Author: Bill Weinberg

South Asia

Hatred of Ahmadis behind Pakistan protests

The protests that paralyzed Islamabad and other Pakistani cities were ostensibly sparked by changes to the oath of office, eliminating text recognizing Mohammed as God's final prophet. But behind this was orthodox Sunni fear of the Ahmadiyya Muslim sect, which holds that 19th century founder Mirza Gulam Ahmed was the last prophet. As the protests mounted, Ahmadi Muslims faced threats across Pakistan, the Islamic world and the diaspora.

Syria

Syria: ‘de-escalation’ zones become kill zones

The so-called “de-escalation” zones declared under Russia’s “peace plan” for Syria have actually become kill zones, as Moscow and the Assad regime continue their bombardment, citing the presence in the rebel enclaves of jihadist factions not covered by the deal. But the rebels and civil resistance forces have little ability to expel the jihadists—and sometimes the air-strikes continue even after they have.

THE REDACTION OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS

The Rise and Fall of Civil Liberties in Afghanistan

by Susan Farooqi, Jurist

When we think of women in Afghanistan, we often assume that they are oppressed, and recall images of women in burqas and stories of women being brutalized. Although there is a lot of truth to these perceptions, the situation has been different in the past, and could be different in the future. Efforts to improve women's rights do not need to resist centuries of tradition; they need to merely reverse recent developments, which are themselves ahistorical.

Although women in Afghanistan were indeed historically oppressed by patriarchy, just as women in medieval Europe were often treated more as property than as individuals, this process began to change during the nineteenth century, as liberalism became an increasingly global philosophy. In particular, during the 1920s, just as women in the United States experienced new freedoms, including the right of suffrage, women in Afghanistan were also able to extend their rights and achieve what was essentially a modern status. It was not until the 1980s that this trend was reversed.

Continue ReadingTHE REDACTION OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS 
Southeast Asia

Duterte drug war de-escalation: how real?

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte won rare favorable international headlines when he said he would pull his National Police force out of his brutal "war on drugs," which has now reached the point of mass murder. The move came after public outrage over the police slaying of an unarmed youth. But Amnesty International notes that he made such promises after a similar outrage a few months back—and nothing changed. 

Southeast Asia

Indonesia unleashes ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, following in the bloody footsteps of the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte, has issued a "shoot-on-sight" policy for drug suspects. The hardline policy comes amid a sudden media blitz about the drug "state of emergency" in the archipelago nation.

Syria

Conviction in Syrian regime war crime —at last

For the first time, after six years of war and escalating atrocities, a member of the Syrian regime’s military has been convicted of a war crime—a low-level soldier now in Sweden as a refugee, and tried in that country’s courts. Yet there have been several convictions of Syrian rebel and ISIS fighters in European courts. This gross imbalance in convictions persists despite the fact that Assad has killed far more Syrians than ISIS or any other “terrorist” outfit in the country.

Syria

Further internationalization of Syrian war

Turkey sends more troops into Syria to fight jihadist factions in Idlib province, while Russia delivers more missiles to its military base at Tartus, and the US steps up bombardment of Raqqa in support of Kurdish forces in their drive to take the city from ISIS. Can these multiple foreign forces avoid attacking each other, even if accidentally, and sparking a wider war beyond Syria’s borders?

SYRIA’S KURDISH CONTRADICTION

 

by Bill Weinberg, Los Angeles Review of Books

A strange paradox of the vertiginous world situation is that a radical left movement strongly influenced by anarchism is being massively backed by the Pentagon in the war for northern Syria. This movement, in fact, is now the United States’ closest partner among the indigenous forces in the Syrian war.

The Kurds of northern Syria call the region Rojava (sunset or west in their tongue), and since 2012 have had their own autonomous zone. Two years later, the celebrated battle of Kobani opened as this town within the autonomous zone was besieged by the self-declared “Islamic State” (ISIS). Kurdish women fighters with a consciously feminist ideology driving back the ultra-reactionary ISIS became a global meme.

The US, after initially writing off Kobani, started aiding the Kurdish fighters as they began to turn the tide, against all expectations. Warplanes were sent in their support, and the pact between the Pentagon and the revolutionary Kurds was forged. US military advisors were embedded in their militia. Kurdish-led forces are now fighting to take the ISIS de facto capital Raqqa in a Pentagon-directed campaign backed by US air-strikes.

Continue ReadingSYRIA’S KURDISH CONTRADICTION 
Southeast Asia

Philippines: Duterte threatens to kill his own son

Philippine President Rodirgo Duterte—whose "war on drugs" has now reached the point of mass murder—was put on the hot spot when his own son was called to testify before a Senate hearing on drug corruption. He thundered that he had ordered the National Police to kill his son like any other drug suspect. And amid the relentless police killings, he gutted the country's official human rights office, reducing its budget to an insulting $20 a year.

East Asia

China’s rise threatened by ‘de-globalization’?

William C. Kirby, author of Can China Lead? Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth, argued in a presentation at New York's China Institute that China's rise is dependent on continued global integration, and that this is now threatened by the authoritarianism of Donald Trump and Xi Jinping alike.

Syria

Trump and Putin team up to destroy Syria

As ISIS-held Raqqa is bombed into ruins by US forces, rebel-held Idlib is suffering the same fate under Russian and Assad regime warplanes. Civilian casualties are fast mounting in both enclaves. The twin aerial campaigns come just as Trump has cut off aid to the Free Syrian Army, indicating that the long-anticipated imperial carve-up of Syria is now well underway.

Watching the Shadows

Plame tweet prompts conserva-purge of Giraldi

American Conservative finally gave far-right ex-spook Philip Giraldi the sack over rank anti-Semitism after one of his evil screeds was tweeted by Valerie Plame. Would that some of our supposed allies in the Palestine struggle were as principled as our conservative enemies. Counterpunch, ANSWER, Al-Awda and MondoWeiss continue to promote Giraldi and/or his equally vile sidekick Alison Weir. Image: frgdr.com