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Son of CIA deputy director was killed while fighting for Russia, report says
(www.theguardian.com)
Noice. More pls.
this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
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Anyway, lasagna tonight!
While in Turkey, Gloss began expressing a desire to go on to Russia. “He was usually watching videos about Palestine and was so angry at America,” one acquaintance told iStories. “He started thinking about going to Russia. He wanted to war with the USA. But I think he was very influenced by the conspiracy theory videos.”
A number of acquaintances told the outlet that he had not been interested in fighting, but hoped the army would allow him to receive a Russian passport and stay in the country.
I cannot comprehend how anyone could possibly believe they would be able to join the Russian army during a war and some how not have to fight??
And why join the Russian army at that point and not Ukraine if he hated fascists?? None of this makes any sense.
Propaganda works. Tankies exist. If America is bad, their enemies must be good.
But Russia is no longer their enemy. So confusing these days.
Probably trying to leverage his relationship to his dad, Russia loves that shit
I think it was his mom, but they had to know right?
Like I've known complete nobodies who got hassled for being very low level government employees from America traveling near the Russian border.
It definitely seems like he made some very unwise decisions, but seems like he potentially had some mental health issues.
This article says he apparently talked about how he conquered mortality and different incarnations of himself. He was also right at the age when symptoms start to become more apparent.
Such a shame... anyway.
Idk dude, this doesn't make any sense. I mean it could be some dude who wasn't very bright, and joined the army because he was very confused and disillusioned, but why would a leftist who hates fascism go join the Russian army?
No one is releasing any information about his death other than he was killed in Ukraine and it's not known if the Russian army knew he was the son of a CIA agent when he joined.
Very odd
why would a leftist who hates fascism go join the Russian army?
Reminder that you are in a bubble. Do not shape your perception of reality based on what you see on this website. It is populated by posts from a relatively small amount of people who lean in the same political direction on many issues.
Russia has been calling the Ukrainians Nazis for years. Putin pointed at AZOV and painted all of the nation in the same broad brush. De-nazification is how Putin labeled his actions. Fascism and Nazism are words that have lost all meaning at this point. The muddling and devaluation of those words is leading our world on a path to authoritarianism.
When you view the matter from the lens adulterated by different propaganda the answer becomes obvious. To him the question was probably "How could a leftist not flee his capitalist homeland and father who is complicit to the oppression of the people's cause to join the successor of the USSR in their fight to restore the former Union's territory and drive the 'nazis' out of it."
Sorry, I think I actually jumped to my own conclusions and misunderstood your comment. I wrote a really long comment but it looks like it got lost somehow. This is the shortened version:
You make a really good point about what empathy truly is, and something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
We have these people in power that want to claim empathy is a weakness because they try to misconstrue what empathy actually is.
Empathy does not mean you must take pity on someone or agree with them on every issue. It's actually a very useful tool and strength because it allows you to gain insight into their decision making process.
A lack of empathy can definitely lead people to do some horrible shit to each other bc they view the other person as less than human, but the lack of empathy can actually be exploited as a weakness.
Encouraging people to lack empathy is actually just encouraging a weakness in order to deceive and manipulate.
Like you're saying about this kid, looking at it from his perspective it's not so hard to see how he could be deceived, but it still does make me wonder if: A. He was targeted for propaganda because of who he was, and B. If targeting people to create the general idea of a "tankie" or any other extremist identity actually kind of leaves us all vulnerable by encouraging us to lack empathy for that individual?
No problem. To add on being able to identify the way others view matters and the rational they employed to justify their actions allows us to identify logical reasons from their perspective for them to change their opinions.
On point A, I suspect he self-radicalized at first and then entered his own bubble where he further leaned more into radicalization.
On point B, I believe it does. It doesn't matter what the negative label is; viewing individuals as the caricatures that float in our minds when we hear words like "tankie" or other words that serve only, for us, to brand individuals as part of a incorrect collective encourages us to make these same un-empathic mistakes.
We shouldn't like many of these people we brand as things like "Tankie"; but we should understand why they feel the ways they do.
I literally said this dude was not bright, and probably suffering from mental health issues.
That doesn't exclude the possibility the Russian army targeted him for recruitment because they knew who he was.
I don't think the words have lost all meaning. We have just gotten so used to hearing them used in bad faith arguments while also having smaller acts of fascism embraced as normal.
It's like the argument that calling people Nazis left them no choice but to become literal Nazis. You always have a choice.
I am glad to have this discussion though because if we can't openly discuss these things then we increase the chance that the narrative will be hijacked to fit an agenda.
This isn't a case of 'I needed to get out of poverty, so I took the only lifeline available'. This dude left the country he lived in to fight someone elses war. I can be grossly indifferent to his death. He opted into it.
but why would a leftist who hates fascism go join the Russian army?
I don't know, why were leftists insisting everyone on the left stay home for the election?
"Oh, everyone else is fooled, but not me, I'm too smart to let the propaganda work!"
No one is releasing any information about his death other than he was killed in Ukraine
You assume there is more. He's a nobody who died fighting for a bad cause. People aren't logical, they make all sorts of stupid and crazy decisions. Even those not in Trump's administration.
I mean he definitely made some very unwise decisions. Just wondering if Russia really didn't know who he was when they recruited him.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ bye bitch
Cool!
Nice