Jaffna Street by Kashmiri writer Mir Khalid

Jaffna Street Mir Khalid

Kashmiri writer Jamsheed Ramsool calls this newly published book by Mir Khalid a “magnum opus.” This is the blurb from Amazon which indeed makes it look quite compelling:

“In 1989, an adolescent schoolboy from downtown Srinagar watched as his elders extricated themselves from university campuses, high-school grounds, handloom machines & farms to bear arms & fight a war of attrition against the Indian state.

Twenty-two years on, Jaffna Street was born from his explorations of the human dimension of the conflict appositely termed the Kashmir tragedy. Combining anecdotes, personal memories & extended interviews, the author takes us behind the scenes & headlines into Srinagar city’s ‘notorious’ perpetually politically charged downtown as well as its upper cityside belt to create a panoramic portrait of recent Kashmir history. He profiles ordinary people—hitmen, insurgents, artisans, failed Marxist intellectuals, mystics, exiles, gangsters & ordinary individuals—who wouldn’t make it even to the footnotes of history but have been crucial first-hand witnesses, participants or victims of some of the important events that marked the tumultuous & violent years of the insurgency.”

Just declined a friend request from a man with a wall full of paeans to Modi, his party, their thuggish campus group, & the Indian army. He was probably looking forward to fruitful debates on the issues of the day. For example, Kashmir. Been there, done that with those nationalists. Thought it better to leave this guy’s manhood intact.

Citizen diplomacy with the Russkis

Fox News & Assad’s people just won’t shut up about the Russophobic hysteria being instigated by that imaginary thing called the deep state so it can get rid of Trump. Apparently Russophobia is different than Islamophobia which is directed at Muslims. Russophobia is directed at Trump.

Just to make sure there were no misunderstandings or hard feelings with the Russians I took it upon myself to do a little citizen diplomacy since I’ve studied their history, know their music & literature well (except for War & Peace which is too damn long), & also know they’ve quite a sense of humor.

Through unauthorized diplomatic channels I sent this missive to the Russkis, hoping to create a new detente & shut up those jeremiads once & for all. It was send in Russian so they would know we mean business about this detente thing:

Dear Russkis: It’s not true most Americans have a phobic attitude toward Russkis. We’re not crazy about your nationalists or Putin’s politics but the rest of you are swell. It’s sad to hear many of you think we’re stupid because we elected a fool for president. But our elections are just as rigged as yours. We don’t think ill of you because of Putin so maybe we can call it “even-steven” there.
We heard some of your phobias about us go back to the Soviet Union days. Weren’t Radio Free Europe broadcasts from the CIA reaching you? That’s too bad because now Putin supporters say the CIA is using Russophobic hysteria to get rid of Trump. You probably don’t see the downside in that. Neither do we. But democracy has its rules.

Well this is just to say most of us would like to get along with you and maybe call a citizen’s detente. There are lots of things we could work together on–like opposing our government’s wars and standing with the oppressed.

Hoping to hear from you soon. It probably isn’t appropriate to send love in a diplomatic missive but what the hell Heart moticom

Palestine is not going to be liberated without Syria being free from Assad regime.

Assadists speculate a lot about the relationship of Israel to Syria & get it all wrong because their views combine extreme Muslim-hating with putrid hatred of Jews. They have several crackpot conspiracies which you can’t reason with any more than you can reason with the racism of the KKK.

In fact the dialectics between the liberation of Palestine & the revolution against Assad are of the greatest consequence & need to be understood. Many are thinking about the issue but it’s not certain there has been the necessary & sufficient elaboration. As one person said, “Palestine is not going to be liberated without Syria being free from the Assad regime.” It’s a life & death issue.

Partly the lack of discussion is because so much time is taken up with polemics against the banalities & treacheries of Rania Khalek, Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, & the list of Palestinian supporters (of questionable commitment) who infect solidarity activism with the compromises, betrayals, & hatreds of Assadism. Then there are the hardened paid propagandists like Beeley & Bartlett who spent a little time in Palestine to legitimize themselves & get credentials & wave the Palestinian flag to obfuscate what they’re really all about.

There’s no point in beating around the bush: these opportunists & lying ideologues are weakening & compromising Palestinian solidarity. It’s regrettable to admit but there is a current of Palestinian solidarity that harbors antipathy toward either or both Muslims & Jews. There’s no need for witch hunts to weed them out & purge them. That would be divisive & destructive. Social movements often attract unsavory characters who are there for the wrong reasons. But there is need for political debate in every form & venue to clarify where people stand, to educate ourselves & those who are lost on the question of Syria & taken in by these shysters. Many are put off by debate & think it rancorous but it’s an essential part of building a movement. No struggle has ever found a way around it when human beings have different views of the problem & what to do about it.

It is in action that the weeding process will unavoidably take place–is taking place, since Assadists talk out of both sides of their ass by saying they oppose Islamophobia but then inviting nationalists, supremacists, Islamophobes to speak at their rallies–something which is unacceptable to principled activists.

One thing is sure: when Europeans & Americans like Beeley, Bartlett, Blumenthal, Khalek claim to speak for Syrians they aren’t lying. The Syrians they’re speaking for however are the Assadist forces of counter-revolution, not the working people fighting against dictatorship.

Coleen Rowley, the lying-assed FBI agent who accused me of using a WMD, is an Assadist

Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who in 2001 flagged my criminal record for using a WMD making it impossible for me to get most jobs, is now a libertarian member of the Hands Off Syria Coalition. She has been appearing on RT, The Real News, & other pro-Assad, pro-Putin media denouncing the demonization & false accusations against Russia.

In the conversation I had with her asking her help to get it removed from my criminal record, she said the FBI had gone astray & needed to be returned to its original noble purpose. Putting aside that it never had a noble purpose except in her pea brain, she is now blithering the “deep state” pulling a soft coup against Trump crap.

How credible do you think a 50-year veteran of the antiwar movement like myself finds someone like her? How did someone like her get respect from antiwar activists when she remains fundamentally right-wing?

And btw, she wouldn’t help me remove it from my record. So as legal counsel for the FBI in Minneapolis, she accused me of using a WMD though I was never accused, questioned, arrested, or even knew I was accused until I applied for work requiring a security clearance & was refused because it’s an FBI alert on my record.


Assadists have been so busy for so long denouncing fake news & the White Helmets that they haven’t gotten round to discussing US regime change in Syria. How’s it going? Is it going? Will they ever get around to talking how all those US bombers have managed to miss the Russian & Syrian ones? Is the Oscar more important than US military intervention? 

“If a critique of jihadi death cults doesn’t also extend to industrial death machines of ‘seculars’ (like Assad), then yeah it’s orientalist.”

–tweeted by Nader

“How the Syrian uprising started: Assad’s henchmen arrested & tortured children, then shot at their families when they protested.”

–İyad el-Baghdadi