It does matter that some US politicians are making statements to support Kashmir. It would be a whole lot more impressive & might actually mean something if they weren’t also ardent supporters of Israeli colonialism, apartheid, & genocide in Palestine. Some of us just can’t overlook those kinds of discordancies.

October 7th, 2001 is the date of the US invasion of Afghanistan. There is no international antiwar movement opposing it or the wars & genocides in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Kashmir, Palestine, Burma.

The most imperative political responsibility of our times is to rebuild an uncompromising antiwar movement rooted in principles which makes no concessions to militarism in any of its forms.

Pardon me if I have a hard time believing Joshua Brown, a key witness in the murder trial of Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, was killed in a drug deal gone sour or that police confiscated twelve pounds of marijuana plus other drugs from his apartment. If they did find $4,157 cash in his apartment, that is evidence of nothing. May he Rest In Peace as they try to vilify his good name.

Gaza

Instead of doing their ‘I told you so’ chiding to the Syrian Kurds for trusting the US, the Assadist & Stalinist cult that drove the antiwar movement into the ground should offer an explanation of US strategy in Syria. But they are so bereft theoretically & politically that they can’t get beyond ‘US regime-change operation’ foolishness. Was Trump’s move of unleashing Turkey against the Syrian Kurds an improvisation? Was it rash & impulsive, at odds with the Pentagon as media claims? Or was it a reflection of the military complexities & quagmire character of US intervention in Syria? Are the US-coalition, Russia, Iran, Hezbollah in fact all allies of the Syrian dictatorship to destroy every vestige of the Syrian Arab Spring?

The only principled demand for antiwar & human rights activists is the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces & their paramilitary mercenaries from Syria. Nothing less.

Trump’s decision to unleash Turkey against the Syrian Kurds is a genocidal act which must be responded to with antiwar denunciations & action. Instead, part of the moribund antiwar movement has resurrected from its Stalinist & Assadist stupor to engage in ‘I told you so’ finger-shaking at the Kurds for their alliance with the US. The alliance of Syrian Kurds with the US in fighting ISIS as well as their on-again, off-again overtures to the Assad regime require analysis, not smart-aleck & glib one-upmanship. But such an analysis would not fit comfortably within a ‘US regime-change’ scenario & support for Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians so most of the Stalinist & Assadist cult that has destroyed the antiwar movement remains silent. Let it be said that the methods used by the US & its Kurdish allies against ISIS entailed the slaughter of thousands of Syrian civilians & is hardly a model for human freedom struggles.

The Syrian Kurdish leadership were dead wrong & corrupt in their alliances with the US & with the Assad regime. They should have sided with the Syrian Arab Spring which would have strengthened their struggle for Kurdish self-determination rather than led to genocide as Turkey intends with US, Syrian, Russian, Iranian, & Iraqi support. But whatever the mistakes of the Kurdish leadership, no self-respecting antiwar or human rights supporter would ever stoop to chiding the Kurds for delusions & rotten politics instead of standing with them against genocide.

“When there were no guns {in Kashmir} were we treated any differently? There is indicriminate killing by Indian armed forces irrespective of active militant groups in the valley”

–Sadaf Nakash

An Al Jazeera report on the Freedom March at the Line of Control which puts Kashmiri self-determination at the forefront of the political narrative & defies claims that Kashmir is a territorial dispute between India & Pakistan.

Calgary, Alberta province, Canada #StandWithKashmir rally, October 6th, 2019.

https://calgarysun.com/news/local-news/women-and-children-come-out-in-droves-to-show-solidarity-with-kashmir/wcm/b98e321c-b3f1-418e-808c-9c3392c57061?

Kashmir is not just some people’s political hobbyhorse. It’s one of the most important freedom struggles of our times because it encapsulates Islamophobia, the ‘war on terror’, the rise of fascism, genocide. Because of Kashmiri solidarity with other struggles, it can provide a framework & model for unity in action with other freedom struggles, including the Palestinian, Rohingya, Uyghur, & antiwar struggles. If you aren’t standing in some way with Kashmir, you’re missing the full meaning of ‘First they came for the Muslims…& then they came for me’.