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289 results for “mosu”
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Regretting Western Intervention in the Middle East
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/05/20/regretting-western-intervention-in-the-middle-east/
“Wars for oil, control and strategic dominance were cloaked in the language of democracy” — Ann Wright delivers an argument at the Cambridge Union Debates. Here is a video of the entire debate; author’s segment 2:39 — 14:16. By Ann…
#Politics #Afghanistan #Commentary #Environment #Gaza #HumanRights #Iraq #Lebanon #Libya #Militarism #Pakistan #Palestine #Propaganda #Somalia #Syria #U.s. #WarCrimes #Yemen #9/11Attacks #AbuGhraib #AnnWright #BlackSites #C.i.a.Renditions #C.i.a.Torture #CambridgeUnionDebates #ChilcotReport #CostsOfWarProject #DonaldRumsfeld #Fallujah #GazaIsraelWar #GlobalWarOnTerror #GuantanamoBayPrison #Isis #Mosul #OccupiedPalestinianTerritory(opt) #PresidentGeorgeW.Bush #U.s.DepartmentOfHomelandSecurity #WeaponsOfMassDestruction(wmd) -
Regretting Western Intervention in the Middle East
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/05/20/regretting-western-intervention-in-the-middle-east/
“Wars for oil, control and strategic dominance were cloaked in the language of democracy” — Ann Wright delivers an argument at the Cambridge Union Debates. Here is a video of the entire debate; author’s segment 2:39 — 14:16. By Ann…
#Politics #Afghanistan #Commentary #Environment #Gaza #HumanRights #Iraq #Lebanon #Libya #Militarism #Pakistan #Palestine #Propaganda #Somalia #Syria #U.s. #WarCrimes #Yemen #9/11Attacks #AbuGhraib #AnnWright #BlackSites #C.i.a.Renditions #C.i.a.Torture #CambridgeUnionDebates #ChilcotReport #CostsOfWarProject #DonaldRumsfeld #Fallujah #GazaIsraelWar #GlobalWarOnTerror #GuantanamoBayPrison #Isis #Mosul #OccupiedPalestinianTerritory(opt) #PresidentGeorgeW.Bush #U.s.DepartmentOfHomelandSecurity #WeaponsOfMassDestruction(wmd) -
Gonna play around with Chimera Linux on a Raspberry Pi 5, 8GB toninght.
Because the Argon One V5 (NVME) case is a pain in the rare* I'll just put the image on a USB SSD.
things to test:
- convert installation to btrfs with seperate SWAP partition
- activate Zswap
- run KDE
- see if bluetooth Keyboard & Mosue work
- see if printer and scanner work*the case blocks access to the SD Card slot
#ChimeraLinux #raspberrypi #Argon #2025
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Gonna play around with Chimera Linux on a Raspberry Pi 5, 8GB toninght.
Because the Argon One V5 (NVME) case is a pain in the rare* I'll just put the image on a USB SSD.
things to test:
- convert installation to btrfs with seperate SWAP partition
- activate Zswap
- run KDE
- see if bluetooth Keyboard & Mosue work
- see if printer and scanner work*the case blocks access to the SD Card slot
#ChimeraLinux #raspberrypi #Argon #2025
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Gonna play around with Chimera Linux on a Raspberry Pi 5, 8GB toninght.
Because the Argon One V5 (NVME) case is a pain in the rare* I'll just put the image on a USB SSD.
things to test:
- convert installation to btrfs with seperate SWAP partition
- activate Zswap
- run KDE
- see if bluetooth Keyboard & Mosue work
- see if printer and scanner work*the case blocks access to the SD Card slot
#ChimeraLinux #raspberrypi #Argon #2025
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Gonna play around with Chimera Linux on a Raspberry Pi 5, 8GB toninght.
Because the Argon One V5 (NVME) case is a pain in the rare* I'll just put the image on a USB SSD.
things to test:
- convert installation to btrfs with seperate SWAP partition
- activate Zswap
- run KDE
- see if bluetooth Keyboard & Mosue work
- see if printer and scanner work*the case blocks access to the SD Card slot
#ChimeraLinux #raspberrypi #Argon #2025
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⚡️ Iraq Weekly Roundup: 10 killed in Makhmour clash between Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi Army. US troops sustain minor injuries in drone attack on al-Asad Base. Missiles near Baghdad Airport. Turkish drone kills man, injures 3 women in car. PKK casualties in Koya strike. Assailants murder generator operator in Mosul. 2 militants killed in Wadi al-Shay operations. #Iraq #SecurityIncidents https://www.riskmap.com/incidents/1938194/articles/195715051/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon
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Recently published in "#Climate and #Development".
"#CollectiveAction by #community groups: solutions for #ClimateChange or different players in the same game?"
https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2022.2149254Co-authors:
Luke J. Matthews, Aaron Clark-Ginsberg, Michelle Scobie, Laura E. R. Peters, Unni Gopinathan, Anuszka Mosurska, Katy Davis, Sonja Myhre, Saskia Hirsch, and Eija Meriläinen.#Toco #Trinidad #TrinidadAndTobago #TrinidadTobago #Sitka #Alaska
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Recently published in "#Climate and #Development".
"#CollectiveAction by #community groups: solutions for #ClimateChange or different players in the same game?"
https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2022.2149254Co-authors:
Luke J. Matthews, Aaron Clark-Ginsberg, Michelle Scobie, Laura E. R. Peters, Unni Gopinathan, Anuszka Mosurska, Katy Davis, Sonja Myhre, Saskia Hirsch, and Eija Meriläinen.#Toco #Trinidad #TrinidadAndTobago #TrinidadTobago #Sitka #Alaska
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Recently published in "#Climate and #Development".
"#CollectiveAction by #community groups: solutions for #ClimateChange or different players in the same game?"
https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2022.2149254Co-authors:
Luke J. Matthews, Aaron Clark-Ginsberg, Michelle Scobie, Laura E. R. Peters, Unni Gopinathan, Anuszka Mosurska, Katy Davis, Sonja Myhre, Saskia Hirsch, and Eija Meriläinen.#Toco #Trinidad #TrinidadAndTobago #TrinidadTobago #Sitka #Alaska
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Recently published in "#Climate and #Development".
"#CollectiveAction by #community groups: solutions for #ClimateChange or different players in the same game?"
https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2022.2149254Co-authors:
Luke J. Matthews, Aaron Clark-Ginsberg, Michelle Scobie, Laura E. R. Peters, Unni Gopinathan, Anuszka Mosurska, Katy Davis, Sonja Myhre, Saskia Hirsch, and Eija Meriläinen.#Toco #Trinidad #TrinidadAndTobago #TrinidadTobago #Sitka #Alaska
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國小生所做的 #虛擬網紅 ( #Vtuber )專文
非常厲害特別寫一篇文來推薦在對於 Vtuber 的研究上面
其實概念建構是很重要的一個環節
在臺灣目前的 Vtuber 研究中
將其以虛擬網紅去做為中文詮釋
並藉此與 #虛擬歌姬 #初音 去做出概念上的分野是常見的做法在這篇文中
同學們則是將 Vtuber 的發展
論述為 #吉祥物 概念的再發展
這確實也是一個合理的論述
以日本的 #絆愛 、 #時乃空
最早也是技術測試或 IP 測試下的雛形後來才轉變出 #偶像 的概念出現而在臺灣 #奇摩 的 #虎妮beta 、 #光世代 的 # Lumina 或是 #MOPCON #Mosume 等等都是極具官方吉祥物或是代言人的角色
而在 #瀕臨絕種團 與 #林務局 的合作中
他們也時常被論述為吉祥物或是代言人的角色這從行銷上的手法切入也是一種視野
更能對於臺灣廣域產業的定位提出一個詮釋無論是不是國小同學寫的
這都是一篇很棒的文章
提供一個理解 vtuber 的路徑 -
國小生所做的 #虛擬網紅 ( #Vtuber )專文
非常厲害特別寫一篇文來推薦在對於 Vtuber 的研究上面
其實概念建構是很重要的一個環節
在臺灣目前的 Vtuber 研究中
將其以虛擬網紅去做為中文詮釋
並藉此與 #虛擬歌姬 #初音 去做出概念上的分野是常見的做法在這篇文中
同學們則是將 Vtuber 的發展
論述為 #吉祥物 概念的再發展
這確實也是一個合理的論述
以日本的 #絆愛 、 #時乃空
最早也是技術測試或 IP 測試下的雛形後來才轉變出 #偶像 的概念出現而在臺灣 #奇摩 的 #虎妮beta 、 #光世代 的 # Lumina 或是 #MOPCON #Mosume 等等都是極具官方吉祥物或是代言人的角色
而在 #瀕臨絕種團 與 #林務局 的合作中
他們也時常被論述為吉祥物或是代言人的角色這從行銷上的手法切入也是一種視野
更能對於臺灣廣域產業的定位提出一個詮釋無論是不是國小同學寫的
這都是一篇很棒的文章
提供一個理解 vtuber 的路徑 -
國小生所做的 #虛擬網紅 ( #Vtuber )專文
非常厲害特別寫一篇文來推薦在對於 Vtuber 的研究上面
其實概念建構是很重要的一個環節
在臺灣目前的 Vtuber 研究中
將其以虛擬網紅去做為中文詮釋
並藉此與 #虛擬歌姬 #初音 去做出概念上的分野是常見的做法在這篇文中
同學們則是將 Vtuber 的發展
論述為 #吉祥物 概念的再發展
這確實也是一個合理的論述
以日本的 #絆愛 、 #時乃空
最早也是技術測試或 IP 測試下的雛形後來才轉變出 #偶像 的概念出現而在臺灣 #奇摩 的 #虎妮beta 、 #光世代 的 # Lumina 或是 #MOPCON #Mosume 等等都是極具官方吉祥物或是代言人的角色
而在 #瀕臨絕種團 與 #林務局 的合作中
他們也時常被論述為吉祥物或是代言人的角色這從行銷上的手法切入也是一種視野
更能對於臺灣廣域產業的定位提出一個詮釋無論是不是國小同學寫的
這都是一篇很棒的文章
提供一個理解 vtuber 的路徑 -
On March 18th, 2019 Lorenzo ‘Orso’ Orsetti (Tekoşer Piling) fell martyr while fighting ISIS in Baghouz, Syria with the anarchist unit Tekoşîna Anarşîst (Anarchist Struggle). Lorenzo had traveled to Rojava to participate in the revolutionary process and had fought in several significant battles in the struggle. Below we are republishing an earlier essay about the comrade and we encourage revolutionaries internationally to remember his name, place his memory highly on top of the annals of revolutionary struggle, and commemorate him properly like all of those fallen deserve. To quote the beloved comrades in Revolutionary Struggle: “We have a duty and responsibility to remember and honor those who fell fighting through our lines. Because whoever forgets the dead of the struggle, as well as the prisoners, also forgets the struggle itself.”
Lorenzo Orsetti: The life of an anarchist partisan of the 21st century
Lorenzo Orsetti was a anarchist fighter who was 33 years. Tekoser Piling was the battle name with which he had been given. He had traveled to northern Syria in September 2017 to join the Kurdish resistance that, at that time, was fighting against the last Islamic State (Daesh) jihadists in the city of Raqqa, considered for several years as the administrative capital of the Islamist group in Syria after the fall of Mosul in Iraq.
Orso, as they also nicknamed Lorenzo, was in Syria knowing that Daesh – the contemptuous form with which the Kurds call the Islamic State – was not the only enemy that threatened the freedom and integrity of the Kurds, Yazidis, Assyrians, Turkmen and Armenians in the region. The Turkish state, led by the dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had already used very hostile language against the Kurds of Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) in which he threatened to erase them from the north of the country. These threats were fulfilled months later, in January, with the invasion by Turkey of the Kurdish canton of Afrin.
In the words of his companions Lorenzo was a tireless fighter, with very high morals, and convinced by the ideals of the revolutionary fight. His ideals were those of Kropotkin, Cafiero and Malatesta: a committed and consistent libertarian communist who defended liberty, equity and justice for the oppressed until the last moment of his life.
Lorenzo had fought in the battle of Afrin against the jihadists of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), self-styled “Syrian National Army” and the Turkish army. There he lost several of his comrades, among them, the anarchist Sevger Ara Makhno, a Turkish anarchist militant who decided to cross the border of his country and join the Kurdish resistance against the neo-Ottoman regime and its partners in Syria. Sevger had shared a military unit with Orso. Both were part of the anarchist brigade Tekosina Anarsist (Anarchist Struggle, in Kurdish) of the International Freedom Battalion.
Lorenzo Orsetti was born on February 13, 1986 in Florence, Italy. During his life in his native Florence, Orso worked from the age of 16 as a restaurateur, waiter, chef and sommelier. In his city, the services of that sector are very requested by the bourgeois class. He also worked in luxurious restaurants where he met rich people all the time. Following the logic and goals imposed by capitalism, Lorenzo had a “good job” and, despite being a worker, a humble worker, had a life full of opportunities in a sector that allowed him to make a career. However, he was tired of European individualistic society, of “Italian mediocrity”, of consumerism and indifference against the most vulnerable and forgotten sectors. ”I’m tired of serving food to the rich,” Lorenzo told his friends.
He was a revolutionary, he felt he had to take a step further. Since he had read about the Rojava Revolution, the Kurdish resistance in Kobane against Daesh, Lorenzo believed that his place was not in Italy, but in Syria. He had an internationalist spirit like the men and women from all over the world who went to Spain to fight against fascism in the International Brigades in 1936, the anarchists of the CNT that he admired so much. His phrase summed it up perfectly: “Better to add life to the days than days to life.”
Lorenzo fell martyr in Baghouz, in the province of Deir Ezzor, a few days before that city was liberated by the Kurds. It was the last bastion of the Islamic State in Syria. Lorenzo’s body was recovered and he will be buried in his beloved Florence according to his parents. This Sunday, March 31, there will be a demonstration in memory of Orso in his native Italy, organized by anarchist, communist and anti-fascist organizations.
A libertarian who could not stand indifference
“I met Lorenzo in Italy. We were simply compas, I made friends with him in Iraq when we were about to cross the border into Syria, “says Dilsoz, an Italian militiaman who fought against the Islamic State and shared a barracks with Orso. He was also in the TKP / ML TIKKO as well as Tekoser.
Heval Dilsoz is not his real name, like Tekoser, it is his battle name, which he uses for security reasons. In Italy, justice pursues fighters who, like Lorenzo, fought against Daesh. The Italian justice considers them “socially dangerous persons” and they are processed by a fascist Law of 1930 that is still valid.“We shared more or less the same ideals,” says Dilsoz, who in Italy is a anarchist activist in autonomous nonpartisan spaces. We talked with him and he told us about Orso, his ideals and about the Kurdish revolutionary experience for which Lorenzo gave his life.
-Who was Lorenzo? How was he?
-Lorenzo was, first of all, a person with libertarian ideals and, above all, a companion. He was not very activist in the militancy of his city, but he was well known among his peers. He was a very simple and humble person. He was a waiter, cook and sommelier. He had started working at the age of 16 in the environment of restoration in Florence. That environment is of a very high standard and he had a luxury job, despite always being a worker. He hated his social position, in the sense that he did not like the people with whom he surrounded himself. It was an environment in which he met many rich and famous people. But he could not take that anymore. He always told me: “I’m tired of bringing food to the rich.” He was a worker, a partner and a revolutionary.
Dilsoz also coincides with other companions of Lorenzo: he was a Heval, as they say “companions” in Rojava. ”A mixture of comrade and friend. He was literally a Heval, he was not interested in money or glory or anything, just motivated and interested to act for the cause in which he believed. “If I fall, I wanted it to be for these reasons,” recalls Dilsoz.“Lorenzo was very loved by all his companions. He did not know private property, he shared everything, the only thing he had in Syria was his laptop. Soon his local companions asked him how it was used and he shared it with his battalion,” he adds.
Days after Tekoser’s death, his father Alessandro Orsetti told the Italian press that his “son could not stand indifference”. All those who knew him give the same definition of Lorenzo: a supportive man who was not afraid to face the consequences that could come from defending what he believed to be just.
From an ideological judicial persecution, the harassment of the Turkish intelligence services or the same death, nothing made Lorenzo doubt about his decision. ”Lorenzo was not afraid of death,” says Dilsoz. He always said that ‘it is better to add life to the days than the days to life’. That was Lorenzo: living to do. “
“I was very happy, I was very happy to be away from Italy, from the mediocrity of the Western world, from consumerism and from wage labor. He loved his land, not Italy; He loved his land, his city, but he was happy being away, “says Dilsoz.
From the beautiful Florence to the war against Turkey and the Daesh
-Why did you decide to challenge the liberal monotony and leave Italy?
-I was rotten from Italy, I was really rotten from Italy’s mediocrity: from racism, from everything, and I wanted to do something really revolutionary and be with the people outside of Italy, because in the West there is a lot of talk about the revolution of such and such, but he wanted to be part of a change. He saw in the comrades that they went to Syria to fight a hope, a way out, an opportunity to participate in a revolution, a revolution that is neither anarchist nor communist, because it is the Middle East and has nothing to do with Western society. In my opinion, it can not be classified as an anarchist or a communist, but it is a real revolution. The aspiration of every revolutionary is to be part of a revolution and if it is not today, when can we say of having participated in a revolution?
-In the West, we usually talk about “revolution” only with words, as something nostalgic that only reminds us of past events, of history books. And we tend more to talk about the revolution than to do it. Lorenzo decided, personally, to take his ideals further and defend a revolution that, as you say, is neither communist nor anarchist. The Rojava Revolution is neither communist nor anarchist. It is perhaps as a social democrat, but in the context of the Middle East and the existence of tribal powers. There a revolution with a gender perspective is something very positive and revolutionary … Is that so?
-Yes, exactly as you say. I believe that we, the Westerners, compare a lot, we are very Eurocentric … Even in Argentina. The fact is that the Rojava Revolution, and the peoples of the Federation of Northern Syria, comes from 40 years of seeking the Kurdish people for freedom. This revolution has the same ideology as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK): the democratic confederalism, as well as the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).The PKK was previously Marxist-Leninist-Maoist and, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they made a self-criticism about the socialism they were seeking and came to the conclusion that they should seek socialism, but renounce the State and build a socialism from the communes and cooperatives. I would not call it a social democracy, but a socialist democracy, but that’s my opinion. After all, it is democratic confederalism and has elements of anarchism, Marxism, socialism and Kurdish culture and the Middle East in general. And the central issue is the abolition of patriarchy, of which I completely agree, since it is the primary form of oppression, that is, the domination of man over woman, of the passage from the matriarchal natural society to the patriarchal society.
-How does this revolution impact on people?
“About feminism, I’m not a feminist, since I’m a boy,” he interrupts, “but I’m in favor of the abolition of patriarchy and education in that direction. Something that impressed me in Syria is just that: to see women leave the house to fight, take charge of positions of responsibility, and so on. This has been, I believe, with all the criticism that can be made to the Federation of Northern Syria, something that can not be criticized: the emancipation of women , because they come from a context in which, in the Middle East , before the revolution, women were literally slaves and remain so in other regions. It is the fruit of 40 years of work of the Kurdish Liberation Movement that has expanded, fortunately, in different non-Kurdish parts of Northern Syria.
- What was the reaction of civilians to see women participating in the liberation of their cities from the dominion of Daesh?
-I was in the military, so I could not see much civil. I saw almost nothing because I was in the militia, but I feel privileged to have seen the reaction of civilians when men and women resumed Daesh cities. For the people it was something very novel, they had never seen anything like this, especially the Arabs. People were very surprised to see women armed and capable; many did not like it, but, from now on, they will have to get used to it.
Lorenzo: Bear in Italy, Tiger in Rojava
Orso, which in Spanish means “Bear”, was the nickname that Lorenzo liked to use in Italy. So much so that when he arrived at the military academy in Rojava he wanted to use a battle name alluding to his lifelong nickname: he chose the word Bear (Hurç, in Kurdish) , but his colleagues convinced him that it was not a good idea , since that word has no positive connotations in that region. So his comrades began to look for another name of another animal and there arose Tekoser Piling, whose literal translation would become “Luchador Tigre”.
Returning to Orso, what units and battle fronts did Lorenzo serve?
-Lorenzo was part of the International Freedom Battalion, which is a conglomeration of communist parties and anarchist organizations. There he became friends with battalion commanders and was sent to Arab or Kurdish units. He was also very committed to helping develop (the anarcho-communist battalion) Tekosina Anarsist. He moved a lot between the fronts because he wanted to fight. He fought a lot in Afrin’s defense and over the battlefield he earned the reputation as a heavy fighter, an elite fighter. Then, he fought in the entire campaign of Deir Ezzor, called “Storm of Cizire”, until the day he fell.
Lorenzo fell martyred at the Battle of Baghouz when his group, which at that time were four more men, were ambushed by an unknown number of Islamic State jihadists. The posthumous video of Lorenzo published by the YPG explains the reason for his decision to join the Kurdish militia. In the images, Lorenzo says smiling: “If you are watching this video, it means that something happened to me.“ And he says goodbye: “I love them all, my family, my friends and my dog… I love them”. Those were his words in the video-testament. When he refers to his dog Orsino, he pauses and becomes nostalgic.
-Lorenzo loved animals, had many photos with dogs. Was it like that in the barracks?
-He was obsessed with dogs, he loved them. I do not like dogs, especially when I learned that dogs eat corpses there. Some dogs ate the remains of a companion who had been hit by a Turkish missile. But he did not care because he loved dogs.
Hypocrisy, demagogy and cynicism
The dead no longer bother. This seems to be the premise followed by Italian media and justice. When the sad death of Lorenzo was known, the news shocked the public. The covers of the newspapers of the day afterwards already had the image: it was that of the “Italian hero.” About his anarchist ideology? Well thanks. For the Italian press and the government, anarchists are drunks, drug addicts and criminals. That data about him is not useful and they can appropriate the image of Lorenzo. The media, with an emotional tone, tried to create a stereotype of Lorenzo as an Italian nationalist hero. Meanwhile, the justice of the country judicially prosecutes Lorenzo’s anarchist and socialist comrades returning from Syria after their fight against the Islamic State. They say they are “socially dangerous”. The “pericolosità sociale” is an Italian legal figure in force since the fascist era of Mussolini that, incredibly, is still valid in the penal code. ”They are heroes and they process them, but when they die, they all want to appropriate them,” declared Annalisa, Lorenzo’s mother.
“Let us pray for Lorenzo and maximum repudiation of his infamous murderers,” was what the far-right politician Matteo Salvini, Italy’s interior minister and leader of the Liberal-Conservative party Liga Norte, tweeted. Salvini is a populist who bases his entire political campaign on social networks. He is sadly known for his xenophobic, Islamophobic and racist positions. It is the typical European politicians who go out of their way to talk about fighting against the “Muslim barbarians” and excuse themselves with the actions of the Daesh to justify their hatred.
“That Salvini talks about Lorenzo is very out of place, Lorenzo was the opposite of him. Salvini wants a world with walls and exclusion, Lorenzo was the opposite, he was one of us whom Salvini and the government daily call ‘drunks, drug addicts, abusive and criminal occupiers’ – says Dilsoz completely indignant. This happens because they always fill their mouths talking about a crusade against Muslims and blah blah. But when it comes to fighting against Islamic extremism and the jihadists, it was the anarchists of the social centers who fought them. At least, in Italy, I do not know in other countries. Those of the Northern League or of the 5 Star Party that are in the government to fight were not left, it was us. So they just talk. “
-What happens with the comrades of Lorenzo who return from fighting against the Islamic State?
- Five comrades from Torino and one from Sardinia (who returned from Syria) are being prosecuted, accused of being socially dangerous. The Turin comrades are processed or being prosecuted. They are anarchist organizations or autonomous (left), and especially non-TAV (who reject the construction of a high-speed train between Lion, in France, and Turin). The Sardinian partner, for being independent and being from a Sardinian independence family.
- That was what was waiting for Lorenzo if he returned alive to Italy?
- Yesterday (on Monday, March 25), during the Court hearing, a great controversy erupted as a result of the fall of Lorenzo. Many people said, “Well, how is it possible that when they die they are glorified and when come alive are they processed?“A Prosecutor in the case said that if Lorenzo returned safely, there would be no judicial process against him, because the moderation they ask for the companions is for their activities in Italy. It is totally hypocritical. Saying this lie, they tried to get out of a very uncomfortable position for themselves.
-What does it mean to be considered a “socially dangerous” person?
– The law of social dangerousness is fascist, from the fascist period of 1930, promulgated with the Rocco Code (criminal) that is still valid at the time of democracy. It’s not a criminal conviction, because you do not go to jail for that. It is a measure taken by governments when they consider that someone is dangerous. It’s ridiculous, it’s something fascist. It means being deprived of a passport, even a driver’s license. You have to have a fixed address where you must be obligatorily from 9 o’clock at night and you can not leave until 7 o’clock in the morning. In addition, you can not frequent public places, such as assemblies or political demonstrations. They can also expel you from the city where you live if you were not born there, and they can even forbid you to leave your city.
- Do you want to say a few words to finish?
-Yes. I call on all revolutionaries to support this revolution which, in order not to be Eurocentric, is neither communist nor anarchist, but it is a struggle of the human being for emancipation. I think it is a hopeful step of humanity towards emancipation. Ugliness happened in Italy, bad things happened in Argentina, I know it was March 24 against the dictatorship, but the blood of the peoples of the East is not different from that of the peoples of the West. This is very important to remember, because the world needs a different model of development. I went to Syria, like Lorenzo, because it seemed that it was the end of history, the end of the world, there was only capitalism: produce, consume, die. And there I saw, at least, an intention to organize society in a way where there is no exploitation of man over man, of man over woman and of man over nature. At least, the intention is. It is a revolution that, in general, is very good. Then the theories when they come out of the books and are put into practice are different, it is obvious: it is not that an Arab of a tribal community who is accustomed to enslaving his wife, the YPG’s arrive and he automatically becomes an anarchist. But it is very important to support this project. The world needs an alternative to capitalism.
Lorenzo’s last words might have been the ones he wrote and entrusted to a colleague in case he did not come home.
Hello, if you are reading this message, it means that I am no longer in this world. Well, do not be so sad, I’m doing well; I do not regret anything, I died doing what I thought was right , defending the weak and being consistent with my ideals of justice, fairness and freedom.
So, despite my premature departure, my life has been a success and I’m almost sure that I left with a smile on my lips. I could not have asked for something better.
I wish you well and hope that one day (if you have not done so yet) you decide to give your life for others. Because that’s the only way you can change the world.
Only by overcoming individualism and selfishness in each one of us can the difference be made.
These are difficult times, I know, but do not resign yourself, do not give up hope. Never! not even for a moment. Even if the whole world seems lost, and the bad things that afflict humans and the earth seem unbearable, continue to find strength and inspire your companions.
It is exactly in those darkest moments that your light helps.
And always remember: “Every storm begins with a simple drop”. Try to be that drop.
I love you all, and I hope you treasure these words.
Serkeftin! Orso, Tekoser, Lorenzo. -
On March 18th, 2019 Lorenzo ‘Orso’ Orsetti (Tekoşer Piling) fell martyr while fighting ISIS in Baghouz, Syria with the anarchist unit Tekoşîna Anarşîst (Anarchist Struggle). Lorenzo had traveled to Rojava to participate in the revolutionary process and had fought in several significant battles in the struggle. Below we are republishing an earlier essay about the comrade and we encourage revolutionaries internationally to remember his name, place his memory highly on top of the annals of revolutionary struggle, and commemorate him properly like all of those fallen deserve. To quote the beloved comrades in Revolutionary Struggle: “We have a duty and responsibility to remember and honor those who fell fighting through our lines. Because whoever forgets the dead of the struggle, as well as the prisoners, also forgets the struggle itself.”
Lorenzo Orsetti: The life of an anarchist partisan of the 21st century
Lorenzo Orsetti was a anarchist fighter who was 33 years. Tekoser Piling was the battle name with which he had been given. He had traveled to northern Syria in September 2017 to join the Kurdish resistance that, at that time, was fighting against the last Islamic State (Daesh) jihadists in the city of Raqqa, considered for several years as the administrative capital of the Islamist group in Syria after the fall of Mosul in Iraq.
Orso, as they also nicknamed Lorenzo, was in Syria knowing that Daesh – the contemptuous form with which the Kurds call the Islamic State – was not the only enemy that threatened the freedom and integrity of the Kurds, Yazidis, Assyrians, Turkmen and Armenians in the region. The Turkish state, led by the dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had already used very hostile language against the Kurds of Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) in which he threatened to erase them from the north of the country. These threats were fulfilled months later, in January, with the invasion by Turkey of the Kurdish canton of Afrin.
In the words of his companions Lorenzo was a tireless fighter, with very high morals, and convinced by the ideals of the revolutionary fight. His ideals were those of Kropotkin, Cafiero and Malatesta: a committed and consistent libertarian communist who defended liberty, equity and justice for the oppressed until the last moment of his life.
Lorenzo had fought in the battle of Afrin against the jihadists of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), self-styled “Syrian National Army” and the Turkish army. There he lost several of his comrades, among them, the anarchist Sevger Ara Makhno, a Turkish anarchist militant who decided to cross the border of his country and join the Kurdish resistance against the neo-Ottoman regime and its partners in Syria. Sevger had shared a military unit with Orso. Both were part of the anarchist brigade Tekosina Anarsist (Anarchist Struggle, in Kurdish) of the International Freedom Battalion.
Lorenzo Orsetti was born on February 13, 1986 in Florence, Italy. During his life in his native Florence, Orso worked from the age of 16 as a restaurateur, waiter, chef and sommelier. In his city, the services of that sector are very requested by the bourgeois class. He also worked in luxurious restaurants where he met rich people all the time. Following the logic and goals imposed by capitalism, Lorenzo had a “good job” and, despite being a worker, a humble worker, had a life full of opportunities in a sector that allowed him to make a career. However, he was tired of European individualistic society, of “Italian mediocrity”, of consumerism and indifference against the most vulnerable and forgotten sectors. ”I’m tired of serving food to the rich,” Lorenzo told his friends.
He was a revolutionary, he felt he had to take a step further. Since he had read about the Rojava Revolution, the Kurdish resistance in Kobane against Daesh, Lorenzo believed that his place was not in Italy, but in Syria. He had an internationalist spirit like the men and women from all over the world who went to Spain to fight against fascism in the International Brigades in 1936, the anarchists of the CNT that he admired so much. His phrase summed it up perfectly: “Better to add life to the days than days to life.”
Lorenzo fell martyr in Baghouz, in the province of Deir Ezzor, a few days before that city was liberated by the Kurds. It was the last bastion of the Islamic State in Syria. Lorenzo’s body was recovered and he will be buried in his beloved Florence according to his parents. This Sunday, March 31, there will be a demonstration in memory of Orso in his native Italy, organized by anarchist, communist and anti-fascist organizations.
A libertarian who could not stand indifference
“I met Lorenzo in Italy. We were simply compas, I made friends with him in Iraq when we were about to cross the border into Syria, “says Dilsoz, an Italian militiaman who fought against the Islamic State and shared a barracks with Orso. He was also in the TKP / ML TIKKO as well as Tekoser.
Heval Dilsoz is not his real name, like Tekoser, it is his battle name, which he uses for security reasons. In Italy, justice pursues fighters who, like Lorenzo, fought against Daesh. The Italian justice considers them “socially dangerous persons” and they are processed by a fascist Law of 1930 that is still valid.“We shared more or less the same ideals,” says Dilsoz, who in Italy is a anarchist activist in autonomous nonpartisan spaces. We talked with him and he told us about Orso, his ideals and about the Kurdish revolutionary experience for which Lorenzo gave his life.
-Who was Lorenzo? How was he?
-Lorenzo was, first of all, a person with libertarian ideals and, above all, a companion. He was not very activist in the militancy of his city, but he was well known among his peers. He was a very simple and humble person. He was a waiter, cook and sommelier. He had started working at the age of 16 in the environment of restoration in Florence. That environment is of a very high standard and he had a luxury job, despite always being a worker. He hated his social position, in the sense that he did not like the people with whom he surrounded himself. It was an environment in which he met many rich and famous people. But he could not take that anymore. He always told me: “I’m tired of bringing food to the rich.” He was a worker, a partner and a revolutionary.
Dilsoz also coincides with other companions of Lorenzo: he was a Heval, as they say “companions” in Rojava. ”A mixture of comrade and friend. He was literally a Heval, he was not interested in money or glory or anything, just motivated and interested to act for the cause in which he believed. “If I fall, I wanted it to be for these reasons,” recalls Dilsoz.“Lorenzo was very loved by all his companions. He did not know private property, he shared everything, the only thing he had in Syria was his laptop. Soon his local companions asked him how it was used and he shared it with his battalion, “he adds.
Days after Tekoser’s death, his father Alessandro Orsetti told the Italian press that his “son could not stand indifference”. All those who knew him give the same definition of Lorenzo: a supportive man who was not afraid to face the consequences that could come from defending what he believed to be just.
From an ideological judicial persecution, the harassment of the Turkish intelligence services or the same death, nothing made Lorenzo doubt about his decision. ”Lorenzo was not afraid of death,” says Dilsoz. He always said that ‘it is better to add life to the days than the days to life’. That was Lorenzo: living to do. “
“I was very happy, I was very happy to be away from Italy, from the mediocrity of the Western world, from consumerism and from wage labor. He loved his land, not Italy; He loved his land, his city, but he was happy being away, “says Dilsoz.
From the beautiful Florence to the war against Turkey and the Daesh
-Why did you decide to challenge the liberal monotony and leave Italy?
-I was rotten from Italy, I was really rotten from Italy’s mediocrity: from racism, from everything, and I wanted to do something really revolutionary and be with the people outside of Italy, because in the West there is a lot of talk about the revolution of such and such, but he wanted to be part of a change. He saw in the comrades that they went to Syria to fight a hope, a way out, an opportunity to participate in a revolution, a revolution that is neither anarchist nor communist, because it is the Middle East and has nothing to do with Western society. In my opinion, it can not be classified as an anarchist or a communist, but it is a real revolution. The aspiration of every revolutionary is to be part of a revolution and if it is not today, when can we say of having participated in a revolution?
-In the West, we usually talk about “revolution” only with words, as something nostalgic that only reminds us of past events, of history books. And we tend more to talk about the revolution than to do it. Lorenzo decided, personally, to take his ideals further and defend a revolution that, as you say, is neither communist nor anarchist. The Rojava Revolution is neither communist nor anarchist. It is perhaps as a social democrat, but in the context of the Middle East and the existence of tribal powers. There a revolution with a gender perspective is something very positive and revolutionary … Is that so?
-Yes, exactly as you say. I believe that we, the Westerners, compare a lot, we are very Eurocentric … Even in Argentina. The fact is that the Rojava Revolution, and the peoples of the Federation of Northern Syria, comes from 40 years of seeking the Kurdish people for freedom. This revolution has the same ideology as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK): the democratic confederalism, as well as the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).The PKK was previously Marxist-Leninist-Maoist and, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they made a self-criticism about the socialism they were seeking and came to the conclusion that they should seek socialism, but renounce the State and build a socialism from the communes and cooperatives. I would not call it a social democracy, but a socialist democracy, but that’s my opinion. After all, it is democratic confederalism and has elements of anarchism, Marxism, socialism and Kurdish culture and the Middle East in general. And the central issue is the abolition of patriarchy, of which I completely agree, since it is the primary form of oppression, that is, the domination of man over woman, of the passage from the matriarchal natural society to the patriarchal society.
-How does this revolution impact on people?
“About feminism, I’m not a feminist, since I’m a boy,” he interrupts, “but I’m in favor of the abolition of patriarchy and education in that direction. Something that impressed me in Syria is just that: to see women leave the house to fight, take charge of positions of responsibility, and so on. This has been, I believe, with all the criticism that can be made to the Federation of Northern Syria, something that can not be criticized: the emancipation of women , because they come from a context in which, in the Middle East , before the revolution, women were literally slaves and remain so in other regions. It is the fruit of 40 years of work of the Kurdish Liberation Movement that has expanded, fortunately, in different non-Kurdish parts of Northern Syria.
- What was the reaction of civilians to see women participating in the liberation of their cities from the dominion of Daesh?
-I was in the military, so I could not see much civil. I saw almost nothing because I was in the militia, but I feel privileged to have seen the reaction of civilians when men and women resumed Daesh cities. For the people it was something very novel, they had never seen anything like this, especially the Arabs. People were very surprised to see women armed and capable; many did not like it, but, from now on, they will have to get used to it.
Lorenzo: Bear in Italy, Tiger in Rojava
Orso, which in Spanish means “Bear”, was the nickname that Lorenzo liked to use in Italy. So much so that when he arrived at the military academy in Rojava he wanted to use a battle name alluding to his lifelong nickname: he chose the word Bear (Hurç, in Kurdish) , but his colleagues convinced him that it was not a good idea , since that word has no positive connotations in that region. So his comrades began to look for another name of another animal and there arose Tekoser Piling, whose literal translation would become “Luchador Tigre”.
Returning to Orso, what units and battle fronts did Lorenzo serve?
-Lorenzo was part of the International Freedom Battalion, which is a conglomeration of communist parties and anarchist organizations. There he became friends with battalion commanders and was sent to Arab or Kurdish units. He was also very committed to helping develop (the anarcho-communist battalion) Tekosina Anarsist. He moved a lot between the fronts because he wanted to fight. He fought a lot in Afrin’s defense and over the battlefield he earned the reputation as a heavy fighter, an elite fighter. Then, he fought in the entire campaign of Deir Ezzor, called “Storm of Cizire”, until the day he fell.
Lorenzo fell martyred at the Battle of Baghouz when his group, which at that time were four more men, were ambushed by an unknown number of Islamic State jihadists. The posthumous video of Lorenzo published by the YPG explains the reason for his decision to join the Kurdish militia. In the images, Lorenzo says smiling: “If you are watching this video, it means that something happened to me.“ And he says goodbye: “I love them all, my family, my friends and my dog… I love them”. Those were his words in the video-testament. When he refers to his dog Orsino, he pauses and becomes nostalgic.
-Lorenzo loved animals, had many photos with dogs. Was it like that in the barracks?
-He was obsessed with dogs, he loved them. I do not like dogs, especially when I learned that dogs eat corpses there. Some dogs ate the remains of a companion who had been hit by a Turkish missile. But he did not care because he loved dogs.
Hypocrisy, demagogy and cynicism
The dead no longer bother. This seems to be the premise followed by Italian media and justice. When the sad death of Lorenzo was known, the news shocked the public. The covers of the newspapers of the day afterwards already had the image: it was that of the “Italian hero.” About his anarchist ideology? Well thanks. For the Italian press and the government, anarchists are drunks, drug addicts and criminals. That data about him is not useful and they can appropriate the image of Lorenzo. The media, with an emotional tone, tried to create a stereotype of Lorenzo as an Italian nationalist hero. Meanwhile, the justice of the country judicially prosecutes Lorenzo’s anarchist and socialist comrades returning from Syria after their fight against the Islamic State. They say they are “socially dangerous”. The “pericolosità sociale” is an Italian legal figure in force since the fascist era of Mussolini that, incredibly, is still valid in the penal code. ”They are heroes and they process them, but when they die, they all want to appropriate them,” declared Annalisa, Lorenzo’s mother.
“Let us pray for Lorenzo and maximum repudiation of his infamous murderers,” was what the far-right politician Matteo Salvini, Italy’s interior minister and leader of the Liberal-Conservative party Liga Norte, tweeted. Salvini is a populist who bases his entire political campaign on social networks. He is sadly known for his xenophobic, Islamophobic and racist positions. It is the typical European politicians who go out of their way to talk about fighting against the “Muslim barbarians” and excuse themselves with the actions of the Daesh to justify their hatred.
“That Salvini talks about Lorenzo is very out of place, Lorenzo was the opposite of him. Salvini wants a world with walls and exclusion, Lorenzo was the opposite, he was one of us whom Salvini and the government daily call ‘drunks, drug addicts, abusive and criminal occupiers’ – says Dilsoz completely indignant. This happens because they always fill their mouths talking about a crusade against Muslims and blah blah. But when it comes to fighting against Islamic extremism and the jihadists, it was the anarchists of the social centers who fought them. At least, in Italy, I do not know in other countries. Those of the Northern League or of the 5 Star Party that are in the government to fight were not left, it was us. So they just talk. “
-What happens with the comrades of Lorenzo who return from fighting against the Islamic State?
- Five comrades from Torino and one from Sardinia (who returned from Syria) are being prosecuted, accused of being socially dangerous. The Turin comrades are processed or being prosecuted. They are anarchist organizations or autonomous (left), and especially non-TAV (who reject the construction of a high-speed train between Lion, in France, and Turin). The Sardinian partner, for being independent and being from a Sardinian independence family.
- That was what was waiting for Lorenzo if he returned alive to Italy?
- Yesterday (on Monday, March 25), during the Court hearing, a great controversy erupted as a result of the fall of Lorenzo. Many people said, “Well, how is it possible that when they die they are glorified and when come alive are they processed?“A Prosecutor in the case said that if Lorenzo returned safely, there would be no judicial process against him, because the moderation they ask for the companions is for their activities in Italy. It is totally hypocritical. Saying this lie, they tried to get out of a very uncomfortable position for themselves.
-What does it mean to be considered a “socially dangerous” person?
– The law of social dangerousness is fascist, from the fascist period of 1930, promulgated with the Rocco Code (criminal) that is still valid at the time of democracy. It’s not a criminal conviction, because you do not go to jail for that. It is a measure taken by governments when they consider that someone is dangerous. It’s ridiculous, it’s something fascist. It means being deprived of a passport, even a driver’s license. You have to have a fixed address where you must be obligatorily from 9 o’clock at night and you can not leave until 7 o’clock in the morning. In addition, you can not frequent public places, such as assemblies or political demonstrations. They can also expel you from the city where you live if you were not born there, and they can even forbid you to leave your city.
- Do you want to say a few words to finish?
-Yes. I call on all revolutionaries to support this revolution which, in order not to be Eurocentric, is neither communist nor anarchist, but it is a struggle of the human being for emancipation. I think it is a hopeful step of humanity towards emancipation. Ugliness happened in Italy, bad things happened in Argentina, I know it was March 24 against the dictatorship, but the blood of the peoples of the East is not different from that of the peoples of the West. This is very important to remember, because the world needs a different model of development. I went to Syria, like Lorenzo, because it seemed that it was the end of history, the end of the world, there was only capitalism: produce, consume, die. And there I saw, at least, an intention to organize society in a way where there is no exploitation of man over man, of man over woman and of man over nature. At least, the intention is. It is a revolution that, in general, is very good. Then the theories when they come out of the books and are put into practice are different, it is obvious: it is not that an Arab of a tribal community who is accustomed to enslaving his wife, the YPG’s arrive and he automatically becomes an anarchist. But it is very important to support this project. The world needs an alternative to capitalism.
Lorenzo’s last words might have been the ones he wrote and entrusted to a colleague in case he did not come home.
Hello, if you are reading this message, it means that I am no longer in this world. Well, do not be so sad, I’m doing well; I do not regret anything, I died doing what I thought was right , defending the weak and being consistent with my ideals of justice, fairness and freedom.
So, despite my premature departure, my life has been a success and I’m almost sure that I left with a smile on my lips. I could not have asked for something better.
I wish you well and hope that one day (if you have not done so yet) you decide to give your life for others. Because that’s the only way you can change the world.
Only by overcoming individualism and selfishness in each one of us can the difference be made.
These are difficult times, I know, but do not resign yourself, do not give up hope. Never! not even for a moment. Even if the whole world seems lost, and the bad things that afflict humans and the earth seem unbearable, continue to find strength and inspire your companions.
It is exactly in those darkest moments that your light helps.
And always remember: “Every storm begins with a simple drop”. Try to be that drop.
I love you all, and I hope you treasure these words.
Serkeftin! Orso, Tekoser, Lorenzo. -
The shape of attention: The reality constraint, §2
- Why I’m going to write about Israel
- The shape of attention
In my previous post, I looked at a pattern: how attention behaves—how intense it gets, how long it lasts, and how quickly it reaches moral conclusions. If that pattern holds, then the next question is what, exactly, is being judged.
This one focuses on the reality being evaluated.
Before judging behavior, we need to be clear about the situation in which decisions are being made. Otherwise, we’re not really evaluating anything—we’re reacting. That’s the gap I keep running into: strong conclusions formed without a clear picture of the conditions those decisions are made under.
And this isn’t theoretical. This is a real-world decision environment shaped by constraint, uncertainty, and time pressure—in Israel’s case, under ongoing threat. It’s the environment people here are actually living in, even when that part of the picture isn’t always visible from the outside.
The actors and the threat
From Gaza, Hamas has carried out repeated attacks on Israeli civilians, culminating most dramatically in the October 7 assault, which shattered a widespread assumption inside Israel that deterrence had largely contained the threat. In the north, Hezbollah maintains a large rocket and missile arsenal capable of reaching deep into Israel, alongside a long history of cross-border attacks and escalation (CSIS Missile Threat database; INSS analysis).
These aren’t distant or theoretical threats from the Israeli perspective. Since October 2023, tens of thousands of residents from northern Israeli communities have been displaced for extended periods because of ongoing rocket fire and the risk of wider escalation. Even into 2025, Israeli state agencies were still administering evacuation assistance and return grants for affected northern communities (Israeli State Comptroller report).
At the same time, both Hamas and Hezbollah operate within dense civilian environments. There is substantial evidence that Hamas has built extensive tunnel infrastructure beneath Gaza’s urban terrain and that both groups have repeatedly operated from or near populated civilian areas, though the quality of public evidence varies between broad patterns and specific site-by-site claims (Reuters Gaza tunnel investigation; Human Rights Watch Lebanon 2006 report; UNRWA statements on rockets found in schools).
None of this makes every military response justified, and it doesn’t erase the obligations imposed by international law. But it does shape the environment in which Israeli decisions are made. Inside Israel, the threat does not feel dormant or hypothetical—it feels recurring, unresolved, and capable of escalating again at any time.
The operational environment
This is not open-field warfare fought between clearly separated armies. In Gaza especially, combat takes place inside one of the most densely populated urban environments in the world, where civilian infrastructure and military activity can exist in close physical proximity.
There is substantial evidence that Hamas has launched rockets from populated zones and built extensive tunnel infrastructure beneath urban terrain (Reuters Gaza tunnel investigation; UNRWA statements on rockets found in schools; Amnesty International reporting on Palestinian armed groups in Gaza).
But this is also where precision matters. Broad patterns are often much easier to establish publicly than site-specific claims. The existence of tunnel systems and civilian-area operations is well documented; claims about the military use of particular hospitals, schools, or residential buildings are often harder for outside observers to independently verify in real time.
International Humanitarian Law exists partly because wars like this are so dangerous for civilians. It requires distinction between combatants and civilians, proportionality in attack, and feasible precautions to reduce civilian harm. At the same time, the law also prohibits the use of human shields and requires armed groups, as far as feasible, to avoid embedding military objectives within densely populated civilian areas (ICRC customary IHL database on distinction, proportionality, and human shields).
Even advanced militaries with precision weapons, surveillance systems, and legal review processes have caused catastrophic civilian harm in dense urban warfare. In Mosul in 2017, for example, a coalition airstrike targeting ISIS fighters triggered secondary explosives commanders reportedly did not know were present, collapsing a building and killing more than 100 civilians (RAND analysis on Raqqa; CENTCOM investigation into the Mosul strike).
From the outside, it is easy to imagine that legal rules resolve the dilemma. In practice, they describe a battlefield that remains extraordinarily difficult to navigate.
What evaluation depends on
Judging these situations depends on variables that are often only partially visible from the outside.
Distinction depends heavily on intelligence: whether a target was believed to be military and how reliable the available information appeared at the time. In urban warfare, those assessments are often probabilistic rather than certain, and they can change quickly as people, weapons, and command activity move through dense civilian environments.
Proportionality is also evaluated prospectively, not retrospectively. The legal question is not simply how much destruction occurred, but what military advantage was anticipated and what level of civilian harm was expected before the strike took place. Those are judgments made under uncertainty and severe time pressure.
Intent is harder still. Civilian casualties, even at very large scale, do not automatically establish intent to target civilians or destroy a population. In international law, intent is usually inferred over time from patterns of conduct, directives, operational behavior, and the broader context—not from casualty numbers alone (Genocide Convention).
None of this rules out the possibility of unlawful actions or serious violations. But it does mean that judgments formed from the outside are often based on only partial visibility into how decisions were made, what intelligence existed at the time, and what commanders believed the likely consequences of action or inaction would be.
That gap between aftermath visibility and contemporaneous knowledge is easy to overlook, especially because modern audiences encounter war primarily through images of destruction, casualties, and grief detached from operational context. Those images are real and morally significant. But they do not automatically reveal what intelligence existed beforehand, what commanders believed at the time, or what alternatives they thought were available.
The decision constraint
At the same time, decisions in conflicts like this are rarely made under conditions of perfect clarity.
From the Israeli perspective, the problem is not simply whether military action creates risks. It is that inaction carries risks as well. October 7 deeply undermined the belief that threats from Gaza could be indefinitely contained through deterrence alone, and Hezbollah’s ongoing rocket fire after October 2023 displaced tens of thousands of residents from northern Israeli communities for extended periods (Israeli State Comptroller report; CSIS Missile Threat database).
That doesn’t automatically justify every response, and it doesn’t mean escalation is always the best option. But it does mean Israeli decision-makers are weighing not only the dangers of military action, but also the perceived dangers of failing to respond.
Inside Israel, inaction often does not feel neutral. It feels like a decision with consequences of its own.
Realistic options
From the outside, discussions about war can sometimes imply that there is a clear moral alternative sitting just offstage—a cleaner option that avoids both escalation and ongoing threat. In practice, the choices are usually much narrower and more difficult than that.
A restrained response may reduce immediate escalation in some situations, but it can also leave military infrastructure intact and reinforce the perception that attacks can continue without significant consequence. A larger campaign may degrade capabilities more substantially, while also increasing civilian harm, destruction, displacement, and international isolation.
Even “doing nothing” is not neutral when civilians remain under recurring rocket fire, border communities are displaced, and armed groups openly prepare for future confrontation.
None of this tells us automatically which decisions are correct. But it does mean that the trade-offs are real. The costs are real. And they exist on every side of the decision, not only on one.
Where this leaves us
This is the environment in which these decisions are made: dense urban warfare, imperfect intelligence, ongoing threat, political pressure, legal constraint, and competing risks attached to both action and inaction.
Understanding that environment doesn’t settle the moral questions, and it doesn’t automatically justify particular decisions or outcomes. Serious mistakes, unlawful actions, and genuine moral failures can still occur within it.
But without that context, it becomes much easier to mistake visible destruction for full knowledge of how decisions were reached, what information was available at the time, or what alternatives decision-makers believed they had.
That distinction matters. Not because it eliminates accountability, but because it shapes the difference between judgment and assumption.
In the next post, I’ll move from the decision environment itself to another question: how those decisions are evaluated, and whether the standards being applied are consistent.
- Why I’m going to write about Israel
- The shape of attention
-
The shape of attention: The reality constraint, §2
- Why I’m going to write about Israel
- The shape of attention
In my previous post, I looked at a pattern: how attention behaves—how intense it gets, how long it lasts, and how quickly it reaches moral conclusions. If that pattern holds, then the next question is what, exactly, is being judged.
This one focuses on the reality being evaluated.
Before judging behavior, we need to be clear about the situation in which decisions are being made. Otherwise, we’re not really evaluating anything—we’re reacting. That’s the gap I keep running into: strong conclusions formed without a clear picture of the conditions those decisions are made under.
And this isn’t theoretical. This is a real-world decision environment shaped by constraint, uncertainty, and time pressure—in Israel’s case, under ongoing threat. It’s the environment people here are actually living in, even when that part of the picture isn’t always visible from the outside.
The actors and the threat
From Gaza, Hamas has carried out repeated attacks on Israeli civilians, culminating most dramatically in the October 7 assault, which shattered a widespread assumption inside Israel that deterrence had largely contained the threat. In the north, Hezbollah maintains a large rocket and missile arsenal capable of reaching deep into Israel, alongside a long history of cross-border attacks and escalation (CSIS Missile Threat database; INSS analysis).
These aren’t distant or theoretical threats from the Israeli perspective. Since October 2023, tens of thousands of residents from northern Israeli communities have been displaced for extended periods because of ongoing rocket fire and the risk of wider escalation. Even into 2025, Israeli state agencies were still administering evacuation assistance and return grants for affected northern communities (Israeli State Comptroller report).
At the same time, both Hamas and Hezbollah operate within dense civilian environments. There is substantial evidence that Hamas has built extensive tunnel infrastructure beneath Gaza’s urban terrain and that both groups have repeatedly operated from or near populated civilian areas, though the quality of public evidence varies between broad patterns and specific site-by-site claims (Reuters Gaza tunnel investigation; Human Rights Watch Lebanon 2006 report; UNRWA statements on rockets found in schools).
None of this makes every military response justified, and it doesn’t erase the obligations imposed by international law. But it does shape the environment in which Israeli decisions are made. Inside Israel, the threat does not feel dormant or hypothetical—it feels recurring, unresolved, and capable of escalating again at any time.
The operational environment
This is not open-field warfare fought between clearly separated armies. In Gaza especially, combat takes place inside one of the most densely populated urban environments in the world, where civilian infrastructure and military activity can exist in close physical proximity.
There is substantial evidence that Hamas has launched rockets from populated zones and built extensive tunnel infrastructure beneath urban terrain (Reuters Gaza tunnel investigation; UNRWA statements on rockets found in schools; Amnesty International reporting on Palestinian armed groups in Gaza).
But this is also where precision matters. Broad patterns are often much easier to establish publicly than site-specific claims. The existence of tunnel systems and civilian-area operations is well documented; claims about the military use of particular hospitals, schools, or residential buildings are often harder for outside observers to independently verify in real time.
International Humanitarian Law exists partly because wars like this are so dangerous for civilians. It requires distinction between combatants and civilians, proportionality in attack, and feasible precautions to reduce civilian harm. At the same time, the law also prohibits the use of human shields and requires armed groups, as far as feasible, to avoid embedding military objectives within densely populated civilian areas (ICRC customary IHL database on distinction, proportionality, and human shields).
Even advanced militaries with precision weapons, surveillance systems, and legal review processes have caused catastrophic civilian harm in dense urban warfare. In Mosul in 2017, for example, a coalition airstrike targeting ISIS fighters triggered secondary explosives commanders reportedly did not know were present, collapsing a building and killing more than 100 civilians (RAND analysis on Raqqa; CENTCOM investigation into the Mosul strike).
From the outside, it is easy to imagine that legal rules resolve the dilemma. In practice, they describe a battlefield that remains extraordinarily difficult to navigate.
What evaluation depends on
Judging these situations depends on variables that are often only partially visible from the outside.
Distinction depends heavily on intelligence: whether a target was believed to be military and how reliable the available information appeared at the time. In urban warfare, those assessments are often probabilistic rather than certain, and they can change quickly as people, weapons, and command activity move through dense civilian environments.
Proportionality is also evaluated prospectively, not retrospectively. The legal question is not simply how much destruction occurred, but what military advantage was anticipated and what level of civilian harm was expected before the strike took place. Those are judgments made under uncertainty and severe time pressure.
Intent is harder still. Civilian casualties, even at very large scale, do not automatically establish intent to target civilians or destroy a population. In international law, intent is usually inferred over time from patterns of conduct, directives, operational behavior, and the broader context—not from casualty numbers alone (Genocide Convention).
None of this rules out the possibility of unlawful actions or serious violations. But it does mean that judgments formed from the outside are often based on only partial visibility into how decisions were made, what intelligence existed at the time, and what commanders believed the likely consequences of action or inaction would be.
That gap between aftermath visibility and contemporaneous knowledge is easy to overlook, especially because modern audiences encounter war primarily through images of destruction, casualties, and grief detached from operational context. Those images are real and morally significant. But they do not automatically reveal what intelligence existed beforehand, what commanders believed at the time, or what alternatives they thought were available.
The decision constraint
At the same time, decisions in conflicts like this are rarely made under conditions of perfect clarity.
From the Israeli perspective, the problem is not simply whether military action creates risks. It is that inaction carries risks as well. October 7 deeply undermined the belief that threats from Gaza could be indefinitely contained through deterrence alone, and Hezbollah’s ongoing rocket fire after October 2023 displaced tens of thousands of residents from northern Israeli communities for extended periods (Israeli State Comptroller report; CSIS Missile Threat database).
That doesn’t automatically justify every response, and it doesn’t mean escalation is always the best option. But it does mean Israeli decision-makers are weighing not only the dangers of military action, but also the perceived dangers of failing to respond.
Inside Israel, inaction often does not feel neutral. It feels like a decision with consequences of its own.
Realistic options
From the outside, discussions about war can sometimes imply that there is a clear moral alternative sitting just offstage—a cleaner option that avoids both escalation and ongoing threat. In practice, the choices are usually much narrower and more difficult than that.
A restrained response may reduce immediate escalation in some situations, but it can also leave military infrastructure intact and reinforce the perception that attacks can continue without significant consequence. A larger campaign may degrade capabilities more substantially, while also increasing civilian harm, destruction, displacement, and international isolation.
Even “doing nothing” is not neutral when civilians remain under recurring rocket fire, border communities are displaced, and armed groups openly prepare for future confrontation.
None of this tells us automatically which decisions are correct. But it does mean that the trade-offs are real. The costs are real. And they exist on every side of the decision, not only on one.
Where this leaves us
This is the environment in which these decisions are made: dense urban warfare, imperfect intelligence, ongoing threat, political pressure, legal constraint, and competing risks attached to both action and inaction.
Understanding that environment doesn’t settle the moral questions, and it doesn’t automatically justify particular decisions or outcomes. Serious mistakes, unlawful actions, and genuine moral failures can still occur within it.
But without that context, it becomes much easier to mistake visible destruction for full knowledge of how decisions were reached, what information was available at the time, or what alternatives decision-makers believed they had.
That distinction matters. Not because it eliminates accountability, but because it shapes the difference between judgment and assumption.
In the next post, I’ll move from the decision environment itself to another question: how those decisions are evaluated, and whether the standards being applied are consistent.
- Why I’m going to write about Israel
- The shape of attention
-
The shape of attention: The reality constraint, §2
- Why I’m going to write about Israel
- The shape of attention
In my previous post, I looked at a pattern: how attention behaves—how intense it gets, how long it lasts, and how quickly it reaches moral conclusions. If that pattern holds, then the next question is what, exactly, is being judged.
This one focuses on the reality being evaluated.
Before judging behavior, we need to be clear about the situation in which decisions are being made. Otherwise, we’re not really evaluating anything—we’re reacting. That’s the gap I keep running into: strong conclusions formed without a clear picture of the conditions those decisions are made under.
And this isn’t theoretical. This is a real-world decision environment shaped by constraint, uncertainty, and time pressure—in Israel’s case, under ongoing threat. It’s the environment people here are actually living in, even when that part of the picture isn’t always visible from the outside.
The actors and the threat
From Gaza, Hamas has carried out repeated attacks on Israeli civilians, culminating most dramatically in the October 7 assault, which shattered a widespread assumption inside Israel that deterrence had largely contained the threat. In the north, Hezbollah maintains a large rocket and missile arsenal capable of reaching deep into Israel, alongside a long history of cross-border attacks and escalation (CSIS Missile Threat database; INSS analysis).
These aren’t distant or theoretical threats from the Israeli perspective. Since October 2023, tens of thousands of residents from northern Israeli communities have been displaced for extended periods because of ongoing rocket fire and the risk of wider escalation. Even into 2025, Israeli state agencies were still administering evacuation assistance and return grants for affected northern communities (Israeli State Comptroller report).
At the same time, both Hamas and Hezbollah operate within dense civilian environments. There is substantial evidence that Hamas has built extensive tunnel infrastructure beneath Gaza’s urban terrain and that both groups have repeatedly operated from or near populated civilian areas, though the quality of public evidence varies between broad patterns and specific site-by-site claims (Reuters Gaza tunnel investigation; Human Rights Watch Lebanon 2006 report; UNRWA statements on rockets found in schools).
None of this makes every military response justified, and it doesn’t erase the obligations imposed by international law. But it does shape the environment in which Israeli decisions are made. Inside Israel, the threat does not feel dormant or hypothetical—it feels recurring, unresolved, and capable of escalating again at any time.
The operational environment
This is not open-field warfare fought between clearly separated armies. In Gaza especially, combat takes place inside one of the most densely populated urban environments in the world, where civilian infrastructure and military activity can exist in close physical proximity.
There is substantial evidence that Hamas has launched rockets from populated zones and built extensive tunnel infrastructure beneath urban terrain (Reuters Gaza tunnel investigation; UNRWA statements on rockets found in schools; Amnesty International reporting on Palestinian armed groups in Gaza).
But this is also where precision matters. Broad patterns are often much easier to establish publicly than site-specific claims. The existence of tunnel systems and civilian-area operations is well documented; claims about the military use of particular hospitals, schools, or residential buildings are often harder for outside observers to independently verify in real time.
International Humanitarian Law exists partly because wars like this are so dangerous for civilians. It requires distinction between combatants and civilians, proportionality in attack, and feasible precautions to reduce civilian harm. At the same time, the law also prohibits the use of human shields and requires armed groups, as far as feasible, to avoid embedding military objectives within densely populated civilian areas (ICRC customary IHL database on distinction, proportionality, and human shields).
Even advanced militaries with precision weapons, surveillance systems, and legal review processes have caused catastrophic civilian harm in dense urban warfare. In Mosul in 2017, for example, a coalition airstrike targeting ISIS fighters triggered secondary explosives commanders reportedly did not know were present, collapsing a building and killing more than 100 civilians (RAND analysis on Raqqa; CENTCOM investigation into the Mosul strike).
From the outside, it is easy to imagine that legal rules resolve the dilemma. In practice, they describe a battlefield that remains extraordinarily difficult to navigate.
What evaluation depends on
Judging these situations depends on variables that are often only partially visible from the outside.
Distinction depends heavily on intelligence: whether a target was believed to be military and how reliable the available information appeared at the time. In urban warfare, those assessments are often probabilistic rather than certain, and they can change quickly as people, weapons, and command activity move through dense civilian environments.
Proportionality is also evaluated prospectively, not retrospectively. The legal question is not simply how much destruction occurred, but what military advantage was anticipated and what level of civilian harm was expected before the strike took place. Those are judgments made under uncertainty and severe time pressure.
Intent is harder still. Civilian casualties, even at very large scale, do not automatically establish intent to target civilians or destroy a population. In international law, intent is usually inferred over time from patterns of conduct, directives, operational behavior, and the broader context—not from casualty numbers alone (Genocide Convention).
None of this rules out the possibility of unlawful actions or serious violations. But it does mean that judgments formed from the outside are often based on only partial visibility into how decisions were made, what intelligence existed at the time, and what commanders believed the likely consequences of action or inaction would be.
That gap between aftermath visibility and contemporaneous knowledge is easy to overlook, especially because modern audiences encounter war primarily through images of destruction, casualties, and grief detached from operational context. Those images are real and morally significant. But they do not automatically reveal what intelligence existed beforehand, what commanders believed at the time, or what alternatives they thought were available.
The decision constraint
At the same time, decisions in conflicts like this are rarely made under conditions of perfect clarity.
From the Israeli perspective, the problem is not simply whether military action creates risks. It is that inaction carries risks as well. October 7 deeply undermined the belief that threats from Gaza could be indefinitely contained through deterrence alone, and Hezbollah’s ongoing rocket fire after October 2023 displaced tens of thousands of residents from northern Israeli communities for extended periods (Israeli State Comptroller report; CSIS Missile Threat database).
That doesn’t automatically justify every response, and it doesn’t mean escalation is always the best option. But it does mean Israeli decision-makers are weighing not only the dangers of military action, but also the perceived dangers of failing to respond.
Inside Israel, inaction often does not feel neutral. It feels like a decision with consequences of its own.
Realistic options
From the outside, discussions about war can sometimes imply that there is a clear moral alternative sitting just offstage—a cleaner option that avoids both escalation and ongoing threat. In practice, the choices are usually much narrower and more difficult than that.
A restrained response may reduce immediate escalation in some situations, but it can also leave military infrastructure intact and reinforce the perception that attacks can continue without significant consequence. A larger campaign may degrade capabilities more substantially, while also increasing civilian harm, destruction, displacement, and international isolation.
Even “doing nothing” is not neutral when civilians remain under recurring rocket fire, border communities are displaced, and armed groups openly prepare for future confrontation.
None of this tells us automatically which decisions are correct. But it does mean that the trade-offs are real. The costs are real. And they exist on every side of the decision, not only on one.
Where this leaves us
This is the environment in which these decisions are made: dense urban warfare, imperfect intelligence, ongoing threat, political pressure, legal constraint, and competing risks attached to both action and inaction.
Understanding that environment doesn’t settle the moral questions, and it doesn’t automatically justify particular decisions or outcomes. Serious mistakes, unlawful actions, and genuine moral failures can still occur within it.
But without that context, it becomes much easier to mistake visible destruction for full knowledge of how decisions were reached, what information was available at the time, or what alternatives decision-makers believed they had.
That distinction matters. Not because it eliminates accountability, but because it shapes the difference between judgment and assumption.
In the next post, I’ll move from the decision environment itself to another question: how those decisions are evaluated, and whether the standards being applied are consistent.
- Why I’m going to write about Israel
- The shape of attention
-
The shape of attention: The reality constraint, §2
- Why I’m going to write about Israel
- The shape of attention
In my previous post, I looked at a pattern: how attention behaves—how intense it gets, how long it lasts, and how quickly it reaches moral conclusions. If that pattern holds, then the next question is what, exactly, is being judged.
This one focuses on the reality being evaluated.
Before judging behavior, we need to be clear about the situation in which decisions are being made. Otherwise, we’re not really evaluating anything—we’re reacting. That’s the gap I keep running into: strong conclusions formed without a clear picture of the conditions those decisions are made under.
And this isn’t theoretical. This is a real-world decision environment shaped by constraint, uncertainty, and time pressure—in Israel’s case, under ongoing threat. It’s the environment people here are actually living in, even when that part of the picture isn’t always visible from the outside.
The actors and the threat
From Gaza, Hamas has carried out repeated attacks on Israeli civilians, culminating most dramatically in the October 7 assault, which shattered a widespread assumption inside Israel that deterrence had largely contained the threat. In the north, Hezbollah maintains a large rocket and missile arsenal capable of reaching deep into Israel, alongside a long history of cross-border attacks and escalation (CSIS Missile Threat database; INSS analysis).
These aren’t distant or theoretical threats from the Israeli perspective. Since October 2023, tens of thousands of residents from northern Israeli communities have been displaced for extended periods because of ongoing rocket fire and the risk of wider escalation. Even into 2025, Israeli state agencies were still administering evacuation assistance and return grants for affected northern communities (Israeli State Comptroller report).
At the same time, both Hamas and Hezbollah operate within dense civilian environments. There is substantial evidence that Hamas has built extensive tunnel infrastructure beneath Gaza’s urban terrain and that both groups have repeatedly operated from or near populated civilian areas, though the quality of public evidence varies between broad patterns and specific site-by-site claims (Reuters Gaza tunnel investigation; Human Rights Watch Lebanon 2006 report; UNRWA statements on rockets found in schools).
None of this makes every military response justified, and it doesn’t erase the obligations imposed by international law. But it does shape the environment in which Israeli decisions are made. Inside Israel, the threat does not feel dormant or hypothetical—it feels recurring, unresolved, and capable of escalating again at any time.
The operational environment
This is not open-field warfare fought between clearly separated armies. In Gaza especially, combat takes place inside one of the most densely populated urban environments in the world, where civilian infrastructure and military activity can exist in close physical proximity.
There is substantial evidence that Hamas has launched rockets from populated zones and built extensive tunnel infrastructure beneath urban terrain (Reuters Gaza tunnel investigation; UNRWA statements on rockets found in schools; Amnesty International reporting on Palestinian armed groups in Gaza).
But this is also where precision matters. Broad patterns are often much easier to establish publicly than site-specific claims. The existence of tunnel systems and civilian-area operations is well documented; claims about the military use of particular hospitals, schools, or residential buildings are often harder for outside observers to independently verify in real time.
International Humanitarian Law exists partly because wars like this are so dangerous for civilians. It requires distinction between combatants and civilians, proportionality in attack, and feasible precautions to reduce civilian harm. At the same time, the law also prohibits the use of human shields and requires armed groups, as far as feasible, to avoid embedding military objectives within densely populated civilian areas (ICRC customary IHL database on distinction, proportionality, and human shields).
Even advanced militaries with precision weapons, surveillance systems, and legal review processes have caused catastrophic civilian harm in dense urban warfare. In Mosul in 2017, for example, a coalition airstrike targeting ISIS fighters triggered secondary explosives commanders reportedly did not know were present, collapsing a building and killing more than 100 civilians (RAND analysis on Raqqa; CENTCOM investigation into the Mosul strike).
From the outside, it is easy to imagine that legal rules resolve the dilemma. In practice, they describe a battlefield that remains extraordinarily difficult to navigate.
What evaluation depends on
Judging these situations depends on variables that are often only partially visible from the outside.
Distinction depends heavily on intelligence: whether a target was believed to be military and how reliable the available information appeared at the time. In urban warfare, those assessments are often probabilistic rather than certain, and they can change quickly as people, weapons, and command activity move through dense civilian environments.
Proportionality is also evaluated prospectively, not retrospectively. The legal question is not simply how much destruction occurred, but what military advantage was anticipated and what level of civilian harm was expected before the strike took place. Those are judgments made under uncertainty and severe time pressure.
Intent is harder still. Civilian casualties, even at very large scale, do not automatically establish intent to target civilians or destroy a population. In international law, intent is usually inferred over time from patterns of conduct, directives, operational behavior, and the broader context—not from casualty numbers alone (Genocide Convention).
None of this rules out the possibility of unlawful actions or serious violations. But it does mean that judgments formed from the outside are often based on only partial visibility into how decisions were made, what intelligence existed at the time, and what commanders believed the likely consequences of action or inaction would be.
That gap between aftermath visibility and contemporaneous knowledge is easy to overlook, especially because modern audiences encounter war primarily through images of destruction, casualties, and grief detached from operational context. Those images are real and morally significant. But they do not automatically reveal what intelligence existed beforehand, what commanders believed at the time, or what alternatives they thought were available.
The decision constraint
At the same time, decisions in conflicts like this are rarely made under conditions of perfect clarity.
From the Israeli perspective, the problem is not simply whether military action creates risks. It is that inaction carries risks as well. October 7 deeply undermined the belief that threats from Gaza could be indefinitely contained through deterrence alone, and Hezbollah’s ongoing rocket fire after October 2023 displaced tens of thousands of residents from northern Israeli communities for extended periods (Israeli State Comptroller report; CSIS Missile Threat database).
That doesn’t automatically justify every response, and it doesn’t mean escalation is always the best option. But it does mean Israeli decision-makers are weighing not only the dangers of military action, but also the perceived dangers of failing to respond.
Inside Israel, inaction often does not feel neutral. It feels like a decision with consequences of its own.
Realistic options
From the outside, discussions about war can sometimes imply that there is a clear moral alternative sitting just offstage—a cleaner option that avoids both escalation and ongoing threat. In practice, the choices are usually much narrower and more difficult than that.
A restrained response may reduce immediate escalation in some situations, but it can also leave military infrastructure intact and reinforce the perception that attacks can continue without significant consequence. A larger campaign may degrade capabilities more substantially, while also increasing civilian harm, destruction, displacement, and international isolation.
Even “doing nothing” is not neutral when civilians remain under recurring rocket fire, border communities are displaced, and armed groups openly prepare for future confrontation.
None of this tells us automatically which decisions are correct. But it does mean that the trade-offs are real. The costs are real. And they exist on every side of the decision, not only on one.
Where this leaves us
This is the environment in which these decisions are made: dense urban warfare, imperfect intelligence, ongoing threat, political pressure, legal constraint, and competing risks attached to both action and inaction.
Understanding that environment doesn’t settle the moral questions, and it doesn’t automatically justify particular decisions or outcomes. Serious mistakes, unlawful actions, and genuine moral failures can still occur within it.
But without that context, it becomes much easier to mistake visible destruction for full knowledge of how decisions were reached, what information was available at the time, or what alternatives decision-makers believed they had.
That distinction matters. Not because it eliminates accountability, but because it shapes the difference between judgment and assumption.
In the next post, I’ll move from the decision environment itself to another question: how those decisions are evaluated, and whether the standards being applied are consistent.
- Why I’m going to write about Israel
- The shape of attention
-
The shape of attention: The reality constraint, §2
- Why I’m going to write about Israel
- The shape of attention
In my previous post, I looked at a pattern: how attention behaves—how intense it gets, how long it lasts, and how quickly it reaches moral conclusions. If that pattern holds, then the next question is what, exactly, is being judged.
This one focuses on the reality being evaluated.
Before judging behavior, we need to be clear about the situation in which decisions are being made. Otherwise, we’re not really evaluating anything—we’re reacting. That’s the gap I keep running into: strong conclusions formed without a clear picture of the conditions those decisions are made under.
And this isn’t theoretical. This is a real-world decision environment shaped by constraint, uncertainty, and time pressure—in Israel’s case, under ongoing threat. It’s the environment people here are actually living in, even when that part of the picture isn’t always visible from the outside.
The actors and the threat
From Gaza, Hamas has carried out repeated attacks on Israeli civilians, culminating most dramatically in the October 7 assault, which shattered a widespread assumption inside Israel that deterrence had largely contained the threat. In the north, Hezbollah maintains a large rocket and missile arsenal capable of reaching deep into Israel, alongside a long history of cross-border attacks and escalation (CSIS Missile Threat database; INSS analysis).
These aren’t distant or theoretical threats from the Israeli perspective. Since October 2023, tens of thousands of residents from northern Israeli communities have been displaced for extended periods because of ongoing rocket fire and the risk of wider escalation. Even into 2025, Israeli state agencies were still administering evacuation assistance and return grants for affected northern communities (Israeli State Comptroller report).
At the same time, both Hamas and Hezbollah operate within dense civilian environments. There is substantial evidence that Hamas has built extensive tunnel infrastructure beneath Gaza’s urban terrain and that both groups have repeatedly operated from or near populated civilian areas, though the quality of public evidence varies between broad patterns and specific site-by-site claims (Reuters Gaza tunnel investigation; Human Rights Watch Lebanon 2006 report; UNRWA statements on rockets found in schools).
None of this makes every military response justified, and it doesn’t erase the obligations imposed by international law. But it does shape the environment in which Israeli decisions are made. Inside Israel, the threat does not feel dormant or hypothetical—it feels recurring, unresolved, and capable of escalating again at any time.
The operational environment
This is not open-field warfare fought between clearly separated armies. In Gaza especially, combat takes place inside one of the most densely populated urban environments in the world, where civilian infrastructure and military activity can exist in close physical proximity.
There is substantial evidence that Hamas has launched rockets from populated zones and built extensive tunnel infrastructure beneath urban terrain (Reuters Gaza tunnel investigation; UNRWA statements on rockets found in schools; Amnesty International reporting on Palestinian armed groups in Gaza).
But this is also where precision matters. Broad patterns are often much easier to establish publicly than site-specific claims. The existence of tunnel systems and civilian-area operations is well documented; claims about the military use of particular hospitals, schools, or residential buildings are often harder for outside observers to independently verify in real time.
International Humanitarian Law exists partly because wars like this are so dangerous for civilians. It requires distinction between combatants and civilians, proportionality in attack, and feasible precautions to reduce civilian harm. At the same time, the law also prohibits the use of human shields and requires armed groups, as far as feasible, to avoid embedding military objectives within densely populated civilian areas (ICRC customary IHL database on distinction, proportionality, and human shields).
Even advanced militaries with precision weapons, surveillance systems, and legal review processes have caused catastrophic civilian harm in dense urban warfare. In Mosul in 2017, for example, a coalition airstrike targeting ISIS fighters triggered secondary explosives commanders reportedly did not know were present, collapsing a building and killing more than 100 civilians (RAND analysis on Raqqa; CENTCOM investigation into the Mosul strike).
From the outside, it is easy to imagine that legal rules resolve the dilemma. In practice, they describe a battlefield that remains extraordinarily difficult to navigate.
What evaluation depends on
Judging these situations depends on variables that are often only partially visible from the outside.
Distinction depends heavily on intelligence: whether a target was believed to be military and how reliable the available information appeared at the time. In urban warfare, those assessments are often probabilistic rather than certain, and they can change quickly as people, weapons, and command activity move through dense civilian environments.
Proportionality is also evaluated prospectively, not retrospectively. The legal question is not simply how much destruction occurred, but what military advantage was anticipated and what level of civilian harm was expected before the strike took place. Those are judgments made under uncertainty and severe time pressure.
Intent is harder still. Civilian casualties, even at very large scale, do not automatically establish intent to target civilians or destroy a population. In international law, intent is usually inferred over time from patterns of conduct, directives, operational behavior, and the broader context—not from casualty numbers alone (Genocide Convention).
None of this rules out the possibility of unlawful actions or serious violations. But it does mean that judgments formed from the outside are often based on only partial visibility into how decisions were made, what intelligence existed at the time, and what commanders believed the likely consequences of action or inaction would be.
That gap between aftermath visibility and contemporaneous knowledge is easy to overlook, especially because modern audiences encounter war primarily through images of destruction, casualties, and grief detached from operational context. Those images are real and morally significant. But they do not automatically reveal what intelligence existed beforehand, what commanders believed at the time, or what alternatives they thought were available.
The decision constraint
At the same time, decisions in conflicts like this are rarely made under conditions of perfect clarity.
From the Israeli perspective, the problem is not simply whether military action creates risks. It is that inaction carries risks as well. October 7 deeply undermined the belief that threats from Gaza could be indefinitely contained through deterrence alone, and Hezbollah’s ongoing rocket fire after October 2023 displaced tens of thousands of residents from northern Israeli communities for extended periods (Israeli State Comptroller report; CSIS Missile Threat database).
That doesn’t automatically justify every response, and it doesn’t mean escalation is always the best option. But it does mean Israeli decision-makers are weighing not only the dangers of military action, but also the perceived dangers of failing to respond.
Inside Israel, inaction often does not feel neutral. It feels like a decision with consequences of its own.
Realistic options
From the outside, discussions about war can sometimes imply that there is a clear moral alternative sitting just offstage—a cleaner option that avoids both escalation and ongoing threat. In practice, the choices are usually much narrower and more difficult than that.
A restrained response may reduce immediate escalation in some situations, but it can also leave military infrastructure intact and reinforce the perception that attacks can continue without significant consequence. A larger campaign may degrade capabilities more substantially, while also increasing civilian harm, destruction, displacement, and international isolation.
Even “doing nothing” is not neutral when civilians remain under recurring rocket fire, border communities are displaced, and armed groups openly prepare for future confrontation.
None of this tells us automatically which decisions are correct. But it does mean that the trade-offs are real. The costs are real. And they exist on every side of the decision, not only on one.
Where this leaves us
This is the environment in which these decisions are made: dense urban warfare, imperfect intelligence, ongoing threat, political pressure, legal constraint, and competing risks attached to both action and inaction.
Understanding that environment doesn’t settle the moral questions, and it doesn’t automatically justify particular decisions or outcomes. Serious mistakes, unlawful actions, and genuine moral failures can still occur within it.
But without that context, it becomes much easier to mistake visible destruction for full knowledge of how decisions were reached, what information was available at the time, or what alternatives decision-makers believed they had.
That distinction matters. Not because it eliminates accountability, but because it shapes the difference between judgment and assumption.
In the next post, I’ll move from the decision environment itself to another question: how those decisions are evaluated, and whether the standards being applied are consistent.
- Why I’m going to write about Israel
- The shape of attention
-
Alexander de Grote op weg naar Gaugamela
Munt van Mazaios (Staatliches Münzkabinett, München)Ik liet u gisteren achter bij de brug die Hefaistion, de beste vriend van Alexander de Grote, over de Eufraat aan het bouwen was, toen aan de overzijde van de rivier het leger arriveerde van Mazaios. Hij was een Babyloniër in Perzische dienst. Alexanders biograaf Arrianus vertelt:
De Macedoniërs hadden nog geen verbinding gemaakt die doorliep tot aan de andere oever, omdat ze vreesden dat de troepen van Mazaios het bruggenhoofd zouden aanvallen. Maar toen Mazaios hoorde dat Alexander zelf in aantocht was, sloeg hij met zijn hele leger op de vlucht. Zodra hij weg was, werden de bruggen doorgetrokken naar de overkant en ging Alexander er met zijn leger overheen.noot Arrianus, Anabasis 4.9.14-15; vert. Simone Mooij.
Een Macedonische nederlaag
Arrianus’ idee dat Mazaios op de vlucht sloeg toen de Macedonische koning naderde, gaat direct of indirect terug op de woorden waarmee Alexander, Parmenion en de andere commandanten de gebeurtenis aan hun soldaten uitlegden. Het zal hen zeker bemoedigd hebben dat het eerste treffen met de vijand tijdens deze operatie was uitgelopen op zo’n gemakkelijk succes.
De Macedonische generale staf heeft ongetwijfeld beter geweten. Weinig manoeuvres van Perzische commandanten waren namelijk zó succesvol als die van Mazaios. Alexander was van plan geweest langs de rivier op te rukken naar Babylon, waar hij de aanwezigheid vermoedde van Darius’ nieuwe leger. De schepen die als drijvers voor de bruggen waren benut zouden dienen om het zware materieel te vervoeren. Deze route was de kortste en was bovendien bekend uit de Anabasis van Xenofon. Nu bleek echter dat Darius de weg had geblokkeerd. Het was al na de oogsttijd en in het rivierdal lag het graan opgeslagen in versterkte nederzettingen die Mazaios eenvoudig kon verdedigen of vernietigen. Zijn aftocht richting Babylon betekende dat de Macedoniërs nergens voedsel zouden vinden.
Peutingerkaart: “wegens watergebrek verlaten en onbewoonbare vlakten”Ze waren gedwongen een andere route te nemen en dat kon alleen de zogeheten Koninklijke Weg zijn, waarvan Alexander wist dat die ergens in het onbekende oosten lag, door de gebieden achter de rivier de Tigris. En het was ronduit onmogelijk snel door Mesopotamië op te rukken in die richting. Op deze breedte bestaat het gebied tussen de twee grote stromen uit een onbegaanbare woestijn, waar het in de hoogzomer al snel 50 graden is. De Romeinse Peutingerkaart typeert het gebied als “wegens watergebrek verlaten en onbewoonbare vlakten” en het is ook in de moderne tijd een obstakel. De ingenieurs die eeuwen later de Bagdadspoorlijn zouden aanleggen, kozen niet voor niets voor een tracé over de minder droge steppe in het noorden. Dat was ook het gebied waar de Macedoniërs nu doorheen zouden trekken, om de woestijn heen.
Darius’ opmars
Toen Darius vernam dat Alexander zich had laten dwingen tot deze omweg en oprukte naar de Tigris, trok hij vanuit Babylon naar het noorden om slag te leveren in het kerngebied van het voormalige koninkrijk Assyrië. Hij wist dat zijn vijand hier vroeg of laat naar toe zou komen en zocht een ruim strijdperk uit waar zijn numerieke meerderheid, anders dan bij Issos, goed tot haar recht zou komen. Zijn commandocentrum richtte hij in te Arba’il (het huidige Erbil), een hooggelegen versterking die befaamd was om haar heiligdom voor de vruchtbaarheidsgodin Ištar en getuige haar naam “vier-godenstad” nog meer cultusplaatsen bezat
De citadel van ArbelaHet was een uitstekende basis. Hier kwam namelijk de Koninklijke Weg samen met de wegen naar Armenië en de oostelijke satrapieën, zodat het eenvoudig was een groot leger samen te trekken. Het door Darius geselecteerde slagveld lag vijfenzeventig kilometer noordwestelijker bij een heuvel die de vorm had van de bult van een dromedaris en daarom werd aangeduid met de Semitische naam van dat dier, gammalu. De Macedoniërs verbasterden de plaatsnamen tot Arbela en Gaugamela.
Toen de Perzen het terrein hadden geëgaliseerd om het berijdbaar te maken voor strijdwagens en ruiters, was het zaak ervoor te zorgen dat Alexander zich niet naar een andere plaats begaf. Darius liet zijn tegenstander daarom ongestoord oprukken door het zuidoosten van het huidige Turkije. Het gebied deed de Macedoniërs denken aan hun vaderland en ze doopten de waterrijke stad Urhai, gelegen op een hoog boven de vlakte uitstekende rots, om tot Edessa, naar een Macedonische stad die net zo hoog lag en beroemd was om haar waterval. In het nabijgelegen Harran liet Alexander zijn mannen enkele dagen rusten en moet hij, gelovig als hij was, hebben geofferd in de tempel voor de maangod Sin. Via het bosrijke Nisibis bereikten de Macedoniërs op 18 september 331 v.Chr. de Tigris, ergens ter hoogte van de huidige Eski Mosul stuwdam.
EdessaIn de val
De Macedoniërs marcheerden een val in. Darius had het leger van Mazaios, dat zich inmiddels bij hem had gevoegd, vooruit gestuurd om het gebied te brandschatten. Alexanders troepen vonden onvoldoende voedsel om zich genoeg te voeden, maar voldoende om niet terug te keren. Overal staken Mazaios’ Babylonische ruiters de rieten daken van de huizen, de korenschoven, de gewassen en de voorraden in brand. De voorde door de Tigris ontruimden ze na een korte schermutseling: Mazaios liet de Macedoniërs verder in de fuik lopen.
Ze waren nu in Assyrië. Hoewel het machtige koninkrijk met die naam al drie eeuwen daarvoor was onderworpen door de Babyloniërs, wier imperium weer was opgenomen in dat van de Perzen, sprak de naam “Assyrië” nog altijd tot de verbeelding. De val van de eens zo machtige hoofdstad Nineveh had ook in Europa indruk gemaakt.
De TigrisUit de Babylonische Astronomische Dagboeken weten we dat op de avond van de Macedonische oversteek paniek uitbrak in het Perzische leger. Het ligt voor de hand de oorzaak daarvan te zoeken in het nieuws dat de vijand de rivier was overgestoken. Maar in feite was er geen reden voor paniek. Alexander had exact gedaan wat de grote koning wilde. Door de doorwaadbare plaatsen in de Eufraat en de Tigris vrijwel onbewaakt te laten, had de Pers bewerkstelligd dat zijn vijand optrok naar het slagveld van zíjn keuze. Darius was de situatie volledig meester en zijn zege leek gegarandeerd.
Over de slag bij Gaugamela heb ik al geblogd. U leest hier hoe slechte voortekens werkten als self-fulfilling prophecy en leidden tot de Perzische nederlaag. Volgende maand vervolg ik deze reeks met Alexanders opmars vanuit Assyrië naar Babylon.
[Een overzicht van alle blogjes over Alexander de Grote is hier.]
Het ziet er niet best uit voor Libanon. Als u meer wil weten over dat geteisterde land, lees dan mijn boek. Deze blog kunt u ook volgen via een Whatsapp-kanaal.
Zelfde tijdvak
2x Animal Style
oktober 27, 2024
Kidinnu
maart 22, 2023
De Karthaagse olifant
juli 31, 2023 Deel dit: #AlexanderDeGrote #Arbela #Arrianus #Bagdadspoorlijn #DariusIIICodomannus #dromedaris #Edessa #Erbil #Eufraat #Gaugamela #Harran #KoninklijkeWeg #Mazaios #Nineveh #Nisibis #Parmenion #Peutingerkaart #Tigris -
ISIS Never Left Syria, It Just Changed Uniforms
Early last month, the forces of the ‘new’ Syrian army flooded across north and east Syria. The troops seized key cities and major oil fields, effectively ending a decade of US-backed Kurdish autonomy – with Washington’s blessing.
One of those cities was Raqqa, the former capital of ISIS’s self-proclaimed ‘caliphate’ in Syria and a symbol of sectarianism, bloodshed, and iron-fist rule.
Raqqa remembers
It was in Raqqa where scores of soldiers from the now-dismantled Syrian Arab Army (SAA) were executed in cold blood by ISIS militants. Many of these soldiers had their severed heads impaled on pikes on the city’s outskirts.
It was also in Raqqa where countless young girls and women, many of them Yezidis abducted from Iraq in 2014, were sold into slavery in what ISIS called Souq al-Sabaya – the ‘market of female captives.’
As Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s (formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani) armed forces entered the city in early 2026, his soldiers were gleeful, excited, and reminiscent. Many of them had been there before.
A closer look at the officers leading this offensive reveals a stark reality: ISIS has not been defeated. It has been absorbed, rebranded, and redeployed across Syria, reclaiming its ‘caliphate.’
ISIS reborn under Turkiye’s shadow
The Violations Documentation Center in Northern Syria (VDCNY), a Manbij-based human rights organization that monitors abuses against Kurds, released a report in August 2024 identifying dozens of extremist militants formerly affiliated with ISIS who were later incorporated into the Turkiye-backed Syrian National Army (SNA).
The SNA was formed by Ankara in 2017 and for years served as the Turkish military’s arm in northern Syria. Turkish forces had invaded Syria in 2016 to carry out an operation against the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), whose dominant component is the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – which Ankara regards as the Syrian extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Turkiye went on to occupy swathes of Syrian territory and maintains that presence today.
Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions that assisted Turkiye’s 2016 intervention were reorganized into what became the SNA. After Raqqa fell to the SDF in 2017, this coalition absorbed scores of fleeing ISIS members. Over time, the SNA continued integrating former ISIS fighters into its ranks.
The ISIS ‘caliphate’ seemed defeated at a certain point. In reality, much of the heavy fighting against ISIS across Syria had been carried out by the former Syrian army, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, allied Iran-backed factions, and the Russian air force. The credit, however, went to Washington and the SDF – which today has been abandoned once again by the US military.
But ISIS was regrouping and reestablishing itself under a new name, with direct Turkish backing and under the watchful eye of US forces.
As VDCNY bluntly stated: “ISIS grew on the shoulders of the Free Syrian Army.”
Below is a partial list of former ISIS figures who were later absorbed into the SNA:
Abu Mohammad al-Jazrawi
According to the August 2024 VDCNY report, Abu Mohammad al-Jazrawi – born Abdullah Mohammad al-Anzi – is a Saudi national who joined ISIS in 2015 after arriving in Syria illegally via Turkiye – like tens of thousands of others from various parts of the world who did the same.
During his time with ISIS, he participated in battles against the Syrian army in the Syrian Desert and Homs countryside. He ended up becoming a military commander in Ahrar al-Sham, a notorious, sectarian extremist group responsible for many war crimes and atrocities.
Ahrar al-Sham had previously fought alongside Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front before eventually being embedded into the SNA. The extremist group is responsible for numerous war crimes, including the deadly shelling of civilians in the Shia-majority towns of Nubul and Zahraa in Aleppo, during the early years of the war.
Bashar Smeid
Nicknamed Abu Islam al-Qalamouni, Smeid joined ISIS in 2014 and participated in fighting in the Palmyra desert, Damascus countryside, and near Al-Tanf Base – where US forces were training extremist militants.
In 2016, he took command of a security detachment that oversaw the infiltration of three car bombs into Damascus’s Sayyida Zaynab area. He ended up moving to northern Syria’s Idlib in 2017 and worked with his group to funnel ISIS leaders into Turkiye.
A year later, he joined the SNA’s Ahrar al-Sharqiya faction – another criminal sectarian organization that was happy to take in ISIS leaders. In March 2023, members of Ahrar al-Sharqiya murdered four Kurdish civilians celebrating Newroz (Kurdish New Year).
Sabahi al-Ibrahim al-Muslih
Known as Abu Hamza al-Suhail, Muslih was a leader in ISIS’s Shura Council and oversaw trials on charges of apostasy and blasphemy that resulted in dozens of executions. He ended up joining the SNA’s 20th Division. While reports said he was killed in a US drone strike a few years ago, he remains a prime example of the type of characters who were joining the SNA.
Awad Jamal al-Jarad
Jarad joined ISIS in 2015 and commanded a battalion within the organization. He later entered the SNA’s Hamza Division in 2018, participated in Turkish offensives in Afrin, and subsequently joined Ahrar al-Sharqiya.
By August 2024, he was leading a unit of 30 men and had transformed the city of Tal Abyad’s post office into his personal headquarters and command center, according to VDCNY. The Hamza Division is responsible for sectarian violence, sexual assault, and other war crimes.
Majid al-Khalid
Khalid, nicknamed Hajj Abu Omar al-Ansari, formed Liwa al-Haq in Hama during the early years of the war, before incorporating his organization into ISIS in 2014. He was considered one of the founders of ISIS in Hama city.
He ended up becoming the Emir of Hama during his time with ISIS and took command of the suicide (‘Inghimassi’) battalions – which sent thousands of young men to blow themselves up in holy sites and civilian areas. In 2017, he joined the Hamza Division and became a battalion commander in the group.
Salem Turki al-Antari
Antari, nicknamed Abu Saddam al-Ansari, joined ISIS in 2014 in the Badia desert region, where he served as a commander and led extremists in battle against the former Syrian army in Palmyra and near Al-Tanf Base.
He went on to become the Emir of Palmyra. Antari later joined Ahrar al-Sharqiya in 2017 and took part in Turkish-backed assaults against Afrin, Tal Rifaat, and Ras al-Ain. He was also implicated in the roadside execution of Kurdish politician Hevrin Khalaf in 2019. In 2024, the ex-ISIS chief was appointed as the commander of the US-backed Syria Free Army (SFA), which was formed by Washington in 2022 and trained in the Al-Tanf Base.
SFA now operates under the Syrian Defense Ministry. Between 2015 and 2017, Antari took part in the ISIS takeover of Palmyra and the battles with the Syrian army that ensued. The terrorist organization’s assault on Palmyra destroyed some of Syria’s most cherished cultural heritage. In 2015, ISIS notoriously publicly beheaded renowned 83-year-old Syrian archeologist Khaled al-Asaad for refusing to reveal the locations of hidden antiquities.
Raad Issa al-Barghash
Also known as Abu Zainab, Barghash pledged allegiance to ISIS in 2013. He fought with the group in Ain al-Arab (Kobane) and elsewhere, and was responsible for the killing of many civilians. In 2017, he fled to Aleppo and entered the ranks of Ahrar al-Sharqiya, eventually becoming a top security chief in the group.
Thamer Nasser al-Iraqi
An Iraqi citizen, he joined ISIS in 2013 in Homs and then served as the military fortifications Emir in the Al-Shaddadi area until 2015. In 2016, he became the Emir of the armaments department in Raqqa, and then an advisor to the ISIS Security Office No. 011 in Raqqa.
Iraqi participated in the Battle of Mosul in 2014. Three years later, he fled towards the city of Jarablus, east of Aleppo. In November 2017, he joined Ahrar al-Sharqiya and participated in Operation Olive Branch and Operation Peace Spring, launched by the Turkish army in 2018 and 2019. He also participated in bombings and summary executions of Kurdish civilians in the Jindires district of Afrin.
Sayf Boulad Abu Bakr
Abu Bakr, now a dual Syrian-Turkish citizen, had defected from the old Syrian military to join the FSA in 2012. These defections were encouraged by foreign intervention and funding. The FSA never maintained the status of a unified opposition force, quickly splintering into different factions that aligned themselves with extremist groups.
He joined ISIS in 2013 and was appointed governor of Al-Bab during the organization’s control over the city. A few years later, he ended up as commander in the Hamza Division, taking part in several Turkish-backed offensives against Kurdish forces.
During his time with ISIS, he appeared in a propaganda video where another member of the group is heard demanding “repentance” from around a dozen prisoners kneeling before them. The prisoners are identified in the video as members of the PKK.
Abu Bakr was also associated with Abdul Jabbar al-Okaidi, an FSA commander who publicly praised ISIS following the capture of Menagh Air Base in 2013.
Abu Bakr is now a senior commander in the Syrian army. In May 2025, the EU imposed sanctions on him, including asset freezes and a travel ban, citing “serious human rights abuses in Syria, including torture and arbitrary killings of civilians.”
Washington’s ‘partner’ in fighting ISIS
These are only select examples.
In 2025, the entire Turkish-backed SNA was formally integrated into the Syrian Defense Ministry. Following the fall of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the SNA – effectively ISIS in new attire – became a core pillar of the current Syrian army, alongside Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), previously the Nusra Front. HTS itself contains numerous former ISIS members and has a long record of war crimes.
After the SDF was thrown under the bus by Washington in early 2026, Syrian forces swept across the north and captured key oil fields and cities. Soldiers were jubilant upon their entry into Raqqa, charged with nostalgia for ISIS’s glory days.
غالبية مدينة الرقة خارج سيطرة تنظيم «قسد PKK». العلم السوري فوق دوار الساعة. pic.twitter.com/Mpm1WO716Y
— زين العابدين | Zain al-Abidin (@DeirEzzore) January 18, 2026
During the assault on northern Syria, tens of thousands of ISIS militants and their families were set free as troops entered Al-Hawl Prison Camp, which was previously run by the SDF.
Videos on social media showed government troops arriving at Al-Hawl and allowing the prisoners to leave. During the fighting days earlier, hundreds of ISIS prisoners escaped from Al-Shaddadi Prison. The SDF lost control of the facility and accused the US of ignoring its calls for help. Two kilometers away from the prison is a US coalition military base.
“The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], we are proud of this,” video footage showed one Iraqi woman, dressed in a niqab, saying as she was leaving Al-Hawl.
The new Syrian army is saturated with former ISIS commanders and fighters – yet Washington now describes it as a “partner” in combating ISIS.
This is the same army that massacred Alawites and Druze in March and July of 2025, and committed heinous war crimes against Kurds during attacks against the SDF in January 2026.
President Sharaa, the former ISIS and Al-Qaeda leader behind deadly sectarian suicide bombings in both Iraq and Syria, (as well deadly attacks in Lebanon and the occupation of the country’s border with Syria) has vowed to protect minorities, and claims he is leading a campaign to rid Syria of extremism.
This is impossible with an army made up of ISIS and a political leadership made up of violent warlords.
An investigation released by The Cradle last year reveals that since Sharaa came to power, Syria has witnessed a government-linked campaign of mass abduction and sexual enslavement targeting young Alawite women. Syrian government forces also committed massacres targeting minorities, including Druze and Alawites.
In a new video from the assault on the north, a Syrian soldier films two female Kurdish fighters captured during battle. As he drives around with the two women in the back of his vehicle, he brags about how they will make a “perfect gift” for his commander.
ISIS is very much alive. And it now rules the entirety of Syria under the protection and sponsorship of the US and Turkiye.
source: The Cradle
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=28322 #alNusra #alQaeda #counterRevolution #imperialism #isis #syria #westAsia -
ISIS Never Left Syria, It Just Changed Uniforms
Early last month, the forces of the ‘new’ Syrian army flooded across north and east Syria. The troops seized key cities and major oil fields, effectively ending a decade of US-backed Kurdish autonomy – with Washington’s blessing.
One of those cities was Raqqa, the former capital of ISIS’s self-proclaimed ‘caliphate’ in Syria and a symbol of sectarianism, bloodshed, and iron-fist rule.
Raqqa remembers
It was in Raqqa where scores of soldiers from the now-dismantled Syrian Arab Army (SAA) were executed in cold blood by ISIS militants. Many of these soldiers had their severed heads impaled on pikes on the city’s outskirts.
It was also in Raqqa where countless young girls and women, many of them Yezidis abducted from Iraq in 2014, were sold into slavery in what ISIS called Souq al-Sabaya – the ‘market of female captives.’
As Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s (formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani) armed forces entered the city in early 2026, his soldiers were gleeful, excited, and reminiscent. Many of them had been there before.
A closer look at the officers leading this offensive reveals a stark reality: ISIS has not been defeated. It has been absorbed, rebranded, and redeployed across Syria, reclaiming its ‘caliphate.’
ISIS reborn under Turkiye’s shadow
The Violations Documentation Center in Northern Syria (VDCNY), a Manbij-based human rights organization that monitors abuses against Kurds, released a report in August 2024 identifying dozens of extremist militants formerly affiliated with ISIS who were later incorporated into the Turkiye-backed Syrian National Army (SNA).
The SNA was formed by Ankara in 2017 and for years served as the Turkish military’s arm in northern Syria. Turkish forces had invaded Syria in 2016 to carry out an operation against the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), whose dominant component is the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – which Ankara regards as the Syrian extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Turkiye went on to occupy swathes of Syrian territory and maintains that presence today.
Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions that assisted Turkiye’s 2016 intervention were reorganized into what became the SNA. After Raqqa fell to the SDF in 2017, this coalition absorbed scores of fleeing ISIS members. Over time, the SNA continued integrating former ISIS fighters into its ranks.
The ISIS ‘caliphate’ seemed defeated at a certain point. In reality, much of the heavy fighting against ISIS across Syria had been carried out by the former Syrian army, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, allied Iran-backed factions, and the Russian air force. The credit, however, went to Washington and the SDF – which today has been abandoned once again by the US military.
But ISIS was regrouping and reestablishing itself under a new name, with direct Turkish backing and under the watchful eye of US forces.
As VDCNY bluntly stated: “ISIS grew on the shoulders of the Free Syrian Army.”
Below is a partial list of former ISIS figures who were later absorbed into the SNA:
Abu Mohammad al-Jazrawi
According to the August 2024 VDCNY report, Abu Mohammad al-Jazrawi – born Abdullah Mohammad al-Anzi – is a Saudi national who joined ISIS in 2015 after arriving in Syria illegally via Turkiye – like tens of thousands of others from various parts of the world who did the same.
During his time with ISIS, he participated in battles against the Syrian army in the Syrian Desert and Homs countryside. He ended up becoming a military commander in Ahrar al-Sham, a notorious, sectarian extremist group responsible for many war crimes and atrocities.
Ahrar al-Sham had previously fought alongside Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front before eventually being embedded into the SNA. The extremist group is responsible for numerous war crimes, including the deadly shelling of civilians in the Shia-majority towns of Nubul and Zahraa in Aleppo, during the early years of the war.
Bashar Smeid
Nicknamed Abu Islam al-Qalamouni, Smeid joined ISIS in 2014 and participated in fighting in the Palmyra desert, Damascus countryside, and near Al-Tanf Base – where US forces were training extremist militants.
In 2016, he took command of a security detachment that oversaw the infiltration of three car bombs into Damascus’s Sayyida Zaynab area. He ended up moving to northern Syria’s Idlib in 2017 and worked with his group to funnel ISIS leaders into Turkiye.
A year later, he joined the SNA’s Ahrar al-Sharqiya faction – another criminal sectarian organization that was happy to take in ISIS leaders. In March 2023, members of Ahrar al-Sharqiya murdered four Kurdish civilians celebrating Newroz (Kurdish New Year).
Sabahi al-Ibrahim al-Muslih
Known as Abu Hamza al-Suhail, Muslih was a leader in ISIS’s Shura Council and oversaw trials on charges of apostasy and blasphemy that resulted in dozens of executions. He ended up joining the SNA’s 20th Division. While reports said he was killed in a US drone strike a few years ago, he remains a prime example of the type of characters who were joining the SNA.
Awad Jamal al-Jarad
Jarad joined ISIS in 2015 and commanded a battalion within the organization. He later entered the SNA’s Hamza Division in 2018, participated in Turkish offensives in Afrin, and subsequently joined Ahrar al-Sharqiya.
By August 2024, he was leading a unit of 30 men and had transformed the city of Tal Abyad’s post office into his personal headquarters and command center, according to VDCNY. The Hamza Division is responsible for sectarian violence, sexual assault, and other war crimes.
Majid al-Khalid
Khalid, nicknamed Hajj Abu Omar al-Ansari, formed Liwa al-Haq in Hama during the early years of the war, before incorporating his organization into ISIS in 2014. He was considered one of the founders of ISIS in Hama city.
He ended up becoming the Emir of Hama during his time with ISIS and took command of the suicide (‘Inghimassi’) battalions – which sent thousands of young men to blow themselves up in holy sites and civilian areas. In 2017, he joined the Hamza Division and became a battalion commander in the group.
Salem Turki al-Antari
Antari, nicknamed Abu Saddam al-Ansari, joined ISIS in 2014 in the Badia desert region, where he served as a commander and led extremists in battle against the former Syrian army in Palmyra and near Al-Tanf Base.
He went on to become the Emir of Palmyra. Antari later joined Ahrar al-Sharqiya in 2017 and took part in Turkish-backed assaults against Afrin, Tal Rifaat, and Ras al-Ain. He was also implicated in the roadside execution of Kurdish politician Hevrin Khalaf in 2019. In 2024, the ex-ISIS chief was appointed as the commander of the US-backed Syria Free Army (SFA), which was formed by Washington in 2022 and trained in the Al-Tanf Base.
SFA now operates under the Syrian Defense Ministry. Between 2015 and 2017, Antari took part in the ISIS takeover of Palmyra and the battles with the Syrian army that ensued. The terrorist organization’s assault on Palmyra destroyed some of Syria’s most cherished cultural heritage. In 2015, ISIS notoriously publicly beheaded renowned 83-year-old Syrian archeologist Khaled al-Asaad for refusing to reveal the locations of hidden antiquities.
Raad Issa al-Barghash
Also known as Abu Zainab, Barghash pledged allegiance to ISIS in 2013. He fought with the group in Ain al-Arab (Kobane) and elsewhere, and was responsible for the killing of many civilians. In 2017, he fled to Aleppo and entered the ranks of Ahrar al-Sharqiya, eventually becoming a top security chief in the group.
Thamer Nasser al-Iraqi
An Iraqi citizen, he joined ISIS in 2013 in Homs and then served as the military fortifications Emir in the Al-Shaddadi area until 2015. In 2016, he became the Emir of the armaments department in Raqqa, and then an advisor to the ISIS Security Office No. 011 in Raqqa.
Iraqi participated in the Battle of Mosul in 2014. Three years later, he fled towards the city of Jarablus, east of Aleppo. In November 2017, he joined Ahrar al-Sharqiya and participated in Operation Olive Branch and Operation Peace Spring, launched by the Turkish army in 2018 and 2019. He also participated in bombings and summary executions of Kurdish civilians in the Jindires district of Afrin.
Sayf Boulad Abu Bakr
Abu Bakr, now a dual Syrian-Turkish citizen, had defected from the old Syrian military to join the FSA in 2012. These defections were encouraged by foreign intervention and funding. The FSA never maintained the status of a unified opposition force, quickly splintering into different factions that aligned themselves with extremist groups.
He joined ISIS in 2013 and was appointed governor of Al-Bab during the organization’s control over the city. A few years later, he ended up as commander in the Hamza Division, taking part in several Turkish-backed offensives against Kurdish forces.
During his time with ISIS, he appeared in a propaganda video where another member of the group is heard demanding “repentance” from around a dozen prisoners kneeling before them. The prisoners are identified in the video as members of the PKK.
Abu Bakr was also associated with Abdul Jabbar al-Okaidi, an FSA commander who publicly praised ISIS following the capture of Menagh Air Base in 2013.
Abu Bakr is now a senior commander in the Syrian army. In May 2025, the EU imposed sanctions on him, including asset freezes and a travel ban, citing “serious human rights abuses in Syria, including torture and arbitrary killings of civilians.”
Washington’s ‘partner’ in fighting ISIS
These are only select examples.
In 2025, the entire Turkish-backed SNA was formally integrated into the Syrian Defense Ministry. Following the fall of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the SNA – effectively ISIS in new attire – became a core pillar of the current Syrian army, alongside Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), previously the Nusra Front. HTS itself contains numerous former ISIS members and has a long record of war crimes.
After the SDF was thrown under the bus by Washington in early 2026, Syrian forces swept across the north and captured key oil fields and cities. Soldiers were jubilant upon their entry into Raqqa, charged with nostalgia for ISIS’s glory days.
غالبية مدينة الرقة خارج سيطرة تنظيم «قسد PKK». العلم السوري فوق دوار الساعة. pic.twitter.com/Mpm1WO716Y
— زين العابدين | Zain al-Abidin (@DeirEzzore) January 18, 2026
During the assault on northern Syria, tens of thousands of ISIS militants and their families were set free as troops entered Al-Hawl Prison Camp, which was previously run by the SDF.
Videos on social media showed government troops arriving at Al-Hawl and allowing the prisoners to leave. During the fighting days earlier, hundreds of ISIS prisoners escaped from Al-Shaddadi Prison. The SDF lost control of the facility and accused the US of ignoring its calls for help. Two kilometers away from the prison is a US coalition military base.
“The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], we are proud of this,” video footage showed one Iraqi woman, dressed in a niqab, saying as she was leaving Al-Hawl.
The new Syrian army is saturated with former ISIS commanders and fighters – yet Washington now describes it as a “partner” in combating ISIS.
This is the same army that massacred Alawites and Druze in March and July of 2025, and committed heinous war crimes against Kurds during attacks against the SDF in January 2026.
President Sharaa, the former ISIS and Al-Qaeda leader behind deadly sectarian suicide bombings in both Iraq and Syria, (as well deadly attacks in Lebanon and the occupation of the country’s border with Syria) has vowed to protect minorities, and claims he is leading a campaign to rid Syria of extremism.
This is impossible with an army made up of ISIS and a political leadership made up of violent warlords.
An investigation released by The Cradle last year reveals that since Sharaa came to power, Syria has witnessed a government-linked campaign of mass abduction and sexual enslavement targeting young Alawite women. Syrian government forces also committed massacres targeting minorities, including Druze and Alawites.
In a new video from the assault on the north, a Syrian soldier films two female Kurdish fighters captured during battle. As he drives around with the two women in the back of his vehicle, he brags about how they will make a “perfect gift” for his commander.
ISIS is very much alive. And it now rules the entirety of Syria under the protection and sponsorship of the US and Turkiye.
source: The Cradle
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=28322 #alNusra #alQaeda #counterRevolution #imperialism #isis #syria #westAsia -
Alrighty, let's do another MKVToolNix release, v98.0 this time. Again, pretty small in scope, but then again there's no use in not doing a release, so why not? 😂 Have fun! https://www.bunkus.org/2026/04/2026-04-05-mkvtoolnix-v98-released/ #MKVToolNix #Matroska
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The smallest release of MKVToolNix ever is out, v97, with just one change. But still, have to keep up with the schedule, I guess 😁 Note to macOS users: I've decided to stop offering macOS binaries in the second half of 2026 due to Apple sunsetting support for the Rosetta x86-to-ARM translation technology and my build process only producing x86 binaries. https://www.bunkus.org/2026/01/2026-01-02-mkvtoolnix-v97-released/ #MKVToolNix #Matroska
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Let's do another release of MKVToolNix today, v96.0. This is another of those small maintenance releases with a couple of enhancements & a couple of bug fixes. Have fun! 😁 https://www.bunkus.org/2025/11/2025-11-08-mkvtoolnix-v96-released/ #MKVToolNix #Matroska
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Hey 😁 Time for release v95 of MKVToolNix: a couple of new features/enhancements contributed by a kind person, a handful of bug fixes. Have fun! https://mkvtoolnix.download #MKVToolNix #Matroska
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MKVToolNix v94 is out, a tiny release with just one feature & one bug fix 😁 https://www.bunkus.org/2025/07/2025-07-27-mkvtoolnix-v94-0-released/ Have fun! #MKVToolNix #Matroska
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Does anyone use tangerineui with Mastodon? When I activate it (any of its variants) the whole UI becomes quite a bit laggy. Loading the deck takes noticeably longer than with the default "Mastodon (light)", and more importantly typing is laggy as hell. When I type moderately fluently I have to wait 0.5 to 1s for the text box to catch up. This is on Vivaldi on both Windows & Linux. #tangerineui