I went to Musab Iqbal’s wall hoping he’d written a poem about Aleppo & found this marvelous piece instead:
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The “Revolutionary” manifesto of 21st-century Hypocrites

– Russian intervention is different from US/Nato intervention
– Russia has no imperial/colonial ambition (ever) unlike US and allies
– Iran-backed militias are not like US/Saudi-backed militias. Former unlike later is busy saving human lives with great empathy and kindness
– Assad is the most ideal democrat and any criticism of him and his power is sinful
– Assad army never shot or killed anyone, in fact Hama massacre never happened, there is no prison and torture center in Syria
– Syrian Army is personally trained by Gandhiji
– The world is made of binary. If you are not with us (Russia-Syria-Iran) then you are with them (ISIS-Al Qaeda- USA- Saudi etc)
– Celebrating death and torture is the most merciful and dignified revolutionary act
– Iran is defending Secularism and Democracy in Syria like it is doing in its own country
– Everyone is lying except PressTV, RT and journalists close to Assad regime
– Don’t criticize Syrian regime if you have not criticized all the violence in the world starting from Habeel and Qabeel (Adam’s son killing the other son)
– There is/was never political opposition in Syria, there were terrorists and there are terrorists.

How can we ever again believe a word Vanessa Beeley, Assad’s Leni Riefenstahl, & Eva Bartlett, Assad’s Ann Coulter, say now that Fares Shehabi, the Assad guy in Aleppo, & both of them report there never were White Helmet rescue workers in east Aleppo?

Their mockeries of children are falling apart with media fact checkers & all their fact-finding investigations & videos about the White Helmets are down the drain by their own admissions. Isn’t that a sorry state of affairs for Assad’s two most popular propagandists? And wouldn’t we be lying if we said we weren’t exuberant at their disgrace!?

You can pile up mountains of likes & shares on social media because ignorance & social hatreds are widespread, in fact encouraged by Assadists. But social media is also the venue where lies are most ruthlessly exposed. You don’t get to shill for dictatorship, support massive bombing of civilians, vilify & ridicule war-traumatized children without expecting forceful excoriations & condemnations.

It isn’t personal. Neither Beeley nor Bartlett are of consequence. People who sing for their supper are a dime a dozen. It’s a historic political battle for the soul & integrity of the antiwar, Palestinian solidarity, & socialist movements–all of which have been debased by the influence of Muslim-hating, libertarian anti-Semitism, & war-mongering.

https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/22/the_impossible_revolution_a_syrian_dissident

It’s useful to follow the posts of Assad supporters to understand how they see things. The catastrophic fall of Aleppo, which they exuberantly cheer as liberation, has emboldened some of the Muslim-haters to come out from under their rocks. Their visceral right-wing, racist, & xenophobic impulses come to the fore since they oppose informing themselves by reading anything other than propagandists.

On an anti-refugee post by a popular Assadist who appears to be off his rocker, this was a response which no one took issue with. It has not been edited for spelling or altered in any way except replacing “and” with an ampersand:

“As far as the jihadis are concerned, that issue can be solved by accepting only Syrians & not africans or saudis or egyptians or any other nationality

“Can greece use them as labour in places & works where greek citizens are not willing to work or lack skills. I mean i m sure every country has some specialised skills which other countries dont have, for example iranians make very fine carpets & shawls. I think Greece can harnass the skill of these refugees & put them into economic activities which will help Greece boost its economy. For example, the Syrians can be employed as foreign language teachers or as interpreters for Greek installations in foreign countries etc.”

Not content to leave bad enough alone, she added:

“….I already said to throw back all unnecessary illegal immigrants like africans saudi & any other who is not a syrian. That way the big chunk of these immigrants will go. As (name deleted) himself pointed out that only one in 48 is actually a syrian refugee that means rest are just illegal immigrant whom greece have full right to deport.”

The racism, cruelties, & idiocies speak for themselves.

Emancipation US-style:

This is a scene of oil fields on fire in Qayyara, a town with a population of about 15,000 people that is 60 km (35 miles) south of Mosul, Iraq, where the US-led coalition of 60 countries is conducting a siege against an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 ISIS fighters in a metropolitan area with an estimated civilian population between 750,000 & 1.5 million people. The number of Iraqi & US coalition troops appears to be a closely guarded military secret because media disagree on the numbers. Secrecy, sub rosa operations is the new way the US conducts war to undercut antiwar opposition.

Media reported that Qayyarah was fully captured by Iraqi forces in August 2016. After Iraqi forces (armed, trained & controlled by the US Pentagon) recaptured a nearby airbase in July, the US Pentagon announced the deployment of 560 more troops to develop the airbase for use in the siege on Mosul.

There have been many photos like this one from Qayyara since the US coalition captured it which all claim ISIS set the oil fields on fire as they retreated. This one is from November 2016; there are also more recent ones. We know from the Iraq War that oil fires burn up to five years so it’s possible they were set by ISIS. It’s also possible they were set off by US bombing of Qayyara during the siege to retake it.

Last week, the US Department of Defense issued a special report on US bombing operations in Iraq & Syria. Since Assad supporters oppose US intervention in Syria as a regime-change operation, we would expect them to report frequently about US bombing operations, at least in Syria. Instead they harp only on US-backed “head-chopping militias” as if that were the only military method employed by the US.

That’s because if Assad supporters investigate US bombing, it contradicts, or at least weakens their claim of a regime-change scenario. There are no reports from the Pentagon nor the Syrian & Russian governments that US bombers are targeting anything other than ISIS strongholds in Syria. The US is letting Russian bombers do the dirty work of destroying popular opposition to Assad & hides its overall strategy in Iraq & Syria behind rhetoric about the fight against ISIS.

There is considerable confusion about US strategy in Syria. Intentionally so, because so much of it is secret & renders support to the Assad regime. It derives immense political advantage from such secrecy & obfuscation as we see from the capitulation of antiwar & progressive forces to Assadist propaganda.

So these are the Pentagon figures of US coalition bombing missions in Iraq & Syria:

–Between August 8, 2014 & November 28, 2016, the US & its coalition partners flew an estimated 127,764 bombing sorties in Iraq & Syria.

–In 2016, the US coalition flew a total of 16,806 air strikes in Iraq & Syria (10,678 Iraq / 6,128 Syria);

–Of the total air strikes conducted in 2016, 13,058 were by US bombers (7,248 Iraq / 5,810 Syria);

–Other countries in the coalition conducted 3,748 air strikes in 2016 (3,430 Iraq / 318 Syria).

The countries that participate in the bombing strikes include:

–In Iraq: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, The Netherlands, & UK;

–In Syria: Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, The Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, & UK.

The only principled antiwar demands are the immediate cessation of bombing in Iraq & Syria; the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces in Iraq & Syria.

No to war.

(Photo by Goran TomasevicReuters)

So interesting that UNITAR published this satellite imagery of Aleppo acquired from November 2010 through September 2016 & just published on December 20th. It identifies 33,521 residential buildings damaged by bombing but excludes the industrial areas.

The UN probably knows then which military forces have been bombing Aleppo to smithereens for over five years. Have they not shared that with media or the US who still claim uncertainty about whether it’s Syrian or Russian bombers?

Then again, didn’t UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein just claim UNHCR can’t make definitive condemnations of genocide against Rohingya Muslims by the military because investigators are not allowed to enter Arakan state & have no first hand knowledge?

Has the UNHCR checked out the catalogs of high-tech military monitoring & surveillance systems? Surveillance technology employed by the US Pentagon claims surgical precision when it targets someone for assassination. But the UN can’t see what thousands of Burmese troops are doing in Arakan state? That must be where former UN chief Kofi Annan learned his “see no evil, hear no evil, report what the junta says” approach to genocide in Myanmar.

Satellite map of residential destruction in Aleppo in greater detail:

http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/UNOSAT_A3_Aleppo_DamagePercentage_20160918opt.pdf

There are still protests all over the world to stand with Aleppo. The forces of social transformation have not been fooled by journalists, propagandists, & erstwhile antiwar activists shilling for Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians.

This is an photo from Cape Town, South Africa, which also rallied in the tens of thousands for Gaza in 2014.

(Thanks to Shaheed Mahomed for sharing this.)

Some practical jokester is adding me to pro-Assad groups without my knowledge. I’m not known for political ecumenism when it comes to bombing people or operating gulags. Don’t make me hunt you down & dump you.