Assad propagandists, including his stable of fascists like Bartlett & Beeley, & fellow travelers & hacks like Patrick Cockburn & Jeff Mackler, are managing to write about military events in Eastern Ghouta without mentioning that 400,000 civilians are under carpet aerial bombardment. There are hundreds of videos & photos pouring out of the area documenting the undeniable. But they go all geopolitical or talk about “head-chopping jihadis” at the gates of Damascus.

Just asking for some friends–these little kids getting treated at hospital in Eastern Ghouta: are these the “head-chopping jihadis” that the Assad regime is afraid of? Is that why he’s bombing Eastern Ghouta to smithereens?

Stand with the Syrian people & demand the immediate cessation of Syrian, Russian, & US coalition bombing of Syria & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Syria.

(Photo by Mohammed Badra/EPA)

Watch our pain, LIVE

–by Syrian artist Hala Al-abed

The latest estimate is that 400 people have been killed in Syrian & Russian carpet bombing in Eastern Ghouta since Sunday night. There is no current estimate of the number injured, including loss of limbs. Medicines Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) reports 13 hospitals & clinics they support have been damaged or destroyed in just the last three days leaving bombing victims like this boy in this kind of situation. It is also reported that ambulances are being bombed. The UN human rights head has risen to the occasion & said the Assad regime is engaged in a “monstrous campaign of annihilation.”

Meanwhile Assad propagandists are heralding the Syrian Army as freedom fighters & pulling one of their switch & baits by refusing to denounce Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians in Eastern Ghouta & Idlib & pretending Damascus is under siege by barbarians & “head-chopping jihadis” at the gates.

Stand with the Syrian people in their fight against dictatorship. Demand the immediate cessation of Syrian, Russian, & US coalition bombing of civilians & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Syria.

(Photo from Medicines Sans Frontiers)

Bashar al-Assad

–by Syrian artist Hala Al-abed

Reveal

–by Syrian artist Hala Al-abed

Just learned that a mold problem from a leaking pipe under the kitchen sink has been causing the respiratory problems four of my dogs & I have been having. I went to town on self-pity for about half an hour. Then I watched videos of masked White Helmets rescuing people in Eastern Ghouta & got a grip on myself. War makes other stuff look like small potatoes.

Eastern Ghouta, Syria: this is war using rockets & barrel bombs against unarmed civilians. It is a war to defend the Assad dictatorship, not a war against paramilitary terrorist groups as Assad propagandists claim. There are 400,000 civilians in Eastern Ghouta now coming under aerial & artillery assault. Just in the past four days, 250 civilians have been killed & over 1,200 have been injured, including hundreds of children. This woman is running for cover, trying to get the kids out of the field of Syrian bombers.

The only principled demands are for the immediate cessation of Syrian, Russian, & US coalition bombing of civilians & for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Syria.

(Photo by Abdulmonam Eassa/AFP/Getty Images)

It is not gratuitous or politically factional to object to the authority & leadership “retired” CIA & FBI agents & former US State Department & military officers have in the corrupted antiwar movement. The most prominent among them are Ray McGovern (CIA), Ann Wright (US Army colonel & State Department official), & Colleen Rowley (FBI). They are all of the 1960s political generation but instead of joining with the millions protesting US wars, beginning with the Vietnam War, they committed their lives to working in service to the Pentagon. It wasn’t until retirement & the Iraq War in 2003 that they found their souls & transubstantiated into leading voices of a weak & fractured antiwar movement.

Let me say, in the interests of full disclosure, that Colleen Rowley is the FBI agent who by her own admission to me flagged my criminal record for using a Weapon of Mass Destruction in 2000, just a few years before morphing into a leader of those she had previously been spying on. In 2009, she was unwilling to lift a finger to get that removed from my record, making me unable to get jobs requiring a security clearance.

Transformation & political change are possible at any age so it could be just coincidence that their pensions were secure before they did their morphing. But the problem is that they haven’t changed from their Pentagon days. Now they are ardently promoting Assad & Putin & have helped corrupt the US antiwar movement by supporting Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians. They’re on the same side as the US when it comes to counterrevolution in Syria, regardless of their new anti-imperialist rhetoric. They advance conspiracy theories in place of political analyses & promote the writings & speak on panels & platforms with outright fascists. It was McGovern who admitted in a 2004 interview with Mother Jones that their group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity collaborates with “virtually all the agencies,” including “very distinguished operations officers, & from the FBI, Defense Intelligence, from the NSA, Army Intelligence, & from the State Department.” So the question emerges: just how independent are these “retirees” from the US Pentagon?

If each has nearly 50 years of working, spying, & doing analyses for the Pentagon, why did it take till 2003 to oppose the many US wars millions of Americans have been marching against since 1965? What was it about the barbarism of the Iraq War that snapped for them when Vietnam, Granada, Panama, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Somalia, & all the other barbarous wars went right over their heads? Just asking for a friend–that little boy being rescued by a White Helmet in Afrin City where Syrian & Russian bombs are “falling like rain.”

(Photo from White Helmets)

A White Helmet rescue worker lowers a small girl in her pajamas to safety after Syrian bombers tore the face off her family home in an early morning bombing raid. It is reported that every single town in Eastern Ghouta is being bombed by Syrian & Russian bombers. In Idlib, it is reported that bombers are targeting hospitals, clinics, & ambulances.

While White Helmets risk & lose their lives rescuing people in the bombing raids, Russian & Syrian media along with professional propagandists & corrupt antiwar activists are vilifying the rescue workers as al-Qaeda (al-Nusra) operatives planning a chemical weapon “provocation” using chlorine gas. Assad’s best defense is an offense accusing rescue workers of the war crimes routine for the Syrian military. There’s a simple measure for cutting through the propaganda & confusions: those who drop the bombs are the war criminals; those who rescue civilians are the freedom fighters.

The international antiwar movement must be rebuilt without compromise demanding the immediate cessation of Syrian, Russian, & US coalition bombing of civilians & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Syria.

(Photo from White Helmets)

This is a boy in Eastern Ghouta today where Syrian & Russian bombs “are falling like rain.” Thousands have been forced to live underground to escape shelling & an estimated 190 people have died since Sunday night, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Syria & Russia are laying siege to a civilian population with bombers, helicopter gunships, missiles, & artillery.

The corrupted US antiwar movement led by “retired” CIA, FBI, & military officers claims the bombing of civilians is necessary to defend Assad’s “self-determination” & heralds the Syrian Army as freedom fighters. Syrian children weep at such monstrous betrayal of principles.

The only principled demands are the immediate cessation of Syrian, Russian, & US coalition bombing of civilians & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces–overt, covert, & mercenary–from Syria.

(Photo by Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)