Most of the Democrats who’ve declared for the 2020 nomination represent the very worst in US politics. From Gabbard who is an anti-Semite, Zionist, Islamophobe, Hindutva supporter to Klobuchar who jokes about her notorious abuse & humiliation of staff. Bernie Sanders has now formally declared & his most ardent supporters include the academic left in the US but also serious political activists. To my mind, & based on his performance in the 2016 elections, he represents the most opportunist current in US politics. I’m going to go after him without mercy since opportunism & expedience in US electoral politics is one of its most debilitating qualities. I don’t tolerate compromise or equivocation when it comes to human rights. Nothing I say about him should be considered criticism of those, & does not adhere to those, who support him.
Monthly Archives: March 2019
A resolution was submitted in Pakistan Parliament to nominate Prime Minister Imran Khan for the Nobel Peace Prize for releasing the downed Indian fighter pilot & deescalating war tension with India.
Maung Zarni, the exiled Burmese activist for Rohingya refugee & human rights, responds:
“Have they no shame?
Imran Khan, who refuses to speak out on China’s concentration camps of Uyghurs or say anything about Pakistan’s supply of arms to Myanmar genocidal regime, released an Indian pilot – straight out of strategic & PR calculations. That is considered “award-winning” act – maybe in Hollywood. But again Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Henry Kissinger, Shimon Peres, Yasar Arafat, Aung San Suu Kyi, Barack Oabama & a load of unsavory characters by the conceited Nobel Committee in Oslo.”
This is a panoramic view of the Great Return March yesterday in Gaza. Palestinian protesters carrying national flags are burning tires to prevent Israeli snipers from shooting them down in cold blood. You can see the Israeli armored vehicle & the outline of snipers in the hills. For what purpose against unarmed, peaceful protesters demanding the end of the blockade of Gaza & the right of return for Palestinians living in refugee camps? For what purpose other than genocide?
The UNHCR isn’t the most dynamic or aggressive agency in terms of advancing human rights but their recent claims that Israel ‘may be’ guilty of war crimes for shooting down unarmed protesters makes it easier to build the economic & cultural boycott of Israel–especially in a political climate where governments are attempting to outlaw support for BDS.
(Photo from VOA news)
An Indian paramilitary trooper “stands guard” in Srinagar. “Stands guard” over what other than India’s colonial claims? He looks like something from Silence of the Lamb. If you have to wear this level of protective gear against unarmed civilians whose sole weapon is rocks, perhaps it’s time for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Indian troops from Kashmir.
(Photo from AFP)
A Syrian man cries over the body of his young daughter who was killed by Syrian regime bombing & shelling in the town of Khan Sheikhun in Idlib province. The civilian death toll in Idlib since February 9th is now at least 42 according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Putin, who was holding a summit in Russia with Turkey’s Erdoğan & Iranian president Rouhani, said, “We should not put up with the presence of terrorist groups in Idlib.” Perhaps Putin could explain to us which terrorist group this little girl belonged to.
And the corrupted international antiwar movement dares call Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians a freedom struggle against a ‘regime change operation’. The only principled stand is to demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Syria. Any defense of the bombing of civilians is complicity in war crimes & in the crushing of the Syrian Arab Spring uprising.
(Photo from AFP)
Basharat Peer is the author of “Curfewed Night: A Frontline Memoir of Life, Love & War in Kashmir” & has been an oped writer for the NY Times since 2010. This is a quite good article & a useful synopsis of the ongoing political machinations over Kashmir & the current crisis of war mongering between Pakistan & India but to my mind does not hit hard enough at the Indian occupation which Peer estimates at half a million troops when it is closer to one million. Not hitting hard enough at the occupation & portraying Pakistan & India as equally responsible for the conflict in Kashmir allows for a certain amount of obfuscation over the root cause of the conflict which is Indian colonialism & the military occupation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/opinion/sunday/kashmir-india-pakistan.html?
A video about a young Kashmiri man recently killed when an Indian military helicopter crashed on top of him. He was the sole support of his family after his father died. Couldn’t Indian media stop war mongering long enough to express requiems for a Kashmiri civilian? Or do Kashmiri lives not matter as much as that wing commander who was downed?
The time to build the hell out of Kashmiri solidarity is now with the threat of war looming. This is not a time to be intimidated into silence. War does not indicate that military states have the upper hand but that they are in crisis over how to turn back the rising tide & growing strength of popular resistance in Kashmir. The time for the Kashmiri freedom struggle to take its historic place can no longer be denied.
This is an excellent terse article about war mongering between India & Pakistan over Kashmir that completely leaves out any reference to Kashmiris, the military occupation, & their struggle against Indian colonialism.
As the authors point out: “There was a certain irony in calls by Indian officials & public figures calling for Pakistan to uphold the Geneva Convention in its treatment of the captured Indian pilot. In Kashmir, India has failed to apply not just the Geneva Convention, but much of international law for that matter. Kashmiris are still being jailed on political charges & used as human shields, while the United Nations resolution which mandates a referendum on self-determination to be conducted in Kashmir is yet to be implemented.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/kashmir-forgotten-190301213038382.html?