It’s too early to know who’s behind the Paris attacks but not too early for the Islamophobes to come out from under their rocks–with media shooting their mouthes off with accusations before they know a damn thing. It’s a dangerous time for Muslims, especially those in France. We are going to face immense criticism for standing with them. That’s life. That’s justice.
But one question: all that high-tech surveillance, all that snooping & the French police never had a clue?
Obama is going to be a very busy man this month starting tomorrow until the 22nd. He starts off in Turkey with the G-20 Summit, where the 20 regime heads allowed to attend represent the who’s who of neoliberal misery on planet Earth. What, no Israel!? Well they’ll be fully represented by the US.
Next our man heads to Malaysia for the US-ASEAN summit & then on to the Philippines for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. A lot of dirty work gets done at these meetings which are part of maintaining the US & Europe as unchallenged masters of this planet. What right does the US have to be there calling the shots? No rights except those bestowed by military might. Bombers carry a lot of weight.
The big issues on the agendas will be the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to maintain the sweatshop economics of the region, advance neoliberal agribusiness & mining interests, & the hyper-militarization of the region under US aegis involving Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar, Australia, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, & other nations.
We look forward to reports of antiwar protests in Turkey which has an active political movement & to the renowned effigies of Obama always created by the impressive Filipino antiwar movement. These are Muslim antiwar activists in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia already protesting Obama’s visit outside the US embassy.
Our deepest respect & fullest solidarity.
(Photo by Mohd Rasfan/AFP/Getty Images)
This is Sinjar, a city in northern Iraq near the Syrian border–reportedly a stronghold of ISIS for the past year & a-half & now under bombing siege by “US-led forces” & a land assault by Kurdish forces. One only hopes US bombers are coordinating with Kurdish ground forces. That cannot be assumed.
The bombing siege in Iraq includes Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, The Netherlands, & UK. (In Syria, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, & UAE bombers are also deployed.)
According to the US Pentagon, as of November 3rd the US-led forces have flown an estimated 61,288 sorties over Iraq & Syria–with 7,871 bomb strikes in Iraq & 2,720 in Syria. What were the other 50,697 sorties doing?
The total cost of anti-ISIS operations from August 8th to October 31st was $5 billion ($11 million a day). For all that expense, the Pentagon claims it took out 13,781 targets: 126 tanks; 354 Humvees; 561 staging areas; 3,956 buildings; 3,930 fighting positions; 232 oil infrastructures; 4,622 other targets.
So now the questions begin because the story isn’t adding up. First of all, who’s arming ISIS with all that heavy equipment? How are they delivering it? Shouldn’t they find the supply routes & shut them down? Just how damn big is ISIS? Here we thought it was a paramilitary force & now it turns out they’re like a small nation armed to the teeth.
We’re told ISIS is a “Wahhabi & Salafi jihadist extremist terrorist group.” So why is Saudi Arabia bombing them? We’re told it has strongholds in Libya & Afghanistan. How did that happen under US-NATO occupation? And last but not least, what happened to Al-Qaeda? Have they outworn their usefulness to the US? So many questions; so few answers. So much Pentagon treachery.
The most imperative political responsibility of our generation is to rebuild the international antiwar movement to put an end to these monstrous wars.
US out of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, & everywhere else it is.
(Photo by Reuters
Good to know that FEMEN activists, usually attired only in knickers & heavy makeup, actually wear parkas when protesting in a Ukraine winter. They were once the darlings of leftist men who heralded half-naked protesters as the vanguard of women’s struggle against oppression. Perhaps the fellows could contact FEMEN & tell them their 15 minutes of fame is now in overtime. And we should tell the fellows that ogling is not a revolutionary virtue.
Onward sisters! Let’s get away from these fools!