COMPLICITY

"ACCOMPLICE, n. One associated with another in a crime, having guilty knowledge and complicity, as an attorney who defends a criminal, knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney's position in the matter has not hitherto commanded the assent of attorneys, no one having offered them a fee for assenting."
~ Ambrose Bierce.

There's an interesting piece of bullshit at TIME today, although it's not exclusive to time; I've seen it in countless other articles on the situation. Here's what I mean:

U.S. and Iraqi leaders, fearful of the precedent and potential destabilization created by Iraq's neighbors conducting cross-border military actions on its territory, are hoping that talks between the governments of Turkey and Iraq can forestall military action. Iraqi vice-president Tariq al-Hashemi, who met with Erdogan in Ankara Tuesday, urged that "a political solution must be given priority to resolve this critical issue." And President George W. Bush said Wednesday that the U.S. is "making it clear to Turkey it is not in their interest to send more troops in. There is a better way to deal with the issue."

Suddenly everyone is urging a "political solution" even though more than one year ago PKK offered a political solution. This was the solution that Lockheed Martin's PKK coordinator, Joseph Ralston, and Yaşar Büyükanıt both rejected; There was a better way to deal with the issue.

Then came a unilateral ceasefire from PKK after Turkey and the US both begged for one through the Southern Kurdish leadership, particularly Celal Talabanî.

Did Talabanî object when Ralston's vast conflict of interest became an issue? Did he object when Ralston and Büyükanıt rejected PKK's offer of a democratic solution and the ceasefire that Talabanî begged from PKK were rejected? So what was the purpose of this tool of the Ankara regime, the Iraqi president, in begging for a ceasefire? Did he hope he would finally be recognized by the Ankara regime as the president of Iraq? Did he hope he would get his Turkish diplomatic passport back?

For the past year, in every official Ankara and Washington statement that the mainstream media has dutifully copied down verbatim from regime propagandists and has published, there has been no mention of the existence of 20 million Kurds under Turkish occupation in North Kurdistan. The only problem, according to the servile media, is between the Ankara regime and the Baghdad regime, or with the regime of South Kurdistan. Yet as of 22 July of this year, those 20 million Kurds who suffer under an official Turkish policy of brutality (and have done so since 1923), have twenty elected representatives in the parliament in Ankara. It should be through those representatives of North Kurdistan that the situation should be resolved politically, including a full and complete amnesty for Kurdistan's children in the mountains.

Immediately after the 22 July elections, the US praised the wonderful Model of Democracy that is Turkey, which would lead one to believe that the US considered even those Kurds elected as parliamentarians as legitimate representatives of their people to the infinite font of democracy, the TBMM. Practically speaking, however, the US does not recognize the legitimate Kurdish representatives--the DTP parliamentarians. There has not been one single mention of them by any US or Turkish official as the proper negotiators for the Kurdish people in finding a political solution to the Kurdish reality in Turkey.

Why does the US refuse to insist upon the Ankara regime's engagement with DTP in finding a political solution?

Because to do so, official US policy would have to admit that there are Kurds in Turkey. Official US policy would have to recognize the legitimacy of DTP. Official US policy would have to acknowledge that a political solution is the only solution, as DTP and PKK have stressed over and over again.

If the US did all these things, then the question directed toward the US would be: Why, then, did you arm Turkey? Why did you not immediately end weapons transfers to Turkey when you knew Turkey was guilty of violations of the laws of warfare? Why did you appoint a Lockheed Martin director and lobbyist who was also an advisor to the American Turkish Council as a "special envoy" to coordinate the PKK for Turkey? Why did you permit this "special envoy" to reject a ceasefire and an offer of a democratic solution?

Answer: Because the United States is an accomplice to the Ankara regime's war crimes and mass murder.

As a gentle reminder, the EU is just as guilty.


Check Hevallo for a couple of news videos from Al-Jazeera. One's on Turkish aggression and the other has a brief interview with Murat Karayılan. He also has a great post outlining a brief history of the Kurdish freedom struggle in Turkey.