Reposting this from 2014 about Afghan children orphaned by the US-NATO war & occupation:

And when all is said & done, after the last tweet & range of views on Islam, religious fundamentalism, the burqa, & the Taliban have been exorcised & the adrenalin has settled, there are these little Afghan girls made homeless by the US-NATO war.

Few reliable figures exist for the number of Afghan children orphaned by the war through loss or separation from parents. Nearly a decade ago, it was estimated at two million. That is, one out of seven children growing up on the streets scrounging to survive or in an orphanage. We don’t know if these little girls are orphaned; we do know they lost their home to bombing & live in makeshift refugee housing.

So it really doesn’t matter what we think about the burqa; what matters is what we do about the US-NATO bombing.
US-NATO out of Afghanistan! US out of Iraq!

(Photo by Massoud Hossaini/AP; Hossaini is an Afghan photojournalist who has long documented the story of Afghan’s orphaned children.)

Some were confused by my post about the Kashmiri woman stone thrower & reproached me for mocking Kashmiri women. Let me simply say it would be unthinkable that I would ever mock the men, women, & children on the front lines of freedom struggles. My post refers back to this reposted one from last month about the role of small children in Intifada.

Satire, including sarcasm & mockery, is the genre of the oppressed to reverse power relationships & prevent anger at injustice from souring into misdirected hatred. It is a genre I employ often against the oppressor, never against the oppressed who are our own. For them, there is only respect & solidarity.
****
“Kashmiri Intifada:
You see this same kind of image of Palestinian children against Israeli soldiers. In Belfast in 1983, I saw many small boys taking rocks after armored vehicles of the occupying British army.

Some living sheltered lives get on a high horse & shake the naughty finger: “where are the parents?” To stop children from resisting occupation you would have to keep them locked up. Something about a child that doesn’t like an occupation–especially when children are the targets of pellet guns (Kashmir) or bombers (Gaza).

The tragedy here is not that children resist oppression but that the Indian government makes it necessary for them to do so & takes away their childhood in the process.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashm

Kashmiri stone thrower:

And where are the parents? Do they just let her run wild?

She’s out making history, showing her kids how to throw like a girl.

A boy mourns the deaths of young men killed by Indian occupying soldiers in Pulwama, Kashmir. May those who died Rest In Peace. Heartfelt condolences to those left to grieve.

There is nothing left to be said except building international solidarity & demanding India end the occupation is a political imperative. Kashmiris have stood alone in their historic struggle long enough.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

More ground troops deployed to Syria & more planned for Afghanistan. Will Trump now be held to account & will that rubbish about deep state & soft coups finally hit the skids?

So is the CIA looking at me from inside my computer? Will they see me picking my nose?

(Not that I do. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)