TAKING THE TURKISH ELECTION TO THE ECHR

"In politics, strangely enough, the best way to play your cards is to lay them face upwards on the table."
~ H.G. Wells.

Last week there were indications that a lot of funny business had attended the vote in Culemêrg:

. . . Özgür Gündem has a couple of articles (here and here) about more election corruption in Culemêrg (Hakkari). Apparently, people voted in Culemêrg who were out of town on election day for various reasons--like they were in the military in other parts of Turkey, or they were teachers off to spend the summer with relatives--and voting was held in the graveyard . . . by dead people. Not only did the military cast votes in Culemêrg, even though the military is not permitted to vote by Turkish law, but the military also forced 317 villagers to vote openly. In other words, the military violated their right to a secret ballot.

The Higher Election Board (YSK) rejected a renewal of elections for Culemêrg (Hakkari) which had been called by the Thousand Hopes (DTP) candidates. The Thousand Hopes candidates objected to dead people voting, soldiers voting, and absent voters voting.

The problem is that back in 1989, YSK renewed an election in Culemêrg because only one dead person voted. That's kind of odd, don't you think? YSK said that if one dead person votes, the entire election for Culemêrg must be renewed and a new election held. But if five dead people vote, soldiers vote, and people out of town vote (okay, maybe they bilocated on election day), YSK now says that the election stands.

In addition, there was the problem of non-Culemêrg residents whose votes were applied to Culemêrg. These were the customs votes. And it's questionable how many of those non-Culemêrg voters have even heard of Culemêrg.

The bottom line is that there has been much more corruption in the recent election than there was in 1989 yet YSK says that the election stands.

For that reason the Thousand Hopes candidates are not only claiming a double-standard for dead voters, but they're going to take their complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Dr. Baskın Oran will also challenge the customs votes in the ECHR because the independents were cut out of the customs ballots and all votes went to parties alone, in violation of Article 1 of the Turkish election regulations. Dr. Oran adds a further point to his challenge, that a Turkish citizen living outside of the country came to vote and was refused the right because he wanted to vote for an independent candidate, none of which were included on the ballot.

Luke Ryland has something up at his blog on Eric Edelman's role in the Sibel Edmonds case. Edelman is the former ambassador to Turkey and Deep State pimp, now at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, that Robert Novak wrote about in connection with US Special Forces assisting Turkish commandos in a fruitless hunt for PKK. He's got a cross post at his other blog, Let Sibel Edmonds Speak. Go study his post to get all the poop on Edelman--and there's a lot of poop to be shoveled there.

There's really nothing surprising about the neocon cabal in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans coming up with the idea of hunting Kurds for Turkey. We know that they've always been in support of this. So, what's far more interesting than Edelman's statements in his briefing to Congress is the guy who leaked the information--Robert D. Novak.

Consider that Novak is telling Turkish media that what's one man's "terrorist" is another man's freedom fighter:

When asked whether he believed that his article had harmed US interests and served to advance the interests of the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by the US and a majority of the international community, Novak said: "You're calling the [PKK] a terrorist organization. Others call them 'the Kurds' freedom fighters.' I said this once on television and got into trouble. I believe that one side's 'terrorist' is the other side's 'freedom fighter.'"

Consider also that Novak was a long-time CNN talking head who not-too-long-ago moved to FOX News. More importantly, consider that it was Novak who leaked Valerie Plame's covert CIA operative status. Remember? Novak was the one who outed Plame.

In fact, Novak has a long history of serving as a professional leaker, working with such shining stars of American political life as Richard Perle.

A very interesting game is shaping up.