Ali, the 10-year-old brother of Omran Daqneesh dies from Russian or Syrian bombing

Ali and Omran Daqneesh

It has been confirmed to NBC News by the hospital in Aleppo, Syria, that Ali Daqneesh, the 10-year-old brother of Omran, died today from injuries sustained in the same Syrian or Russian airstrike that destroyed his family’s home.

While the rest of the family, including Omran & three other siblings, escaped their home with minor physical injuries & major psychological trauma, Ali was playing in the street with friends when the bombs exploded last Wednesday.

It is estimated that at least 400,000 have died since 2011 as a result of bombing by Syria & its several military allies, including particularly Russia. We know that includes tens of thousands of small children.

May little Ali Rest In Peace. May we not rest until we actively oppose this monstrous war.
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Ordinarily I do not post gruesome photos but I make this exception to assure conspiracy theorists & Assadists that we are not being played by the US Pentagon & that the death of this small boy is not being staged–& perhaps also in the hope that they will feel shame for their vile imputations against 3-year-old Omran.
(Photo of Ali & Omran from The Telegraph News)

“About seeing”: how Assadists & anti-Assadists view the photo of Omran Daqneesh

John Berger, the artist & social critic, has written several books & essays “about seeing,” about how we view art & how that is affected by political ideology. Nothing could demonstrate his insights better than the array of political reactions to the photo of 3-year-old Omran Daqneesh.

It isn’t coincidental that Assad supporters are enflamed by the photo & see it as war propaganda, as a manipulation by the US Pentagon to justify a regime-change intervention into Syria. As if the US isn’t already there up to their eyeballs. Some of their explanations are simply beyond the pale of human decency: he only had a “minor scalp injury” so what’s the big deal?

Of course what Assadists don’t want addressed is why Syrian or Russian warplanes are bombing civilians because their phony-assed narrative denies they are even doing so. Their contorted, sickening rationalizations include blaming the Daqneesh family for being in a war zone or claiming Assad & Putin created a bomb-free alley for civilians to exit before they bombed the place to smithereens. How did political analysis get to the level of dreck?

Anti-Assadists saw the photos with quite a different eye. It’s beyond dispute that those who want US intervention recognized its war-mongering potential. But those who oppose all military intervention into Syria, including at its current barbaric levels, see little Omran as an antiwar icon, as a way to visually drive home to others what war & militarism is doing in so many countries around the world. Just like the image from the Vietnam War of the little girl doused in napalm running down the road.

The image of the little girl from Vietnam had a powerful affect on viewers by showing the horror & barbaric nature of the Vietnam War. Should media not have published it?

Why would anyone protest the photo of a child victim of war? Why would they not want that to be front-page news all over the world? What the hell are they trying to hide?

Mir Suhail: Democracy

Mir Suhail--Democracy

This political cartoon by Mir Suhail titled “Democracy” represents many photos circulating now of young men laying in hospital beds with their backs full of abrasions & lacerations from being brutally beaten by Indian troops.

End the occupation! Self-determination for Kashmir!

The Stalinist methods of Assadist debate

I came to Facebook today to find several vituperative denunciations of me using the foulest language & vilest accusations because I oppose the Assad dictatorship, his bombing of his own people, & all foreign military intervention into Syria.

Several people wrote long screeds explaining why I was wrong on Syria & should be supporting Assad as a victim of US regime change politics. Others denounced me for deleting those long screeds.

How many times do I have to say I don’t run a debating society? If anyone wants to read the mountains of rightwing, libertarian, Stalinist, confusionist defenses of Assad, I can refer you to any number of sources, some of them quite prominent. But you are not going to dump that stuff on my wall. This is not a place for rubbish disposal.

Discussion over differences is important & I value that. But if you support Assad & his military allies bombing the hell out of Syria, those are not mere differences. They are irreconcilable, including through debate. Things would just get rancorous in that FB kind of way & that’s not useful. If you look at a photo of a little boy & call him a shill for the US Pentagon, that is not a mere difference but an irreconcilable vision of reality & pardon me if I don’t want to go there.

By nature, I’m a peace-loving woman & detest conflict. But women in politics have to expect getting roughed up in ways that men will never face. Cry me a river, but it’s political chump change to be called scum, an “orientalist sow,” vomit-inducing, stupid, a parrot, & all the other crap I’ve heard. You know what’s worse? Calling a little war-traumatized boy a shill for US bombers. And what’s far more important is that there are human beings on the front lines of violence in Syria, Palestine, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq, the US Black community, & elsewhere. So a little name-calling isn’t going to bring anyone to their knees.

If you want to fight dirty, I can do that too. That’s why I make such profligate use of the block button. Many object to being blocked & want to continue abusing me on my wall under the guise of discussion. Yeah right!
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As a postscript, let me add that debate about Syria could not be more important. But FB is not a suitable venue for that. Debates should be organized to replace the vituperative spitting contests on FB. The debates should represent the cacophony of views & be held in venues around the world. The issue of Syria could not be more important for the future of humanity.

The Assadist attacks on Omran Daqneesh


I can’t express how disturbing it is to see several Facebook friends posting links to wacky, even deranged blogs claiming little Omran Daqneesh is a propaganda trick to discredit Assad. One even dismissed his injuries by saying he only sustained “superficial cuts & bruises.” Is that what they call the extreme trauma so evident & so wrenching to the rest of us.

Syria is one of the most important struggles of our era. If you get it so wrong that you support a dictator & deny the popular uprising against him, it might not be fruitful to continue a Facebook friendship. Not only because we will not likely convince each other (especially if one’s sources are crazy-assed blogs) but because there is so much stress in reporting what human beings are being put through around the world that reading trash about a little boy pulled from a bombed out building is just too much.

Omran Daqneesh & Alan Kurdi: unwilling icons of the Assad dictatorship

Omran Daqneesh, 5 yrs old (Aleppo Media Center) Aug 19 2016Alan Kurdi 3 yrs old (Reuters) Aug 19 2016

Reluctantly I am posting these photos of Syrian children–on the top 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh who was lifted from the rubble of a building damaged in an airstrike on Aleppo & on the bottom 3-year-old Alan Kurdi who drowned off Greece in September 2015.

They have become symbols of Assad’s war against his own people & of the massive refugee crisis that war has created. It is estimated that at least 400,000 Syrians have already died & millions have fled as refugees with countries refusing asylum & whipping up Islamophobic hysteria against them. To date, the US has accepted only about 2,600 Syrian refugees & European Union countries are deporting them back to Turkey, another bastion of tyranny.

There is a massive historic failure here & one for which Syrians are paying an unbearable price. The vituperative exchanges need to end & educational debates begin. The political agenda of the libertarians & Stalinists who support Assad must be exposed. The pursuit of solutions in militarism must be opposed in the most unconditional terms. Educational forums & protests must be organized to oppose military intervention for or against Assad, to demand the right of refugees to asylum & to denounce the news blackout about their fate. Fullest solidarity must be extended to those standing against the Assad regime & its bombers. If none of this involves international collaboration between activists, it will only be a drop in the bucket of what is needed.

Though adverse to exploiting the tragedy of children, we must look this monstrous war straight in the face & little Omran & Alan compel us to do exactly that.

Stop the bombing of Syria! Full solidarity with the popular resistance to Assad. Open the damn borders.

(Photo of Omran from Aleppo Media Center. Photo of Alan from Reuters.)

The voices of Syrian children drowned by political cacophony of Assadists & pro-war anti-Assadists

Picture of 2nd grade Syrian (The Syria Campaign) Aug 19 2016

This picture was drawn by a 2nd grade Syrian child. The dead children are smiling whilst the surviving children are crying.
Whose bombers those are is a matter of dispute for those who support the Assad dictatorship & want us to believe they are piloted by evil fairies from outer space rather than Syrian & Russian pilots. Or are they US & Israeli bombers since they are both now allied with Russia in supporting Assad?

So while Assadists & some anti-Assadists debate about whose bombers are the most desirable way for Syrians to die & make an absolute disaster of political analyses, the children speak with plaintive voices not heard over the cacophony of political confusions, compromises, & corruption.

The situation may be complex but that is compounded by activists from the libertarian & Stalinist political traditions who support the regime of Assad, including making pilgrimages to visit him. This would not be their first betrayal of democracy.

When there is such massive confusion about which side to support, solidarity must begin by demanding no military intervention into Syria. Assad has several military allies precisely because he cannot destroy the popular revolution against him on his own.

(Photo from The Syria Campaign on Twitter)

Indian army preventing Kashmiris from prayers

Jama Masjid in Srinagar closed down Aug 19 2016

Modi certainly didn’t need any lessons in criminality & occupation from Netanyahu since he was so practiced in pogroms against Muslims. But he may be taking some cues from Israel by locking down the mosques in Srinagar for Friday prayers for the 6th consecutive week of the siege. Just as Israel does with Al Aqsa Mosque, including allowing Israeli rightwing provocateurs to tour the mosque compound whilst Palestinian men & boys are locked out.

Whoever could conceive that in the 21st century freedom of religion would become a central political issue for millions of people, mostly Muslims, around the world?

This is Jama Masjid (mosque) in Srinagar locked down & guarded by Indian troops.

(Photo from Twitter)

There’s another Mary Scully writing rightwing trash in my name

In looking in the Facebook archives for my 2013 posts about the massacre of Muslim Brotherhood activists by the Al-Sisi regime in Egypt, I came across a different Mary Scully who posted favorably about Al-Sisi attending Christmas Eve Mass at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo. She even quoted words she thought inspiring from his sermon about Egyptian unity. Unity bought at the price of repression, torture, mass disappearances & incarceration, & bloodshed

That Mary Scully has a cover photo of the Blessed Virgin Mary so she is surely another of us named in her honor. We’ll leave it to heaven to decide which one has strayed from the path of righteousness but if politics matter, it sure as hell shouldn’t be me.

In any case, this may require making a permanent name change to Valentina Valestockovich absolutely essential to avoid any confusion with the more saintly & politically rightwing Mary Scully.

The 2013 massacre of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: a commemoration

MB massacre ((Photo by Wissam Nassar:AP) 2013 reposted Aug 19 2016

It was in July & August 2013, after the overthrow of President Morsi, that Egyptian general Abdel Al-Sisi began brutal, terrifying massacres against the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), a conservative fundamentalist group that played almost no role in the overthrow of Mubarak but came to prominence under Morsi who was an elite MB member. I had written volumes criticizing the Morsi regime & the rightwing role of the MB in street violence during the Egyptian uprising, even excoriating the Morsi constitution as a military-religious tract.

But when the junta went after MB activsts & began slaughtering them, simply mowing them down with machine guns, I began a vigorous defense of them. First because that is not how how human beings who dissent from political power should be treated & second because the slaughter was to legitimize an all-out, eventual assault on the entire Egyptian popular movement which in their millions had overthrown Mubarak in 2011.

For defending the MB, I received an avalanche of abuse from FB friends & had to bounce several just for the abusive & vituperative character of their disagreement–similar to the woman who just called me an “orientalist sow” for opposing US military intervention in Syria. Some expressed agreement, even enthusiasm for the violent assaults on the MB–as if Al-Sisi was clearing out vermin & not slaughtering hundreds of human beings.

One does not have to agree with the politics of the MB–& I most decidedly did not–but they had a right to hold their views. They didn’t have a right to forcibly impose them on others, as they tried to do under Morsi, but neither did the military have a right to slaughter them after Morsi was out of power. Especially because at no point, under Mubarak, Morsi, or Al-Sisi was the military junta never not in control of the government. They had pulled a fast one on the popular revolution.

Ordinarily I avoid posting gruesome photos because the political affect is demoralizing. But we need to look the massacre of the MB activists straight in the face. The partisans lying dead in this photo were fired on as they staged a sit-in outside the Republican Guard building in Cairo where they believed Morsi & other arrested MB members were being detained. This is how the Al-Sisi regime continues to handle dissent & it is criminal no matter what we think of MB political ideology. According to Amnesty International, about 41,000 people had been disappeared in the first two years of Al-Sisi’s rule & thousands killed during the suppression of protests, strikes & by the death sentence.

This comes to mind because Usman A Khan Tahir has written this important piece about the massacres for Pakistan Today. I have almost no agreement on Syria with Sam Charles Hamad who is cited in the article but consider his insights on these massacres to be quite cogent.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/…/rabaas-massacre-14-augus…/