iie [they/them, he/him]

a handful of decades before my body just does that

  • 19 Posts
  • 296 Comments
Joined 5 years ago
Cake day: July 30th, 2020
  • iie [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.netOPtonews@hexbear.net•(June 18) Dozens of Former Israeli Spies Hired by Apple — Alan Macleod's new report surveys their roles in the company, which include software and hardware engineering, and their prior crimes as spiesEnglish
    4·
    1 month ago
    excerpt:

    Unit 8200 is Israel’s most elite—and most controversial—military intelligence unit. It serves as the backbone of both Israel’s burgeoning tech sector and its repressive surveillance apparatus. The unit has developed cutting-edge technology like facial recognition and voice-to-text software to surveil, repress, and target Palestinians.

    The vast amounts of data gathered on the Palestinian population, including their medical history, sex lives, and search histories, have been used for coercion and extortion. If a certain individual needed to travel across checkpoints for crucial medical treatment, permission could be suspended until they complied. Information about extramarital affairs or sexual orientation, especially homosexuality, is exploited as blackmail material. One former Unit 8200 agent recalled that he was instructed during his training to memorize different Arabic words for “gay” so that he could listen out for them in intercepted conversations.

    Internationally, Unit 8200 may be best known for its “former” agents who created the notorious Pegasus software, used by repressive governments around the world to spy on tens of thousands of prominent figures, including royals, heads of state, activists, and journalists.

    Among them was Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated by Saudi operatives in Türkiye in 2018.

    While military service is mandatory for Jewish Israelis, few end up in Unit 8200 by accident. Described as “Israel’s Harvard,” parents spend fortunes on STEM-based extracurricular lessons for their children in the hopes that they will be selected to join the IDF’s most elite and selective unit. Those chosen are rewarded with lucrative careers in the tech industry upon completion of their service.

    Given Unit 8200’s documented history of violence, espionage, and surveillance, both domestically and internationally, it is worth asking whether tech giants should be hiring its alumni in such large numbers.

  • iie [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.nettochapotraphouse@hexbear.net•How to explain why supporting war is bad, for libs/budding leftists?English
    12·
    1 month ago

    Most of the world—the Global South—is poor, because they are colonized by the Global North. That is the sole purpose of the North’s wars.

    Wealth flows from the Global South to the Global North to the tune of trillions of dollars a year, and the wealth gap between the North and South continues to grow despite liberal cheerleading to the contrary. Most progress against poverty has occurred in China, while elsewhere progress stagnates. Maybe send him the yellow Parenti lecture—“poor countries are not underdeveloped, they are over-exploited.”

    Then tie it back to Russia and China:

    Tell him about Niger, one of the world’s poorest nations despite a wealth of material resources. In 2023 they finally overthrew their west-aligned government, rejected US and French military presence, and pivoted to Russia as a security partner. Niger now plans to nationalize their uranium production, retaining those profits to provide for their own people. Russia and China threaten the dominance of the US and Europe, which threatens the profits they can extract from nations like Niger.

    Tell him about China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which threatens the West’s imperial project on a global scale. Wars against Russia and Iran—and Iran’s axis of resistance throughout the Middle East—are part of a broader effort to not only prop up the petrodollar but also isolate China, stop China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and arrest China’s rising dominance. The genocide in Palestine serves this purpose. Israel functions as a US military outpost to dominate the region, and Palestinian resistance threatens that role.

    As others here have mentioned, Russia views the war in Ukraine as a defensive war against NATO encroachment. And America knows this. US analysts have predicted for decades that Ukraine joining NATO would be a red line for Russia. Biden himself, earlier in his career, said as much (sorry, I can’t find my source for this). They’re doing it anyway, because they want to bankrupt and overextend Russia in order to weaken China, in order to protect their dominance over the poor nations of the world.

    Russia has neither the desire nor the ability to conquer Europe. More generally, the west’s wars are never, ever defensive. Your friend needs to understand this.