Only a few days ago, Kashmiri Women’s Resistance Day commemorated the February 1991 mass rape of women & torture of men at Kunan Poshpora, protested sexual violence as a military tactic, & the impunity of the Indian occupying army.

Yesterday, Mayan women in Guatemala commemorated the National Day of Dignity for the Victims of Armed Internal Conflict to honor the victims of the civil war between 1960 & 1996. They commemorate annually on February 25th because on that day in 1999, a UN-backed truth commission (CEH) released its investigation titled “Guatemala: Memory of Silence” describing Guatemalan military violence against the civilian population, including torture, forced disappearance, mass rape, massacres & mass graves, razing entire villages & crops, displacing entire communities, & acts of genocide against the Mayan people. There is no healing from such monstrous crimes without justice. Genocide has a long memory.

This young boy is a “temporarily stranded” Syrian refugee in a makeshift camp near the Greek village of Idomeni close to a crossing point on the Greek-Macedonian border. Temperatures now are 12 degrees Celsius in the daytime & 3 degrees at night (54 degrees Fahrenheit daytime & 38 degrees at night)

An estimated 20,000 refugees are stranded in 18 camps on the Greek side of the border because EU countries (most notably Austria, Serbia, & Germany) are only accepting Syrian & Iraqi refugees & are refusing asylum to Afghan refugees. Macedonia has sealed both its north & south borders & created a massive bottleneck in an attempt to keep Afghans from moving north.

While Greek police are assailing refugees & attempting to bus them back to relocation camps, communities in the region are providing shelter & support to refugees by opening up sports arenas for shelter; pharmacies & hospitals are offering medical assistance; citizens & businesses are providing food & aid.

Afghan refugees are second in number to Syrians so the crackdown on them, which began last October, was a way to eliminate tens of thousands of asylum seekers. Although there is no provision in EU law for a Safe Country of Origin list to designate who is a refugee & who an “economic immigrant,” the EU devised such a list last September. Afghanistan was not on it because it is a war zone.

In October, German officials began publicly defending their denial of asylum to Afghans. The Interior Minister, braying like a jackass, said Afghan refugees were mostly middle-class & that large amounts of development aid was being sent to Afghanistan so they should stay in their own country to rebuild it.

It should have been pointed out to Herr Jackass that German troops were part of the NATO forces making Afghanistan unlivable to millions, that forced millions to flee to Pakistan & Iran, & now to Europe. According to an investigation by German media sources, 1,650 Afghans employed by the German military as interpreters were eligible for safe haven but 60 percent of their applications were denied. Instead, Germany is now trying to fast-track deportation procedures back to Afghanistan.

Last week, several EU countries signed a joint statement laying out tighter entry restrictions barring Afghans & preventing them from moving north. Hundreds are now stuck in Macedonia because Serbian officials are denying them entry & in Greece because Macedonia is denying them entry. The joint statement said that “longer residence in a safe third country” are grounds for rejecting asylum seekers & noted as an example “Afghan nationals who for a longer time stayed in Turkey or Iran”. This certainly comes from the EU which is winging it as it goes along, extemporizing idiotic new rationalizations (to supplement the Safe Country of Origin list) to flout international law governing the rights of refugees to asylum. What possible rational relevance is it that an Afghan fleeing war first fled to Iran or Turkey (where it might not have worked out) & then fled to Europe?

This EU denial of Afghan refugees may play a role in why UN operations in Afghanistan recently denied the US occupation existed & described it a civil conflict. Or is that assuming too much coordination between government bodies? One could never assume too much malevolence.

And for all that, the EU is willing to leave those with special health needs, those who are war-traumatized, elderly, infirm, children, to be stranded for long periods in near freezing temperatures & squalid conditions. It may be time to dump the EU as too vicious for human society.

Immigration is a human right. Open the borders. And it should be added, US out of Afghanistan!

(Photo by Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)

Very powerful artistic protest against Israeli colonialism; very powerful tribute to Palestinians.

Long live Intifada!

There’s no easy way to tell this story except to plow into it & leave the condemnations fall where they may. When the US launched the US-NATO war in Afghanistan in October 2001, it fumbled for justifications, beginning with hunting down Osama bin Laden hiding out in the caves of Afghanistan (in retaliation for 9/11) & soon lit upon the emancipation of Afghan women from the Taliban. US Marines & B-52 bombers would now become agents of women’s liberation.

Hundreds of foreign nationals within & outside the US were detained without charge, trial, or access to legal counsel & family members in the US naval base at Guantanamo. The US refused to recognize them as prisoners of war & deprived them of rights required by the Geneva Conventions. There were reports of torture, abuse, & deaths in custody; there were reports of secret CIA torture centers in Afghanistan & elsewhere.

From early on, UN agencies & Afghan & international human rights groups (especially Human Rights Watch & Amnesty International) monitored the situation in Afghanistan. Their focus was on war crimes by the US military & its NATO allies involving aerial bombardment, special forces night raids, torture of detainees, civilian deaths, human rights crimes against Afghans. At no time, did any of the organizations condemn the US-NATO war.

In 2011, the UN & human rights organizations shifted focus in their reports from exposing US-NATO war crimes to condemning the Taliban for human rights crimes & calling for them to be viewed as war criminals for indiscriminate use of suicide bombers, assassinations, & improvised explosive devices. The reports began blaming the Taliban for over three-quarters of all civilian casualties—meaning deaths & injuries.

Several of these groups approached the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which has been conducting an inquiry into war crimes charges in Afghanistan, about prosecuting the Taliban. But since it refuses to address US-NATO war crimes in Afghanistan, it would discredit itself by only going after the Taliban. Guantanamo & US drug trafficking remain the elephant in the courtroom.

On February 14th, 2016, UN operations in Afghanistan (UNAMA) issued its annual report documenting 11,002 civilian casualties (3,545 deaths & 7,457 injured) in 2015. UNAMA has estimated 59,000 civilian casualties since they began tracking in 2009. The 2015 estimates represent an increase of 4 percent from 2014 & include an average of 53 children killed or injured every week—the highest child casualties since 2009.

The report attributes 62 percent of civilian casualties to “anti-Government elements,” meaning the Taliban. Another 17 percent is blamed on “pro-government forces,” meaning the US-trained, advised, & assisted Afghan army, police, & militias. “International military forces,” are blamed for 2 percent of the casualties in joint operations with the Afghan military. They do not identify the “international military forces” as the at least 13,000 US troops, along with unspecified numbers of US special forces, & thousands of mercenaries. The UN report leaves the responsibility for 19 percent of civilian deaths unaccounted for.

The report focuses mostly on those “anti-government elements” (over 30 pages) & pays some attention to the Afghan military & militias (13 pages). There is no elaboration of the US military & mercenary role in Afghanistan. But there is this statement: “UNAMA takes the position that the armed conflict in Afghanistan is a non-international armed conflict between the Government of Afghanistan & its armed forces (Afghan national security forces supported by international military forces…) & non-State armed opposition groups.” In other words, the UN declares there is no US military occupation of Afghanistan when even Obama admits to US military presence in Afghanistan. Only expletives come to mind in response.

How does the UN explain who bombed the Doctors Without Borders/MSF hospital in Kunduz last October? Because MSF doesn’t beat around the bush. They accuse the US of war crimes for bombing that hospital & for the 72 casualties. How does the UN explain away accusations against US special forces for several suspicious & gruesome deaths of civilians in Afghanistan last year? In previous kangaroo investigations, US & Afghan military investigations exonerated the US of any wrongdoing, blaming instead “Afghan auxiliaries”–those militias called “pro-government” by the UN. How does the UN explain away accusations by human rights groups that use of child soldiers by Afghan military, police, & militias is “rife” & charges that the US had to know about that?

When the UN says there is no US occupation, they are making international asses of themselves & attempting to cover for US war crimes. The primary reason given by Obama to prolong the stay of US troops in Afghanistan is the need to train Afghan’s military & police. When Afghan forces commit war crimes, those crimes are as attributable to Obama & the Pentagon as they are to the Afghan regime. The UN report is a lying-assed disgrace.

This is a photo of 10-year-old Wasil Ahmad, a child soldier in one of the militias trained by the US. He was gunned down earlier this month.

The historic imperative remains: rebuild the international antiwar movement. US out of Afghanistan! Demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all US troops, special forces, & mercenaries from Afghanistan!

(Photo of Wasil Ahmad from Twitter)

A local clinic advertises medical intervention for children of short stature–like being short was a disease. I was always short & still am at 5′ 2″ (if I stand up straight, 5′ 3″). It was considered adorable to be small when I was a little girl so when I learned it was an undesirable trait, I was too old to develop an inferiority complex. Maybe to others I need elongating therapy but to me, I’m still adorable. Mouthy, but adorable.

Shorter men really get it in the jugular about height. There’s all that “Napoleon complex” crap you get accused of when you’re just being normally macho. But wow, can it be cruel! And demeaning!

Lesser evil politics is the entrenched system of US politics but it’s pernicious & intended to undermine a principled attitude toward politics. It’s also sneaky as all get-out. Elizabeth Warren sent an alarmist email today saying Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee emerged from a secret meeting to announce they would not consider an Obama Supreme Court nominee & it would have to wait until the next president takes office in 2017. We’re expected to freak out about that like the republic depends on machinations between saviors & chumps.

Meet the new leaders of the international women’s movement: Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), & Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, feudal monarch of the United Arab Emirates & Emir of Dubai.

The Sheikh is sponsoring the Global Women’s Forum 2016 going on today in Dubai with 2,000 participants & 200 speakers from 70 countries where Lagarde is a keynote speaker. It isn’t reported who is representing the US since Hillary Clinton is otherwise engaged. This is her kind of feminism. If long-time feminists are wondering where their invitation is, just thank your lucky stars they overlooked you.

This is the hard-hitting war journalism of modern media. And here most people mistook it for a bucolic photo of children playing in Zhari, Kandahar province, Afghanistan. In that regard, could it be taken as war propaganda & a denial of realities? It’s not that children in Kandahar don’t play in a war zone or that seeing them isn’t always delightful, but that is not the story that matters in Kandahar where the CIA, US special forces, & US army all have bases; where there are constant armored & foot patrols searching for Taliban & harassing the people. Kandahar is the scene of a 2012 massacre when a US army sergeant murdered 16 people, including nine children, & then attempted to torch some of their bodies; & where there are hundreds of land battles & bombing sorties.

Today is Kashmiri Women’s Resistance Day & also the 25th anniversary of the Kunan Poshpora mass rape & torture case of February 23rd, 1991. On that night, an elite regiment of the Indian army, on the pretext of hunting for “militants,” entered the twin villages of Kunan & Poshpora for a search operation. All men in the villages were herded into a nearby field while women were asked to remain indoors. Troops entered the homes & raped at least 23 girls & women, including a pregnant woman & women in front of their children.

This photo in the Guardian-UK identifies this incident as in Araka, West Bank. It’s the iconic image of Palestinian Intifada we’ve seen a thousand times: youth with slingshots against one of the most sophisticated armies in the world; an army so practiced in the barbarisms of occupation that it is contracted around the world to teach those skills (including, but not exclusively, to Indian commandos occupying Kashmir & US police in the Black community).

The Guardian caption is something of a non sequitur but it can be inferred that these young men are protesting the murder of three Palestinian teenagers by Israeli soldiers several days ago because we are referred to the Guardian’s article about those incidents. Or more accurately, the Guardian’s reproduction of an Associated Press (AP) article from February 14th.

The AP report is typical of reportage about the summary executions of Palestinians by the Israeli army. There’s no evidence AP has reporters in the field; it appears like they sit in the headquarters of the Israeli army & get fed press releases which they issue as news. The only source they ever quote is the Israeli military though they cite the Palestinian health ministry for the names of the young boys.

AP reporting really raises the question of how news reports are generated. Is it like agriculture where five multinational corporations control the world food supply? Is news now just a manufactured commodity? Are reports about reality completely tailored to the needs of the power elite? If it weren’t for social & alternative media, we’d be in a hell of a pickle trying to figure out what’s happening.

What’s remarkable about AP reporting on the Israeli occupation is not that it is biased toward Israel (that’s standard media fare) but that rightwing Zionist journalists who worked for AP accused it of bias toward Palestinians because on occasion they have rejected outright Israeli propaganda submitted by the same reporters which justified the several carpet bombing sieges over Gaza.

In fact, Zionist publications are filled with tiresome accusations of media bias against Israel. They also repeatedly accuse the US government of turning its back on Israel. That’s not how US taxpayers–who hand over billions of dollars a year to arm Israel–see it. It’s not that Zionist ideologues have become completely unhinged from reality but that they are manipulating misinformed public opinion, trying to maintain the beleaguered Exodus mythology & the portrayal of Palestinian resistance to colonialism as terrorism.

The 2016 death rate in the West Bank is now over 180 with dozens of Palestinian teenagers kidnapped by Israeli soldiers. The names of the young boys executed by Israeli soldiers on February 14th are Nihad Waked & Fouad Waked, both 15, & Naim Safi, 17. May they Rest In Peace.

The AP story about their deaths ended with this sentence: “Peace Now, an Israeli watchdog group, said yesterday Israel had begun building 1,800 new settlement homes in the West Bank in 2015.” Any news agency with an ounce of journalistic integrity would get off its ass & send reporters to investigate Israel’s illegal settlements on expropriated Palestinian lands & stop treating the occupying army as a reliable source of information.

Honor & build the economic, cultural, & academic boycott of Israel (BDS). Buy nothing with a barcode beginning 729. Long live Palestinian Intifada.

(Photo by Mohamad Torokman/Reuters)