http://www.atimes.com/article/why-india-looks-the-other-way-on-myanmar/?

This is a useful article about Indian investment in Burma which is substantial. The Burmese economy is a military model of capitalism—run top to bottom by the generals, their families & their cronies. To overcome economic stagnation & get rid of sanctions imposed after 1988, the military is trying to create an amalgam with neoliberal economic policies (without relinquishing control of the economy) which require foreign investment for major mining & hydroelectric projects. India, Japan, China, Canada, Europe’s countries, & the US are all part of that. Genocide against the Rohingya is not primarily due to these neoliberal programs but dispossession of their lands in Arakan state is certainly involved.

There are already protests in several states against environmental ruin & dispossession of farmers to accommodate these projects. Before her election, Suu Kyi was actually booed out of one town when she represented the generals to defend a joint mining project of China & the military. Such resistance is the Achilles heel of the new economy

Anti-Assadists clamoring for US humanitarian bombing in Syria claim it’s necessary because the Assad regime is genocidal. So is the US. Just ask the people of Vietnam, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Palestine, the prisoners at Abu Ghraib & Guantanamo, & for that matter, people in the US Black, Latino, & Native American communities. And that’s just the short list. This is a photo of Iraqis fleeing US bombing of Mosul earlier this year. The stories of that several month siege & the aftermath of bodies rotting in the streets are too horrific to describe.

Syria & the US don’t stand alone condemned as genocidal. So are Burma, India, Israel, China, & several European countries. You don’t hear the Rohingyas, Uyghurs, Kashmiris, Dalits clamoring for the US Pentagon to come in with its bombers to save them because that isn’t how they see the US or their freedom struggles against tyranny. They understand the struggle for human freedom in very different terms–in terms that involve their own participation without relying on the bombers of a genocidal nation.

When you align yourself with the US Pentagon on the stage of world history today, you align yourself with one of the most reactionary, destructive military & political forces in the world & you betray solidarity with the people of Vietnam, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Palestine, the prisoners at Abu Ghraib & Guantanamo, & the Black, Latino, Native American communities.

(Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Don’t be daunted by the length of this talk in Japan by Maung Zarni. He’s not a somnambulant speaker & will give you deep insight into the character of the Burmese government & the Rohingya genocide. As long as millions of Rohingya are living in refugee camps, unable to move freely around the world to seek asylum, & unable to safely return to Arakan state, they will remain at the center of world politics. It’s essential we understand their struggle.

Anybody else eat half the Halloween candy before the neighborhood kids showed up?

If you want to live a peaceful life, at least in the US, you leave well enough alone when it comes to US wars & just keep your trap shut. Those in the countries facing war, occupation, genocide don’t have such an option. Neither do those of us with family members eligible for military duty or who want to go to church or the mall without getting our asses shot off by psychos schooled in US militarism. If you care about other human beings, if you care about leaving a world suitable for children to live & love in, that well enough alone crap is not tolerable. It’s for sissies.

Reposting, with slight editing, from March 2013 with the hopes that anti-Assad war mongers will come to grips with the nature of US military intervention which is always accompanied by CIA torture:
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This photo was taken over 15 years ago in March 2003. The man is an Iraqi prisoner of war being held by the US Army. A soldier cut off the plastic handcuffs but left the black sandbag on his head while he comforted & held his screaming child. This was almost a year before the Abu Ghraib revelations of US torture of prisoners. While the Bush administration parsed the legalities of the Geneva Convention on the humane treatment of prisoners–claiming prisoners in Guantanamo & al Qaeda members were exempted from coverage–we now know they flouted them for all prisoners in Iraq. The generals called it the “stress matrix” & approved 20 torture techniques for use in Iraq. Hooding a prisoner is surely torture.

At Abu Ghraib the approved techniques included punching with fists & objects, urinating on prisoners, pouring phosphoric acid on them, raping & sodomizing them, tying ropes to their legs or penises & dragging them, humiliating them sexually, forcing them to crawl naked while US soldiers rode them like ponies.

Alfred W. McCoy, in his book, “A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror,” claims the methods used at Abu Ghraib were straight out of the CIA manual of torture techniques. Although the soldiers involved were court martialed & should indeed have been held to account for war crimes, the US government, including the administration & the generals who sanctioned torture & the CIA operatives who taught these techniques have never had to face the music for their crimes. Not only do they continue to employ torture today but the Obama administration has given it legal sanction. Isn’t it time we throw the bums out!?

We cannot adequately compensate for the suffering imposed on the people of Iraq by the US government but we can take an active stand against the continuation of the war & occupation. Antiwar protests are planned for this spring & though the movement is small & still weak, it can only grow strong by participation. US out of Iraq! US out of Afghanistan!

(Photo by Jean-Marc Bouju/AP)

Anti-Assad conservatives are still calling for a US humanitarian intervention in Syria. What have they missed about the US role in defeating all of the Arab Spring uprisings–through massive repression in Egypt & Bahrain to carpet bombing in Yemen & Syria? It’s cognitive dissonance on a tsunamic scale which requires them to shut out reality, especially in Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, & in Syria. They talk about Iraq after the siege of Mosul & when it is still under US occupation as if it were past tense & play stupid when it comes to Afghanistan & Yemen or the US role in Israeli bombing of Gaza. What about carpet bombing in Yemen, the Mother of all Bombs in Afghanistan, the tens of thousands of bombing sorties in Syria which left Assadist forces & ISIS intact but used white phosphorous on civilians in Raqqa? What about the US use of depleted uranium, white phosphorous, & other chemical agents?

Meanwhile in Iraq, as a result of chemical warfare, thousands of infants continue to suffer disabling birth defects, including spina bifida, hydrocephaly, stillbirth, skeletal dysplasia, ascitis, cleft lip & palate, club feet. Yemen, under US & UK-backed Saudi bombing, is suffering mass malnutrition, especially among children, & one of the greatest humanitarian crises of our times. Have they any idea at all of what the US is doing to the people of Afghanistan which entail human rights & war crimes on an industrial scale? Do they, like their Assadist nemeses, actually hope Trump–who is deploying thousands of troops against unarmed refugees–will magically morph into a freedom fighter in Syria? What planet are they flying in from?

Whilst the antiwar movement has been unable to build mass actions or any kind of movement because of its support for Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians, these anti-Assad libertarians have been unable to build a pro-war movement because most of the human race, especially in the Middle East, fully understands the character of US militarism & wants absolutely no part of it. Their support for the Syrian revolution is an anomaly in their politics which are fundamentally rightwing & which is why they never tire of berating the non-existent “western left” for its failings on Syria. War mongering either for Syria & Russia or the US-coalition is a hallmark of rightwing politics no matter how you try to spin it. One may be fascist; the other may be libertarian. But they both end up leaving the Syrian Arab Spring uprising to fend for itself against nearly 100 armies & thousands of paramilitary groups.

(Photo is Iraqi child born born in August 2018 with hydrocephaly & spina bifida from https://www.facebook.com/fallujahhospital2012/)

Many photos are posted, especially poignant images involving children, which misrepresent where they are from. Photos cannot be used as metaphors unless they are identified as such. It became an issue as part of the fake news hysteria. So much so that Suu Kyi could bellow “fake news” at images from the Rohingya genocide. It’s very easy to vet photos by using google image search where one can see the actual origins of the photo. Being scrupulous in this regard is necessary since realities in war, occupation, & genocide are monstrous enough; there is no need for dissemblance.

Trump knows damn well he can’t sign birthright citizenship out of law since the 14th Amendment in the Bill of Rights is part of the US constitution.That would make him & all his kids ‘illegals’ since they’re all offspring of immigrants. What he’s doing is pandering to nationalism, xenophobia, racism, & American supremacy to effect the elections. If we wonder why they haven’t found grounds to impeach him, it’s because he has served the capitalist class so well by throwing democratic, human, civil, & refugee rights back decades. We have to fight the battles of the 1960s & 1970s all over again. This isn’t an endorsement of Democrats in the elections because their only difference from Republicans is the tempo of that reversal.