ANOTHER NODE ON THE WEB

Delbert McClintock: There ain't no spiders here.
Collins: Look! There's a giant spider web over there in the corner.
Delbert McClintock: Well yes, a spider web would reveal an arachnid presence.
~ Arachnophobia (1990)

Earlier in the week, the Turkish media rumor mill suggested that Edip Baser would be named as Ralston's Turkish counterpart in the continuing genocide against the Kurdish people under Turkish occupation, as can be seen from an article at TNA. There is a bit of a bio on Baser at that TNA link. Apparently, from the year 2000 until his retirement in 2002, Baser was busy murdering Kurds as the commander of the Turkish 2nd Army, based in Malatya. The appointment is confirmed by the Islamist Yeni Safak.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, Baser has already worked closely with Ralston, when both were members of their respective chiefs of staff. In February, 2000, then Deputy Chief of Turkish General Staff Baser went to Washington as the guest of then Deputy Chief of American General Staff Ralston. The discussions at the time centered on the sale of US arms to Turkey in light of the fact that there had been "significant improvements in the field of human rights in Turkey,"--a fact that existed only in the fantasies of the Ankara and Washington fascists.

In April, 2000, Baser was an invited guest of JINSA. In pointing out the close military cooperation between the two fascist regimes, Baser mentioned Turkey's cooperation in Operation Northern Watch (ONW), conveniently omitting the fact that, while US forces were ostensibly protecting Başûrî Kurds, US sorties were called off whenever the Turkish general staff took a whimsy to drop a load of American-purchased ordnance on the same Kurds. Baser also references the non-existent "dramatic improvement in Turkey's human rights record."

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Watch report on Turkey in the year 2000 was somewhat less enthusiastic than General Baser on Turkey's "improvements" in the human rights arena:

The Turkish government made almost no progress on key human rights reforms in 2000, and failed to take advantage of the opportunity presented by a marked reduction in armed violence by illegal organizations. This was in spite of the strong incentive coming from the European Union, which offered long-awaited recognition to Turkey as a candidate for membership, subject to its meeting human rights conditions. While the government procrastinated, politicians and writers were prosecuted and imprisoned for expressing their nonviolent opinions, and detainees in police custody remained at risk of ill-treatment, torture, or death in custody.

[ . . . ]

The military, still an overriding force in politics, was a factor in holding back change, particularly with regard to freedom of expression. The army publicly aired its views on a wide range of non-military issues, including the selection of presidential candidates, and justified these intrusions by reference to its purported role as guardian of the republic against separatism and religious fundamentalism.

[ . . . ]

In December 1999 Turkey was finally recognized as an E.U. candidate, but the opening of formal negotiations was conditional on satisfaction of human rights criteria. Apparently inspired by this, an excellent program of urgent reforms was announced in January by the then State Minister with Responsibility for Human Rights Mehmet Ali Irtemcelik, but little of the program was actually implemented.

More of the same is available from the Federation of American Scientists.

In November, 2005, the Centre for European Security Studies (CESS) completed a project to identify the appropriate role of the Turkish military within a democracy in order to assist Turkey vis-a-vis the Copenhagen Criteria. This project was undertaken in conjunction with the Centre for Eurasian Strategic Studies (ASAM), but the outcome of the project, which can be read here, was not acceptable to ASAM. Baser was a member of the CESS task force on the ASAM side because Baser is a member of the ASAM executive board.

Although the CESS report is extremely pro-Turkish and denies the existence of Kurds under Turkish occupation, which means that there is no mention of the Ankara regime's atrocities against the Kurdish people in the entire report, still the mere suggestion that in order for Turkey to become a democracy, it must subjugate its military to civilian authority, was too much for extremists like Baser and ASAM. Further reading on this matter can be found at the TDN archive from September, 2004.

In fact, ASAM began it's propaganda through the Turkish media immediately upon its withdrawal, as reported by a CESS newsletter, pages 1 and 7.

ASAM is an interesting organization in itself. It's run by retired pashas and diplomats who tend to be highly nationalistic and isolationist. ASAM is also funded by Ulker, and when you think "Ulker," you shouldn't think "cookies," you should think "Green Money" . . . as in Islamist money. Take a look at something that Michael Rubin wrote last year on Green Money:

Erdoğan has been silent on the issue, perhaps because he is heavily invested in green money business. In August 2001, Rahmi Koç, chairman of Koç Holding, Turkey's largest and oldest conglomerate,[27] commented on CNN Türk that Erdoğan has a US$1 billion fortune and asked the source of his wealth.[28] According to Sedat Ergin, Ankara bureau chief for Hürriyet, Erdoğan holds substantial financial stakes in three different firms,[29] which both Turkish military and intelligence officers and, according to numerous interviews, the man-on-the-street as well, believe subsidize Islamist politics. The Erdoğan family controls approximately 50 percent of Emniyet Foods,[30] the distributor for Ülker, Turkey's leading confectionary company. Recep Erdoğan is a shareholder in Ihsan Foods, which distributes Ülker's dairy products and owns a 12 percent stake in Yenidoğan Foods Marketing, which distributes Ülker soft drinks. According to numerous Turkish diplomats and officers in the Turkish General Staff, the Turkish military refuses to buy Ülker products for its conscripts so as not to subsidize Islamism.[31] Nevertheless, since Erdoğan's accession, Ülker has become increasingly visible, perhaps as businesses seek the prime minister's favor. Across Istanbul and Ankara, Ülker's ColaTurka has begun to replace Coca-Cola in kiosks and store shelves.

It's absurd to imagine that the Turkish general staff, TSK officers or Turkish diplomats would refuse to buy Ulker products, especially since their think-tank, ASAM, is financed by Ulker. It is no inconsistency that we see Islamists making common cause with former pashas and former diplomats, not since the 1980's anyway, and the creation of the Turkish-Islamic synthesis. What's more, at the murky point where the synthesis takes place, you will also find the Deep State, and we know that Ralston has his place in one of those nodes on the web that is the Deep State, right alongside a number of other arachnids.

But, more on that . . . later.


BY THE WAY . . . since I am a firm believer in freedom of speech, I would like to point out a recent comment that was posted here, because it would be a shame to miss it. The comment in question is as follows:

Anonymous said...

When will you inferior kurds stop the terrorism? Turkish government nneds to follow saddam's way and use chemical weapons to end this kurdish "disease". I cannot see any other way out of this kurdish problem

You see, even when people speak of their desire for the genocide of "inferior" Kurds (the Turkish version of The Final Solution), I let them to speak their piece.

The person who posted this comment must be one of those democratic, American Turks, who's posting from Rice University in Houston, Texas, IP 128.42.70.# (Rice University), domain name, rice.edu, posted on 7 September. Rice University is the home of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Kurds will remember James Baker as the Secretary of State under Bush v.1, whose footdragging over Kurdish refugees prolonged their misery for weeks. . . until Peter Galbraith managed to drag Baker's ass, by helicopter, to one of the refugee "camps" in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan to see the disaster for himself.

That's how Baker seriously got the message about how uptight the Turkish general staff was over a million more "inferior" Kurds inside "their" border.

But, I digress. The best thing about this comment is that when I speak of the genocide of the Kurdish people, smartasses like this prove me right.

Sağol, arkadaşım. Go Owls!