TWO OLD MURDERS AND THREE NEW ONES

"When asked whether the Turkish system is effective in preventing radicalization, the imam of the Ülkealan Mosque in Ankara, Mustafa Matur, said, 'Certainly! Diyanet does a great job of inspecting the mosques and the imams, and they always urge the imams to adopt a positive tone when they are giving their sermons.'"
~ quoted by Soner Cagaptay, Turkish state propagandist at WINEP.

Let's see . . . first of all, there's a new Kurdish blog coming at you from the US, at Zanetî so have a look and visit often. I mean, the more you visit, the more you will encourage this guy to write, which is something that I always like to see. At the very least it's another Kurdish voice online, and that's always a good thing. A link is already up under the blog list in the right margin.

There's a really good rip on the Riza-Wolfowitz affair at TruthDig. I didn't know that Wolfowitz was a philanderer nor did I know that his first wife of 30 years dumped him amid rumors of his philandering. Ah, the tortured lives of the rich and powerful. Don't it just make you want to cry a freakin' river?

I know everyone, particularly those from Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, will remember when Turkish state security forces murdered Ahmet Kaymaz and his twelve-year-old son in cold blood back in November, 2004. After a change of venue and much judicial footdragging--Surprise! Surprise!--the state's murderers go free, as reported by Turkish NTV:

Four Turkish police officers charged with the killing of a father and son mistakenly believed to be members of a terrorist group have been acquitted by a court in Eskisehir Wednesday.

The four officers, Salih Ayaz, Mehmet Karaca, Yasafettin Acikgoz and Seydi Ahmet Dongel, were accused of wrongfully killing Ahmet Kaymaz and his 12 year old son Ugur in the south eastern Turkish town of Kiziltepe in the province of Mardin in 2004.

The reason that the "justification for the not guilty verdict" doesn't really have to be made public because we all know what the reason is: The victims were Kurds and the murderers were official Turkish state assassins, also known as state security forces. Sounds to me like a little extrajudicial Kurdish-style justice ought to be applied to the murderers named above. More on the issue is available from the AP on Kurdish Aspect. Backgrounder on the murders is available from the Project on Extrajudicial Executions at the New York University, School of Law.

So much for Europe's test case. You know, the only reason any minor changes have been made in Turkey toward anything vaguely resembling an excruciatingly primitive form of democracy has come about through armed resistance. The EU isn't going to do anything to change Turkey because the EU doesn't want Turkey changed. At this moment the Europeans are busily rubbing their greedy hands together with glee over their expected exploitation and destruction of Kurdistan--never mind that the "farmers" mentioned are not farmers in the real sense of the word. They are feudal landlords who haven't stepped foot in Kurdistan for decades. They are assimilated, traitorous Kurds living in the West.

As far as these Europeans and their Kurdish collaborators go, the only thing I can say is, "Good luck, TAK!"

Oh, yeah . . . before I forget . . . the Deep State has once again unleashed one of its monsters on another group of "The Other" in Turkey. The victims are publishers of Christian bibles. Some are suggesting that Turkish Hezbollah is behind this latest atrocity and, as we all know, Turkish Hezbollah was created by the Deep Staters and Paşas in order to fight PKK, in a blast from the past from Le Monde Diplomatique, circa 1997:

The army had, in fact, already set the stage at the time of its September 1980 coup. Anxious to combat the left, the military encouraged Necmettin Erbakan’s National Salvation Party (forerunner to Refah) by making religious courses obligatory in schools and creating special Koranic schools which were to become seedbeds of Islamism. The army also embarked on the even more radical strategy of introducing an "Turkish-Islamist synthesis", through which the officers sought to water down what they saw as the more "revolutionary" aspects of Kemalism. Not only would Islamic values enhance the conservative elements of society - both Turkish and Kurdish - but the "Turkish" component of the synthesis would discourage the seeds of Kurdish nationalism. As a result, they went about co-opting Islamists and neo-fascists - long-established within the state bureaucracy under Alpaslan Turkes’s National Action Party (MHP) with its Grey Wolves militia - into the security forces and other parts of the state apparatus in return for their suspending their own independent activities (5).

The article also mentions the role of the notorious Gulen gangster, Turgut Ozal. More on the whole Turkish-Islamist Synthesis thing at MERIA. I guess the Deep State wants to put Turkish Hezbollah back to work in order to get rid of all the undesirables while, at the same time, focusing attention elsewhere than on the usual suspects . . . like Veli Kucuk or DYP frontrunner, Mehmet Agar.

What can I say? This is the Model of a Muslim and Secular Democracy for the entire Middle East. Just ask the Bush Administration.

As always, Turkish politicians cut to the heart of the matter, from Zaman:

Justice and Development Party (AK Party) deputy Ali Osman Başkurt expressed his view that such an incident occurring in Malatya after the killing of an Italian pastor in Trabzon merited concern. “This is tantamount to isolating Turkey from the world. There are those who would like to cut foreign investment and drag Turkey into misery. There are circles working to axe Turkey’s efforts.”

While Hrant Dink's murder was a worry because it damaged Turkey's image, the murders of bible publishers is a worry because it will ruin the economy. Then we have the comments of religious fanatics:

TİMAV [Turkey İmam-Hatip Alumni Foundation] President Ahmet Ağırbaşlı said in a written statement: “We vehemently condemn this attack. Such an incident can be accepted neither by Islam nor by humanity. Every member of every religion is at the same time a missionary of his religion. There is nothing more natural than one wanting to explain and promote his religion. Every member of every religion has the right to work to promote his religion.”

Ağırbaşlı said he hoped the assailants would soon be captured and punished as prescribed by law.

Now, that last line is highly ironic in a country in which criminals--like murderers--are routinely given amnesty after a couple of years, while political prisoners languish in isolation for decades.

In other words, the idea of "punishment as prescribed by law" is utterly meaningless.