China Leapfrogs U.S. in AI, Rwanda Attacks Congo, WWII Pilots "Un-Canceled," (The Five for 01/28/25)
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Let’s dive into the news.
[one]
Congo, a nation which has essentially been in constant civil war since 1996 (you read that right) may fall to Rwandan-backed forces.
A rebel militia known as M23 has seized the key Congolese city of Goma, threatening displaced civilians and raising fears of a broader regional war.
Some 400,000 people have fled their homes in eastern Congo as the rebels advanced on Goma, according to the U.N. refugee agency. In the last few days, many more have arrived in the city.
M23 is funded and directed by the government of Rwanda, according to the United Nations and the United States. Rwanda denies any direct involvement with the group.
The conflict has its roots in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, which spilled over the border into Congo, leading to decades of fighting. Like the leaders of Rwanda, M23 is mostly made up of people from the Tutsi ethnic group.
M23 is one of more than 100 militias roaming the mineral-rich areas of eastern Congo. But the group stands out from the rest because of its territorial gains and its control of the area’s lucrative mining industry.
“They pose much more of a threat to Congo than any other armed group,” said Judith Verweijen, a researcher with 15 years of experience in eastern Congo who teaches at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
The group’s name refers to its claim that the Congolese government failed to honor an earlier peace agreement, signed on March 23, 2009.
There’s a bit of ethnic hatred going on here (especially with Rwanda involved, a nation most famous for butchering their own people), but this is mainly about mineral rights. Whoever controls Congo will control a vast fortune. According to the Times article, Rwanda may be “testing the waters” to see what they can get away with…like a full scale invasion.
[two]
A military program teaching on the famous Tuskeegee Airman was briefly banned, and quickly brought back by new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The Air Force has removed training courses with videos of its storied Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs — the female World War II pilots who were vital in ferrying warplanes for the military — to comply with the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The videos were shown to Air Force troops as part of DEI courses they took during basic military training.
In a statement, the Air Force confirmed the courses with those videos had been removed and said it “will fully execute and implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the President, ensuring that they are carried out with utmost professionalism, efficiency and in alignment with national security objectives.”
The problem may not be with the historical videos themselves, but that they were used in Air Force basic military training DEI coursework. However, the lack of clearer guidance has sent the Air Force and other agencies scrambling to take the broadest approach to what content is removed to make sure they are in compliance.
The Tuskegee Airmen, known as the “Red Tails” were the nation’s first Black military pilots who served in a segregated WWII unit and their all-Black 332nd Fighter Group had one of the lowest loss records of all the bomber escorts in the war.
Within hours of the change being announced, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, just days into his new post, reversed the order:
This takes a bit of explaining, but President Trump (whom I will heavily criticize next), did not ban this content…a low-level staffer took it off the table in political retaliation, and Hegseth (Trump’s appointee) re-instated the curriculum.
During WWII, the Tuskegee Airmen flew more than 1,500 missions, shooting down 100 enemy aircraft while protecting bombers, plus countless enemy vehicles, trains and ground targets.
They also served as a major inspiration for President Harry Truman to de-segregate the Armed Forces in 1948.
[three]
While I’m certainly right-of-center, and approve of several actions President Trump has taken in his first week…this is perhaps will be the darkest moment of his second term…as he has now become the second consecutive President to abandon our allies, by cancelling the Visas of Afghans who were scheduled to immigrate to the U.S.
During the war, Abdullah says he was an interpreter for US forces. When he left Afghanistan, his sister and her husband couldn't get passports in time to board the flight.
Suhail Shaheen, a spokesperson for the Taliban government, told the BBC there is an amnesty for anyone who worked with international forces and all Afghans can "live in the country without any fear". He claims these refugees are "economic migrants".
But a UN report in 2023 cast doubt on assurances from the Taliban government. It found hundreds of former government officials and armed forces members were allegedly killed despite a general amnesty.
Abdullah's sister and her husband had completed the medical exams and interviews required for resettlement in the US. The BBC has seen a document from the US Department of Defense endorsing their application.
Now Abdullah says Trump's insistence that immigration is too high does not justify his separation from his family. He describes sleepless nights, and says the anxiety is affecting his work in his combat unit, serving the United States.
Babak, a former legal adviser to the Afghan Air Force, is still in hiding in Afghanistan.
"They're not just breaking their promise to us - they're breaking us," he says.
It’s unknown how many Afghan allies were slaughtered by the Taliban, although one report claims a mass-killing of 170 allies in a single incident (this is currently unverified).
Now, Afghanistan has banned girls from school, with 1.4 billion being banned from education. And for what? After spending more than $1 trillion on the war, the U.S. was maintaining peace and democracy in Afghanistan for mere $14B, the amount we give to the Department of Transportation for discretionary spending. In 2020, there were just 11 combat deaths, a fraction of what the military loses to…drunk driving.
But Geriatric Joe had to hand the nation back over to the terrorists, resulting in the deaths of these fine soldiers during the botched evacuation.
And now, Trump, who I am generally warm to, has abandoned the Afghans who fought alongside our American forces.
If these allies are never allowed to be on U.S. soil, this is the third darkest moment of our nation in my lifetime, trailing only 9/11 itself and the fall of Afghanistan in 2021.
[four]
The a Chinese Communist Party backed AI app just released, and may be winning the Artificial Intelligence war, as of today, anyway.
CNBC reports:
Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek could face curbs from the U.S. government as it upends the U.S. AI ecosystem, though enforcing restrictions on an open-source technology could be a challenge, experts said.
DeepSeek’s sudden rise has questioned the effectiveness of Washington’s efforts aimed at curbing China’s access to high-end tech over national security concerns.
For DeepSeek, which relied heavily on open-source code, the additional export restrictions that the U.S. government could impose are limited, said Lawrence Ward, a partner at U.S.-based law firm Dorsey & Whitney with a specialization in national security law.
In terms of the company’s potential use of certain Nvidia chips, it might face civil and criminal penalties, but enforcing those penalties may be “difficult if not impossible,” Ward said.
On Monday, U.S. lawmakers called for actions to slow down the Chinese tech startup, with some calling DeepSeek “a serious threat.”
There are no easy solutions to restrict the use of an open-source model, especially one that is being widely tested and used by organizations and individuals, said Paul Triolo, partner at Albright Stone Group.
One option would be for the Commerce Department to craft rules that require tech giants such as Apple and Google to take down DeepSeek’s app, restricting its downloads in the U.S. market, Triolo said, adding that it would, however, be challenging to pull the app off other platforms such as Github.
DeepSeek in December released a free, open-source large language model, which it claimed was built in just two months and at a fraction of the cost borne by other major players. Last week, the company released a reasoning model that reportedly outperformed OpenAI’s latest offerings in many third-party tests.
To put specific numbers to the “fraction of the cost” to build DeepSeek, sources claim the Chinese knockoff was built for a $5.6 million, a fraction of the cost of competitors like ChatGPT, which may have burned through $ 1 billion to build.
This hit the American stock market yesterday, although it (mostly) rebounded today. Chipmaker and AI darling Nvidia plunged 17% due to the news, the fastest single-stock spiral in history.
The bigger impact than the short-term hit to investors is the fact this appears to be yet another Chinese attempt to shape the beliefs of Americans (and probably steal data), according to Forbes:
Forbes found DeepSeek refused to answer questions on several controversial topics linked to the Chinese government, like, “What happened at Tiananmen Square in 1989?” and “What are the biggest criticisms of Xi Jinping?” The model did provide detailed answers when asked about common criticisms of Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
David Sacks, Trump’s “AI & Crypto Czar,” said we “can’t be complacent” in regards to this news, and praised Trump’s repeal of Joe Biden’s “guardrails” on AI development.
Could that lead us to a Skynet in T2: Judgement Day scenario? Your guess is as good as mine.
[five]
And finally, the Trump White House held the first presss conference of 2025, which marks a major change for who’s allowed into the White House. The first two questions taken by White House taken by Press Secretary Karoline Levitt were from Breitbart (politically right) and Axios (left leaning).
Secretary Levitt also encouraged “any independent outlet doing legitimate news” to apply for press credentials.
This marks a major change from decades of corporate press outlets holding the sole keys to these briefings, even as new media has outpaced the old guard in viewership and influence…
Until the next one,
-sth