In their feverish defense of Assad & to counter photographic & video documentation of carpet bombing civilians in Eastern Ghouta, Assad supporters claim Syria & Russia are only bombing head-chopping terrorists without explaining why they’re bombing cities & towns with tens of thousands of civilians. Others, like Assad official Fares Shehabi claim the bombing & artillery siege is a movie tableau & the bodies, rescued, & rescuers only Hollywood actors.

The only acting going on is in the UN Security Council where the countries militarily engaged in Syria are doing an awkward pas de burlesque denouncing each other. Trump’s ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley is denouncing Syria & Russia for the bombing of civilians. After dropping the Mother of All Bombs in Afghanistan ostensibly to take out Taliban fighters, after Mosul, Iraq & Raqqa, Syria, where the US used ISIS as a pretext to bomb those two cities into dead zones, the US is not a part of the solution but at the heart of the counterrevolutionary problem. It’s insane for so many to call on the US & European countries to intervene on the side of civilians. What do they not understand about the US Pentagon? Where have they ever seen evidence of a humanitarian purpose in US or European military interventions?

Stand with the people of Eastern Ghouta by demanding the immediate cessation of Syrian, Russian, & US coalition bombing of civilians & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces–overt, covert, mercenary–from Syria.

(Photo from Middle East Eye)

Perhaps an Assad supporter could refute this young girl about Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians in Eastern Ghouta.

https://www.facebook.com/SpotLightHumanity/videos/2000580156857138/?

Whatever the Assadist defense for Russian & Syrian bombing of Eastern Ghouta, the reality is that they are carpet bombing an area with 400,000 civilians. There are no estimates of the casualty rate for paramilitary forces since they are not the primary target. Civilians are not “collateral damage” but the intended targets to destroy the revolution against Assad which is, for the most part, unarmed.

Contrary to Assadist propagandists who claim ‘everything we’ve been told about Syria is a lie’ & that the bodies of civilians are just Hollywood actors, there is an avalanche of photographic & video documentation for the bombing & artillery assaults on civilians in Syria. Just as there were thousands of videos documenting the Syrian revolution in 2011 which Assadists claim never happened. Erstwhile antiwar & socialist activist Jeff Mackler, in another of his regrettable screeds supporting the Assad dictatorship, actually claimed that the Syrian revolution “inadvertently provided the US with a pretext for the now seven-year US-orchestrated regime-change imperialist war.” So you see how they see things when they betray principles? It was those who rose up by the millions to oppose dictatorship that caused the Syrian war. May Mackler finish his decay in hell.

Photo is a man & his injured children waiting for medical care in a field hospital since so many of the hospitals & clinics have been bombed out.

(Photo by Samer Bouidani/dpa/Alamy Live News)

In the past six days, Russian & Syrian warplanes have killed 460 civilians, including 100 children, & injured thousands. There’s a lot of media coverage about how Russia is blocking a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire & portraying Trump’s UN ambassador Nikki Haley as an antiwar champion dismayed that Russia is delaying humanitarian aid & medical evacuations from Eastern Ghouta. It’s all a switch & bait routine. If the UN wanted to function in a democratic way & get something done, it would dismantle the Security Council which is an organizational recipe for big power, militarist dominance.

The Security Council, a World War II anachronism, has 15 rotating temporary member states representing global regions & five permanent members (US, UK, France, China, Russia) who hold veto power over resolutions. All five permanent members have the most powerful militaries in the world, are nuclear powers, & among the world’s largest arms exporters. Combined, they spend over US$1 trillion a year on the military. It’s like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop writ large. Why should five militarist states be allowed to control matters of war & peace when their political interests are dominated by war, occupation, genocide?

Russia is blocking a Security Council ceasefire resolution to stop the slaughter in Eastern Ghouta by demanding paramilitary groups fighting the Assad dictatorship comply with the truce. There are paramilitary groups fighting on both sides, as part of the Syrian revolution & as part of counterrevolutionary forces. All of them are being trained & armed by the five permanent member nations of the Security Council or their allies. Antiwar forces don’t have to sort that maelstrom out or become military strategists to understand how we should respond. We must take our stand demanding the immediate cessation of Syrian, Russian, & US coalition bombing of civilians & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces–overt, covert, mercenary–from Syria.

Photo is White Helmet rescuing a child in Eastern Ghouta.

(Photo by Abdulmonam Eassa/AFP/Getty Images )

Solidarity with Kashmiri women on the anniversary of Kunan Poshpora from Dalits in India:

https://www.facebook.com/DalitCameraDC/posts/1738232856235628?pnref=story

Trump claims immigration officials arrested 100,00 “criminal aliens” last year for “tens of thousands of crimes.” He’s talking through his ass again even though under his tenure the arrest of undocumented immigrants is up 900-percent in some areas. He also argues for immigration “based on merit,” which means rich, not working class immigrants. He then recited a poem comparing immigrants to snakes. Racism & xenophobia is the leitmotif of his stinking rotten politics. He does not represent the majority of Americans, nor certainly low wage white workers. He represents rich white supremacists.

In commemoration of Kunan Poshpora, Kashmir mass rape & torture on February 23rd, 1991 as part of the campaign demanding justice:

“The struggle of humanity against power is the struggle of
memory against forgetting.”–Milan Kundera

Painting: “Shadows” by Rollie Mukherjee

It’s a curious thing, this preoccupation among libertarians about the bum rap Putin & Russia are allegedly getting from liberals. Paul Craig Roberts thinks “Russiaphobia Is out of control.” But then he’s also a white supremacist who thinks white people are victims of racism, hatred & discrimination. He’s a person of no intellectual consequence except that Assad supporters consider him a guru. Glenn Greenwald, the libertarian expert on everything in the universe & a regular on Fox News, also is concerned by baseless allegations against Russia. It does look like the Mueller investigation is politically off-base because meddling in US elections is not Russia’s greatest crime. Bombing civilians in Syria is Russia’s greatest crime & when you scratch beneath the surface what this rubbish is all about is defense of Russia’s military intervention in Syria to defend the Assad dictatorship.

When we evaluate politics & try to understand what is going on in Syria & elsewhere, the simple measure is: those who are bombing civilians are war criminals; those being bombed by Russia, Syria, & the US coalition are civilians, not “head-chopping jihadis”; & those rescuing those being bombed are freedom fighters.

Photo is a father in Afrin, Syria with his small son who was injured by Syrian & Russian bombing.

End the bombing of civilians in Syria. All foreign military forces out now.

(Photo by Ahmad Shafie Bilal/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump wants to arm teachers & train them as SWAT teams & is blaming “crazy people” for school shootings. He operates politically & personally from the level of primal slime & is incapable of thought. He is not the leadership Americans deserve but he is an expression of the political bankruptcy of American capitalism.

A terrified, crying boy standing in the rubble caused by Russian & Syrian carpet bombing of 400,000 civilians in Eastern Ghouta, Syria:

Fares Shehabi, the Assadist politician who presided over the capture of eastern Aleppo in December 2016, mocks this boy, the White Helmet rescue workers, & those being treated in hospital for injuries & dismemberments as all Hollywood actors. That the US under Trump & UN officials condemn this slaughter does not signify they are on the side of Syrian revolutionists. Assad has a price to pay to the US & its other allies for their military involvement in the counterrevolution & that price is coming due. It’s a messy alliance & a ruthless operation. The US doesn’t care any more about the civilians of Eastern Ghouta than it did about those in Raqqa, Syria & Mosul, Iraq where it carpet bombed hundreds of thousands of civilians in the name of fighting ISIS.

Stand with the Syrian people & demand the immediate cessation of Syrian, Russian, & US coalition bombing & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Syria.

(Photo from Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)