Mary Scully Reports

This tiny child is either Batoul or Ahmad, the only members of their family who survived the bombing of their home in Idlib. Their mom, dad, & newborn infant brother were killed. This little one probably hasn’t learned to talk yet so Assad officials will never be able to interrogate him to find out which ‘al-Qaeda affiliated Salafi-jihadi terrorist’ group he commanded. The corrupted antiwar & socialist movements have not uttered one peep of protest at the slaughter in Idlib because, citing from Stalin’s collected works–or is it Madeleine Albright in justifying the bombing of Iraq?–they consider this child’s unimaginable suffering as “worth it” to defend the Assad dictatorship’s right to self-determination.

Stop the bombing of Idlib. All foreign military forces & mercenaries out of Syria.

(Photo from several reliable Syrian sources on Twitter)

Apologies for the gruesome image, but this is how small children look after they’ve been recovered from the rubble of Syrian & Russian barrel & incendiary bombing in Idlib. While the corrupted antiwar & socialist movements drag out quotes from Stalin to justify this slaughter, while Assad propagandists mock these children as ‘crisis actors’ in a staged scenario, thousands of little kids suffer the unimaginable trauma of war, many die, & many survive with incapacitating physical & psychological injuries.

Those who stand for human rights demand the immediate, unconditional cessation of Syrian & Russian bombing in Idlib & the immediate unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces & mercenaries from Syria.

May this innocent child Rest In Peace.

(Photo from Syrian journalist Fareed Al)

One doesn’t know whether to celebrate, to cry, or to be furious at the acquittal of six Kashmiri men & the release of five of them from an Indian prison after serving 23 years for a crime they did not commit. They were charged without evidence for multiple cases but were serving life without parole for planting a bomb on a bus near Samleti in the state of Rajasthan, India in May 1996. Fourteen people were killed & 39 injured in that bomb blast. They were acquitted Monday & released Tuesday when the prosecution could not produce any evidence of their involvement. What’s not clear from media reports is why the original charges filed in 1996 took 23 years to prosecute. We can only assume this miscarriage of justice, which stole the youth of several young men, is due solely to their being Kashmiris where Indian jurisprudence makes a mockery of justice.

Five of the released men, now in their forties & fifties, are Latif Ahmed Baja, Ali Bhatt, Mirza Nisar, Abdul Goni, Rayees Beg. The sixth person, Javed Khan, was acquitted in the Samleti bombing but remains in Tihar jail (where Kashmiri freedom fighter Maqbool Bhat was hung in 1984) still facing charges in another bomb case & probably with as little evidence. Although they did not know each other when arrested & it’s not certain were even political activists, the Indian government accused them of being associated with the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) which was banned in March 2019 as a terrorist group–probably with as little evidence as they had for framing up these young men.

It must be extremely disorienting for the men after so many years in prison. Not only have they lost the memories of when members of their families died, married, been born, but the world has changed with cellphones, the internet, social media. Hopefully, when they recoup their psychic energies from being warmly received in Kashmir by family & friends, they will be able to tell their stories so that we can understand the character of Indian injustice in the incarceration, torture, indefinite detainment without charges, disappearance of thousands of Kashmiris whether or not they are involved in political resistance.

Welcome home to our Kashmiri brothers. May your transition be made smooth. Kashmir remains under occupation, so it will not be a transition to freedom yet.

(Photo is the five men released Tuesday)

In 2017, before she became a congresswoman, Ilhan Omar tweeted, “Syria’s Assad has become an icon of the far right in America.” By then, Assad had also become an icon of the Stalinist, libertarian, & lazy-assed left, making them indistinguishable from the far right. That’s why you don’t see many Assadists defending her against Trump’s incitements to violence, at least nothing in comparison to their all-out campaigning for Assange. In Minnesota, the home base of Assadist Mint Press & an active Assadist & Stalinist antiwar movement, there are a few activists with “I stand with Ilhan Omar” badges & were a couple small protests (one in February & one in April) led by pro-Palestinian Jewish activists but there is no sustained campaign to defend her against Trump’s current threats. Articles about her in Assadist media focus on her support for Palestinians & opposition to war with Iran & Venezuela but none talk about her opposition to Assad.

In March 2019, Assadists went ballistic with miles of denunciations when Omar tweeted, “The people of Syria revolted against Assad’s repressive dictatorship 8 years ago today, demanding a more just & free government. Peace loving people around the world stand in solidarity with them in this struggle!” Fascist propagandist Eva Bartlett gets paid big bucks by Syria & Russia to monitor & chastise every criticism of Assad & in response to Omar’s tweet, Bartlett called her a “soul-devoid pawn of Empire” & accused her of lying & pandering to ‘Empire’. If anyone should know ‘soul-devoid’ it would be Eva since dictatorships are the circles she hangs out in & shills for. The courage & independence of Ilhan Omar are something Bartlett cannot even conceive of since her commitments are rooted in Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, & substantial remunerations.

“Trump resolve Kashmiri issue, that man can’t successfully wipe his own arse without getting skid marks on his underpants!!!”

–Samina P Khan

Afghanistan is demanding Trump explain his comment that he has a plan to wipe it off the face of the earth & kill ten million Afghans in ten days in order to end the Afghan war. There is no explanation for Trump’s fascistic pathology nor justification for US military policy. All that’s left is to oppose it by rebuilding the corrupted antiwar movement on a principled basis.

Turns out Trump was again blowing smoke from his nether regions when he said Modi asked him two weeks ago to mediate the Kashmiri conflict between India & Pakistan. Even Modi wouldn’t want Trump or some Jared Kushner type devising ‘deals of the century’ for India. The entire region could become a nuclear conflagration under Trump’s interference.

One cannot apologize for posting too much about the bombing of Idlib. The struggle of the Syrian people against dictatorship, as part of the great Arab Spring uprisings, represents a watershed moment in history, a moment where the political corruption of the antiwar & socialist movements fully manifested on the side of dictatorship, Islamophobia, & anti-Semitism. While the Syrian Arab Spring fights with ferocity & without international support, the leading figures of the antiwar & socialist movements are writing their own epitaphs in the smut they hurl at the Syrian Arab Spring, especially the White Helmets.

Behold the ‘liberation’ of Idlib by Syrian & Russian bombers which have turned heavily populated cities into dead zones to defend the Assad dictatorship’s right to self-determination. Nihilism has become the ideological stance of all who defend this as liberation. Sectarians have found their natural habitat in Stalinism & Stalinism has found its final rotting place in fascism.

How to unravel the complexities of the Syrian revolution? Those civilians being bombed to death for rising up against dictatorship are the oppressed & those doing the bombing are the oppressors, including Syria, Russia, the US-coalition, & Iran.

Stop the slaughter in Idlib. All foreign military forces & mercenaries out of Syria.

(Photo is unverified screenshot of video from Ben Tro on Twitter)

UN officials report that yesterday at least 39 people, including eight women & five children, were killed in Syrian & Russian bombing of the busy marketplace in Maarat al-Numan, Idlib. That death toll is expected to rise as bodies continue to be recovered from the rubble. According to witnesses, some of the bodies were shredded or burnt beyond recognition. The death toll yesterday for all of Idlib, including bombing attacks on Khan Sheikhoun & Maar Shoreen, was at least 59 people killed & more than 100 injured, many of them critically.

Here a White Helmet rescuer carries a child injured yesterday by Syrian & Russian bombing of Idlib. Assad propagandists would call this photo staged & the child a ‘crisis actor’. The corrupted antiwar & socialist movements would say this slaughter is necessary & “worth it” to defend the Assad dictatorship’s right to self-determination. Principled antiwar activists call this a genocide & oppose it with every fiber of their being.

Stop the bombing of Idlib. All foreign military forces & mercenaries out of Syria.

(Photo from EA Worldview)