There seems to be more direct–or better to say more open–collaboration between Syrian, Russian, US, & Iranian forces in Syria, both with ground troops & airstrikes. Assad supporters report US airstrikes against a school near Raqqa that housed displaced families fleeing from fighting between ISIS fighters & coalition forces. But they criticize US intervention without reference to its military collaboration & coordination with Russia & Syria.
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Reports are disjointed but CBS reported: “ISIS is known to position its fighters & supplies near to, & even in the same buildings as civilians, in an effort to deter airstrikes. Activists said ISIS militants were at the scene of the strike on the school Wednesday within minutes, ushering people away from the building.” So ISIS intentionally put civilians at risk & then rushed to save their lives? So US, Syrian, & Russian bombers strafe buildings with bombers which they know house civilians?

We can never let ourselves get detached from what these attacks on civilians mean, whatever the air force that dropped the bombs. This young boy, so shy & so beguiling in the way of kids that age, was a victim of the school bombing. He’s one of ours, not an ISIS or special forces psycho.

The condemnations in Syria must include Syrian, Russian, US bombing of civilians & ground troops terrorizing on land.

No bombing of civilians in Iraq or Syria by Syria, Russian, or US planes. All foreign military forces out now.

May these families & this young boy Rest In Peace & not forever damn us for the epic failure of international solidarity in supporting the revolution against Assad’s dictatorship.

(Photo from Twitter)

Now Trump is accused of interfering with the congressional intelligence committee investigating his ties to Russia & compromising its integrity. It’s like he’s on a wrecking operation. Who needs a Manchurian Candidate when you’ve got a Donald Trump?

Isn’t it interesting though that US wars continue without missing a bomb drop with a guy fragmenting before our eyes? How long will they let this go on before they get serious about investigating & impeaching him? He maintains illegal financial entanglements with other countries; unsavory contacts within the Russian oligarchy who appear to be holding something over his head; he is cutting Meals on Wheels & eventually free school meals for poor kids to pay for his family in NYC & weekends at his exclusive resort in Florida; he’s what you call a loose cannon in a job that requires a zipped lip; & his public approval ratings are in the toilet.

The retired CIA & FBI agents, retired military officers & diplomats now leading the US antiwar movement are his biggest advocates, along with people who try to hide their support for him by infantile hating on Clinton & Obama. But the majority of people around the world know exactly what he is & want him out. He was illegally installed against the will of the majority & needs to be legally bounced. The sooner the better.

“Trump Fiction”

The deal maker drove over a cliff.

(Twittered by Free Syria Media Hub)

Someone ought to tell Fares Shehabi, the Assad official, that taking photos of dead enemy combatants & posting them on social media is considered desecrating a corpse & is a war crime. Every time he posts a photo to gloat, he documents regime crimes.

At last, an analysis that accords with my own problems with Banksy: everything that glitters is not gold.

http://muftah.org/banksys-hotel-undermines-palestinian-efforts-narrate-history/#.WNmMHRIrLdd

This is a post I wrote in March 2015 about Banksy in Gaza:

One doesn’t know whether to laud or scratch one’s head over Banksy in Gaza. Banksy is the pseudonym for an English artist who does satirical & political graffiti & who just released a short video & created works in the wreckage of Gaza. It’s a curious melange of graffiti including this portrayal of overwhelming grief & also a giant kitten. It seemed the kitten was to delight the traumatized children of Gaza but when asked about it, Banksy replied with not just a hint of misanthropy: “A local man came up & said ‘Please — what does this mean?’ I explained I wanted to highlight the destruction in Gaza by posting photos on my website — but on the internet people only look at pictures of kittens.”

Even for those who love satire, the video seems more light-hearted & less dark-humored than it ought to be when thousands are still homeless & children are dying from hypothermia in the freezing cold. And yet on his website he writes: “Gaza is often described as ‘the world’s largest open air prison’ because no-one is allowed to enter or leave. But that seems a bit unfair to prisons — they don’t have their electricity & drinking water cut off randomly almost every day.”

But the most curious part of all this, indeed a troubling part, is the statement Banksy released to the NY Times: “I don’t want to take sides. But when you see entire suburban neighborhoods reduced to rubble with no hope of a future — what you’re really looking at is a vast outdoor recruitment center for terrorists. And we should probably address this for all our sakes.”

Banksy doesn’t want to take sides in a genocide!? Gaza is breeding terrorists!? Standing with Gaza against Israeli ethnic cleansing is to prevent the terrorists produced in Gaza from coming after us!?

This is Banksy’s website & video so you can judge for yourself. Next time he might want to leave the graffiti & get out of town without opening his trap: http://banksy.co.uk/

Hard to say who’s the craziest leader in the world but North Korea is falling way behind. They need to get Trump out of there before he signs an executive order to brand the White House Trump Tower DC & heads back to Florida for good.

Kofi Annan’s commission on Arakan state just issued its interim report & recommendations at a press conference in Yangon. On what, we aren’t sure since the mandate by Aung San Suu Kyi was intentionally ambiguous but excluded any investigation of human rights crimes. Annan tried to play cagey & on one hand would say his mandate was not to investigate human rights crimes but on the other would report that in his whirlwind four days in Arakan meeting with big wheels he never once saw signs of genocide.

State Counsellor Suu Kyi ate up the report.& her office issued a statement of concurrence. That’s because it completely ignores the mountains of evidence for genocide against Rohingya. The report isn’t just a piece of rubbish that goes beyond our wildest expectations of a snow-job. It is a steaming pile of horse manure.

It is 15-pages long just to show how thoroughly the commission did its work (whatever its work was) & explicitly refuses to use the name Rohingya “in line with the request of the State Counsellor,” (just to show how independent it was). The primary concern of the report is that those who attacked the border guards last October be apprehended & brought to justice. Interesting, because Suu Kyi’s regime blamed those attacks on Rohingya “jihadists” with ties to ISIS & used that to unleash months of extreme violence against Rohingya, including mass rape, torching hundreds of homes, extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture, incarceration of thousands including small children, & forced exile of over 70,000. But now we learn from the report that the regime still doesn’t know who the perpetrators were. And the commission didn’t think that worth investigating? Of course not. They were paid to see no evil, hear no evil, report what Suu Kyi told them to.

Ironically, our man Annan calls for humanitarian aid workers & journalists to be allowed unfettered entrance to Arakan state. Ironic because he spent a total of four days there in the past 7 months of his investigation. The commission never had to get off their asses to come up with the blithering in this report.

What do you say about a guy who covers for genocide in exchange for a fee? Language hasn’t the capacity to express the contempt Annan deserves. Some Arab cultures throw shoes to express contempt. In the American midwest, we throw horse manure, which in this case is more suitable.

The commission report:

https://www.transcend.org/tms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Statement-Kofi-Annan-Chair-Advisory-Commission-Rakhine-State-Interim-Report.pdf

A Fox News poll reported that Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in America. A lot of media is reporting that as ” a socialist is the most popular politician in America.”

Don’t get me wrong; socialism likes to be inclusive. But Sanders shares about as much with socialism as the ones who defend Stalin & Mao’s crimes or the ones who defend Assad’s crimes. There’s a profound misunderstanding there of what socialism is all about.

When we talk inclusive we do not mean people who talk a good game but walk another. Supporting war, occupation, colonialism, apartheid, mass murder, & persecution of any one for any reason is no part of our inclusion.