Joined November 2008
davidrieff retweeted
Ruhollah Mansouri was killed by the Islamic regime in Iran on January 9. Don’t let his name be forgotten. #IranMassacre‌2026
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davidrieff retweeted
يشرح الخبير العسكري اسباب تفوق انصار الله في هذه الحرب علي السعوديه. «لقد درّبتُ سعوديين، درّبتُ طيارين، ودرّبتُ قوات برية، ودرّبتُ عناصر أخرى تعمل في مجال الدعم اللوجستي وما شابه ذلك. إنهم من بين أسوأ العسكريين على وجه الأرض. ​وعندما أصبح محمد بن سلمان وزيرا للدفاع في السعودية، وكان ذلك أول منصب يتولاه، اعتقد أن الأمر مجرد نقطة انطلاق ليصبح ولياً للعهد ثم يصعد إلى ما هو أعلى من ذلك، وهو ما سيحدث على الأرجح إذا كانت العائلة الحاكمة بهذا القدر من الغباء. ​وقد بدأ هذه الحرب ليثبت جدارته ويصنع لنفسه اسماً وبطولة؛ لكنه سرعان ما تلقى هزيمة مذلة ولقن درساً قاسياً. ولولا أننا تدخلنا وانتشلناه من تلك الورطة، لما حقق أي نجاح يُذكر. ​خلاصة القول، هم ليسوا جيدين على الإطلاق؛ بل ربما هم من أسوأ الطيارين وأردأ الجنود على وجه الارض. أفسدهم المال وأفسدتهم كل المظاهر التي تنخر في السعودية على مدار الساعة طوال أيام الأسبوع، ومحمد بن سلمان خير مثال على ذلك. ​ولن يتمكنوا من هزيمة أحد. وبالتأكيد لن يهزموا هذه القبائل الشمالية الشرسة التي أثبتت للجميع أنها تدرك تماماً ما تفعل، وتتعلم بسرعة بالغة؛ فمهما رميت عليهم، يستوعبونه ثم يردون عليك بضربة مضادة تعطل ما قمت به. ​لذلك لا أرى أن القوة الجوية تمثل أي نموذج يُحتذى به لهزيمة هؤلاء. انظروا إلى ما فعله هيغسيث سابقاً في البحر الأحمر، ألقى بكل قنبلة استطاع توجيهها نحوهم، ولم يجدِ ذلك نفعاً؛ وانتهى به الأمر متراجعاً من البحر الأحمر يجر أذيال الخيبة والهزيمة، وكذلك انسحبت البحرية تجر أذيال الهزيمة. ​إذن، ما الذي يمكنكم فعله؟ لقد باتوا أفضل بكثير مما كانوا عليه منذ ذلك الحين. والمذهل حقاً هو مدى براعتهم فيما نسميه نحن في الولايات المتحدة "تنسيق القتال عبر الأسلحة المشتركة" (Combined Arms). ولا أقصد هنا حروب التحالفات، فتلك مسألة مختلفة كلياً؛ إنما الأسلحة المشتركة تعني باختصار دمج قواتك الجوية، وقواتك البرية، وقواتك البحرية، وأي أدوات أخرى تملكها من استخبارات وغيرها. تعني دمجها جميعاً في خطة حملة عسكرية تساهم فيها كل قوة بقدراتها العسكرية لتحقيق الهدف النهائي الذي تسعى إليه الحملة. ​وهم بارعون في هذا الأمر، بارعون فيه للغاية. هذا ينطبق على المستوى التكتيكي في الحرب، والمستوى العملياتي، وبحسب تقديري، فإن المستوى التالي—وهو المستوى الاستراتيجي لإدارة الحرب—هم متفوقون فيه إلى أبعد حد أيضاً. لأنهم تعلموا واستوعبوا الدروس جيداً، ويفهمون عقلية الولايات المتحدة، وبالتأكيد يفهمون السعودية فهماً تاماً؛ فقد قاتلوها لأكثر من عشرين عاماً. ​لا يساورني أدنى شك في أنهم—ما لم يحدث تدخل صيني، أو روسي، أو هندي، أو ما شابه (ولن أقول تركياً لأن موقفهم غامض للغاية الآن)—قادرون على دحر الجميع في المنطقة إذا تُرك لهم المجال. لكنهم لا يريدون التوسع الإقليمي؛ هم يريدون إحكام سيطرتهم وترسيخ سلطتهم على اليمن. وسيحققون ذلك حتماً، ولن يوقفهم أحد. وبالتأكيد لن نوقفهم نحن، وبالتأكيد لن توقفهم السعودية». - الكورنيل لاري ولكنسون، مدير مكتب وزير الخارجية الامريكي السابق و طيار في حرب الفيتنام.
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MORE: The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) continues to baselessly claim a Russian encirclement of Dobropillya as part of the Kremlin’s cognitive warfare effort to exaggerate Russian battlefield successes and portray Ukrainian defenses as collapsing. There has been no evidence from the battlefield in recent weeks suggesting significant Russian advances toward Dobropillya, and recent Ukrainian reports refute the Russian claims. ISW has observed no evidence to support these Russian MoD claims of advances within or surrounding Dobropillya, and recent statements from Ukrainian officials directly refute them. ISW has in fact observed evidence to assess that the nearest Russian-held territory is 10.2 kilometers from the southeastern outskirts of Dobropillya. ISW observed evidence of Russian infiltrators operating east and northeast of Dobropillya on September 19 and 20 but does not assess that these infiltrators consolidated these positions. The Russian military’s pervasive culture of lying, on which Russian milbloggers have frequently commented for many months by criticizing the military’s ”beautiful reports,” has simultaneously degraded the Russian MoD’s ability to accurately understand the battlefield situation and allowed Russian forces to present aggrandized claims like the encirclement of Dobropillya. The repeated Russian encirclement claims on September 22 and 24 also aim to divert attention from Ukraine’s elimination of the Russian salient north of Lyman in recent months, which has likely forced the Russian military command to rethink its wider plans to use Russian offensive activity in the Lyman and Dobropillya directions to conduct a wide encirclement of the Fortress Belt and all of Donetsk Oblast.
NEW: Several recent incidents in Europe, including drone incursions and acts of sabotage, were conducted by Russia or are likely attributable to Russia, as Western officials are increasingly warning of intensified Russian kinetic activity against Europe in the near future. Other Key Takeaways: Other recent incidents in Poland and Germany fit the Russian pattern of provocations against European defense and logistical infrastructure, but authorities have yet to officially attribute them to Russia. Western defense and intelligence sources continue warning about potential future Russian attacks in Europe. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) continues to baselessly claim a Russian encirclement of Dobropillya as part of the Kremlin’s cognitive warfare effort to exaggerate Russian battlefield successes and portray Ukrainian defenses as collapsing. There has been no evidence from the battlefield in recent weeks suggesting significant Russian advances toward Dobropillya, and recent Ukrainian reports refute the Russian claims. Ukraine and the United States remain committed to limited ceasefires and peace negotiations to end the war. Russian officials reported that Ukrainian forces conducted long-range strikes against Russian energy and industrial infrastructure in Rostov Oblast and Krasnodar Krai. Russia launched an unspecified number of Zircon anti-ship missiles and Iskander-M/S-400/KN-23 ballistic missiles and 282 drones against Ukraine overnight. Neither Russian nor Ukrainian forces advanced on September 24.
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davidrieff retweeted
.@Mpolymer and I doing a pod tomorrow on the European intel panic over Russia. Will have news to report. Stay tuned.
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davidrieff retweeted
After the immolation of the French intellectuals, a palate cleanser of English philistinism.
This is nice, but the truth is that traditional (pre-musical theatre) opera is very very boring. The best way to help people enjoy it would be to put on “the best of opera” nights that just do the highlight songs and drop the terrible 3-hour plots in between them.
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Лише цієї ночі Сили Оборони України вдарили по обʼєктам в окупованому Луганську, по НПЗ у Пермі, по військовим заводам в Ульяновську та Воронежі… Кілька днів тому оголошені певні результати операції на півночі від Лиману «Вівальді». Росіян трохи відкинуті. Є певні успіхи і на інших напрямках. Українська армія стоїть. Українська армія нищить росіян на території України і на території Росії. Поки багато хто в Києві розкручує (спеціально) панічні настрої - українська армія і далі давить росіян! Я не кажу що все добре і ми перемагаємо, але ми і точно не програЄмо! Коли ви кажете що вам в Києві й інших містах буде цією зимою жахливо згадуйте, що українським солдатам цілорічно жахливо. Літом жарко, взимку холодно. Всюди дрони і російські інфільтрації. Я не закликаю вас мірятись кому гірше, я закликаю вас тримати стрій - там в тилу! Зникнення частини звичних сервісів та комфорту - це не катастрофа. Це тимчасові незручності. Російська окупація - ось де катастрофа! Бо солдати на війні і більшість з вас в тилу все це переживають заради головної абсолютної загальної мети - вистояти і зберегти українську незалежність і існування нашого народу. І наша стійкість залежить від кожного з вас. Вам, цією зимою буде точно легше ніж солдату в Олексієво - Дружківці!
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The humanities justified themselves post-2008 by insisting that the ROI of a degree is not economic but political/moral. It turns out that is not a persuasive reason to take on Uber Debt. “Woke” didn’t cause the humanities’ austerity or enrollment crisis it was a response to it.
Many professors in the humanities keep calling it a packaging problem. Wrong. The real reasons enrollment is collapsing: obsession with identity, speech policing as virtue, and the conversion of entire disciplines into political projects.
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The US Army Reserve is studying which units could support potential operations against Cuba within the next few months -CBS Units requested include a combat sustainment support battalion, medical brigade, forward surgical detachment, and a military police brigade.
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davidrieff retweeted
This is a brilliant piece of journalism - literally deconstructing the latest Russian strike drone, explaining how it works and where the components needed to make it work are being sourced by Russia, even after 4+ years of war
RFE/RL takes apart a Russian Geran-4 drone to uncover what makes the jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) faster, harder to intercept, and capable of operating deep inside Ukraine -- from its turbojet engine and advanced camera to foreign-made communications and navigation components. @cxemu @radiosvoboda
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He is starting to grow on me. The sad thing, being Jewish, I'm not sure he has a chance.
Washington needs a good power washing top to bottom. Five things I would do today to end corruption in Washington across all three branches of government: 1. Ban all stock trading. 2. Ban all participation in prediction markets. 3. Mandatory retirement at 75 years old. 4. Mandatory blind trust for individuals with a net worth more than $1 million. 5. Ban all foreign gifts to public officials, including foreign investments in their businesses or other entities.
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This is terrorism. The goal was to physically intimidate and inspire terror. They wanted to show him that they could have killed him if they wanted to
20 Antifa terrorists have attacked Professor Damian Ernst while giving a class on energy markets at the University of Liege in Belgium. The attack was carried out because he’s responsible for the university’s cooperation with the French defense giant Thales on AI accuracy systems in missiles. Thales provides many of the weapon systems used by the Belgian military and is of crucial importance for the country’s national security. These organized left-wing violent attacks and intimidation campaigns against Europe’s brightest minds in the defense industry are a threat to our national security and only benefit the aggressor state centered around Moscow.
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davidrieff retweeted
Abolfazl Adinehzadeh was only 16 when he was murdered by the Islamic regime in Iran. Don’t forget him. #IranMassacre‌2026
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This remained largely undercover, but Russia 🇷🇺 is trying to isolate Ukraine 🇺🇦 from Romania 🇷🇴 and the southern part of Odessa oblast Russia is targeting border outposts, gas stations, bridges and ports in this "southern Bessarabia" region. 🧵THREAD🧵1/14 ⬇️
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davidrieff retweeted
This response was not the flex Abdul thought it was. All he had to say was he condemns the Iranian regime for its mass slaughter of Iranian protesters. And Drop Site trying to cast doubt on the number of Iranian killed, and the source that provided the number in the tens of thousands, and downplay it to about 7000 Iranians, as if 7000 Iranians killed in a matter of days isn’t absolutely horrific, isn’t the flex it thinks it is either. It’s a disgrace.
Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed responds to a visibly upset Iranian-American student at the University of Michigan, telling him that U.S. military interventions, sanctions, and regime-change wars often advance corporate interests and harm civilians, rather than promote democracy and freedom.
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davidrieff retweeted
The most prestigious French literary prize, which had preselected Orélien's novel for the contest this year, announced that it was excluded from the list because he plagiarized works he's published in the past and his novel was "in all likelihood largely the product of an AI". It has now come to light that virtually everything Orélien has ever published was either plagiarized or written by AI, so this decision isn't surprising. This comes after the French literary world almost unanimously hailed the novel as a work of genius. In a show that was recorded before the story broke, Orélien was even compared to Victor Hugo, it was completely surreal. Most of the praise for the novel alludes to the fact that it casts immigration in a positive light, so I think it's clear that the desire to promote a pro-immigration narrative played a role, but it's also clear that it would never have happened if Orélien hadn't been black. Sometimes I think anti-racist liberals are racist toward black people in a way that is far more offensive than the way in which openly anti-black racists are. The latter are at least honest about what they believe, whereas the former clearly think that black people should be treated as permanent children whose every turd should be praised (kind of how parents clap and tell their 5-year-old they're proud of him whenever he produces a doodle), which is arguably more disrespectful.
Communiqué de l’Académie Goncourt
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This will be viewed through a woke-race-culture-war framing but really it’s just that universities don’t take intellectual misconduct all that seriously anymore. It just stopped being treated as an unforgivable sin. White or black. From ChatGPT cheating to social science fraud.
It’s all too predictable.
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