MAXMUR, TURKISH AGGRESSION, AND KURDS FOR SALE

“If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten”
~ George Carlin.

There was a little noticed item in the Islamist ragsheet, Zaman, last Thursday, from which we may have an idea in which direction the joint American-Turkish War on Terror® will go. It looks like the PKK coordinators have plans to attack the "terrorist" camp at Maxmur:

Turkey's envoy Baser, for his part, said that Turkey made concrete proposals on the fight against terror, such as an operation against the Makhmur camp, a PKK base in northern Iraq.

In response to a question, Mr. Baser remarked that the military option is still on the table.

"When the right time and place comes, an operation is on the agenda, provided that it is approved by both sides.”

Since the American PKK coordinator was present at this meeting, the plan to attack the Kurdish "terrorists" at Maxmur is something that is already approved, as much as it was apparent that the Americans gave the approval for TSK to cross into South Kurdistan while Condoleeza Rice was visiting Ankara at the end of April, earlier this year. But we have Ralston's own words on that:

Ralston also stated that the closure of Mahmur camp, one of the main stationing points of the terrorist PKK in northern Iraq, is one of the priorities on the to-do list.

I suppose the TSK and US forces will summon up their deepest courage in order to begin operations against the unarmed Kurdish civilians in Maxmur, to clean out that den of iniquity and strike yet another devastating blow against the forces of evil in the global War on Terror®.

The fascist Turkish government has been watering at the mouth over the prospect of forcibly repatriating the Kurds, i.e. "terrorists," of Maxmur Refugee Camp for some time, as this 2003 report from HRW shows:

A further cause for concern is Kurdish refugees from Turkey sheltering in Northern Iraq. The largest group is living in precarious circumstances at the Makhmur refugee camp. In March 1994 helicopters and jets bombed the villages of Kumçatı, Sapanca, and Gever in Şırnak province near the Iraq border, killing thirty-six civilians, including at least seventeen children. Villagers reported that in the days leading up to the attack, gendarmes had subjected them to death threats because they had refused to join the village guard corps. After the bombing, several thousand Kurdish villagers crossed into Northern Iraq seeking safety. About 4,800 are still in Iraq, in a camp established at Makhmur, below the 36th parallel. It is alleged that the camp is unofficially controlled by PKK/KADEK. In 2002 the Turkish government asked the Iraqi government to close down the Makhmur camp and hand its inhabitants over for trial. Clearly, if this group of refugees were forced to move northward toward the militarized zone in the event of a conflict, there is a risk that they would be subjected to human rights violations at the hands of Turkish forces. Much the same risks probably face the rest of the estimated 13,000(mainly Kurdish) refugees from Turkey currently sheltering in Northern Iraq.

The TC, US, Iraq, and the UN also tried to doctor up the amnesty scheme of 2003 in order to close down Maxmur and return the Kurdish residents to Turkish occupation, an attempt which was unsuccessful. No matter how many assurances were given about a "safe" return, very few Kurds are stupid enough to believe these assurances. Everyone knows that the TC makes pronouncements about "safe" return, democracy, equality of citizenship, etc., only for outside consumption. The reality inside Turkish-occupied Kurdistan is completely different.

There's more backgrounder on the Maxmur camp from KurdishMedia.

TSK is also attacking the area around Zaxo again, and Turkish warplanes violated "Iraqi" airspace on Friday, even as Old Joe Ralston was in Ankara, lying through his teeth the umpteenth time about military options being the last options.

Notice too, in that last link, how Washington has done an about face on the ceasefire, now claiming that it "welcomes" the move. This is completely at odds with Washington's original take on the ceasefire:

Days before the declaration of the truce, the United States publicly said that a PKK cease-fire would have little value and that the terrorist group instead should lay down its arms and renounce violence. "Cease-fire sort of implies an act that is taken between two states, two actors, to do that. And I don't want to confer that kind of status on the PKK by saying a cease-fire," Joseph Ralston, the newly appointed U.S. special envoy for countering the PKK, said here last Wednesday.

It must have been pretty embarrassing for Washington to oppose the ceasefire when Kurdish groups, NGO's, human rights organizations, and the EU made so many statements in support of the ceasefire, stressing the fact that it offers an historical opportunity for a political solution. But since we have ongoing Turkish acts of aggression against the Kurdish people, it's obvious that Washington's apparent reversal on the ceasefire is simply for show.

Both Ankara and Washington have to keep up appearances about the threat of the big, bad PKK so they can justify that F-35 deal.

A last item of interest from this past week was that the subject of the Anfal girls sold to Egypt came up at Saddam's trial, carried on The Kurdish Globe, in which one of Saddam's attorney's questions why the Egyptian intelligence services would have anything to do with "such things with night clubs of private sector."

Such a stupid question. Everyone knows that intelligence services are generally staffed by pimps.

More on the sale of the Anfal girls from USA Today. You can also read there that Saddam has a fit because the trial judge "cut" his microphone.

Hehehe. . . Saddam doesn't realize how lucky he is. If I were the judge, I would have cut something else.