Robert Parry, editor of putrid Consortium News, dies

Robert Parry, the editor of Consortium News, died yesterday. He had been a reporter for mainstream media since the 1970s & received many awards for investigative journalism, as recently as 2015 from Harvard University. He’s of my generation but quite frankly I was not familiar with his reporting until Consortium News became a leading journal of putrid Assadist propaganda, Putin apologetics, & deep state, “new McCarthyism” conspiracy thinking.

Parry is of a type, very like Chris Hedges, who most of their lives worked within the status quo of journalism but late in life became born-again gurus to libertarians moving so far to the right that you can’t tell them from Fox News. The “retired” CIA, FBI, & military officers who now lead the corrupt antiwar movement are all writing eulogies to Parry as a principled journalist. Those who support Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians wouldn’t know a political principle if it came up & bit them in the ass. It’s too bad Parry died early in life–at least before he could correct the monstrous mistakes & compromises he made in supporting dictatorship & counterrevolution in Syria & repressive government in Russia. May he RIP. Hopefully we can also write the obituary for Consortium News.

Parsing false distinctions for who blows up or bombs civilians

Pakistani journalist Usman A Khan Tahir on the suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan:

“Pakistanis on killings in Afghanistan:

Haram massacre = If a large number of Afghan civilians are killed by US airstrikes; leads to strong condemnations.

Halal massacre = If a large number of Afghan civilians are killed by Taliban; leads to strong whataboutery, justifications and whitewashing.”
*****
It can only be added with the greatest condemnation that the exact same rationale is offered by the corrupted antiwar movement for Syrian & Russian bombing whilst they condemn US-coalition bombing of civilians in Syria. Some who oppose Assad share the same fatal political fallacy by condemning Syrian & Russian bombing but hoping the US-coalition will disconnect from the counterrevolution & bomb civilians to defeat Assad. At this point in history, anyone who looks to bombers & special forces for liberation proves themselves of no use whatsoever in politics except to serve militarism & the most reactionary forces in world politics.

The only principled politics demand the end of bombing civilians for any reason whatsoever. Syrian revolutionists, Palestinians, Kashmiris, Rohingya, & other oppressed peoples would not be in a stronger position with bombers & special forces. What their struggles demand is international active support to bring the violence against them to a decisive defeat.

The Palestinian ambassador to the US accused Trump of “backstabbing” the Palestinians. The US backed the Zionist colonization of Palestine in 1948 & continues to support the ethnic cleansing of Palestine today; has been bankrolling the military occupation of Palestine, the bombing of Gaza, & is subsidizing Israeli settlements. Most Palestinians & commentators would consider being a fundamental pillar of Israeli existence way beyond backstabbing to outright sponsorship & clientage. Uncompromising Palestinians & their supporters call such Palestinian leadership, including Mahmoud Abbas, the “backstabbers” since US policy toward Palestinians has never been other than massive ethnic cleansing.

This afternoon I’m giving a friend a shiatsu for sciatica & needed to clean the house. Anyone with dogs (or for that matter kids) knows why that is necessary even if you’re not a habitual slob. So mindlessly I left the morning news on while I cleaned & was mesmerized that for at least four hours (yes, it did take me that long to clean thoroughly) news commentators spoke of nothing but speculations about what the orange halfwit in the White House will say at his State of the Union address on Tuesday. Not one word, nary a peep about any of the several US wars, military occupations, the Rohingya genocide, the millions of refugees.

“Is our blood so cheap that it is spilled over like water? On our land and by ramming our homes, these brutal indian occupying forces intoxicated with the might of power, are assassinating our generations. For how long will we endure this barbarism ? For how long shall we become victims of the nefarious tactics of these deceitful pro-Indian politicians ?

India through the might of their forces and with the support of puppet rulers here are fighting a war with the Kashmiri Muslims. On the borders against the powerful forces, their might looks so feeble that it is mussled to the ground, and they shower this prevailing anger on the Kashmiris. We through unity have to fight and stop these addled powers. And make them aware that our blood is not so cheap that a low-grade man in uniform will keep on spilling it over. May Allah bestow our martyrs with Jannah!!”

–Sameer Ul Haq

Mary Scully laughing Buddha

Someone is insistently asking me to change my profile photo because I’m laughing while reporting the terrible suffering in the world. I know many people are extremely sensitive to human suffering but my harshest critics who mostly share affinities with ferocious gorillas are not among them. So I don’t know how to answer my sensitive critic except to say the moralism of his criticism is beyond me. I could do the funereal thing, grieve my way through my life, make a public display of my grief & outrage, but all of us who care about others love life, love other human beings who make us laugh & cry, & want that all of us have life, laughter, & love more abundantly. That’s just the way it is.

More civilians killed by Indian occupying forces in Kashmir

India  occupying army (Times Now News) Jan 6 2018

Another three civilians were killed in the Shopian district of south Kashmir on Saturday, days after the Indian occupying army killed two militants, one civilian, & critically injured three other civilians before they demolished the home where the militants were hiding, possibly with other family members. Indian army officials explained that a convoy of armored vehicles was passing through a town when they were surrounded by a group of 100 to 120 “unprovoked & intense” stone pelters whose numbers quickly grew to 200 to 250. According to army officials, this group of protesters armed only with rocks caused extensive damage to the armored vehicles, tried to set them on fire, & then tried to snatch a weapon from one soldier & lynch him. So, army officials explained, “considering the extreme gravity of the situation of the army” they were forced to open fire in self defense to prevent the lynching of the soldier & the torching of the armored vehicles. That’s the Indian Army version of how three unarmed civilians were shot down in cold blood.

It’s difficult for Shopian residents to tell the real story, one that makes sense about what happened yesterday because the Indian Army has completely blocked the internet in the district. The only reason they snapped the internet is to prevent the truth about the murderous assault on unarmed civilians from being heard around the world & to sabotage every effort by Kashmiri activists to build opposition to the occupation of Kashmir. At this point, there isn’t a single lie the Indian Army can say in its defense. Their death toll just this week is six; the injury toll is at least twelve. The trauma & PTSD rate is 100%.

Photo is an Indian Army soldier in occupied Kashmir. You can see how helpless the poor guy is against unarmed civilians.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

(Photo from Times Now News)

On the suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan

MOAB dropped on Afghanistan

The Taliban has taken responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. They loaded up an ambulance with explosives, drove it past military checkpoints into an area of government offices, & detonated it. The US government denounced the “inhumane disregard for human life.” It sure as hell is ruthless & inhumane. But the question remains: who is providing arms & explosives to the Taliban (& now ISIS) that they can carry on war for over 16 years against one of the most high-tech militaries in the world? Hasn’t the US satellite surveillance system been able to trace how weapons are getting into the hands of Taliban & ISIS fighters so they can cut off the supply route?

But there’s another question: was the “inhumane disregard for human life” worse than over 16 years of US-coalition occupation & bombing? Was it more inhumane than when the US dropped the 22,000 pound Mother Of All Bombs (MOAB)–the largest non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal–on Afghanistan last April? Because Afghan lives are only “collateral damage” to the US Pentagon, there was no report on the number of civilians who were killed.

There’s a news blackout about the US-coalition war on Afghanistan. But we cannot cease demanding the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all US-coalition forces from Afghanistan. We cannot let it become the forgotten war. Afghans are out brothers & sisters & our taxes are paying for those bombs.

US-coalition out of Afghanistan now!

(Photo is MOAB dropped on Afghans in April 2017)