An Indian nationalist just left this comment on my wall regarding India’s brutal military occupation of Kashmir:

“Mary Scully, you are right when you say there’s prejudice against the people of Kashmir from most Indians. But there’s no way we can sympathize with these militants who answer with violence and has created havoc in the valley. Take example of Kashmiri Pandits who were thrown out from their own lands being called ‘kafirs’. Many of these militants join hands terrorist cells from Pakistan and does attacks on several areas which also include Muslims, so it’s not just the non-Muslims alone that suffer. Just recently, the families of 10 JK police officers were abducted and still kept in their custody (see news). How can you justify this? I definitely sympathize with the cause of the Kashmiriyat and support them but I can’t sympathize with these violent militants. The security of our country is at stake. And no, the whole Indian media isn’t biased as you think.” (by Susheel Kp who may be the pseudonym of a nationalist troll)

Note how using a tone of nauseating pity he hits all the Islamophobic buzzwords like the alleged persecution of Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus), terrorist cells from Pakistan & stone pelters. The occupying army–engaged in pellet guns against unarmed civilian protesters & funeral corteges, forcible disappearances, arbitrary detention of youthful protesters, mass rape, assault, harassment, increasing hunt to kill operations–are portrayed as victims of Kashmiri violence & Indian nationalist media is portrayed as vilified & unbiased. We’d just like to ask our man how his delusions accord with this photo from Kashmir today of Indian soldiers desecrating the body of a militant killed in a hunt to kill operation where six others were also gunned down. This is the character of the occupation so our nationalist can stuff his sickening pity where the sun don’t shine.

Our respect for the man who is being desecrated. May he Rest In Peace.

(Photo from several Kashmiri sources)

The US Pentagon reports that since September 11th, 2001, the US has spent $1.5 trillion on war in Afghanistan, Iraq, & Syria. Does that include the $1 billion of military equipment the Pentagon reported which got into ISIS hands? Does that mean they’ve spent additional trillions on war in Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Palestine? Can those who harbor delusions about humanitarian US interventions point to even one US buck spent for humanitarian purposes? Take the humanitarian bombing challenge & come up with any proof at all of such an imbecilic possibility. That isn’t demonizing the Pentagon. It’s facing the cold hard facts of US military policy.

15,000 Palestinian structures have been destroyed by Israel since the Oslo Accords were signed 25 years ago. Proof that the Oslo Accords legitimize the military occupation & expropriation of Palestinian lands. They are the terms of Palestinian surrender. At the time they were signed, many capitulated to the phony US-brokered peace process saying they were the best the Palestinians could get. Absolutely so, if Palestinians trusted negotiations involving the US & Israel. But Intifada is another approach to winning Palestinian self-determination & it accepts no discounts on justice against colonialism, apartheid, genocide. BDS is one of the strongest weapons of solidarity to support Palestinian political power.

Photo is Irish solidarity with Palestinians. The Irish know a thing or two about the struggle against colonialism & UK-brokered peace negotiations like the Good Friday Accord.

At the height of the Rohingya genocide in 2017, the UN & most regimes used the term ethnic cleansing rather than genocide. Never was a distinction more reprehensible but such an equivocation justified inaction & allowed them to blame ARSA terrorists rather than the Burmese regime. Today, the UN & even the US government use the term genocide. It’s not certain why the change since it hasn’t impeded US or other foreign investment in Burma. But it’s important to observe how they will use the designation of genocide politically to bring Suu Kyi & the generals to account.

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/8xbpp3/rohingya-widows-refugee-camp-rari

“Indefensible: Democracy, Counterrevolution, & the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism” by Rohini Hensman is about the political corruption of opposing US & European military intervention but applauding Russian & Iranian intervention as progressive. Hensman is a scholar & according to some reviews she takes a historical & scholarly approach to a problem which is most dramatized by support for the Syrian counterrevolution.

The reviews I’ve read haven’t been particularly compelling for what I think is a very important book. So I’m going to be reading & reviewing it but think others may want to read & review it also. It’s available from Amazon or through interlibrary loan. If anyone knows of a good review, please post it in the comments here.

Opened up my filtered messages on Facebook to catch up on a year’s worth of notes from strangers. Found more than a few professions of love. Just for the record, I’ve given up looking for love in all the wrong places.

German Catholic laity just announced that 1.670 priests are responsible for several thousand child sexual assaults. This public crisis in the Vatican’s handling of predatory priests goes back to the late 1980s. It led to the forced retirement of Pope Benedict; Pope Francis was supposed to be cleaning up the mess which would entail bringing child rapists to justice in a criminal court. The only hope that priest rapists will be outed & prosecuted is the new activism among Catholic laity demanding the Vatican take the lead rather than continue to hide the crimes.

Many are still polemicizing against the “western left” for supporting the Assad dictatorship & Russian & Iranian intervention in Syria. Who is this left they’re excoriating? The Stalinists, libertarians, & guppies who are marching lockstep with fascists, Islamophobes, & anti-Semites? Tariq Ali & Noam Chomsky who haven’t had an original idea in over 30 years? Journalists like Robert Fisk who travel embedded with the Syrian army just like Assad propagandists Bartlett & Beeley? John Pilger whose blow-hardism is finally catching up with him? Seymour Hersh whose conservative politics are finally catching up with him? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there are quite a few Indian leftists who also support Assad & Putin. This corruption is not isolated in the global north because Stalinism is a global derangement. There hasn’t been a left movement anywhere for a long time so stop using the generic term “western left” to define political corruption & start naming names.

These are Indian occupying forces dragging the body of one of three militants who they gunned down in a recent hunt to kill operation. This is desecration of a corpse, a human rights violation under international law, & this photo is evidence of that crime. The UN has more than enough such documentation to bring formal charges against India to the International Criminal Court or at least to start conducting a campaign against the occupation.

Go back India, go back.

Those who think the US Pentagon capable of a humanitarian military intervention or those who support Syrian bombing & Russian, & Iranian military intervention in Syria share the same political dysfunction. They do not understand the function of militarism under modern capitalism, particularly now in its barbaric phase. Wars of national liberation from colonialism have one political character & state militarism quite another. The distinction is written in human history, in the millions of unarmed civilians who died unspeakable deaths just in the past 100 years. To not understand that distinction is, quite frankly, willfully stupid.