“Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.”
~ Arthur Miller, American playwright.
~ Arthur Miller, American playwright.
Well, well, well . . . it looks like those on the American Right are a little uptight with Arianna Huffington's reply of "So what?" to FOX's Bill O'Reilly's assertion that Saddam persecuted Kurds.
Here's her quote:
So what? Our job is not to go there and save the Kurds. Our job to keep Americans safe.
Read more here.
I don't quite understand why the Right is worked up about this, because Huffington's attitude is typical of the American attitude toward Kurds and typical of the American attitude toward Americans. All right, I lied. I understand very well what the American Right is so worked up about, and it sure as hell has less to do with Kurds than it does with a big Republican win in the midterm elections or defense of Bush as Bush.
O'Reilly even managed to run one of the KDC's advertisements so that Huffington could see happy Kurds thanking America. It made no difference to Huffington that the Başûrî truly have been overjoyed at the fall of Saddam, and that is one of the problems of the commercials; it's a general "Thank You," and not specific. In other words, the commercials are propaganda in that they do not tell the whole story of America's betrayal of the Kurdish people.
After all, where were the Americans in 1988, when the Anfal campaign was in full swing? Do some time travel back to 1975, and find out where the Americans were for the Algiers Agreement. Where was America when its Secretary of State said, "Covert action should not be confused with missionary work," as America sold out the Kurds to Saddam and the Shah? Where was America when Stephen Pelletiere and the Army War College were placing the blame for the chemical attacks against Helebçe and the surrounding area on the Iranians, in order to cover for the American ally, Saddam?
Where was America during the serhildan in Syrian-occupied Kurdistan, in March, 2004, or where was America during the serhildan in Iranian-occupied Kurdistan last July and August?
Where were the Americans for decades, as America's Other Ally, Turkey, used American weapons' systems to brutalize the Kurds under Turkish occupation? Doubters should check the US Department of State's own human rights reports--as sorry and lame as they are--from 1995 to today. When you finish go research everything that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have on the subject. Then research the findings from the ECHR--always too little, too late where Turkish atrocities are concerned--on the volumes of findings that court has leveled against America's ally because of its racist brutality against Kurds.
Where is America, at this moment, regarding the Kurds under Turkish occupation?
Why, America is sitting with the pashas, directing them in their new campaign of genocide. America is reestablishing it's Gladio operations in Turkey. America is an accessory to the crime of the continued brutality of the Kurdish people, including Tuesday's murder of Kurds in Amed.
But it's all done to keep Americans safe! Search in vain, for you will find none of this on any nightly newscast, and certainly not on FOX . . . unless, of course the Bush Administration needs a little help for the war effort, or the Democrats want to find and exploit a crack in the Republican facade.
Let's not BS around with this. Nowhere, on the American political spectrum, is there anyone who is innocent. Both Democrats and Republicans are guilty in this regard, and do you know why that is, dear Rastî reader? There is no serious political debate whatsoever in the United States, no serious dialog, no discourse. There is nothing whatsoever, not even from those vastly overrated intellectuals ensconced securely in their shining, white, Ivory Towers, where they are snugly protected from any contact with the reality of their own people, much less with the reality on the ground of the Kurdish people.
Where the KDC's advertisements went wrong was that they didn't really explain anything about Kurdistan Başûr and it certainly did not explain anything about America's betrayals of Kurds for the sake of "keep[ing] Americans safe." Nor is there any American support for democratic Kurdish movements, even in Başûr. Those few who know about the recent uprisings against the KRG because of corruption and lack of services and jobs only find them utilitarian for their political purposes. They don't really give a damn about Kurds living or dying . . . just like old Arianna Huffington.
It should be abundantly clear that the situation of Kurds will not be improved by hoping in America or anyone else. The only hope of Kurds can only come from Kurds.
11 comments:
Bullshit---unwise and unenlightened bullshit, which is the worst kind.
well, you are quite right but there might be a different way of answering that rather too much concerned person!
about where was America decades ago, I just read that even the F-16 plant near Ankara was actually planted by them to help Turkey fight Kurds! is that every American's fault? every soldiers' fault? NO definitely NOT! forget the 5 Billion assistance!
ok, should we take those acts or should we take Operation Provide Comfort as the basis for a new page of Kurdish-American relations? I think the latter will be better for both of us, BUT we have to be both loyal though!
Can you be more specific, Anonymous? Which part is bullshit?
Is it the part about Arianna Huffington appearing on O'Reilly's FOX program, and saying what she said? Or is it bullshit about O'Reilly running one of the KDC advertisements? Perhaps you didn't check the link, or maybe you mean that the American blogger at the link is bullshit? Check any of the blog search engines and you can even find a transcript of O'Reilly's program and read the dialog verbatim.
Do you think the part about right-leaning commentators pretending to be scandalized at Arianna's reaction to attempted genocide is bullshit? Again, check the link to your American, right-leaning blogger, unless, of course, you think his blog is bullshit.
Or maybe you think the Anfal campaign was bullshit? Even Pelletiere and the Army War College agreed that chemical weapons were used during that campaign, especially in the Helebçe area. Or perhaps you think they were correct in their propaganda--OOPS!--I mean "assessment."
If so, then you must think that the current trial of Saddam for Anfal, including Helebçe, by an American-backed court is bullshit? Which is bullshit, then? Anfal or the trial?
Or maybe you think the Algiers Accord is bullshit? Why don't you do a search on that, then, and prove that it's bullshit?
But it must be Kissinger's remarks at the time of the Algiers Accord that you think is bullshit? Google it, and find out how much bullshit it really is.
Perhaps it's really the human rights organizations and their reports on Turkish atrocities that you think are bullshit. That means that you also think your own State Department is bullshit (with which I would agree), because where do you think the State Department gets their data? From the human rights organizations. Again, which is bullshit? Human rights documentation or State Department documentation?
Oh, no, it must be the ECHR's findings against Turkey that you think is bullshit. Care to Google any of that to prove it's bullshit?
Maybe you think the part about America standing firmly behind its Turkish ally, while it brutalized (and continues to brutalize) 20 million Kurds under Turkish occupation is bullshit?
What about America's role in Turkey's coups, Gladio, and other covert and psychological operations and training of MHP to conduct such operations? Is that all bullshit? Well, William Colby, Turkish Generals Dogan Beyazit and Kemal Yilmaz, as well as former PM Bulent Ecevit all admitted publicly that these things existed and America backed them. So which is bullshit, America's role in this attempted genocide or Colby, Beyazit, Yilmaz, and Ecevit?
If you think that America's support of Turkey through arms sales is bullshit, or the fact that both Republican and Democratic regimes have eagerly sought those sales in exchange for blood money to fatten the American corporate world is bullshit, then why don't you run along and Google that too?
Is it bullshit that Ralston is now in Ankara to renew all the tried and true methods of joint American-Turkish brutality against the Kurdish people? Or is it that Ralston himself, along with his Turkish counterpart, Edip Pasha, are bullshit?
Is my assertion that the vacuum that passes for American political discourse bullshit? Have you bothered to check the American media lately? Where is the discourse then? Or is it that you are so brainwashed by your own media that you think the vacuous is a proper substitute for substance in the political arena? In this, you are, once again, exactly like your Turkish allies, so who taught what to whom? Did you teach the Turks that political discourse must be vacuous, or did they teach you? Which of you is the bullshitter?
In reality, the bullshit here is that you don't know what you are talking about and you are too lazy to find out for yourself. Ain't that right, Mr. Fat-Dumb-and-Happy?
Evar baş, hevalê min ê hêja, Hiwa. Tu çawanî? Başî?
The reaction by Republicans has been laughable. It was their Rumsfeld who shook hands with Saddam and sold him weapons. Democrats and Republicans are equally guilty. The fact that Republicans are actually taking the moral high ground, however, perhaps makes them worse while the Turkish terror state continues its games.
Mizgin, before you go all nihilistic on us Americans, remember what Herman Melville wrote about Moby Dick: His unconscious, unintentional movements were more powerful and dangerous than his conscious, intentional ones.
By accident, America provided SKurdistan critical protection to enable that region to be more and more normal since 1991.
By accident, America has created the conditions whereby SKurdistan is an effective (and to the pashas and mullahs, deadly threatening) base for the rest of Kurdistan.
"Can we at least get a little credit for our benign accidents?"
There are many Americans who are staunch supporters of a united Kurdistan, but the Kurds are digging out from a ~65-year-PR-headstart enjoyed by the Arabs and the Turks. The Turks had/have a particular advantage since they were part of NATO for so long, and a point I think you overlook: the Kurdish areas controlled by Turkey are relatively remote and easy to seal off (at least till the Net era), so their history of atrocities and oppression was relatively easy to mimimize/deny/blame on Red terrorists.
I am hopeful that the truth will continue to out, so the USDOS and the foreign-policy establishment will wise up to the modern world. The great info at RASTI will surely help speed up this process!
I think the original commenter meant that Western political discourse vis-a-vis Kurdistan is "bullshit." Which, as I all know, is absolutely true. To this day I have never seen an American or European newspaper or magazine seriously entertain the notion that there may be problems in Northern Kurdistan that go beyond that of terrorism, or that the PKK isn't responsible for "killing 35,000 Turks from 1984-1999." That last howler of a quote is mentioned in just about every Western narrative on the Northern Kurdish uprising; to this day apparently no one has had the sense to figure out that the bulk of those 35,000 dead were innocent Kurds murdered by the Turkish Army. *shrug*
corrigendum: "Which, as WE all know, is absolutely true."
Mizgin, I'm not sure what the ARI is, but this gentleman seems to have some significant worries about relations between Turkey and the US:
http://shininglight.us/forum/viewtopic.php?t=905--
Kemal Koprulu, Founder and Chairman of the ARI movement, a leading Turkish think tank, reviewed U.S.-Turkish relations in "Referans":
" In the past, on the subject of Turkish-American relations and whenever a decision had to be made regarding Turkey, whether political or military, the Pentagon would be involved, preserving Turkey's point of view as well.
"The Pentagon no longer plays a role in the relations with Turkey; it has transferred all matter of relations to the State Department. […] This means that whereas before there were five people in the Pentagon, five in the National Security Council, and five in the State Department who considered the relations with Turkey, now there are no more than five people [altogether]. That is because the U.S. has no strategic partnership with Turkey. This is the first fracture [in our relations].
"The second fracture took place in the attitude of various U.S. government institutions towards Turkey. Previously, the U.S. government – the Cabinet, Treasury, Pentagon, National Security Council, etc. – looked warmly to Turkey. Now there's a negative atmosphere in these institutions, especially in the Pentagon...
Question:"So, what is the stance of the Pentagon?"
Koprulu: "[The] Pentagon has not forgotten March 1. [3] The facts that the vote was taken with three weeks delay, the [U.S. military's] best units to be kept waiting at sea unable to join the military effort, Turkey's refusal to open a northern front in Iraq have caused a very negative view of Turkey. Thinking militarily, they go to war, they need their allies, they draw a road map with them but at the last minute one of their allies refuses their road map. They could not digest these events.
"We also found out that there's a negative view towards Turkey among the top-ranking military leaders in Washington. For the first time in a long while there is a military command in Washington that thinks negatively about Turkey. This is a very serious fracture."
Question:"What about the State Department?"
Koprulu: "[…] Other units of the [U.S.] government, I mean especially the 'neo-cons,' are at a [completely] different place. In a few of our meetings they told us that they were observing a new trend of foreign policy in Turkey. They said that in the last six months against its traditions of going along with the western alliance, Turkey has turned towards a different axis and has been seeking other alliances with some Middle Eastern countries.
"If Turkey has a new foreign policy doctrine it wants to follow, they [the Americans] would want to understand it and define their own approach accordingly. They also expressed that if [Turkey's] new doctrine is to build relationships with some other countries, not taking [the U.S.] into account, then Turkey will not be on anyone's side, but no one will be on its side either.
"You may have noticed that recently Condoleezza Rice said that "our new partner in the Balkans is Greece." This is a big change, for previously the most important U.S. ally in the Balkans was Turkey […]. Now there is Greece in the Balkans, not Turkey. In fact, there is no Turkey in the Middle East, either. Where are we?"
Assuming there is some truth in Mr Koprulu's hand-wringing, it would by definition provide some valuable opportunities and options for both Bakuri and Bashuri Kurds.
But nihilism will lead to wasting those opportunities, not exploiting them.
Philip, the US needs to stop doing things by accident. Why is it so difficult to do things by justice instead? Why is it so hard to insist upon full and equal democratic rights for Kurds, especially when this can be pressed politically?
For the Kurdish people, there is no difference whatsoever in the things the old Soviet Union did to the people under its oppression, and the things that Turkey does to Kurds under its oppression. And the same has happened to other ethnicities in Turkey throughout its history, as well. Why is Turkish fascism tolerated, but Soviet fascism was not?
As for this Koprulu, he needs to update his info: Shared Vision Document, from the US DOS, as well as news on Erdogan's October visit to the US.
Now, who was it who said that Erdogan would not be permitted a visit until well after Buyukanit took power of Turkey? And Erdogan will come with Buyukanit's orders, orders that he will defy at risk to his own life. That is how Turkish democracy works.
:)
Thank you, Sephiroth. I'm glad someone else can see that there's no political discourse in the US, and that the truth about Turkey has never been outed here, except by an extreme minority of people. Everyone else simply prefers the government propaganda, which is found in every single corner of the media empire.
It's easier to just accept the propaganda; to do so means you don't have to think.
:Why is Turkish fascism tolerated, but Soviet fascism was not?:
Soviet dominion over ~15 ostensibly independent states, incl the "Warsaw Pact" and the Bltics, was solidly endorsed and condoned by the USDOS for ~45 years. Indeed, even as the Evil Empire was falling apart, clueless fools like Prez GB I(the ultimate USDOS cheeleader) urged the captive nations to not "run for the exits..." Remember that embarassing "Chicken Kiev" speech?
The only break in this long chain of depressing cowardice and supine compliance w/a huge thug-terror state was when a strange primitive man w/an alien vision--"FREEDOM FOR THE CAPTIVE NATIONS"--took over the White House...He and men like Richard Pipes (Daniel's dad) and William Casey and JPII and Jeane Kirkpatrick and Thatcher and a few others changed our policy for long enough to destabilize the whole Iron Curtain system--IN SPITE OF, NOT BECAUSE of the USDOS. They also converted a very smart guy named George Schultz to abandon the DOS view.
The captive nations were smirked at and abandoned by the beautiful people for all those decades, consigned to Stalinism for all eternity. Yet today, thanks to a certain constellation of events, they are free and flourishing. This gives me optimism for the Kurds, as well.
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