Just over a week ago, a Russian flotilla of seven ships led by the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetzov entered the Mediterranean Sea headed for Syria. Dozens of Russian fighter jets & attack helicopters can be launched from the aircraft carrier or they may become based at the Khmeimim Russian Air Base built last year near the Syrian city of Latakia on the coast.

In the flotilla are a nuclear-powered battle cruiser (which can launch Kalibr cruise missiles), an anti-submarine destroyer, a destroyer, a tug, a surveillance vessel, & a tanker. Three submarines later joined the flotilla–all thought to be carrying Kalibr land attack cruise missiles which can be armed with nuclear or conventional warheads.

According to Russian state media reports, since Russia entered the war in Syria in September 2015, it has deployed Kalibr missiles dozens of times targeting Aleppo, Raqqa, & Idlib provinces.
In October 2015, some of those missiles traveled through Iraqi & Iranian airspace & anonymous US Department of Defense officials claimed four crashed in Iran. The Russian & Iranian governments, allies of Assad in Syria, both denied the crash occurred. US Pentagon & State Department officials refused to comment on the reports–just as they dummy up on Syrian & Russian bombing of cities despite the most sophisticated military surveillance equipment in the world. From Langley Air Force Base in Virginia they can watch Assad scratch his ass & from the White House can watch Osama bin Laden be assassinated so they damn well know who is bombing what in Syria.

This military build-up is what a significant section of progressive forces support in their demented scenario of Syria & Russia against US-backed “head-chopping jihadists.” Russian missiles is their idea of freedom fighters–just as another group of anti-Assad activists support US cruise missiles as a salvation army.

Where have they gone wrong? At what point did they decide there is humanitarian militarism as opposed to barbaric militarism? The role of principled antiwar activists is to oppose all military operations in Syria, including that of Assad, so that the Syrian movement against dictatorship has a clear field to finish the mission they began in 2011.

Shame on those who think missiles & bombers can accomplish the tasks of revolution & democracy. They don’t understand the first thing about politics & have no right to call themselves antiwar activists or progressives.

This little girl is running past a building recently bombed by Syria in the rebel-held town of Douma in the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus where nearly 110,000 civilians live. Because of opposition to the Assad regime, the area has been under military siege since 2012. But the Syrian government is now engaged in a several month offensive waging heavy aerial & ground shelling assaults on civilians & infrastructure, including hospitals & schools.

Much life in Douma is spent underground with basements used as schools & playgrounds, underground bombing shelters tunneled beneath homes, & even bakeries & medical facilities. On days following air strikes, only ambulances, rescue workers & paramedics are in the streets.

Assad supporters claim bombing of civilians is to take out “jihadist” groups controlling civilians & even that children like this little girl are being used as human shields. They are jubilant at news about the armada of Russian warships now in the Mediterranean Sea to launch missiles & airstrikes on cities like Douma which would kill far more civilians than paramilitary forces.

It can never be said strongly enough that if you support militarism & carpet bombing–US, Russian, Syrian, Iranian, or a combination of all of them–as a solution to the war in Syria, your political motives are suspect, your judgement deranged, & you become part of the problem.

The only principled response & only possible solution is to demand the immediate cessation of Syrian & Russian bombing; the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces, regular & irregular forces, overt & covert, air & ground & to actively organize internationally around those demands.

(Photo by Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)

Concerning a consumer boycott of Sunoco, Petro-Canada, & Stripes gas stations, all wholly owned by Energy Transfer Partners, owners of the Dakota Access Pipeline:

This is a recent protest on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation near Cannonball, North Dakota against the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Riot police are using pepper spray against protesters standing in the river.

The Dakota Access Pipeline is a project that starts in North Dakota & travels 1,200 miles across North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, & ending at a terminal in Patoka, Illinois where it will be processed for distribution. Using eminent domain for land grabs, the route will pass near municipal water sources, residential areas, Indian reservations (defying tribal sovereignty & sacred burial grounds), wetlands, nearly 350 miles of farmland in Iowa, & will be tunneled under the Missouri & Mississippi Rivers.

This is classic neoliberal economic policy which has been devastating indigenous rights on every continent since the 1980s with accelerating military aggression against resistance. Multinational agribusiness & mining industries take over lands with the military assistance of national regimes. All over Latin, Central, & North America; Africa; South Asia. This is one of the chief causes of environmental destruction, climate change, the growth of urban slums, & the crises of dispossessed immigrants & refugees.

Energy Transfer Partners is a US Fortune 500 natural gas & propane company founded in 1995 & based in Dallas, Texas. It is the parent company of Dakota Access, the subsidiary developing the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The fight against DAPL has already gone international because millions of indigenous peoples around the world know exactly what is going on in North Dakota & solidify with the Standing Rock tribe. It is going to be a long fight because the most powerful forces in US politics, including the White House, support the pipeline. It will have to be fought on many fronts & with a variety of tactics.

Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) wholly owns Sunoco retail gas stations with 4,700 outlets in 26 US states. In Canada, Sunoco outlets are branded as Petro-Canada. ETP also wholly owns Stripes, a chain of 580 convenience stores in Texas, New Mexico, & Oklahoma associated with retail gas stations.

Refusing to patronize Sunoco, Petro-Canada, & Stripes gas stations is the beginning of what could become an organized boycott in solidarity with the Standing Rock Indian tribe in North Dakota.

(Photo by Stephanie Keith/Reuters)

For so long I wondered if I was missing out on something in not having a Twitter account. People always said it was a good source for up-to-date news.

I opened an account but never used it until FB banned me twice for posting about the Kashmiri activist murdered by Indian soldiers on July 8th whose name & photo cannot be posted on FB though his funeral was attended by 600,000 people.

It is indeed an extremely useful source for information. But it is also a mine field of bickering, bullying, narcissistic snits that go on interminably. You have be disciplined in using it or you can get pulled into that crap & it will eat up your creative energies. You may even begin to think pissing contests are political debates.

A friend messaged me photos of US presidents visiting Betty Windsor & reminded me that would be among my duties if elected president. He got that wrong.

My first act as president of the US would be denounce feudalism where it exists, outlaw curtsying & kissing ass, & sever all economic & political ties with nations that still have a moochocracy. There’d be no need to end military alliances because my second act would be to dismantle the US Pentagon & start prosecutions of the CIA for crimes against humanity.

This pledge assures me I cannot win the US presidency but it does not stop me from denouncing up a storm.

Some people wept & swooned when Pope Francis washed the feet of a couple refugees earlier this year. Pardon me if I don’t get swooning (& haven’t since I first saw it done over Elvis) or if that particular ritual seems a sort of feudal degradation to the recipients deemed lesser so who should feel honored at the great man washing their tootsies.

Will the weeping & swooning be so ardent when they hear he told a reporter the ban on female priests in the Catholic church is forever? I’ve never taken much to priests & think they’d be a lot better off if they could marry. It’s too hard to live without love. Since childhood, I’ve been uncomfortable around them & when I was in the convent outright resented their privileges compared to nuns. It probably wouldn’t go much better if priests were also female.

But what’s operating here is the continuing second-class status of women in the Catholic church. So if I ever have a weak moment of swooning, it won’t be over Pope Francis. Actually, if you ever catch me in a swoon over anyone, you’ll know I’ve lost my marbles.

Glamour magazine just named Bono to its annual Women of the Year award. The honorific had more value than the Nobel Peace Prize but after this Bono fiasco, considerably less than a soiled snot rag.

Glamour editor Cindi Lieve said Bono was chosen because he used his celebrity & his One Campaign organization to launch his “Poverty is Sexist” campaign on International Women’s Day (March 8th) of this year.

The One Campaign, formed in 2004, is a coalition of NGOs including The International Rescue Committee (whose board of directors is a line-up of international serial killers, including Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, & before he croaked, Elie Wiesel); Save The Children US (which in 2014 gave Tony Blair a Global Legacy Award); along with other conservative NGOS like CARE & Oxfam. It is funded lavishly by the Gates Foundation.

One wonders if Glamour cleared up the financial questions about the One Campaign which has been under scrutiny almost from the beginning for using only 1.2 percent of its donations for programs to address poverty. In 2008, ONE received £9.6 million in donations, paid £5.1 million in salaries to 120 staff members, & allocated only £118,000 to practical programs. A spokesperson explained this by saying “We don’t provide programs on the ground. We’re an advocacy & campaigning organization.”

That advocacy & campaigning stuff means Bono gets to do gigs with all kinds of do-gooder celebrities & disreputable politicians who want good press. They commiserate about lack of education for young girls, high HIV infection rates, & maternal death rates. They don’t do a damn thing about it but they do whip up pity, especially for young girls in Africa, in order to garner donations.

These campaigns–& there are several–directed at the problems of young girls are not campaigns to promote female liberation & equality. They are end runs around feminist analyses & perspectives for improving the lives of women & girls. Feminism is the theoretics of female emancipation; these phony-assed do-gooder programs are attempts to control women & their reproductive lives & usually have deep connections to eugenics organizations..

One of the other recipients this year of the Glamour Women of the Year award was Christine Lagarde, the IMF head who orchestrates austerity programs all over the world to impoverish women & create massive inequality & misery for all.

Those who believe in the rights of women & in justice have an entirely different list of respected women beginning with the women of Palestine & Kashmir & the women of the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota–but by no means does the list of our respected women end there.

Let’s not beat around the bush about this: Glamour magazine can take their award & stuff it where the sun don’t shine. In general, committed activists should eschew all honorifics that place them above others & accept them only if a trophy on their mantle will advance the struggles they are part of.

(Photo is Bono)

This is the third photo that appeared in the LA Times last week portraying some reality about the relationship between Israel & Palestinians. Once again, the whole story is not reported but the fact that it was published is quite surprising, if not remarkable.

These are Israeli riot & undercover police assaulting an “Arab-Israeli” (a Palestinian citizen of Israel) in the north Israel town of Umm al-Fahm. The caption says that extreme rightwing Israelis were marching under heavy police escort through the town & “were met by scores of stone-throwing residents.”

A little elaboration would have been useful. The “extreme rightwing Israelis” were members of Otzma Yehudit, a far right political party that regularly holds marches in predominantly Palestinian towns within Israel, including Nazareth, Rahat, Musmus, Ara, Arara, & Umm al-Fahm. The latter has a majority population of over 52,000 Palestinians. Despite the arrant provocations of such protests & even warnings of violence by the Israeli police, the Supreme Court ruled last January to allow these marches as freedom of expression. They are freedom of expression for racists but unfortunately the ones who get beaten are Palestinian counter-protesters.

This is the third time Otzma Yehudit marched in Umm al-Fahm. The first time was in 2009; the second in October 2010 where they marched to demand the Islamic Movement (IM) be outlawed & against the participation of Sheikh Raed Salah, an outspoken IM leader, in the May 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla that was attacked by Israeli commandoes. Nine activists were killed & dozens injured. The extreme rightwing & of course the Israeli government have an entire brief against Salah, not just for his involvement in the flotilla but for his opposition & activism.

The 2010 protest was quite violent against Palestinians with tear gas, & stun grenade attacks, mounted police assaults, assaults just like this one last week, & arrests.

Build BDS in solidarity with Palestinians who have a right to live without provocations, dispossession, occupation, apartheid, carpet bombing. Don’t buy a damn thing with barcode beginning 729 & check every product from cosmetics to shoes to foods.

(Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images)

This photo which appeared in the LA Times last week is a Palestinian man receiving first-aid after being pepper-sprayed by Israeli occupying forces at a weekly protest “against the neighboring Jewish settlement of Halamish.”

The LA Times doesn’t tell the whole story of course but it’s extremely unusual for such photos to appear in media which more typically portray Palestinians as aggressive youth. The whole story is more than worth telling.

Halamish was taken in a land grab of Palestinian farmlands in 1977 & continues to expand in outposts. In 2009, when settlers fenced off a vital spring on land privately owned by Bashir Tamimi, residents of nearby Nabi Saleh began weekly protests against the annexation of their farmland. This man is one of the Nabi Saleh protesters.

Though residents were committed to peaceful protests, they were met met by Israeli soldiers using tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons, & skunk bombs. Skunk bombs are a chemical weapon made of synthetic skunk liquid which smells like raw sewage & is impossible to wash off.

At the weekly protest in December 2011, 28-year-old Mustafa Tamimi (nephew of Bashir), died after an Israeli soldier shot him directly in the face with a tear gas canister. When other protestors reacted with horror, the Israeli soldiers laughed & taunted, “So?” In 2012, 31-year-old Rushdi Tamimi, was killed with live fire from Israeli soldiers.

Bassem Tamimi, a leader of the protests, has been arrested several times by Israeli soldiers & was once confined to administrative detention without trial. In 2012, he was found guilty in an Israeli military court of inciting youth to throw stones & holding a march without a permit. His entire family, particularly his teenage daughter, Ahed, are well-known protesters against the settlement expansion.

In August 2015, there was an incident where an Israeli soldier slammed 12-year-old Abu Yazan Tamimi (whose arm was in a cast) to the ground for throwing stones during the protest. The photo of that went viral when four Tamimi women–two mothers (Nariman & Nawal) & two teenagers (Ahed & her cousin Nour) rushed the soldier & tried to get him off the boy. Ahed is seen biting the soldier after he hit her in the face. Bassem is also seen in the photo rushing the soldier.

Boycott all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729) in solidarity with Palestinians opposing the expropriation of their ancestral lands.

(Photo by Oliver Weiken/EPA)

This photo is one of three recent photos in the LA Times that does not portray Palestinians as nihilistic, violent youth. It certainly doesn’t represent an editorial change but it is unusual to see Palestinian political concerns reflected in US media.

These Palestinians–masked probably to protect themselves from identification by Israeli security forces–are standing on an Israeli flag holding up photos of some of the 7,500 Palestinian political prisoners, including children, in the Israeli gulag. Protesters were demanding their release.

The caption couldn’t leave well enough alone & noted that the protest was organized by “the Islamist movement Hamas.” If they’re doing the right thing, why care who the hell organized it!?

(Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)