A word to the wise: Wikipedia is generally an iffy source of information but when it comes to the issue of Israel & Palestinians, it is a nearly useless source–so useless that the Zionist founder of Wikipedia was given an honorific by Israel for services rendered to propaganda.

It is also wreckage on the issue of Kashmir, most notably the entries on the Pandit issue, & is pretty much a wash on Rohingya Muslims & the genocide against them.

None of its analyses on those issues can be trusted & were likely written by propagandists.

What is going on now at the Myanmar-Bangladesh border is a repeat of the refugee crisis of 2012 on a smaller scale. In 2012, the genocidal assault of the Burmese military forcibly displaced over 125,000 Rohingya & other Muslims in Arakan (Rakhine) state. So far in this assault it is estimated that at least 30,000 have been forcibly displaced in the scorched earth genocide led by the military. It’s not certain where that estimate comes from since journalists & human rights monitors are barred from entering the state.

The 2012 military siege was the first time most human rights activists around the world heard about the Rohingya even though the persecution by the military & right-wing nationalist Buddhists has been extreme for decades.

What made it news was that tens of thousands of Rohingya fleeing violence were turned away at the border by Bangladeshi border guards. The photos of their terror were horrifying because they had no recourse but to return to Myanmar. At least 150,000 ended up in concentration camps; an estimated 25,000 fled by boat through the Bay of Bengal & Andaman Sea trying to reach Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand. That resulted in the boat crisis of May 2015 where thousands were abandoned at sea without food or water & there is as yet no accounting of what happened to most of them.

In 2009, Myanmar built a concrete & razor wire barrier wall along about 40 miles (70km) of the 120 km Naf River on the Bangladesh border. Those Rohingya fleeing the epicenter of the genocide at Maungdaw must travel about 60 miles (95 km) to Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh where there is a registered refugee camp & tens of thousands of undocumented living in unregistered camps.

They have to travel from Maungdaw about 5 miles (8 km) to the crossing point into Bangladesh on the Naf River which is between two & three miles wide & then proceed the remaining 52 miles to Cox’s Bazar on foot. They cross the river in boats at night to avoid detection; some try to swim across. Hundreds are reportedly stranded there, unable to cross.

Just as in 2012, media is reporting that they are fleeing from “escalating violence,” “sectarian conflict,” & “communal clashes” because if they call it what it is–genocide–then foreign investors might be deterred by the political instability. It can never be forgotten that as the 2012 genocide unfolded in Arakan, the European Union, US, Australia, Norway, Britain were suspending sanctions on Burma imposed since 1988 for decades of human rights crimes. “Development” money & foreign investments flooded into the country. Capitalism never lets a thing like genocide interfere with profiteering.

The same kind of scenes we saw in 2012 appear again as Bangladesh closes its borders to the refugees fleeing for their lives. Both of these photos are weeping Rohingya refugees intercepted by Bangladesh border guards at a check point in Cox’s Bazar.

Immigration is a human right. Asylum from war & persecution is not only an ancient tradition in human civilization but embodied in international law. Bangladesh has every obligation to open the borders & provide sanctuary. If it claims it is unable to handle the numbers entering the country, it should allow the UN to register Rohingya & humanitarian organizations to provide aid to them. Most importantly, it should demand Myanmar end the genocide & demand other countries immediately reimpose sanctions until Rohingya receive full citizen, human, & democratic rights in Myanmar.

(Photo by Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuter

Facebook friends have asked me what I think about this video circulating among Assad supporters which they are calling “the White Helmets caught in a mannequin challenge.’ Some found it quite persuasive in discrediting the White Helmets. To my mind, Assad supporters should be embarrassed to circulate it.

The source of the video is the FB wall of Mimi Al Laham who calls herself Syrian Girl. She has 35,000 followers & has been an ardent Assad supporter for a long time. She lives in Australia but spends a lot of time on the international pro-Assad speaking & media circuit, particularly libertarian media.

If you look at the video, you will see there is no identifying information to prove its veracity as a production of the White Helmets. The very fact that it’s on her FB wall should give serious-minded people pause. If the White Helmets have the kind of political connections they’re accused of, they could certainly come up with a better propaganda production than this. What’s up with that “frozen” clip at the beginning? It’s an insult to their intelligence to try to stick it on them. It’s more Al Laham’s speed.

Al Laham has an active social media presence including her own YouTube channel with frequent posts about Syrian politics. She also discusses US politics & produced a video endorsing Trump for president. To give you an idea of her theoretical approach to politics, she posted this regarding her opposition to Clinton:

“I can’t imagine people still voting for Clinton after her obvious involvement in occult rituals such as spirit cooking sex parties & worship of Moloch which was revealed in March this year, all revealed in Wikileaks emails. New York Times trying to white wash this into some kind of artistic dinner party ignoring all other evidence of the occult hub in the White House. From sacrificing a chicken to moloch, to being involved with a child sex trafficking ring in Haiti while performing a voodoo ritual in Haiti with her husband. Bohemian grove. Clinton & the people around her are satanic & why should we be surprised after all we have seen them do to the nations they destroy?”

If you want to take the word of someone who writes that kind of nonsense, that’s your right in a democratic society but it is an embarrassment to serious discussion of the war in Syria, one of the most momentous political events of this era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MA83pJsmH0

One of the hardest questions about what is going on in Syria is the political character of the paramilitary groups. There are countless numbers of them including those trained & armed by the CIA & US special forces; there are mercenaries & foreign fighters from Iran, Hezbollah, & elsewhere.

Assad supporters describe them all in the Muslim-hating & war-mongering language of the US Pentagon. It’s a fundamentally racist attitude toward groups who they revile to defend Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians.

As operatives for the US, Iran, Hezbollah, they are a treacherous crowd but they are not all “throat-cutting jihadists” as Assad supporters call them. Nor do the militias represent the scope of the popular movement against Assad’s dictatorship. They are not bombing cities only to kill the militia fighters but to destroy the popular opposition to Assad–as the Saudi-US-UK coalition is doing in Yemen.

Their presence & activities in cities do not justify the bombing of civilians. By one estimate, Aleppo has 8,000 militia fighters but 250,000 civilians live there.

My knowledge of the militias is insufficient & I have found no reliable sources but this article by a Syrian revolutionist, once a political prisoner & now in exile, discusses the development of these groups in a political way & takes it out of the realm of Islamophobia, fear-mongering, & demonization.

http://aljumhuriya.net/en/daesh/the-geneology-of-isis

For so long the political character of Assad & Putin supporters escaped me. On the one hand, they have progressive views on social issues, which is not uncommon among libertarians–even the likes of Ron Paul. Most notable is their opposition to US militarism.

But when it comes to Assad’s dictatorship & ruthless military campaign against civilians, their political writings are honestly dumb as a stump. Making the vilification of rescue workers & child victims of war the centerpiece of your apologia for bombing civilians resonates with Stalinism, Zionism, maybe eventually Trumpism–which all justify the most monstrous crimes for the higher purpose of social domination.

I am truly sorry to post such graphic images but Assad apologists are confusing so many activists that the realities of Syrian and Russian carpet bombing must be presented to counter the lies.

Those who support Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians have a psychological device–of course, for some it could also be a political manipulation–which allows them to ignore the carnage created by carpet bombing.

They feverishly post about Yemen, or about “jihadist” missiles striking civilians, or even about the DAPL pipeline struggle in North Dakota. It’s how they assure themselves or others that they are not entirely bereft of human compassion.

Yemen, west Aleppo, North Dakota are not isolated from the bombing in east Aleppo. They are of a piece with the rising violence & militarism in the barbaric phase of capitalism.

The children of Yemen, North Dakota, & Syria are not asking for your compassion so you can feel good about yourself. What is required is political solidarity.

In Syria, solidarity means demanding the immediate cessation of Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians; the immediate cessation of US bombing (allegedly against ISIS) & undercover operations; the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces, including special forces, CIA operatives, & mercenaries.

(Photos from Free Syria Media Hub, from November 21 2016 bombing of Aleppo)

Do you think Al Jazeera colluded with White Helmet rescue workers in Aleppo to stage this video of a hospital bombing? Stranger things have happened, according to Assad supporters–like evil fairies from outer space bombing Aleppo & Russia getting blamed for it.

https://twitter.com/ajplus/status/800368136268587008

Russian state-owned media are publishing statements from the Russian Defense Ministry claiming White Helmet rescue workers are fabricating accusations that Syrian bombers (& likely Russian bombers & missiles) are targeting hospitals & schools in Aleppo.

In fact, several news sources, including Médecins Sans Frontières/MSF on the ground in Syria, are reporting it. Al Jazeera has this footage of a hospital being bombed while the reporter was present.

It’s not clear where those who support Assad’s dictatorship & Syrian & Russian bombing get their information. Libertarian politics don’t require much investigation when paranoia & prejudice serve so well. Some from the socialist tradition don’t bother studying the war in Syria when they think quotes from Lenin on colonialism sum it all up. Some Assad supporters even consider themselves savants who magically intuit vibrations from the universe to guide their politics. But be assured, some are directly in league with the Assad regime.

Supporters of Assad actually pioneered the fake news approach to media & only sanction reading “alternative” news sites like state-owned Russian & Iranian media, several blogs written by themselves, Global Research, & the discredited Mint Press News. Their tedious mantra is that reading mainstream media is anathema & will only fill your head with lies.

Ardent Assad supporter Eva Bartlett has even drawn up a list of human rights “front groups” whose reports they consider completely untrustworthy: Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières/MSF, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), & of course, the White Helmets.

Those uncertain about who & what to believe about Syria should read all the websites authorized by pro-Assad group-think. You will be horrified at the Islamophobia, paranoia, deceits, crazy-pants stuff that passes for analysis.

This is footage from last Saturday of a hospital in Aleppo being bombed.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/air-strike-hits-children-hospital-syria-aleppo-161118163200380.html

Those who live in Pretoria, South Africa will want to join this rally at the Myanmar Embassy next Friday. Conditions of Rohingya Muslims under the military junta have been described as “apartheid-like.” The genocide going on now is way beyond that.

Stand with the Rohingya.

This is Putin & Obama putting on the mad face, a de rigueur posture in diplomatic protocol. It’s a phony version of the constipated mouth thing which expresses more sincere antipathies. We know this mad face routine from Obama’s several meetings with Netanyahu where Obama waits for cameras to go away before he cuts multi-billion dollar checks for military aid to Israel.

This Putin-Obama encounter was last September at the G20 summit in China. But they met again yesterday at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Lima, Peru. According to media reports, they had a 4-minute conversation about Syria where Russia is on a major missile & bombing campaign but denies it is involved in the murderous bombing siege on 250,000 civilians in Aleppo. Since Russia openly supports the Assad dictatorship whilst the US does so only sub rosa, they probably didn’t think it diplomatically advisable to raise objections to Assad bombing the city. You can cover a lot of small talk in four minutes but not Russian & US military involvement in Syria.

Media continues to talk about the changes in US policy toward Syria heralded by the warm relationship Putin has with Trump. It’s one thing for media to peddle that high school social studies baloney & quite another for political activists to repeat it like the gospel truth. US capitalism is a massive, complicated system with economic, political, & military relationships all over the world & in serious crisis. US policy is not left to presidents of the caliber of Reagan (who suffered dementia half his term), either of the Bush guys (neither of whom could put a coherent thought together), Clinton, (who was a two-bit hustler), or Obama, (who had no experience whatsoever)—nor certainly a narcissistic blowhard like Trump.

US policy is formulated by think tanks, government agencies & officials, special advisory panels, the US Pentagon & CIA officials, advisors like Kissinger (there’s a whole slew of those treacherous creeps), bankers & corporate heads. It would be idiocy to leave US capitalism & its political policies in the hands of Trump & the right-wing nationalists he’s lining up as his cabinet. There isn’t one of them that won’t be approved by those who really run this country.

That’s not cause for jubilation because clearly a dramatic rightward shift is being planned in US politics, here & abroad. But that means active opposition must be organized. Those chiding the anti-Trump protesters should stop the banal criticisms & join the protests.

(Photo by AFP/Getty)