An article titled “Syria: Aleppo Doctors Fight Back Against US, NATO False Flags & Terrorism” published last month in 21st Century Wire is circulating on social media by supporters of the Assad regime. It is an interview with a doctor named Tony Sayegh who claims western media has completely misrepresented the Russian & Syrian bombing of Aleppo & that the destruction is mostly caused by terrorist groups like al-Nusra.

It’s so hard to unravel what is going on in Syria but it would be a whole lot easier if those circulating this rubbish spent a moment vetting their news sources. In this particular article, their antennas for propaganda should have gone ballistic at the discussion about the bombing of the MSF/(Doctors Without Borders)-backed Al-Quds hospital in Aleppo last April where several medical staff & patients were killed.

The interviewer says: “As for al-Quds, Tony Sayegh does not believe the media reports. Four years ago there was no such hospital in Aleppo. Whatever it was that was attacked, it was not an established, well-known health facility. Tony Sayegh believes that the images of an anonymous building with sandbags outside indicates that it was a military site.”

Tony Sayegh responds: “Doctors Without Borders is also not a clean organization, they have their financiers & receive outside support. Doctors Without Borders have previously admitted that field hospitals in the Syrian opposition areas that the organization supported primarily cared for rebel fighters & not civilians. This is not mentioned in the media reports.

“And it is not mentioned that the al-Qaeda group Jabhat al-Nusra in Aleppo has taken over health facilities & used them for other purposes. Already in April 2013 New York Times wrote that al-Nusra “..has set up camp in a former children’s hospital & has worked with other rebel groups to establish a Shariah Commission in the eye hospital next door to govern the city’s rebel-held neighborhoods”.”

Now if that does not set off alarm bells–especially how strongly it resonates with Israeli justifications for bombing hospitals, apartments, schools, refugee centers in Gaza–then there is no hope for misguided Assad supporters.

That’s why you have to vet media sources–to get the story straight & to understand what political forces they represent. The 21st Century Wire says it is inspired by libertarian sites like Infowars which is a political melange of conspiracies, racism, misogyny, xenophobia. The 21st Century Wire was launched in December 2009 at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen, “initially as a vehicle to expose the mythology behind global warming & climate change, & has since expanded coverage to include exposés on intelligence, foreign policy, the war on terror, technology & Wall Street.” So by its own admission 21st Century Wire is libertarian. Or when it comes to reliable news, complete horse manure. The journalistic style is, if you can’t justify barbarism, then deny it happened.

With some improvisation, the article appears to draw on an earlier piece in Telesur titled “The ‘Aleppo Hospital’ Smokescreen: sometimes it’s okay to bomb hospitals,” by Assadist Tim Anderson, which is a sophisticated & sleazy attack on MSF/Doctors Without Borders & “western corporate media.”

Anderson claims hospitals in Syria are militarized zones in the same way as Israel claimed Hamas stored missiles in apartment buildings, hospitals, schools. That would of course suggest that MSF is an adjunct to terrorist groups–although doctors have an obligation to treat the injured without asking their political affiliations. Anderson says: “There is some debate as to whether clinics or hospitals run to service banned terrorist organisations have protection under international humanitarian law. Certainly US law does not allow it. A few years back the United States jailed US doctor Rafig Sabir for 25 years after it emerged he had been ‘on call’ to treat al Qaida fighters in Saudi Arabia.” Since when did the US Pentagon become the standard bearer of international law?

Actually there is no debate but only arrant flouting of international law by the US, UK, Turkey, Syria, Russia, Israel, & the Saudi Arabia-led coalition bombing the hell out of Yemen. Hospitals, all medical facilities, & ambulances are protected under international law. When apologists for Assad find themselves using the same arguments as Israel & the US Pentagon, they are giving their reactionary loyalties away.

If you want to shill for Assad’s dictatorship, you’ll find yourself among some very unsavory allies.

(Photo is bombing of Al-Quds Hospital in April by Beha el Halebi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Am at my wit’s end trying to outsmart my wily Chihuahuas. Once again–& you cannot imagine the lengths I go to to prevent this–they broke out & took off. I scoured the neighborhood & found all but two. As a last resort, after an hour of looking, I decided to drive in a canal zone with mile-high grass near an expressway. Of course, I prepared for the worst.

They were there, since it’s where I often take them walking. All the anger & panic felt at losing them subsided when I saw their fear & confusion at being lost & their overwhelming relief at being found.

We’re going to be whipped into paroxysms of outrage & condemnations at the shootout in the Tel Aviv market. Allegedly (& if Israeli authorities can be believed), the shooters were Palestinians. It is a profoundly misguided politics to take out civilians in this kind of action. But it would be unthinkable to damn them after what Palestinians have been put through: repeated bombing sorties over Gaza; a brutal military occupation; settlers moving in & expropriating their lands; mass evictions & the razing of their villages; thousands, including children incarcerated–many without charge; impunity in violent crimes by Israeli settlers & soldiers against Palestinians.

There’s no need for anyone to despair about our electoral options in the US. There is still a lesser evil candidate in the field. Vermin Supreme is a veteran of US politics & of every political party from the Republicans to the Democrats to the Libertarians. Believe it or not, he’s always been the lesser evil.

His program is very straightforward & does not distinguish itself in simplicity from that of Bernie Sanders: mandatory tooth-brushing laws, free ponies for all US citizens, time-travel research, & preparing for the zombie apocalypse.

For the record, Hillary Clinton is not the first woman presidential candidate. Both Jill Stein from the Green Party & myself as an independent socialist declared our candidacies months ago. We didn’t need a cabal of old guys to rig & approve our candidacy.

Modi & Obama: a personal “bromance” (as termed by Indian media) or a political indictment?

There’s an entire album of photos featuring Modi & Obama from their several official meetings in both India & the US. Indian media says the two have “chemistry,” even “a special friendship, a special wavelength,” as Modi puts it. It includes public bear hugs, ceremonial tributes, & such tender, nauseating moments as portrayed here at yesterday’s meeting in the White House.

This is the kind of sentimental tripe passed off in Indian media, the NY Times & US media as political analysis of the US-Indian military alliance taking shape. In his 2015 visit to India, Obama declared the US-India relationship a defining partnership of the 21st century. He wasn’t talking about a bromance between himself & Modi. He was talking about US investment in Modi’s neoliberal infrastructure projects that destroy the environment, dispossess thousands of farmers, & force mass relocations to urban slums. He was talking about the new multi-billion dollar arms deals to ally India with the US against China in the Asia-Pacific region.

Watched Clinton’s victory speech tonight where she laid claim to feminist heritage as the first woman candidate for president. Her deceitful assumption of feminism is her schtick but what in the hell about her wooden persona & utterly monstrous politics inspire people?

Don’t they care that millions of children, disabled, & elderly are starving because of the Clinton destruction of welfare in 1997? Are they indifferent to those people she has promised to take out with US military might? Have they turned a deaf ear to her pledge to destroy BDS & support Israeli apartheid & colonialism or her insistence that Palestinians are terrorists?

Why is everybody making a big deal about Clinton giving a speech on inequality in a $12 thousand Giorgio Armani jacket? She has to do something with all that Wall Street honoraria & all the money Bill stole from Haitian relief funds. What’s the point of corruption & grand larceny if you can’t spend it?

But now the acid test: are you still going to vote for her as the lesser evil or as the first female president? Or will you vote for Drumpf? What a conundrum!

The thing about abandoning lesser evil politics is never having to say “what the hell do we do now?”

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/uphold-international-law-stop-shielding-dow-chemical-accountability-corporate-crimes-bhopal-india

This petition launched by Bhopal activists in India has to garner 48,393 signatures by June 14th. It had a month to get 100,000 & has 51,607 so far. We have a week to circulate this. Maybe it’s a long-shot. Maybe those activists are reaching for the stars but that is how social change is made & those are the kind of people who make it.

Justice for the people of Bhopal is long overdue. They have fought intransigently since 1984–that’s 32 years. We need to give them every assistance we can. Please sign & share this petition:

This is New York governor Andrew Cuomo marching in the annual pro-Israel march in NYC last Sunday. This isn’t like showing up at a St. Patrick’s Day parade in a leprechaun hat to garner Irish-American votes. This is political pandering of a much more malignant kind. He’s not just playing to Jewish voters but to AIPAC, Israel, & to Haim Saban & Sheldon Adelson, the two Zionist billionaires willing to spend millions to defeat BDS. Cuomo was an official in the Bill Clinton administration & often accused of being a dirty dealer. He would fit right into a Hillary Clinton administration & may well be angling for that.