This young Kashmiri boy was critically injured in an Indian army hunt to kill operation in Kulgam. The kids injured, disfigured, disabled in these operations are not “collateral damage” or the result of stray bullets but the intended victims in an attempt to intimidate resistance to occupation.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

(Photo from Kashmir Lobby Group on Twitter)

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/04/how-open-source-evidence-took-a-lead-role-in-the-response-to-the-douma-chemical-weapons-attack/
So Assad propagandist Vanessa Beeley rode into Eastern Ghouta embedded with the Syrian army. When she alighted from an armored vehicle carrying troops, she couldn’t find a single civilian to say Assad used chemical weapons. Just like Robert Fisk who rode in with the army couldn’t find any doctors to say he/she treated a chlorine victim because Assad was threatening them & their families. Does she think civilians would talk with any honesty to a regime flunkey surrounded by troops? Did she ask them if Syrian bombers use any other kind of weapons like barrel bombs on unarmed civilians?

Eva Bartlett is too busy back home in a rearguard action fighting off all the exposés of Assadist propagandists like herself & Beeley. But as long as they have ties directly to Assad & Putin, their lies & slanders will carry weight with the politically corrupt & opportunist. It’s very much like Stalinists in their obsequious devotion to Papa Stalin. What it’s all about is craven adoration of autocratic state power. Which is why Assadism & Stalinism have found their final resting place in fascism.

Bartlett & Beeley have long-since denounced Amnesty International for its report on Assad’s gulag where Syrian Grand Mufti Hassoun is the chief executioner signing off on every hanging of a dissident. This is Amnesty’s report on open source evidence for the Syrian chemical attack on Douma:

In refusing the Israeli honorific, actress Natalie Portman said: “The mistreatment of those suffering from today’s atrocities is simply not in line with my Jewish values.” An integral part of Zionist ideology is the refusal to be assimilated based on a notion of Jewish superiority. Thus a Jewish-only state. No one has elaborated this motif in Zionism better than Israeli anti-Zionists. But Jewish values are human values. The highest aspirations of Judaism are the highest aspirations of all humanity & are not based in higher realms of consciousness exclusive of the rest of humanity. Portman is to be respected for her stand against atrocities but apartheid & genocide are directly related to a sense of superiority that is integral to Zionism.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/09/doctors-treating-kashmiris-blinded-pellets-160927053126837.html
This is an interview with Doctors Rashid Maqbool & Sajjad Khanday, two Kashmiri ophthalmologists at SMHS hospital in Srinagar who treat those with pellet gun injuries to the eyes. The more that information about the use of pellet munitions spreads, the more the character of the Indian occupation is exposed & the more possible to build international opposition to the occupation.

This is 17-year-old Tahrir Wahba who died from wounds sustained during the Great Return March in Gaza last Friday on April 20th. He is one of five young men, all unarmed, peaceful protesters, killed just last Friday by Israeli snipers. May he Rest In Peace.

Actress Natalie Portman was castigated by Zionists for refusing an Israeli honorific associated with Netanyahu. Zionist critics suggested she declined the award as a supporter of BDS. For the umpteenth time, she took all distance from BDS to say her declination was based only on objections to Netanyahu’s policies toward Palestinians. Since apartheid & genocide are inherent to his policies, it’s easy to understand her objections. What’s not easy to understand is why those with her position do not support the cultural & economic boycott of Israel as a peaceful way to end apartheid & genocide.

Stand with Palestinians to demand the end of military occupation & self-determination. Honor & build BDS.

(Photo of Tahrir Wahba from Great Return March on Twitter)

These are Central American immigrants alighting from what they call “la bestia” (the beast) or “el tren de la muerte” (the death train”), a network of about 15 Mexican freight trains which originate in the southern state of Chiapas & travel 1,450 miles north to the US border. Train companies have banned immigrants from traveling atop or inside freight cars & do not stop for immigrants to board or disembark but it is the only free way to travel north to the border & an estimated 500,000 do so every year. It is extremely dangerous & many lose their limbs just boarding. Those who lose limbs must return to countries with no social security provisions at all, let alone for those with disability.

Although the Mexican government made it legal for immigrants to transit Mexico to the US border, the drug war intersects with immigration, making immigrants easy prey to drug gangs & to paramilitary operatives associated with the Mexican army. Those traveling on la bestia are subject to kidnapping, rape, assault, robbery, & there have been some instances of mass murder, dismemberment, & mass graves. While the Mexican government functions as a southern flank of US immigration policy in its treatment of Central American immigrants, all along the train route, Mexican working people have asylums & shelters where immigrants can rest, get medical care, eat meals, get some protection. In the eastern state of Veracruz, local residents rush to every passing train to pass bags of food to immigrants.

For years, most of those traveling las bestia were young men & women & it is a significant change to see them bringing infants & children with them. In the past, they would find work in the US & send money home to their families. That entailed painful ruptures in family relationships & often a sense of abandonment among children left behind. It’s not clear why they are now bringing their children with them since it makes crossing the US border much more difficult & dangerous. US immigration reports that the majority of those caught crossing the border now are young women with children & unaccompanied children. This makes the endangerment of children a feature of US immigration policy. Investigations are required to understand these changes in immigration patterns but no investigation is necessary to demand the US end its racist, anti-immigration policies & open the borders.

(Photos by Edgard Garrido/Reuters)

Addressing the rape & murder of Asifa & other prominent rape cases of young girls in India, Indian politician Santosh Gangwar said: “It is not okay to make mountains out of molehills. Such incidents cannot be stopped” & “One or two incidents of rape can happen in such a big country. In a nation as big as India, one or two incidents of rape should not be hyped.” Shocking, deplorable, hateful, contemptible. We heard almost identical comments from progressives in the US when addressing the #MeToo movement.

All of my rescue dogs are under 20 pounds (9 kilograms) except Bianca who weighs about 70 pounds. I took her several months back when I accepted a puppy who was grieving & crying because she’d not been properly weaned. So I scouted out the mother & got her brother & another puppy too who were all abandoned. The puppies were content, got weaned, & were adopted into loving homes through a shelter here. Gustavo the brother had to go to a shelter because he jumped the fence & prowled the neighborhood. The neighbors were up-in-arms after he chased the ice cream lady. And quite frankly, I didn’t completely trust his good will toward me despite all the treats I lavished on him.

Bianca on the other hand is a sweet, sensitive girl who loves to play & rough-house with the little ones & exhibits no aggression at all toward my birds. While abandoned, she suffered a broken leg which hasn’t healed right but she manages well enough & uses it to swat those who get out of line. She wakes me up every morning with it so I can give her a morning hug & kiss & when she comes back inside from playing lines up for hugs every single time. This morning when they came back in, she didn’t come so I assumed she wasn’t ready & went off to make breakfast for the rest. After about an hour, I realized she was still outside & went to retrieve her. She was outside the door with her head hung down looking all bereft like she was being punished. I had to go outside in my pjs and hug her up before she understood I wasn’t mad at her.

She’s getting treated for heart worms but when she’s healed, hopefully in August, the shelter will try to find her a more suitable home. But every dog you rescue becomes a part of your heart & it’s very hard to say goodbye even when you know they’re going to a better place.

There are a few Assad opponents parsing distinctions between US intervention in Syria & Iraq to justify US intervention in Syria on behalf of the revolution. Every US war is different because the politics of every country are different. But how has it escaped notice by those doing the exegeses that in every single war, bar not one, the US has intervened on behalf of dictatorship against popular movements for democracy & never the other way around? How can the fundamentally reactionary character of US militarism go over their heads with Yemen, Afghanistan, & yes, Iraq right next door? If you support US bombing in Syria, your outrage over Syrian & Russian bombing is not the least bit credible. Or what is Raqqa all about?

For all those who admire Nikki Haley for her rhetorical posturing about Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians in Syria: if she were sincerely concerned about the bombing of civilians, wouldn’t she be jumping up & down like a monkey at the UN over Israeli snipers standing on the border with Gaza & shooting live ammo & tear gas at unarmed, peaceful protesters, including small children? There is nothing to admire about the US role in Syria because it is of a piece with it’s role in supporting Israel against Palestinians. Not to mention with its role in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, & Libya.