GROTESQUE SELF-DECEPTION

"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."
~ Mark Twain.

The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) denies the existence of 20 million Kurds in Turkey. This makes it very easy for them because by denying the existence of 20 million Kurds in Turkey, they don't have to get involved in the mess of Turkey's brutality and racist policies toward those very same 20 million. They refuse to admit that a people that endures such brutality will rise up against it in a legitimate armed defense. They don't have to jeopardize their precious relationship with a regime that invites HAMAS to Ankara. They don't have to acknowledge the modern Turkish state's genocide of Kurds.

Hell, they refuse to acknowledge the Armenian genocide.

Everyone should remember these things the next time they bring up the Holocaust.

Turkey's Islamist Foreign Minister, Ali Babacan, is giving the same old excuses to reject continue to reject the 1 October 2006 unilateral ceasefire as Büyükanıt, Başer, and Ralston did a year ago:

Cease-fires are "possible between states and regular forces," a stern-faced Babacan said. "The problem here is that we're dealing with a terrorist organization."

The US deals with terrorists in Iraq and did a lot of arms sales to Iran--known as the Iran-Contra scandal. The UK has finally come to terms with the terrorists that it created for itself in Northern Ireland. The Ankara regime, as previously mentioned, invites HAMAS leaders to Ankara for talks and everyone knows HAMAS is on The List®.

The Americans finally admit they're terrified of having to think about guarding the Turkish-Iraqi border, so they blame the KRG. It's really pretty funny to hear criticism about how the KRG has been lax in securing any border when it comes from the very same people who've utterly ruined Iraq and Afghanistan. It really takes a lot of guts to say something that hypocritical in public.

In another example of a total lack of shame, the leading US ragsheet, the NYTimes has published a glowing report of PKK's sister organization, PJAK.

Zaman has published a list of names of the Turkish soldiers captured by HPG. Funny, but that's the same list of names that HPG posted on its website the other day. Is it a good idea for Zaman to be copying-and-pasting information from the big, bad PKK? Sources close to Rastî indicate that the captured soldiers are doing well.

It will be interesting to see if the Ankara regime wants their soldiers back badly enough to officially negotiate a release. If not, IHD and other NGOs will end up arranging the release as they did with Hakan Açil and Coşkun Kırandi.

Some photos from HPG via Akşam:









And a link to more photos from Milliyet.

I guess that since these photos are published in Turkish media, and since Zaman is copying the names of the captured from HPG's website, then HPG must have really captured these guys, eh?