Everyone else is a hack but not him, got it.

I'm not defending anyone, I'm being skeptical, try it sometimes.

And you introduced me to him when you recommended his podcast. I hadn't paid any attention to him before, but I listened to that and it got the spidy senses tingling. So I looked more into him and it became overwhelmingly obvious to me that he is suspect.

I'm not saying don't be critical of western intervention or skeptical of western accusations, but I am saying that I don't believe that he is a good faith actor, or a good source.

The real point is, correlation is not causation. Applies mutadis mutandis to Russian talking points. A rational person should accept that, since Syria is in Russia's sphere, they will defend it to the max. Arguments deployed defending Syria will encompass a range in the merit scale, from disinformation and fabrication, to exaggeration, and pure advocacy.

Russia's intelligence / diplomats won't be going "wow that is a great and very good and accurate and super trufax point right there. Shove it up your ass Boris, we only deal in lies". They'll throw these in with the other lot.

So if a skeptical Western journo or politico stumbles across the same trufax, there is correlation. But using Goobz' "logic", that correlation is suspect. That article was taken down because it is made up only of innuendo based on correlation. Take the white helmets - there is simply an assertion that skepticism about them is a Russian talking point.

But I'm sorry, I don't know hardly fuck all about Syria, but I was able to watch that Vice news docu on them and I was "these guys are 100% salafis". I then looked them up and the fucking thing was set up by an ex-UK military and is based in Kenya... Or Mogadishu or some shite.

I mean, what the fuck! A fucking simpo could figure out there is something fishy about these guys. To anyone with Arab contacts who can tell them, based on speech, intonations, utterations, that these guys are islamists, they will come to the same views.

My problem with this black/white Russia stuff is this: dismissing something or someone out of hand b cause their views are echoed by Russia is ridiculous. The USSR criticised Vietnam along precisely the same lines as the anti-war domestic movement, and the same argument was deployed against the latter. You're pro Soviet. You're anti American.

Now it's pro-assad. He was anti-assad because Assad is a dick. Then this stupid war happened and he railed against it. Now that means he's pro-assad.

I despair. Nuance is truly dead in today's world. It's depressing

GooberTheHat wrote:

He claimed it made no sense for assad to do so, a narrative you repeated in here. This is why I've got such a hard on for him. An intelligent person like you parrots his rubbish like is some well considered argument, but it's normally bullshit. You even admitted yourself later (after having spoken to a 3*) that it actually might have been a valid tactic for Assad to use chemical weapons.
.

This is quite revealing. I hadn't read or come across that guy at all when I was arguing with you. I was defending and relying, inter alia, on that veteran Viet Nam hack. I used my own reasoning abilities - such as they are - and was not parroting this guy at all.

It's later that I came across the moderate rebels podcast (on YouTube). Even then I didn't pay attention to names so I didn't even realise until yesterday that Max Blumenthal was on it!

And at the time, I remember you struggling to explain why Assad would use chemical weapons. It was a friend who had met this general at a posh Oxford and Cambridge club do who gave me the first ever plausible explanation.

Anyway, I'm a veteran of Israel/Palestine, and I can spot an entrenched position a mile off. You probably don't believe me anyway, so what's the point in engaging.

All I will say is that there can be NO doubt that western intervention in Iraq, Libya, and Syria have made these regions worse. Worse for everyone. I don't like Saddam, Gaddafi or assad; but their countries are worse for toppling them. They are worse in a particular way: they unleased Sunni Islamism's egregious excesses. Life is worse for every other denomination, touareg, azidi, Christian, kurd, druze, and alawite. I listen to westernised, moderate, Arabs and others and they all seemed to oppose the forces we have unleased against the dictator. I can hold two thoughts in my head at once: Assad bad, no Assad worse. That's only "pro Assad" in your binary world, not mine.

There are actual slaves in Libya. Actual, slaves.

Millions of migrants flee. To Europe. Where the local population is growing increasingly xenophobic. So quite apart from the abhorrence of exponentially increasing human suffering in the region by pursuing a policy of regime change, this has become personal for me, ozno, who will be "humanely" repatriated, at best, off the back of this shit. Not you, goobz, me, ozno. Fucking teaching English in the atlas mountains for a jug of olive oil and half a K of dried figs, and probably having to marry a cousin. Thanks bud.

I was struggling to explain it to you because I thought it was obvious and therefore wasn't doing a good job. You didn't even know how gas worked.

Roger Scrotum sacked and not too soon either.

And gonz, you claim I am binary, but when have I ever said that western intervention has been a good thing? I have argued against what I see as disinformation regarding the chemical weapons attacks. One of the people that I think disseminates that disinformation is max. He seems to be to be considered non partisan by some people on this forum who I respect. That makes me sad (because you know exactly what my issues are with him).

People are free to form whatever opinions they want, but when I respect those people I feel its important for me to point out to the when I think their sources of information are flawed.

I'm sure he's right, broadly speaking, about a lot of stuff. But he's not the only saying those things. There are some very specific things that he says that, in my opinion, he would only be saying if he was shilling for Russia.

That doesn't mean everything he says is wrong, but it does mean that if he's weaving those specific things in with his general truths, how is the casual observer going to pick them out? That's why I say don't listen to him. Not because everything he says is bollocks, but because 5% of it is, and (again, in my opinion) deliberately so.

May 18 for us. Similar thing. Looking like Labor will get in. But one nation will poll a worrying amount.

Anning has a literal nazi party running.

Doubt they'll win anything.

There’s yer Assange arrested.

LarryDavid wrote:

I’ve not followed his story but I’ve never quite understood why he was so hated, revealing things the government don’t want you to know seems like a good thing to me. Especially when it’s unprovoked murder like the collateral damage vid.

I know about the rape accusations but was under the impression they were unproven.

On the BBC they were joyous, acting like Himmler had been arrested. It’s a bit sickly.

This man is totally fucked, mark my words. It'll be no mercy for him.


Journos and hacks justify going from giving this man awards to him being OBL based on two things:

1. He is now a Russian, pro Putin asset. (See thread re correlation and causation)

2. He raw dumped data, and asked members of the public to help sift through it. Exposed agents who were captured and died. Treason

Cf Snowden, who trusted journalists with it, so they redacted etc.

There is something in that, for sure. Some Iranian spying on the ayatollah gets fucked, he's a good guy who gets fucked. But this rationale for deploring assange and WikiLeaks existed even at the time he was being praised and showered with awards.

My take - assange is an idiot, libertarian, coder. He had no idea what he was doing. He just had blind faith that the internet cyber age was going to deliver us from the shackles of patronising state stlystems. He is mentally a bit out there. Snowden really did show him up.

That doesn't justify the living hell he is going to be loving through. But I'm afraid he will, there will be no compassion for him. He will be deported to the US, and done for espionnage.

Yeah, I don’t imagine he’s in for a fun time.

Sending a message seems like the main motivation - don’t dare reveal all the horrible, callous things we get up to, or we’ll get Guantanamo Bay on your arse.

Similarly, I haven't followed the whole story but gather there were some questions as to where the information they were leaking came from, at least in more recent years if not from the beginning, and that wikileaks were either knowingly or unknowingly being used as a puppet by state actors to discredit other governments.

Whether or not the rape accusations were unfounded, he seemed to use his fear of extradition to the US as a reason to avoid extradition to Sweden where a full investigation could be carried out.

Certainly I think it reached a point where you have to separate the acts of wikileaks from the person of Assange. The organisation may have been, or be doing, good but that doesn't make him immune from prosecution of other crimes.

It is amusing that captivity seems to have morphed him into Uncle Albert from Only Fools & Horses.