PLAYING IN THE MOUNTAINS

"I read the newspapers avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction. "
~ Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960).

There's been a lot of continuous fiction in the news over the weekend, with the biggest spin coming from TDN. Let's take a look.

First, in an article where we find the US begging its friend, Turkey, for some more help in pulling American chestnuts out of the fire in Afghanistan, we learn that the US is putting the military option in dealing with the big, bad PKK on the back burner, as a last resort. It doesn't require a brain surgeon to figure out that the US doesn't want to come to the mountains and play with Kurdish gerîlas for the next forty years.

Hell, we all know that not even Buyukanit, with his big mouth, is willing to come and play for the next forty years. I mean, despite the propaganda for nonexistent Turkish military "famous capabilities," the TSK couldn't hang except for a few months at a time in playing with Kurdish gerîlas in South Kurdistan during the 1990's--and that was with KDP help! Nor does Buyukanit forget that a number of his comrade pashas were blown out of the sky by the big, bad PKK in those days. No wonder he'd rather shoot off his big mouth from well behind the front lines.

This spin on alleged Turkish military prowess is only going to work on the ignorant. Think about it; when was the last time the TSK was involved in a real war? That would be Korea. Since then, the only military prowess exercised by the TSK has been against unarmed Kurdish civilians under Turkish occupation, or against a few thousand Kurdish gerîlas, or against unarmed Cypriot civilians in Turkish-occupied Cyprus. The TSK specializes in fighting civilians, but there's no way it's going to get into a real fight. That's why the pashas are only going to send 800 to 1,000 Mehmetciks to Lebanon--out of an 800,000 strong army, second largest in NATO--and, since everything has hotted up in Afghanistan, that's why the pashas are balking at sending more Mehmetciks for that "peacekeeping" mission.

The war against Kurdish and Cypriot civilians is the war that the West has been funding, with all those billions of dollars of US-taxpayer subsidized arms sales included.

The Afghan women's group, RAWA, has had serious reservations about TSK's presence in Afghanistan. Check it out, here. They were concerned because they've heard what Turkish military prowess is all about. In a nutshell, it's about something like the rape of one woman by countless Mehmetciks, as can be read here. When the story first broke, back in 2003, we all knew there would be an acquittal. Turkish courts always acquit security forces in their atrocities. This case will end up at the court in Strassbourg. It's not the only case of its kind either, and these atrocities give an accurate description of TSK's "famous capabilities."

State Department lackey, Fried, also tells a big, whopping lie by saying, " I don't rule anything in or out. But [Ralston's] focus is on the PKK threat, the PKK threat in Iraq and their cross-border actions in Turkey, which are acts of terrorism and we condemn them."

Well, Mr. Fried, you do rule things in and out, because as you and other Deep Staters love to repeat, you claim you will not negotiate with "terrorists," even though you negotiate with "terrorists" in Iraq and even though the US has a long history of negotiating with "terrorists." There are also no "cross-border actions" involved here with the PKK, because the PKK is located in Kurdistan and conducts defensive operations in Kurdistan. Some of those operations are against the Turkish occupying forces and some are against the Iranian occupying forces, but all of them are within Kurdistan.

Fried is not the only one busily gilding the lily. Check out Buyukanit's lies in a second article from TDN. Buyukanit says that he (i.e. Turkey) will not delegate responsibility for the fight against PKK to foreigners. But the truth is that since PKK called off it's unilateral 5-year ceasefire, the Ankara regime has been crying, begging, throwing temper tantrums, to the US to do something about those pesky gerîlas. This is why Buyukanit is so sensitive about referring to Ralston as the Special Coordinator for PKK, because it's a sign of Turkish inability to do anything about PKK, or about the Kurdish national movement in general.

After all, there are some 250,000 Mehmetcik's enforcing the occupation and all of them huddling together in fear of, maybe, 5,000 Kurdish gerîlas, in a fight that has been ongoing since 1984. The bottom line is that this situation exists because the racists in Ankara refuse to negotiate a political solution, and a political solution is going to be the only solution because all the problems directed against the Kurdish people are political problems. Until the racists give up their racism, Turkey will continue to beg for a military solution from the US, no matter how much hot air Buyukanit wants to blow.

There's a really spectacular title running at StrategyPage. It goes like this: The Peaceful Kurds and their Turkish Protectors. The "peaceful Kurds?" Okay, what they really mean to say are the "good" Kurds, as opposed to the "bad" Kurds, but the fun really starts in the second paragraph: "Since the Turks are known to be tough fighters, and more than a match for the Kurds, the Kurds of northern Iraq have decided to make a deal."

Again, let's do the math: 250,000 Mehmetciks vs. 5,000 gerîlas. You would think that this ratio would be indicative of something besides Turks being "more than a match for the Kurds." This is really another example of Buyukanit relegating authority for the fight against PKK, this time to the KDP and PUK, particularly since those two parties have served Ankara so well in the past. But, believe me, those two parties are as eager to come to the mountains and play for the next forty years as the US is. Playing games with PKK is not going to be conducive to attracting foreign investment, which has been the main focus of the Başurî parties, even to the detriment of providing basic services and jobs for the Başurî population. With all the discontent among the people themselves, neither KDP or PUK has the luxury of getting involved in the mountains.

We should take all of this for what it is: more of the same in the domestic Turkish power struggle between the pashas and the Islamists. In this power struggle, we should not rule out the option of a hard coup, especially since AKP politicians are being targeted, sometimes successfully, by the hired guns of the desperate pashas.

Expect more of the same for the future. In the meantime, PKK will continue to bring the games to the TSK.