other generation. Just way too early to tell how things might play out. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I also saw some depressing reports about Syrian political prisoners that had been imprisoned under the rule of Hafez Assad, Bashar Assad's dad (1971-2000). When they were released they thought they were being liberated by Saddam Hussein's army and they didn't even know that Hafez had died and that Bashar Assad was the current ruler. They were kept so isolated for all these years they had no idea of anything that had happened in the outside world.

Yeah this was the buzz all over Telegram/Russian social media. His family is with him. Guess the downed plans was most likely a decoy to buy him time.

I live in Wisconsin, so I completely understand your logic. 🥲 I grew up in solid red states so being in an actual swing state is a whole different political experience.

And yet, some on the right are apparently trying to attack Kamala for having no biological children. Is it run of the mill misogyny, or are they just too stupid to know that George Washington himself had the same kind of family structure as Harris? Or a mix of both? You decide!

I don't get how you can acknowledge that not all Palestinians support Hamas, that they are being harmed by Hamas's existence, but consistently display so little empathy towards them.

Yeahhhhh, see, that "overwhelming military superiority" bit is actually pretty important in terms of how people view conflicts. It's David vs. Goliath. There's a reason nations pretty much always try to paint themselves as underdogs, righteous victims, etc. in their war propaganda. You can see this dynamic with Russia and Ukraine. Places that view that was as a 1 vs. 1 (such as the West) tend to be pro-Ukraine. But parts of the world that view it as a Western tag team vs. Russia (like a lot of Africa, for instance) tend to be pro-Russia. But both stances have the same explanation --- it's the perception of who is the underdog and who holds the power of annihilation. At the beginning of its existence, fresh off the Holocaust and when Israel was getting tag teamed by multiple Arab countries it made sense that it was easy to sympathize with them. But the balance of power in the region has decisively changed in the last few decades. Israel is not the underdog anymore.

"Bad shit happens in war". Wow. That sounds sociopathic. I hope you understand that this is exactly how Islamists think about us? (Westerners). They view acts like 9/11 as justified and civilians as acceptable collateral damage for their greater goals. Lacking empathy for regular people caught up in conflict, who were just born unlucky, is not a good look.

This is a poorly done survey (intentionally, I suspect) because Hamas and Israel are not directly comparable entities.

Oof, yeah, that demand list is...something. Yikes.

Yeah... Tolerance of bad faith actors can quickly derail otherwise well-intentioned movements and cause them to go in a negative direction (we just saw this a few years ago with BLM). Actual anti-semites are taking advantage of the situation and if the protestors genuinely care about Palestine and genuinely care about long-term change they should definitely not ignore or downplay that.

This is just a very typical narcissist asshole tactic in general. Perpetual victim complex where if you disagree with them or call them out for their behavior they look for any way possible to make you into the bad guy who's picking on them when it's them who's the bully. They never ever accept blame or responsibility, because that requires self reflection and humility. Unfortunately they exist in every group, and once you know their tactics and characteristics you can see through them right away.

Sounds like a typical US-centric geopolitical analysis to me. There's a specific type of "expert" that pretty much centers everything that happens in the world around the US (or sometimes "the West" more broadly). Usually it's "USA bad, anyone against USA good" type stuff but there are also ones who just try to make everything US-centric in general. While the US is a big player obviously, I personally have a hard time taking people like that seriously because such shallow views strip the autonomy of human beings and ignore all nuance. (And all history too, like --- most of the world has personal histories with each other that have nothing to do with the US at all, they have their own internal movements, they have their own mindsets and cultures, not every single thing in the world has to be blamed on or tied to the US somehow).

I don't know if it's a matter of "can't afford an all out war"... I'm not convinced Iran is even seriously interested in one in the first place. They like proxy wars and do a lot of dick waving to save face but an actual hot war where you send your army somewhere else instead of keeping them at home is a totally different thing. (The last time they were involved in an all out war, hundreds of thousands died and it was defending their own territory). The current regime has had to put down multiple major internal protests within the last decade. Iran's population is discontented. They're going to do actions to maintain a strong image, but they have to be careful. They're in a tenuous geopolitical position with multiple unstable neighbors, multiple regional rivals/potential threats nearby and have seen multiple nearby regimes collapse or face serious internal conflicts. So an "all out war"...? No, I think it's the last thing they want. It's possible of course, but I think they'll try hard to avoid it tbh.

Tbh it seems to me that no one --- and I do mean NO ONE --- wants this conflict or for it to escalate except for like, a very small number of players, namely Israel and Hamas leadership. The big boys (US, Russia, China, etc) don't want it. Smaller regional powers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia (and I would say Iran too) don't want it. The Arab states definitely don't want it. Palestine is an internal PR issue for a lot of Muslim countries in particular, but actual war or intervention about it? None of them have indicated that they're willing to fall on their swords for this, and I can't say I entirely blame them. It's a fragile region and most MENA countries are focused on their own development, have dictatorships, have dealt with major conflicts or internal conflicts recently, etc.

https://english.nv.ua/nation/russia-claims-tajik-citizens-responsible-for-mass-shooting-isis-takes-responsibility-50403714.html https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/03/23/russian-fsb-says-moscow-terrorist-attack-suspects-planned-to-flee-to-ukraine-had-relevant-contacts-there Claims from Russian and Ukrainian media channels: -That the perpetrators were from Tajikistan -That it may not have been ISIS -Ukrainian official claims it was a Russian special forces inside job -Official Kremlin stance is that the perps had connections to Ukraine and were planning to flee there

This must be the sort of wisdom you only get from growing up in the North. Because although I've been up north for more than ten years, I never knew about this. (Grew up in the South).

It's just frustrating this dude keeps dodging karma over and over and constantly finding people to bail him out of his own bad decisions. 😒

Regarding today's terrorist attack. According to my husband, the general common opinion on Russian social media right now seems to be that this was most likely a false flag attack and/or an attack that was known but was "allowed" to happen to serve a greater goal. Some of their evidence: that mall usually has police. There was no police presence at the time the attack started. Police took 90 minutes to respond to the scene, and the perpetrators escaped. Husband said even some of the people he knows who are very stupid and don't normally question anything are suspicious. You can take from that what you will.

Russian security services already claimed to have thwarted one planned attack by ISIS-K not far from Moscow earlier this month. Moscow also has a significant minority population of Central Asians, the main demographic of ISIS-K recruits. And Central Asians are in general disliked by Russians. So...we'll see how all the threads come together and what the bigger fallout will be here.

Putin has been reluctant to fully mobilize Russian men because he knows there's going to be massive negative effects to that. Just look at what happened with the first (partial) mobilization, millions of men fled the country, and a significant proportion of those were exactly the kind of men Russia didn't want to lose --- men with money and assets, educated professionals, men with valuable skills, working-and-starting-families age men. So far the Russian army has been disproportionately composed of ethnic minorities, criminals, poor provincial alcoholics, and foreigners (they have been intentionally targeting Africans and Central Asians for recruitment, as well as targeting illegal migrants). Undesirables, pretty much. Casualty numbers mean much less when the majority of your population doesn't really care if they die. (Which sounds harsh to say, but...)