CURRENTLY LIVE AS I POST THIS

  • @cfgaussian
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    132 years ago

    Good. I don’t like the guy, but nobody deserves to be tortured and killed by nazis, not even a douchebag like him. What the Daily Beast did was utterly despicable ratting him out to the SBU.

    • @aworldtowin@lemmy.ml
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      42 years ago

      I mean yeah I agree, but are you guys seriously not even a little skeptical of his story? That the SBU which has been known to disappear and torture people just picked this dude up, took his shit, and then let him continue just saying this stuff online? I find the whole story very suspicious, at the very least they would make him stop his online activity in relations to the war. Comes across as some publicity stunt to me. A lot were saying the same in Richard’s chat.

      • @cfgaussian
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        2 years ago

        I’m always skeptical of any story until i see proof, but in this case you have to remember he is an American citizen with a not insignificant online presence, and a big fuss was raised as soon as he disappeared. Also he’s not exactly of the lower classes, his background is definitely one of privilege, i assume his family have some connections. It would be very bad for the image that the west are trying to construct of Ukraine if he were to be permanently disappeared, it would be hard to keep a lid on it and even harder to spin in a way that isn’t damaging to the propaganda project. All in all it sounds plausible.

        Plus he is not out of danger yet, they have allegedly prevented him from leaving, and he claims has gotten a gag order to not talk about his detention, however if Kharkov gets close to falling to the Russians they may change their mind and shut him up permanently to prevent him from talking about his week in custody, and blame it on the encroaching Russians.

        • @aworldtowin@lemmy.ml
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          52 years ago

          It seems so weird for him to put out a tweet saying “if you don’t hear from me for 12 hrs I was picked up by the SBU” and then that exact thing happens like 3 weeks later. In my mind it’s like if he was high enough profile to pick up they wouldn’t let him keep speaking online. Especially if he wasn’t from Ukraine and just went to cover the conflict, theyd just make him go back to the US if he didn’t shut up. He’s picked up by a notoriously murderous intelligence agency for what he’s saying online and then as soon as he’s back and doesn’t even slightly tame down his rhetoric? I mean I’m an anxious person generally but if it was me my ass would be out of there. Just seems like common sense to either stfu or get out in that situation.

          • @cfgaussian
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            42 years ago

            Yeah, i can see your point. I have had some of these thoughts myself. But ultimately we can’t know at the moment, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens to him going forward.

  • @Tankie1917
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    102 years ago

    Isn’t this guy a right-wing misogynist

    • Arthur Besse
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      2 years ago

      Isn’t this guy a right-wing misogynist

      Indeed. I’m baffled as to why self-proclaimed leftists like Medhurst here are giving him so much time. I recommend ignoring him, but if you’re curious what he’s about (as I was), here is an archive of his current wikipedia article. (It will presumably be deleted soon.)

        • @cfgaussian
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          2 years ago

          Scott Ritter was almost charged with treason alleged to be an Israeli spy after he resigned from his position as a weapons inspector in protest over the leadup to the Iraq war. Evidently he pissed off a lot of very powerful people and they did their best to try to take revenge on him.

          I’m not saying the sex offender thing wasn’t legit, i don’t know, i haven’t looked into the details, and if it’s true then he is a scumbag. But i also wouldn’t be surprised if it was a deliberate honeypot/framejob. It’s not like the justice system in the US isn’t massively corrupt.

          Either way, his commentary on Ukraine is quite insightful and i don’t see how his potential criminal past relates to that topic. In fact i think his background in the military and intelligence is much more of a compromising factor to his objectivity.

          He evidently is one of those “patriotic” type people who are unwilling to condemn the US empire and its crimes to the degree to which they should be condemned. He is somewhat critical of the US but not nearly as critical as we communists are.

          All sources must be analyzed critically, we have to be aware of the bias of all commentators. That doesn’t mean we can’t listen to them, just have to be cognizant that they have an ideological perspective from which they view things.

    • @TheAnonymouseJokerOP
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      2 years ago

      Considering he was supposed to be killed by Nazis over dissent against Ukraine/NATO media, and The Duran and Medhurst gave him coverage, atleast this allows for learning about this news.

      I heard though that Gonzalo Lira said he went to Ukraine for sex tourism because women are poor.

    • @cfgaussian
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      62 years ago

      He absolutely is. Quite a despicable character. Also he just repeats what other more intelligent people have said and engages in wild unfounded speculation. At most he can give some anecdotal information about the situation in Kharkov, but apart from that i would not take him too seriously.