WASHINGTON'S GOOD ALLY

"The forces of a powerful ally can be useful and good to those who have recourse to them... but are perilous to those who become dependent on them." ~ Niccolo Machiavelli.

The Washington Times has an editorial today that sounds like paid propaganda from the Turkish Embassy. It has the usual whiny sound of the Turkish prime minister's office and the Turkish foreign ministry, combined with the usual predictions of worldwide catastrophe, plus an appeal to the longstanding Turkish-American relationship. The propaganda is designed to support this thesis: "Losing Turkish support would be a difficult setback for the United States."

This thesis makes the mistaken assumption that the US has always had Turkish support, something that is not true except in the minds of those who continue to spin these fantasies and present them as gospel, such as The Washington Times.

Last Thursday, Gene Rossides, of the American Hellenic Institute, reminded all of us why Turkey is no ally to the US. He made the following points:

* In 1973, Turkey refused US military overflights to ressuply Israel, while permitting the Soviets overland military convoy rights, as well as military overflights, to resupply the Arabs.

* In 1977-78, Turkey permitted Soviet military overflights to support the pro-Soviets in Ethiopia.

* In 1976, 1978, and 1983, Turkey permitted passage rights to Soviet ships into the Mediterranean, against NATO objections and in violation of the Montreux Convention of 1936.

* In 2003, Turkey refused the US permission to use US bases in Turkey in connection with Operation Iraqi Freedom. This delayed the critical deployment of the 4th Infantry Division by weeks, weeks that would have otherwise allowed this division to secure the Iraqi border with Syria.

What a great NATO ally! What a great US ally! What the hell, what a great Israeli ally, for that matter! Yet the editor at The Washington Times expects anyone with a brain to believe the constant flow of chicken manure from the Turkish government about what a great ally it is?

There is something else that no one seems to remember, and that was that Turkey controlled all sorties of Operation Northern Watch, which meant that while Turkey was busy bombing Kurdish civilians in South Kurdistan, the very same civilians that the US and Britain were ostensibly making sorties to protect, all the US and British sorties were called off by the Turkish general staff. It was far too important for Turkey to dump loads of munitions to dump on Kurds, and American and British aircraft would simply get in the way, or be witness to these acts of genocide by Turkey. Here's a little ancient history from 2001:

While British government ministers have repeatedly described the no-fly-zones as "humanitarian cover" for the Kurds, the pilots' unease has become an open secret in the United States. Last October, the Washington Post reported: "On more than one occasion [US pilots who fly in tandem with the British] have received a radio message that 'there is a TSM inbound' - that is, a 'Turkish Special Mission' heading into Iraq. Following standard orders, the Americans turned their planes around and flew back to Turkey. 'You'd see Turkish F-14s and F-16s inbound, loaded to the gills with munitions,' [pilot Mike Horn] said. 'Then they'd come out half an hour later with their munitions expended.' When the Americans flew back into Iraqi air space, he recalled, they would see 'burning villages, lots of smoke and fire'."

Last December, more than 10,000 Turkish troops invaded northern Iraq, killing untold numbers of civilians and fighters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the PKK. British and American aircraft "protecting" the Kurds did nothing to prevent the invasion; indeed, most patrols were suspended to allow the Turks to get on with the killing. Inside Turkey, the Ankara regime has destroyed 3,000 Kurdish villages, displaced more than three million people and killed tens of thousands. Racist laws prevent Turkish Kurds from speaking their language; parliamentarians and journalists who speak out end up in prison, or assassinated.

The only ones perturbed about this situation were the American and British aircrews, and the Kurds. All of the perpetrators of the Kurdish genocide in the Turkish foreign ministry, the British foreign ministry and the American Department of State had absolutely nothing to say about it. It appears that the perpetrators of Kurdish genocide at The Washington Times have nothing to say about it either. Neither has The Washington Times bothered to express any opinion on more complicit American activity in genociding Kurds through its so-called "psychological operations" against the "Communist threat" (read: "Kurds") in Turkey, and that is probably because The Washington Times is in agreement with the genocide.

The editor of The Washington Times can't seem to get it through his fat head that Turkey has its own insecurity about its own identity, which is why it has engaged in a campaign of genocide against Kurds for 83 years. It is the same insecurity that prompted a completely insincere and spineless Erdogan to raise the question of super- and sub-identity shortly after the state-sponsored Semdinli bombing. This identity insecurity is the same thing that prompted the insincere and spineless Erdogan to state that Kurdish women and children were fine targets for Turkish security forces more recently.

Who, then, are the real terrorists? Who is the real state-sponsor of terror? Who is part and parcel of this Axis of Evil?

This editor needs a reality check if he so readily swallows Erdogan's lies about providing more services and more democracy to Kurds under Turkish occupation, because if there were any genuine interest in the Turkish regime doing so, they would have begun providing these services 83 years ago, instead of beginning the forumlation of their fascist ideology which has been the fundamental driving force behind their genocide. But the editor of The Washingnton Times, gives his approval of the use of any methods for Turkey to operate against so-called Kurdish terrorists, a phrase which, by the Turkish definition, includes every single living Kurd who insists on maintaining a Kurdish identity. Assimilate, forget you are a Kurd, and you can be accepted. Insist on your unique identity, cling to your language, your traditions, your culture, your refusal to bow to the insistence of the Master Turkish Race, and you are a "terrorist."

But if the US, the EU, indeed the entire rest of the world, The Washington Times included, wants to continue to be screwed over by a fascist country that engages in two-faced politics to do whatever the hell it wants, if the US, the EU, and the rest of the world want to continue to perpetuate the myth of "alliance" or "democracy" or "bridge between East and West," then it is their business. Personally, I am surprised that the rest of the world is run by such ignorant, immoral jackasses.

In the meantime, these same ignorant, immoral jackasses apparently have not noticed that the Turkish state has increased its military presence in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan to almost 300,000, under the pretext of battling a few thousand terrorists. This means that either the vastly overrated Turkish military and associated security forces are so incompetent, that they have to have a military presence twice the size of the American military presence in Iraq, in order to control a few thousand lightly armed gerîlas.

Or it means that both Turkey and Iran are preparing to invade "Iraq" under the pretext of "fighting Kurdish terrorism." Pretty ironic that two of the biggest sponsors of state terror pretend to be fighting any kind of terrorism, much less "terrorism" of the very people they have been murdering for the last century. Pretty ironic, too, that everyone is more worried about what an independent Kurdistan would mean for the region, or how an independent Kurdistan would upset a status quo created by imperialists and dictatorial regimes, when South Kurdistan has already proven its intention to become a secular democracy. But everyone remains virtually silent about two terror states massing troops.

Oh well, no one cared about Czechoslovakia, did they?

Of course, since Turkey has pulled troops from "The West," it is only proper to take the war to "The West," and since there is plenty of water in "The West" already, the fish will have no problem swimming through it.

UPDATE: By the way, as a little reminder of the Kurdish reality, the PBS Frontline program, Saddam's Road to Hell, is now available in its entirety at the KRG Ministry of Human Rights website. It has a 31-minute run time.