Theo Padnos
speaker
157 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Theo Padnos’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
Because he's in touch with the deepest. He's a learned man. And he's in touch with the deepest scholarship of the Quran and the history of Islam. So he knows what's right and wrong. And you submit to that. They would like to do this for the ,, which is the Levant. When I was there, it was called Tanzim al-Qaeda bi Bilad al-Sham. That's the al-Qaeda system in the Levant.
The Levant includes Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. Provided all those people submit to the Sharia, they're not going to kill them. You know, that's the dream. But you didn't submit and they didn't kill you. I did submit. You did? Of course I did. I didn't submit by saying la ilaha illallah. There is no God but God. But I acknowledged them as the supreme leaders, which they were. The supreme power.
It was like this dark, inscrutable, all-powerful power that can take your life in an instant. And you submit to that. And if you don't, you're in trouble.
You think according to proper Islamic orthodoxy and that you are in the hands of an inscrutable power that you cannot speak to. You can only submit to it. You can make prayers to it. And if you bring yourself into harmony with Islam, God might well listen to you, only under those conditions. But, you know, the idea is a deep psychological submission to their authority. And I did that.
I was like to the point where, you know, I wanted their approval. I wanted their affection. I wanted, because they were giving me food. If I didn't get the affection, I didn't get food. You know, I needed to go to the bathroom. I couldn't go to the bathroom without their permission. Sleep, I needed that.
I mean, I would... Not really. I mean, a lot of these young men... And you could just say, did you like any of them at any point?
You did? I continue to be in touch with them, and I continue to like them. I appreciate them, but they are... Today, you mean? Of course. No, hold on. Of course.
The guys who actually... A lot of those people have been killed, but the dude who was standing... Over there, for instance? Yes, I do talk to those people. I'm interested and concerned and I want to know what's next. You're concerned? What do you mean you're concerned? I want to know what they're planning.
It's a phenomenon. It's a fascinating phenomenon that the outside world does not understand. I have the sincerest belief that the October 7th attacks, I know how those things were produced. I don't think, because I've been through that process myself, the process of like dying to yourself and then reawakening to another person, another being. You are transformed in a deep psychological way.
and you are under their power. Now, we believe that when some mujahid, some chief sheikh, comes along to a bunch of young Muslims and says, hey, everybody, tomorrow you're going to jump over the wall and kill a bunch of Israelis and they're going to kill you and it's going to be great and you're going to see the virgins and off you go. And they won't do it.
You know, if you take 25 kids off the street or 1,500 kids off the street, which is kind of what happened on the October 7th attacks, and say, hey, everybody, tomorrow, the virgins. Great. Off you go. It's not going to happen. It's a much deeper, longer... and authentic process of psychological transformation that the outside world knows nothing about.
And believe me, I want to explain how this works.
No. Yeah. No. The dangerous thing is it's like not the weapons because the weapons they have are oftentimes like Kalashnikovs that have been passed together with bubble gums. Yeah. And it's not even the number of people because it's often not very many of them. But it's the fact that they have been psychologically transformed. You can't see it. You don't know who is who.
And they themselves are good at dissembling. This is part of what you learn. It is a cult. So every cult member has a double personality. You have a self for inside the cult and a self for outside the cult. And they know how to code switch. At the moment, I believe that the... top people in the cult are all code switching.
They're all saying, we know how to deal with the public and they're doing it perfectly. And I feel that the whole world is like, yay, it's all good.
No one has apologized and said this was... Some of them defected to ISIS. Like the guys I talked to this morning, they were... This morning? Yeah.
They call me a lot.
I guess people do think it's weird. They go, you have Stockholm Syndrome. You're fucked up. What the fuck's your problem? You know, for the past 10 years, Jabhat al-Nusra has been like yesterday's news. Nobody was talking about them. But I knew that something was going to happen. I mean, I knew because I know them. And I know how they operate. So do you believe this transformation?
I believe that they want a peace in Syria... For their own people.
The Alawites are beyond the pale. They're never going to forgive the Alawites. The Christians, they have a legitimate place in Islam. You have to pay the tax. You have to do what they say, and they're going to leave you alone. But apparently there were 300,000 Christians in Aleppo before all of this, and 30,000 remain. So those Christians are not taking...
Showing 61–80 of 157 · page 4 of 8
← Previous
Next →