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> Who is your enemy and why do they want to hurt you It seems like the perfect occasion to quote Mickens' immortal words: > Basically, you’re either dealing w

> Who is your enemy and why do they want to hurt you It seems like the perfect occasion to quote Mickens' immortal words: > Basically, you’re either dealing with Mossad or not-Mossad. If your adversary is not-Mossad, then you’ll probably be fine if you pick a good password and don’t respond to emails from ChEaPestPAiNPi11s@ virus-basket.biz.ru. If your adversary is the Mossad, YOU’RE GONNA DIE AND THERE’S NOTHING THAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. The Mossad is not intimidated by the fact that you employ https:// https://. If the Mossad wants your data, they’re going to use a drone to replace your cellphone with a piece of uranium that’s shaped like a cellphone, and when you die of tumors filled with tumors, they’re going to hold a press conference and say “It wasn’t us” as they wear t-shirts that say “IT WAS DEFINITELY US,” and then they’re going to buy all of your stuff at your estate sale so that they can directly look at the photos of your vacation instead of reading your insipid emails about them. https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf

monroeclinton 2y ago
If they are that competent then it implies they let October 7th and September 11th happen. My know-nothing take is that given the funds, lack of morals, and government support they can pull off some actions that benefit them, but let’s not act like it is more than it is.
- ss64 2y ago
  Surely no government would ever lie about something like that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag
- esafak 2y ago
  It would be weird if no government saw it coming. Some people clearly anticipated it: https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123885 https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123885
- hnbad 2y ago
  Don't confuse ruthlessness for competence. Israel does a lot of things because it knows it can get away with them. Israel is also known for spreading blatant disinformation. Occam's Razor suggests they were unprepared for the Oct 7 attack because they simply didn't see it coming even if they knew Hamas was up to something. When having terrorist organisations shoot bottle rockets at you or have their members blow themselves up is a common occurrence and your tolerance of collateral damage in your military counter-attacks is so high that you've continuously killed an order of magnitude more people in your counter-attacks every year while maintaining a much higher ratio of civilians casualties per military target, you don't actually need good intel because your mode of response defaults to "just kill 10x as many of them as they killed of us".
- acdha 2y ago
  Don’t forget that governments are big organizations. The Israeli government “knew” in the sense that they were earned by the Saudi and Egyptian governments, and the Israeli intelligence community had Hamas’ plans at least a year before the attacks and widely circulated them, and had specific warnings months and days before the attacks: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-05/ty-article/.premium/despite-intel-warnings-about-a-hamas-attack-the-army-didnt-evacuate-the-nova-festival/0000018c-3993-dc03-a9ec-3dfb2cda0000 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-05/ty-article/.p... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-h... One take on this is that Netanyahu allowed them to happen because he needs to stay in power to delay his personal risk of going to jail, which would be compatible with his subsequent actions to prolong the war, but it’s also quite plausible that this simply reflects widespread arrogance: many reports say the intelligence alerts were ignored because senior officials didn’t believe that Hamas was capable of a sophisticated attack. Their tactical excellence would have fed into this, because they generally do outclass their opponents considerably.
  - edanm 2y ago
    I'm a big Netanyahu critic, as are many in Israel nowadays. And I think he'd do pretty much anything to stay in power, which is at least some part of the reason the war is still ongoing, if not the main reason. But the idea that he actually knew about this and let it happen, is IMO very, very unlikely. I mean, just from that same pragmatic perspective in which he'd do anything to remain in power - he lost massive amounts of support because of October 7th. He's been able to claw some of that support back, but he's still polling far below where he was before October 7th, and it is very unlikely he will remain in office past the next elections.
    - acdha 2y ago
      It’s too conspiratorial for my tastes, too, but I think you have to at least evaluate it given how much advanced notice they had. It certainly wouldn’t be unprecedented for someone to think they could spin things in a more favorable direction than turned out to be the case. That said, if I had to bet my money is on simple arrogance. When you’re that consistently outclassing your opponent it’s easy to assume that’s always true as opposed to to _mostly_ true. We had similar problems with 9/11 where FBI offices were playing internal political games because they just weren’t serious enough about major domestic attacks.

monroeclinton 2y ago

If they are that competent then it implies they let October 7th and September 11th happen. My know-nothing take is that given the funds, lack of morals, and government support they can pull off some actions that benefit them, but let’s not act like it is more than it is.

ss64 2y ago
Surely no government would ever lie about something like that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag
esafak 2y ago
It would be weird if no government saw it coming. Some people clearly anticipated it: https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123885 https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123885
hnbad 2y ago
Don't confuse ruthlessness for competence. Israel does a lot of things because it knows it can get away with them. Israel is also known for spreading blatant disinformation. Occam's Razor suggests they were unprepared for the Oct 7 attack because they simply didn't see it coming even if they knew Hamas was up to something. When having terrorist organisations shoot bottle rockets at you or have their members blow themselves up is a common occurrence and your tolerance of collateral damage in your military counter-attacks is so high that you've continuously killed an order of magnitude more people in your counter-attacks every year while maintaining a much higher ratio of civilians casualties per military target, you don't actually need good intel because your mode of response defaults to "just kill 10x as many of them as they killed of us".
acdha 2y ago
Don’t forget that governments are big organizations. The Israeli government “knew” in the sense that they were earned by the Saudi and Egyptian governments, and the Israeli intelligence community had Hamas’ plans at least a year before the attacks and widely circulated them, and had specific warnings months and days before the attacks: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-05/ty-article/.premium/despite-intel-warnings-about-a-hamas-attack-the-army-didnt-evacuate-the-nova-festival/0000018c-3993-dc03-a9ec-3dfb2cda0000 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-05/ty-article/.p... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-h... One take on this is that Netanyahu allowed them to happen because he needs to stay in power to delay his personal risk of going to jail, which would be compatible with his subsequent actions to prolong the war, but it’s also quite plausible that this simply reflects widespread arrogance: many reports say the intelligence alerts were ignored because senior officials didn’t believe that Hamas was capable of a sophisticated attack. Their tactical excellence would have fed into this, because they generally do outclass their opponents considerably.
- edanm 2y ago
  I'm a big Netanyahu critic, as are many in Israel nowadays. And I think he'd do pretty much anything to stay in power, which is at least some part of the reason the war is still ongoing, if not the main reason. But the idea that he actually knew about this and let it happen, is IMO very, very unlikely. I mean, just from that same pragmatic perspective in which he'd do anything to remain in power - he lost massive amounts of support because of October 7th. He's been able to claw some of that support back, but he's still polling far below where he was before October 7th, and it is very unlikely he will remain in office past the next elections.
  - acdha 2y ago
    It’s too conspiratorial for my tastes, too, but I think you have to at least evaluate it given how much advanced notice they had. It certainly wouldn’t be unprecedented for someone to think they could spin things in a more favorable direction than turned out to be the case. That said, if I had to bet my money is on simple arrogance. When you’re that consistently outclassing your opponent it’s easy to assume that’s always true as opposed to to _mostly_ true. We had similar problems with 9/11 where FBI offices were playing internal political games because they just weren’t serious enough about major domestic attacks.