The Russian defense ministry announced a major missile & bombing assault on Syria launched from the Kuznetsov aircraft carrier off the coast of Syria. The ministry denies it is bombing Aleppo & Assad supporters confirm this based on reports in Russian government media. Though other Assad supporters laud bombing Aleppo as “liberation” from those “jihadists.” It must be evil fairies from outer space dropping bombs from jets & barrel bombs from helicopters.

Evil fairies—probably the same ones that bombed Gaza in 2014 when Israel denied bombing—would explain why the high-tech missile guidance systems couldn’t distinguish these civilians from “throat-cutting jihadists.”

Let’s cut the crap here: the only principled demands of antiwar activists must be: the immediate cessation of Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military operations, whether by land, air, or sea, over & covert, from Syria.
(Photos by Abdairhman Ismail/Reuters)

This train is called “La Bestia” (The beast) or “El tren de la muerte” (The death train) by undocumented immigrants from Central America. The name refers to a network of Mexican freight trains that begin in the southern states of Chiapas & Tabasco & travel 1,200 miles to the state of Tamaulipas on the US Texas border.

Though an estimated 500,000 immigrants, driven by dire circumstances at home, travel these trains every year, they are an extremely & notoriously dangerous way to travel. They do not stop to allow people to hop on or off so hundreds have lost limbs & must return to countries with no social security for disability.

Criminal gangs & paramilitary operatives working with the Mexican army prey on the immigrants, subjecting them to rape, robbery, extortion, murder, kidnapping, disappearance, mass executions & mass graves. In 2014, the eastern state of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico filed a lawsuit accusing the railroad of complicity in the violence on trains.

The Mexican government functions as the southern phalanx of US immigration policy. But in 2011, then president Felipe Calderon (responsible for the deaths of thousands of Mexicans & immigrants) signed a bill decriminalizing undocumented immigrants entering through the southern border. Previously, federal police would stop buses & search vehicles traveling north to remove immigrants & deport them. The primary way of traveling was & still is to pay a smuggler or to ride atop the freight trains.

In 2014, Mexican officials began cracking down on freight train stowaways. Those who were stranded, even in the most southern states, then began attempting the transit through Mexico on foot–subjecting them to extreme danger from criminal gangs & the military. Apparently the crackdown was ineffectual, even with using violence to enforce it.

All along the train route, Mexican immigration & human rights groups as well as hundreds of Mexican citizens have set up sanctuaries, medical care, provided food, water, clothing, & support to the immigrants. One of the most well-known places where that manifests is at Veracruz, a transit point north. The train doesn’t stop but human rights activists & local families rush to the passing trains to pass food & water to the immigrants. It speaks not just to the power of human kindness but to political solidarity with the right to immigrate to find work & build a better life.

This photo is from yesterday at Veracruz.

(Photo by Daniel Becerril/Reuters)

Bangladeshi activist Jannatun Nayeem Nayeema has initiated a social media campaign to stand with Rohingya women being raped as part of the scorched earth genocide going on now of Rohingya Muslims by the Myanmar military in Arakan (Rakhine) state.

One Rohingya woman who testified said:

” Peace be upon you.
I am talking to the brothers from my village.
They [soldiers] brought us to the yard.
They put their hands into our clothes & are abusing us.
They took us into the house & are abusing us.
They took the young girls into the house & abused.
Then they came out one by one [solider] from house.
How do we stay in this country?
Please pray for us.
I was abused by them & I just came out by crawling.
Brothers, please pray for us.
I can’t talk any more. ”

Under the solidarity rubric of “an injury to one is an injury to all,” Jannatun has asked us to post these social media hashtags on our walls:

#WeAreOne
#WomenAroundTheWorld
#NoRape
#StopRapeOfRohingyaWomen

(Photo is Rohingya mother & child)

My Facebook memories from a year ago today popped up a discussion on Indian hydroelectric power projects & power shortages in Kashmir. My research on that was dead-ending for lack of sources & my grasp of the economics of the occupation still in need of education. Kashmir isn’t just real estate to India but has economic, political, & military importance.

Re-reading the discussion is more valuable now than it was then–mostly the insights of Kashmiri activists but also the expressions of ignorance & prejudice by nationalists. I never did the post because I really didn’t understand enough. Kashmiris have probably written much more cogent analyses that should be shared.

Wondering if anyone would be interested in my re-posting it here–primarily because it elaborates some of the economic importance of Kashmir to India. Colonial occupation isn’t just based on irrational nationalist hatred, nor certainly on religious disputes.

This is link to that discussion: https://www.facebook.com/MaryScullyReports/posts/10206913003896677?hc_location=ufi

So now that Clinton lost the election, is that flap over the emails all resolved? Were we being played on that one?

Charlie Windsor, who had his 68th birthday on Monday, may be the only feudal mooch that merits pity. He doesn’t have the horse track for distraction like Betty & Camilla & isn’t a flatulent halfwit like his father Phil.

If you’re going to be born to a life of indolence, stupid is an asset–the shallow depths of which have been plumbed over & over again, if not pioneered, by the Windsor clan. They cannot be blamed entirely for that since stupid seems to be the historic hallmark of feudal social relations. All that blue blood crap rots the brain.

Syed Ali Geelani, a longtime leader of the independence struggle in Kashmir, was permanently booted from FB after posting about the young man executed by Indian soldiers on July 8th. His name & photo may not be cited on FB though his funeral was attended by 600,000 people. Did FB consider that “fake news”?

Though axed on FB, he remains active on Twitter & is an important source of information about the occupation & current murderous siege.

There’s something powerful about him including reports on the scorched earth genocide being carried out now in Arakan state, Myanmar by the military junta against Rohingya Muslims. A Kashmiri activist reaching out in the midst of siege to express solidarity with Rohinga under siege would be the very heart & soul of human solidarity.

This alarmism about fake news sites may shape up to be a free speech battle on social media. There are all sorts of lists now, including ironically from mainstream media, telling us which sites are propaganda or fake. They aren’t wrong on a lot of them but of course they don’t mention their own problems with the truth.

The pro-Assad libertarians are particularly alarmed since it would take out most of their sites–like 21st Century Wire. Most of what they write is rubbish but under the US Bill of Rights, they have the right to promote their views, just as mainstream media does.

Cruise missile emancipation: This is the kind of “liberation” you get with militarism & bombers. The little guy is scrounging through landfill outside Sana’a, Yemen. The US has been drone bombing regions of Yemen for several years but the Saudi coalition, armed by the UK & US & militarily supported by the US, took over in March 2015–primarily to destroy the glorious & massive 2011 popular uprising against dictatorship & replace it with cruise missile democracy.

This is all under the humanitarian regime of Obama, now touring Europe to reassure right-wing nationalist leaders that the US will remain committed to the highest ideals of civilization under Trump. Meaning it will not neglect its commitments to militarism & cruise missile emancipation.

Hospitals, mosques, schools, residential areas, funeral wakes, wedding parties have been bombed to smithereens in Yemen. There are no reliable estimates of civilians killed in the bombing but it is now several thousand, including children. There are also no reliable estimates of the number of war orphans but relief agencies say it is tens of thousands. Bombing has displaced & made homeless 3.2 million people; 370,000 children are suffering severe malnutrition, not helped by the cholera outbreak in October or the bombing of hospitals & medical facilities. This little boy who is still alive & found an old juice container in the landfill is among the lucky ones.

Meanwhile Assad supporters are exuberant at what they call the impending liberation of east Aleppo & other Syrian cities by Syrian & Russian bombers. They can’t explain how the Russian bombing of five hospitals & the central blood bank in Aleppo in the last 48 hours fits into that scenario of liberation. So they denounce mainstream media for lying & deny it ever happened.

There are no freedom fights fought by bombers. That’s the deranged, right-wing pipe dream of those who do not believe in the power of working people to accomplish their own emancipation from dictatorship. Regrettably their delusions are not shared by those who operate the bombing fleets.

End the bombing of Yemen! End the bombing of Syria! End the bombing of Afghanistan! No foreign military intervention! No support for dictators!

(Photo by Mohamed Al-Sayaghi/Reuters)