It’s one thing for professional propagandists like Eva Bartlett & Vanessa Beeley to write panegyrics to Assad & the Syrian army. They get paid big bucks to do so. Fascist political circles are their natural habitat. But it’s another story altogether when long-time antiwar activists & erstwhile socialists like Jeff Mackler from Socialist Action write the same rubbish honoring the Assad dictatorship & crowing about how Syria & its military allies are defending Syria’s self-determination against US imperialism. Unconcerned about his political associations with dictatorship, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, & fascism, he wrote a nearly 1,500 word article of Assad apologetics without one word about the massive bombing of civilians by Syria, Russia, or the US coalition. Antiwar activists & socialists like him are rotted to the core, beyond political redemption, when they engage only with power politics & not with the human toll of war.

There was a time I grieved at the political corruption former allies express. But grief has long since been replaced with outrage at their betrayals of antiwar principles, betrayals that have made the US antiwar movement complicit in aiding & abetting counterrevolution in Syria. May they rot in hell. The historic mission now is to rebuild the international antiwar movement on the principles of solidarity & anti-militarism.

Photo is the aftermath of Syrian & Russian bombing in Ghouta. Rescue workers are trying to recover bodies from the rubble.

(Photo from White Helmets)

A little Afghan girl who lost her arm, but fortunately not her life, in a land mine explosion. Wonder if she can feel all the solidarity going her way from Democratic Party feminists (including Gloria Steinem) who supported the US-NATO war as a way to emancipate women from Islamic fundamentalism? Wonder if she appreciates all the war-mongering & Islamophobia used to justify bombing, occupation, war crimes? Probably not. That would be an understatement & a condemnation.

Those women around the world who stand with the Afghan people against war must make our voices heard loud & clear: no US-NATO war in Afghanistan. War is a women’s rights issue.

Our fullest solidarity with the men, women, & children of Afghanistan. Out now!

(Photo by Paula Bronstein)

The US-NATO war in Afghanistan has gone on for over 16 years & is now being called “the forgotten war” despite the US dropping the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB), the largest non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal, last April & despite US deployment of 5,000 more troops just in the past few months. Last year, the US admitted to 11,000 troops in Afghanistan but even the NY Times called the Pentagon out for lying. They don’t include all of the troops nor the CIA operatives & the thousands of mercenaries they deploy.

The war which was launched after 9/11/2001 was originally justified by the hunt for Osama bin Laden who they claimed was holed up in a cave with his dialysis machine. Then they claimed it was to liberate women from Islamic fundamentalism by bombing the hell out of schools, fields, mosques, hospitals, villages, & dropping land mines by the hundreds of thousands. For evidence of that obscenity they pointed to a beauty parlor in Kabul where women could get their nails done for the funerals of their loved ones who were bombed to death or killed by a land mine. The Pentagon won’t deal with the issue of sexual assault within the US military but had the temerity to claim it gave a damn about Afghan women. It was the first major use of Islamophobia combined with misogyny as a propaganda tool to justify war, occupation, persecution, genocide.

The war has created millions of refugees & massive homelessness; child labor is rampant because their labor is needed for survival when adults have been killed; Afghan children suffer one of the highest malnutrition rates in the world; thousands have had limbs blown off by land mines; thousands are subjected to drone aerial bombings; war crimes are routine.

This is an Afghan woman with injuries sustained from war. This is what the US Pentagon dares call emancipation. We cannot let the war in Afghanistan be forgotten. It is a political imperative to rebuild the international antiwar movement on a principled basis that opposes occupation & the bombing of civilians & demands the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign armies, undercover operatives, & mercenaries.

We stand in full solidarity with the people of Afghanistan in their fight against US-NATO aggression.

(Photo by Paula Bronstein)

Pellet gun victims in Kashmir lead campaign to end their use & receive compensation:

https://www.facebook.com/KashmirLife/videos/1607478665968193/?

This is a man named Habibullah who was in his mid-fifties & had learning disabilities. He was shot dead late last night when he crossed into a security area near an Indian air force base in Budgam district of Kashmir & refused to stop after warning shots by the sentry. Habibullah was not wearing any footwear or proper clothing for winter. He must have been extremely disoriented to be walking around barefoot in the cold in the middle of the night.

One given to apologetics could say, ‘Well the sentry didn’t know if he was dangerous or not. He might have been a terrorist.’ Those given to justice would say that the military has no right to recklessly shoot down someone before determining whether the person is dangerous or not or if he is a fellow in need, someone disoriented who needs to be identified so his family could come get him. But that isn’t how military occupation works. They shoot first & ask questions later because it is a matter of indifference if innocent civilians, including children, elderly, those with learning disabilities get killed. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that killing civilians isn’t a matter of indifference but fundamental to terrorizing a population into submission.

May Habibullah Rest In Peace. Our sincere condolences to his family & friends.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

#Azadi

(Photo of Habibullah from QNS 24×7)

Kashmiri photojournalist Kamran Yousef has been in jail without charge since September 2017. On January 18, 2018, he was charged by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) with being a stone pelter & accused of “conspiring to wage war against the Government of India” by carrying out “terrorist & secessionist activities” in Jammu & Kashmir. The Press Council of India, the Kashmir Editors Guild, Kashmir Young Journalists Association, the Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI), the Committee to Protect Journalists, & the International Federation of Journalists have issued statements demanding his immediate release.

Now it is time for us to move into action & build a broad international defense campaign to get him released from prison & all fabricated charges dropped. His real offense is that as a photojournalist he covered protests against the occupation & funerals of those executed by Indian occupying forces.

Please like & share this FB wall. If you have ideas for how to build this campaign, for groups or individuals to reach out to, for places to campaign, please post them on the wall.

This is a WordPress defense campaign wall where information will also be posted: https://freekamran.wordpress.com/2018/02/18/the-journey-begins/comment-page-1/#comment-6

https://www.facebook.com/Free-Kamran-544342625937732/?pnref=story

Did you ever think you’d see the day when Ron Paul was invited to address an antiwar event? He’s a classic rightwing libertarian at the nexus with fascism. Among his most detestable views are: support for Israel’s blockade of Gaza; extreme racism toward all non-whites; opposition to immigration; opposition to social security for elderly & disabled; opposition to health care for low income children & women; opposition to LGBT rights, women’s reproductive rights, & civil rights; opposition to public education; a belief that those who are sexually harassed or assaulted at work should quit their jobs.

Other participants at the event organized in California by Cindy Sheehan are mostly Assad supporters, as is she. This cannot be considered an antiwar event when it is a symptom of political degeneration.

Saw a comment by a nationalist that it’s not human rights criminality to use pellet guns against stone pelters. Nationalism makes you stupid, not to mention psychopathic. India has no right to occupy Kashmir with 700,000 soldiers & use any kind of force, particularly force that hunts down young people & executes them on the spot without due process, or that blinds, disables, disfigures & causes permanent health problems to protesters & non-protesters alike with pellets. If you cannot see the criminality of pellet guns against those who resist occupation, you have taken your stand on the side of barbarism & have no claims to being civilized.

#Sunset_and_Sunrise.

Get your shine on, get your shine off.
I love sunset and sunrise, just because
Sunset and sunrise reveals undying love, dreams, hope, friendship…….

And to the east, to the west, to the north, and to the south, the dusk falls everywhere.
And to the east, to the west, to the north and to the South, the dawn falls everywhere.

I capture, may be the moon and the sun are two long distance friends, separated by night.
I capture, may be the sunrise and the sunset are two long distance friends, parted by night.

And the evening came, after sky draws it’s curtains to the sunset.
And the morning came, after the sky draws it’s curtains to the sunrise.

Sunset is the hope to reset our past embarrassing flub.
And sunrise is the hope to start up the day without embarrassing flub.

Sunset and sunrise are two painting of God, which God reveals at night and morning respectively.
Sunset and sunrise needs cloudy skies to look more beauteous.

Sunsets are glimpses of the streets of ingang gate of the heaven.
Sunrises are the glimpses of the streets of another outgang gate of the heaven.

And I wish I could reach near to the infinite sunset and sunrise.
I wish I could capture myself nearer to the sunset and sunrise.

When the darkness is at it deepest, sunrise vanishes it’s deepness.
When the light is at its deepest, sunset vanishes it’s deepness.

Get your shine on, get your shine off.
I love sunset and sunrise, just because
Sunset and sunrise reveals undying love, dreams, hope, friendship…….

~by Shahid Imran via Rollie Mukherjee

Children of conflict:

This is from a series of digital art by artist Masood Hussain done during the 2016 uprising in Kashmir when the Indian occupying army ran amok with the use of pellet guns–often injuring, totally or partially blinding, disfiguring children inside their homes in what has been called ‘directed stray bullets’. Over 7,330 were injured by pellets, causing lifelong health issues & emotional distress. The army continues to use pellet guns against unarmed protesters despite considerable international media coverage exposing the criminality. The Indian courts have denied legal action to ban pellet munitions as unnecessary force so it will take massive international opposition to help Kashmiris stop their barbaric use.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

(Statistic from Research Section, Kashmir Media Service)