Let’s put aside for the moment the questions about how a suicide bomber could drive his van right up next to the bus convoy without being frisked by Assad troops. Let’s put aside that media has to rely on reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) in Coventry, England rather than Assad officials conducting forensics on the spot. Let’s not question right now why Assad has said nothing about this bombing. No accusations, no imputations; we’ll just table those unanswered questions for the moment.

Let’s instead take a look at how Assadist apologists have responded to the bombing & horrific deaths of 126 civilians. It is no surprise that few have expressed horror at this monstrous crime but instead are using it to hammer home their defense of Assad’s dictatorship.

Rania Khalek & Rania Masri are among the boldest, if not also the most simple-minded, of Assadists, only outdone by Tim Anderson who is deranged. They don’t hesitate without a shred of evidence, before the forensics have begun, to claim al-Qaeda is responsible for the bombing. Masri, a long-time & profoundly stupid defender of Assad, makes the accusation with no attempt at explication. She thinks her academic speciality in the morphology of pine trees allows her to speak in the oracular voice & just pronounce them guilty. Her credibility is pushing its luck.

Khalek, whose claim to expertise is a road trip with the Syrian army, actually attempts to explain why al-Qaeda is guilty. The victims of the suicide bomber had been evacuated from two pro-Assad towns besieged by al-Qaeda. According to her, Qatar, a party to the relocation deal with Assad, is “a primary backer of al-Qaeda in Syria” so that means al-Qaeda did it. She may have been dropped on her head too often as a child.

Talking through their asses about who’s responsible isn’t the worst of it for Masri & Khalek. Al-Qaeda could be behind the suicide bomber even if he couldn’t have gotten near the buses if Assad officials had been controlling the relocation operation with necessary due diligence. The worst of it for both of them, Ben Norton, Max Blumenthal, Tim Anderson, Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Beeley, & all the rest of them is their now openly Islamophobic aspersions against all who oppose the dictatorship of Assad. It isn’t just jihadi head-choppers any more. It’s Sunni Muslims.

Islamophobic ideology has been operative for a long time in US strategy in the Middle East. Part of it is portraying Islam as a fractious, sectarian religion riven between Sunni, Shia, & all the other denominations. And not just portraying Islam as sectarian, but actively using covert operations to foster conflict between the different currents of Islam. In the Middle East, the US has used class & social differences within denominations to generate political, religious, social conflict as a strategy of social control.

But now this sectarian portrayal of Islam is the explanation Assadists are using to vilify the revolution against Assad’s dictatorship. Khalek & Ben Norton elaborated it in their giggly, banal interviews on the Dead Pundits Society where jihadism morphed seamlessly into Wahhabism/Salafism & then into Sunnism.
Masri & Khalek & several other prominent Assadists circulated this article by Amal Saad, who writes for the World Shia Forum, a creepy Assadist blog:
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“This horrific bloodbath of evacuees from Fua and Kefraya is far more dangerous than the US strike last week. The slaying of scores of displaced Shia (one video I watched now showed 4 or 5 destroyed buses filled with dead children) is clearly aimed at provoking sectarian retaliation against the Sunni evacuees from Madaya and Zabadani who are on the other end of the evacuation deal, and sectarian incitement against Sunnis generally. Opposition supporters in the West and Arab Gulf are already bizarrely blaming the Assad government for the carnage and shielding the takfiri terrorists from blame. It isn’t merely a case of Shia lives don’t matter, i.e. Shia deaths being underreported by mainstream media, or that western leaders don’t consider dead Shia babies to be politically convenient enough to qualify as “beautiful” , or of simply imagining what western and Arab coverage would be like if the victims were from Madaya and Zabadani. It is that White Men who claim to speak on behalf of “oppressed Sunnis”–i.e. policy wonks, journos and pundits–will label us “sectarian” if we dare accuse ISIS, al-Qaeda and Takfiri rebels of targeting Shia. And by “we” i mean anyone of any sect or religion, including Sunni Muslims, who dares point out the obvious. Any mention of Shia victimization is taboo; it is unprogressive, Islamophobic, and it is “disempowering” to Sunnis. These are the new parameters of acceptable, liberal PC discourse: the identity of victims must not be highlighted unless they belong to the politically expedient sect or group of the day.”
****
The cognitive dysfunctions in this Assadist rubbish pale in comparison to the cynicism, dishonesty, paranoia, & banality of Masri, Khalek, & their cohorts attempting to turn the Syrian revolution against Assad into a sectarian dispute between Shia & Sunni.

There is no where to go from here. When your politics are indistinguishable from US Pentagon war-mongering, when it becomes babble & bull manure, it’s time to find a new career. Masri should go back to cloning pine trees & Khalek to calisthenics because they have been confounded by revolution against injustice & now resort to lies, banalities, & hate-mongering.

They never once expressed horror at the suffering of the children.

(Photo is a child victim of the suicide bomber being treated at hospital in Aleppo by AFP)

By all accounts, Syrian government rescue workers were side-by-side with White Helmet rescue workers to save victims of a suicide bomb attack on a bus convoy outside Aleppo yesterday. It was a gruesome incident, a monstrous attack on civilians, where a suicide bomber driving a commercial van detonated himself near the buses which also ignited a nearby petrol station.

Images after the explosion show strewn & charred bodies, including of many children. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) gave the estimate of fatalities as 126, including 68 children, & said they expect the death toll to increase because of the severity & numbers of the injuries.

The bus convoy was part of a complex diplomatic arrangement involving Syria, Iran, Qatar, Hezbollah, & opposition groups to evacuate & give safe passage to about 7,000 pro-Assad civilians living in two towns surrounded by rebel forces in return for evacuation & safe passage of 2,000 revolutionary civilians who lived in two towns besieged by government forces. It would eventually have forcibly relocated about 30,000 people along political battle lines over the course of two months.

The convoys carrying both these groups were stranded outside Aleppo en route to their destination, reportedly due to officials wrangling over the number of fighters traveling among the evacuees. Reliable information is not yet available & may never be because this deal stinks to high heaven. It has been called a humanitarian operation but since when did forcible relocation of thousands of civilians, whatever their politics, become humanitarian? What exactly is this deal all about?

There are a lot of other questions also. Because of the magnitude & volatility of such an exchange, why would they allow civilians to be endangered by differences over the number of fighters included on either side? That would have been an anticipated problem, not one to be worked out on the road. Why was a delivery van allowed proximity to a controversial convoy of civilians without being searched top to bottom? Don’t try to tell us there were oversights here. There’s culpability here that all the parties involved have to answer for.

The SOHR director said he does not believe the Assad regime is behind the attack because the convoy was carrying civilians sympathetic to the regime. A White Helmet rescue worker at the scene said, “This is a terrorist act. We lost martyrs on both sides & we saved people on both sides.” Syria’s main militia groups, under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, condemned the bombing, calling it a “treacherous terrorist attack”. There is no report of what Assad or the other governmental parties to the deal have to say about the attack.

There’s no point speculating about who would have done this, who stood to gain, because several parties, including the most extremist militias & undercover operatives from several governments, stood to gain a lot by maximizing conflict between civilians on both sides of the political divide.

Our deepest condolences to the families who lost their beloved in this monstrous crime. May they Rest In Peace.

Photo is children from the convoy during the delay at Aleppo before the bombing.

Libertarian leftists (same as libertarian rightists) are ridiculing the anti-Trump protests yesterday. They’re Trumpists at heart. Also Assadists, Putinists, & just generally deranged or lost souls.

Some of them are claiming the protests were only about Trump’s no-show tax returns. Actually, the one here began with a guy (then a FB friend) giving a 10-minute legal brief in defense of Assad & denying he gasses or bombs civilians, as if he were presenting at the International Criminal Court. My blood boilethed over.

A bullhorn wasn’t necessary to project my outrage in response where I gave an antiwar rebuttal denouncing all militarism, all foreign intervention into Syria, Yemen, Iraq, & elsewhere, & defending the Arab revolutions against dictatorship, bombing, foreign armies & militias.

Mock away libertarian do-nothings. Some of us were out trying to change the world.

Assadists regularly use the term “proxy war” because most of them are know-nothings whose politics are a repertoire of fear-mongering condemnations using such terms as jihadis, Wahhabi/Salafi, head-choppers.

There is no such thing as a proxy war. It’s a political obfuscation. Using the term means you have not studied the complexities of a conflict enough to understand who is involved, how they’re involved, why they’re involved.

Neutron Indian nationalism: one guy (now blocked) wrote on the requiem for Sajad Hassan, “Some people love Kashmir but hate Kashmiris.”

So if you would just leave the valley, they can go sightseeing again without that damn azadi.

Nationalism makes you violent. But first it makes you stupid.

So many nationalists hating on Kashmiris have not endeared themselves-mostly for abusing the memory of young Sajad Hassan, but also for taking up my time forcing me to block their asses because they aren’t suitable for civilized discussion.

The ignorance & stupidity of nationalists, Assadists, Muslim & Jewish haters, women haters, war-mongers, Putin & Trump supporters, racists & white supremacists, misanthropes who hate on Dem-libs, is only matched by their ineptitude with language. Hate has never been good with words. Grunts, guttural rumblings, verbal drooling, nasal snorting & sniffling, abusive epithets, talking through their asses, do not make for pleasant exchanges but it’s all the unfortunate & detestable are capable of. Pity them, pray for their rotten souls, but why put up with them?

What they get out of interfering with our requiems & impugning a young man shot walking down the road (or rescue workers & small children) isn’t apparent to human beings who respect & care about others. That’s for psychologists of the abnormal & of fascist derangement to figure out.

If any haters have been missed, please let me know so they too can be dispatched to Facebook hell with all the other haters.

This is 18-year-old Sajad Hassan who was fatally shot in the head by Indian occupying soldiers this evening in Batamaloo, Srinagar, although Indian authorities claim there is no deployment of soldiers in the area. Interesting that claim, since there are countless videos of attacks by troops on protesters in the district. With 700,000 occupying troops in Kashmir, where aren’t they deployed?

Young Sajad was not participating in an anti-occupation protest but was executed walking down the road. He may have been walking home, going to visit a girlfriend or pals, or off to see a film. It doesn’t really matter to the occupying army who they shoot in Kashmir: unarmed protesters, stone-pelters, children in their homes, seniors standing near protests, young men walking down the road.
India may be trying to provoke & goad more young people into armed resistance so they can openly kill more & justify to the world the barbaric occupation of Kashmir.

We cannot bring back the life of this young man or all those executed just in the past several days. What we can do is actively stand with Kashmiri resistance to occupation by educating others & helping to build international solidarity with their struggle.

May Sajad Hussan Rest In Peace. Our deepest condolences to his family & friends. May his death not be in vain. Build international solidarity to strengthen & promote the emergence of an anti-occupation movement in India.

The photos are Sajad as he would like to be remembered & after he was declared dead.

Some don’t get the stone-pelting thing in Palestinian & Kashmiri Intifada. They see it as provocation. Maybe they never heard the David & Goliath story.

What would they have unarmed protesters do against truncheons, tear gas canisters, pellet munitions, live ammunition? Stand there like dumb oxen? Stop actively opposing occupation & fighting for self-determination? Submit to colonialism?

“Silence that comes through guns is peace for occupier
World a mute spectator
To all the cries & tears
Brokenhearted #Kashmir still stands.”

(Photo & poem from Kashmir Freedom)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEKuKMaVePs

Everyday Kashmiris send me videos of violent encounters with occupying forces; everyday social media is filled with images & reports of violence in Kashmir, youth killed by troops in search & summary execution operations, of funerals, of grieving.

Kashmiris always express a determined commitment to Azadi/freedom but they are not superhuman. The battalions of international solidarity must actively enter the struggle to promote & strengthen the growth of an anti-occupation movement in India. Without an anti-occupation movement, India feels it has a free hand to shoot & disable unarmed protesters, rape women, forcibly disappear, torture, incarcerate, murder.

Kashmiris have fought & grieved alone long enough.

Azadi!

Facebook says I have 5,883 pending items. If you’re one of my pending items, hold your shirt on till I figure out what that’s all about. Given my backlog in reading messages, I should get to that pending item list by the year 2024.