CLINTONS, KURDS, MORE CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

"President Nursultan Nazarbaev retained power in the December 2005 presidential elections, which international observers found did not meet international standards."
~ Human Rights Watch, Report on Kazakhstan.

Do you live in one of the world's top surveillance societies? Check the map:




Here's the color key:




From Wired:

Privacy International, a UK privacy group, and the U.S.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center have put together a world map of surveillance societies, rating various nations for their civil liberties records.

Both the U.S. and the UK are colored black for "endemic surveillance," as are Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, Russia, China and Malaysia.

Here's a link to the data. Isn't that interesting?

We know that the Clinton administration did all it could to enrich the military-industrial complex by selling more MIC product to Turkey than during all the combined years of the Cold War. We also know that it was the Clinton administration that appointed criminals like Marc Grossman and Joseph Ralston to important positions whereby they were able to set themselves up very comfortably in private life--working to sell Turkey more MIC product or warning off Turkish interests from CIA front companies like Brewster Jennings. We might say that the term "conflict-of-interest" is the term that best describes everything that happened while the Clinton administration was in charge.

Today, the NYTimes tells us that the former president has been assisting Canadian buddies in swinging uranium deals in that well-known bastion of democracy--Kazakhstan:

Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton.

Upon landing on the first stop of a three-country philanthropic tour, the two men were whisked off to share a sumptuous midnight banquet with Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, whose 19-year stranglehold on the country has all but quashed political dissent.

[ . . . ]

Mr. Nazarbayev walked away from the table with a propaganda coup, after Mr. Clinton expressed enthusiastic support for the Kazakh leader’s bid to head an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy. Mr. Clinton’s public declaration undercut both American foreign policy and sharp criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others, Mr. Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Within two days, corporate records show that Mr. Giustra also came up a winner when his company signed preliminary agreements giving it the right to buy into three uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan’s state-owned uranium agency, Kazatomprom.

The monster deal stunned the mining industry, turning an unknown shell company into one of the world’s largest uranium producers in a transaction ultimately worth tens of millions of dollars to Mr. Giustra, analysts said.

Just months after the Kazakh pact was finalized, Mr. Clinton’s charitable foundation received its own windfall: a $31.3 million donation from Mr. Giustra that had remained a secret until he acknowledged it last month. The gift, combined with Mr. Giustra’s more recent and public pledge to give the William J. Clinton Foundation an additional $100 million, secured Mr. Giustra a place in Mr. Clinton’s inner circle, an exclusive club of wealthy entrepreneurs in which friendship with the former president has its privileges.

If Hillary Clinton goes to the White House, Bill, with all his conflicts-of-interest and privileges bestowed on "friends", will go with her. Of course, Hillary boasts of her previous experience in the White House during her two terms as first lady:

In seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton lays claim to two traits nearly every day: strength and experience. But as the junior senator from New York, she has few significant legislative accomplishments to her name. She has cast herself, instead, as a first lady like no other: a full partner to her husband in his administration, and, she says, all the stronger and more experienced for her "eight years with a front-row seat on history."

[ . . . ]

Clinton's role in her most high-profile assignment as first lady, the failed health care initiative of the early 1990s, has been well documented. Yet little has been made public about her involvement in foreign policy and national security as first lady. Documents about her work remain classified at the National Archives. Clinton has declined to divulge the private advice she gave her husband.

Don't forget that Hillary is owned by, among others, Mehmet Çelebi and the MIC. In case you've forgotten, Mehmet Çelebi was one of the producers of Kurtlar Vadisi İrak. Note the following:

Celebi, who led Chicago-based the Turkish American Cultural Alliance (TACA) during a time Vanity Fair magazine claimed the local Turkish community was under FBI counterintelligence surveillance, is an up and coming movie producer.

The Vanity Fair article in question is the article by David Rose on Sibel Edmonds from September 2005.

And since I've pointed out Bill Clinton's Kazakh connections, take a look at what's happening to Kurds in Kazakhstan:

Fearing for their physical safety, many ethnic Kurds say they plan to leave southern Kazakstan, as reports of low-level violence against them continue.

Zara, an inhabitant of the southern city of Shymkent, says her family and many other local Kurds plan to sell up and leave following a spate of attacks on the community last November.

“Of course we are afraid to leave - we have lived here all our lives - but we are also afraid to stay,” Zara told IWPR.

“We don’t know what is coming next. The newspapers are writing bad things about us Kurds. If the community elders say so, we will certainly leave.”

The trouble dates from the end of October, when a Kurdish teenager from the village of Mayatas, in the Tolebi district of South Kazakstan region, was accused of sexually assaulting a four-year-old Kazak boy. (See previous IWPR story, Kazakstan: Ethnic Clash a Worrying Sign.) After the latter’s father went to the police, locals took the law into their own hands and started burning and looting houses and beating up Kurds.

The violence then spilled over into other towns and villages where to Kurds live.

[ . . . ]

Official statistics suggest that there about 46,000 Kurds now living in Kazakstan, of whom 7,000 live in the South Kazakstan administrative region.

The Kurds belong to a community deported wholesale from Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1937, and from Georgia in 1944. Like hundreds of thousands of Chechens, Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars and other ethnic groups, they were deemed suspect by Stalin, who ordered them to be shifted far into the interior of the Soviet Union.

The entire Kurdish community of Kazakhstan is punished for the alleged wrongdoing of one. There's no mention of a trial, not even of a trial in a kangaroo court, but the entire Kurdish community has already been judged. Hard to believe, isn't it, especially since Kazakhstan is considered part of Greater Turan.

Bill Clinton praised the Kazakh dictator, Nazarbaev, for "opening up the social and political life of [his] country," and hoped Kazakhstan would lead the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). This must be the US position on Kazakhstan anyway since Dick Cheney and other US officials have recently "failed to comment publicly on the government’s human rights record during their visits" to the country.

Unfortunately, Human Rights Watch has a different opinion about that.

But Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, and an entire host of US officials would never lie to us . . . right?

ARUNDHATI ROY ON GENOCIDE AND ARMED RESISTANCE

"It's not a coincidence that the political party that carried out the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, was called the Committee for Union & Progress. 'Union' (racial/ethnic/religious/national) and 'Progress' (economic determinism) have long been the twin coordinates of genocide."
~ Arhundhati Roy.

Indian novelist and activist Arundhati Roy on genocide and armed resistance:

I never met Hrant Dink, a misfortune that will be mine for time to come. From what I know of him, of what he wrote, what he said and did, how he lived his life, I know that had I been here in Istanbul a year ago I would have been among the one hundred thousand people who walked with his coffin in dead silence through the wintry streets of this city, with banners saying, "We are all Armenians", "We are all Hrant Dink". Perhaps I'd have carried the one that said, "One and a half million plus one".

[ . . . ]

The day I arrived in Istanbul, I walked the streets for many hours, and as I looked around, envying the people of Istanbul their beautiful, mysterious, thrilling city, a friend pointed out to me young boys in white caps who seemed to have suddenly appeared like a rash in the city. He explained that they were expressing their solidarity with the child-assassin who was wearing a white cap when he killed Hrant.

The battle with the cap-wearers of Istanbul, of Turkey, is not my battle, it's yours. I have my own battles to fight against other kinds of cap-wearers and torchbearers in my country. In a way, the battles are not all that different. There is one crucial difference, though. While in Turkey there is silence, in India there's celebration, and I really don't know which is worse.

[ . . . ]

It's an old human habit, genocide is. It has played a sterling part in the march of civilisation. Amongst the earliest recorded genocides is thought to be the destruction of Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War in 149 BC. The word itself-genocide-was coined by Raphael Lemkin only in 1943, and adopted by the United Nations in 1948, after the Nazi Holocaust. Article 2 of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines it as:

"Any of the following Acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [or] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

Since this definition leaves out the persecution of political dissidents, real or imagined, it does not include some of the greatest mass murders in history. Personally I think the definition by Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn, authors of The History and Sociology of Genocide, is more apt.

Genocide, they say, "is a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator." Defined like this, genocide would include, for example, the monumental crimes committed by Suharto in Indonesia (1 million) Pol Pot in Cambodia (1.5 million), Stalin in the Soviet Union (60 million), Mao in China (70 million).

All things considered, the word extermination, with its crude evocation of pests and vermin, of infestations, is perhaps the more honest, more apposite word. When a set of perpetrators faces its victims, in order to go about its business of wanton killing, it must first sever any human connection with it. It must see its victims as sub-human, as parasites whose eradication would be a service to society.

[ . . . ]

Genocide Denial is a radical variation on the theme of the old, frankly racist, bloodthirsty triumphalism. It was probably evolved as an answer to the somewhat patchy dual morality that arose in the 19th century, when Europe was developing limited but new forms of democracy and citizens' rights at home while simultaneously exterminating people in their millions in her colonies. Suddenly countries and governments began to deny or attempt to hide the genocides they had committed. "Denial is saying, in effect," says Professor Robert Jay Lifton, author of Hiroshima and America: Fifty Years of Denial, "that the murderers did not murder. The victims weren't killed. The direct consequence of denial is that it invites future genocide."

Of course today, when genocide politics meets the Free Market, official recognition-or denial-of holocausts and genocides is a multinational business enterprise. It rarely has anything to do to with historical fact or forensic evidence. Morality certainly does not enter the picture. It is an aggressive process of high-end bargaining, that belongs more to the World Trade Organisation than to the United Nations.

The currency is geopolitics, the fluctuating market for natural resources, that curious thing called futures trading and plain old economic and military might.

In other words, genocides are often denied for the same set of reasons as genocides are prosecuted. Economic determinism marinated in racial/ethnic/religious/national discrimination. Crudely, the lowering or raising of the price of a barrel of oil (or a tonne of uranium), permission granted for a military base, or the opening up of a country's economy could be the decisive factor when governments adjudicate on whether a genocide did or did not occur.

Or indeed whether genocide will or will not occur. And if it does, whether it will or will not be reported, and if it is, then what slant that reportage will take. For example, the death of two million in the Congo goes virtually unreported. Why? And was the death of a million Iraqis under the sanctions regime, prior to the US invasion, genocide (which is what Denis Halliday, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, called it) or was it 'worth it', as Madeleine Albright, the US ambassador to the UN, claimed? It depends on who makes the rules. Bill Clinton? Or an Iraqi mother who has lost her child?

[ . . . ]

The history of genocide tells us that it's not an aberration, an anomaly, a glitch in the human system.

[ . . . ]

Impunity is an essential prerequisite for genocidal killing.

India has a great tradition of granting impunity to mass killers. I could fill volumes with the details.

In a democracy, for impunity after genocide, you have to "apply through proper channels". Procedure is everything. In the case of several massacres, the lawyers that the Gujarat government appointed as public prosecutors had actually already appeared for the accused. Several of them belonged to the RSS or the VHP and were openly hostile to those they were supposedly representing. Survivor witnesses found that, when they went to the police to file reports, the police would record their statements inaccurately, or refuse to record the names of the perpetrators. In several cases, when survivors had seen members of their families being killed (and burned alive so their bodies could not be found), the police would refuse to register cases of murder.

[ . . . ]

The struggle for lebensraum, Friedrich Ratzel said after closely observing the struggle between Native Indians and their European colonisers in North America, is an annihilating struggle. Annihilation doesn't necessarily mean the physical extermination of people-by bludgeoning, beating, burning, bayoneting, gassing, bombing or shooting them (Except sometimes. Particularly when they try to put up a fight. Because then they become Terrorists).

[ . . . ]

People who have taken to arms have done so with full knowledge of what the consequences of that decision will be. They have done so knowing that they are on their own. They know that the new laws of the land criminalise the poor and conflate resistance with terrorism. (Peaceful activists are ogws-overground workers.) They know that appeals to conscience, liberal morality and sympathetic press coverage will not help them now. They know no international marches, no globalised dissent, no famous writers will be around when the bullets fly.

[ . . . ]

The Prime Minister has declared that the Maoist resistance is the "single largest internal security threat". There have even been appeals to call out the army. The media is agog with breathless condemnation.

Here's a typical newspaper report. Nothing out of the ordinary. Stamp out the Naxals, it is called.

This government is at last showing some sense in tackling Naxalism. Less than a month ago, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked state governments to "choke" Naxal infrastructure and "cripple" their activities through a dedicated force to eliminate the "virus". It signalled a realisation that Naxalism must be stamped out through enforcement of law, rather than wasteful expense on development.

"Choke". "Cripple". "Virus". "Infested". "Eliminate". "Stamp Out".

Yes. The idea of extermination is in the air. And people believe that faced with extermination, they have the right to fight back. By any means necessary.

The entire thing is brilliant and is highly applicable to the Kurdish situation in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. Read it all at ZNet.

For more on the legitimacy of armed resistance against colonialist and/or racist states, see UN Resolution 3103 (.pdf).

Meanwhile, the modern day Committee for Union & Progress meets this week in Washington (Thanks to the Saker for the link):

Gen. Ergin Saygun, deputy chief of the Turkish General Staff, will hold talks with Gen. James Cartwrigtht, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, later this week mainly to discuss intelligence sharing between the United States and the Turkish Armed Forces in the fight against PKK terrorists, officials said.Saygun is also expected to meet U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman and Gen. John Craddock, commander of U.S. forces in Europe (EUCOM) and supreme commander of NATO Allied Forces in Europe, as part of anti-PKK talks. EUCOM coordinates the U.S. military's intelligence-sharing mechanism with its Turkish counterparts.In the wake of the PKK's attacks on Turkish targets that escalated in September and early October, Ankara warned that it might send its army into neighboring northern Iraq where the PKK has bases.

[ . . . ]

Saygun, Cartwright and Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the coalition forces in Iraq, have been designated as point men in coordinating the U.S. and Turkish armed forces' anti-PKK work.Today and Wednesday, Saygun and Mary Beth Long, U.S. assistant secretary of defense for international security, will co-chair the annual meetings of the U.S.-Turkish High-Level Defense Group, a mechanism used by senior officials and generals to review the military and defense relationship of the two countries.

[ . . . ]

Saygun is scheduled to return to Turkey on Feb. 7 after visiting several U.S. bases throughout the country.

Remember that the intensification of operations in September was the direct result of Abdullah Gül's visit to Turkish military bases in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, proving the close cooperation between the AKP and the Turkish military in its joint program of continued genocide of the Kurdish people.

Also, the Saker is carrying an article from Dissident Voice by Gary Leupp on Sibel Edmonds and focusing on Marc Grossman, to include a timeline of key dates in Sibel's story from 2001 to present. Reading the timeline, you'll see that Grossman is far more of a neocon than he's let on.

PAŞAS IN A PANIC AND DEEP STATE DRUG TRAFFICKING

"Since the 1950s, Turkey has played a key role in channelling into Europe and the United States the heroin produced in the "Golden Triangle" comprised by Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. The operation is run by mafia groups closely controlled by the MIT."
~ Kendal Nezan.

The Ankara regime has requested used Cobra gunships from the US and it seems to be in somewhat of a panic about it because the regime is described as "urgently" wanting the gunships. They want some of "the US military's own gunships." Those F-16's aren't working out so well against PKK, even with US and Israeli intelligence gathering for Ankara. Or maybe it's just a problem with dead or horribly maimed Turkish pilots. From Defense News:

Turkey, which urgently wants attack helicopters to help fight separatist Kurdish militants near its border with Iraq, recently asked Washington to sell about a dozen of the U.S. military’s own gunships, officials from both sides said.

“To meet our short-term requirement, we would like to buy a number of attack helicopters that are presently in the U.S. military’s inventory,” one senior Turkish military official said.

[ . . . ]

The United States had not formally responded to the request by press time, and it was not clear if any such helicopters were available for sale. U.S. Marines are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Turkey last spring made a similar but informal inquiry, and at the time the U.S. government was not willing to declare that its military had attack helicopters available for transfer to the Turks,” the U.S. business source said. “But since then, the political climate has greatly improved between the two nations.”

[ . . . ]

The U.S. business source said Turkey also has shown some interest in the U.S. Army’s AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopter.

But the Turkish military official said the Army had no infrastructure to support the Apache’s maintenance, and that the Army prefers the Cobras.

Good. Helicopters are a lot easier to shoot down than F-16s.

Imagine my shock to learn that the Ergenekon gang was involved with drug-trafficking:

Charges brought against the deep-state linked Ergenekon organization by a Turkish court have shown that the gang was after a military takeover in Turkey while records of phone conversations of its members in the hands of German police show that they were also involved in the drug trade.

Again, the Germans are named.

Germany’s Niedersachsen State’s anti-drug department, the LKA, which tapped the phones of some of the Ergenekon members as part of a narcotics investigation, proved that Ergenekon members were indeed in the drug business as well. The records of a Nov. 20, 2003 phone conversation between retired Capt. Muzaffer Tekin, arrested in June of last year as the owner of the munitions depot found in anİstanbul shantytown that started the Ergenekon operation, and Yılmaz Tavukçuoğlu, an alleged drug trafficker, shows that Ergenekon used drug money to fund its activities. The two men in these conversations talk about the sale of a plot of land in Ümraniye. According to the LKA’s Willi Neumann, the co-owners of the land were Tekin and Ertuğrul Yılmaz, the former owner of Doğuş Factoring, who was murdered in eastern Germany two years ago. Neumann’s report asserts that this piece of land might have been used to launder money from drug trading with Tavukçuoğlu.

This is all a bit hypocritical considering that the Ankara regime funds itself through the heroin industry:

Since the 1950s, Turkey has played a key role in channelling into Europe and the United States the heroin produced in the "Golden Triangle" comprised by Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. The operation is run by mafia groups closely controlled by the MIT. One of their personnel described their relations with the police in the following terms: "Our people are able to pass through Yesilköy (Istanbul) airport whenever they wish, without being controlled by customs, with briefcases containing 3-5 million marks. Sometimes they stamp their passports, sometimes they don’t. Our boss has all kinds of false passports, stamps etc. (6)."

[ . . . ]

After the Gulf War in 1991, Turkey found itself deprived of the all-important Iraqi market and, since it lacked significant oil reserves of its own, it decided to make up for the loss by turning more massively to drugs. The trafficking increased in intensity with the arrival of the "hawks" in power, after the death in suspicious circumstances of President Turgut Özal in April 1993. According to the minister of interior, the war in Kurdistan had cost the Turkish exchequer upwards of $12.5 billion (7). Whereas, according to the daily Hürriyet, Turkey’s heroin trafficking brought in $25 billion in 1995 and $37.5 billion in 1996 (8).

Only criminal networks working in close cooperation with the police and the army could possibly organise trafficking on such a scale. Drug barons such as Huseyin Baybasin have stated publicly, on Turkish television and in the West, that they have been working under the protection of the Turkish government and to its financial benefit (9). The traffickers themselves travel on diplomatic passports. According to witnesses at the Parliamentary Commission inquiring into the Susurluk accident, the drugs are even transported by military helicopter from the Iranian border. The president of the commission himself, deputy Mehmet Erkatmis, has protested against the fact that these damning allegations have been censured out of the commission’s official report.

The Turks aren't the only ones keeping truth out of official reports.

A year ago, Luke Ryland took a hard look at the US State Department's 2006 International Narcotics Strategy Report--in light of Sibel Edmonds' information--which named Turkey as "a key player in this industry." Comparing it to the World Bank's report on Afghanistan's drug industry, Luke noted that the World Bank made virtually no reference to Turkey's role:

At least three quarters of all heroin sold in Western Europe comes from Turkey - 4 to 6 tons every month - yet the World Bank report mentions Turkey exactly... once!

Here's the reference, in all it's glory:

"The large dealers in both Lashkar Gah city and Kandahar claimed that they deal directly with buyers in Pakistan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States."

That single reference to Turkey is all that the report could muster.

Why would Wolfowitz want to erase any mention of Turkey from his report?

Because those members of the Deep State in the US also benefit from Turkey's heroin industry no differently than their Turkish counterparts, as quoted earlier and as discussed by Sibel Edmonds and Philip Giraldi in Luke's post. In other words, it's not just the handful of criminals in the Ergenekon gang who are involved in narco-trafficking. It's a globalized industry for the elites.

Speaking of Sibel, Luke has an interview with her, in which she slams the US media for its failure in reporting the treason in the American government with regard to US officials--particularly Marc Grossman--and nuclear proliferation activities:

Luke Ryland: Will the US media start reporting on this now that it is 'hot and sexy' again?

Sibel Edmonds: It's hard to know. After being told for years that they won't cover it because it is 'old news,' now there are certain officials in the agencies quietly telling journalists to stay away from the story because I came across a highly sensitive covert national security operation.

Also, Turkey's army of lobbyists in DC are very effective. The US press tends to stay away from any stories critical of Turkey, I would say even more than Israel.

There's also the possible problem of 'eating crow' but I hope this isn't an issue, this story is way too important for any of that. The information that has been published in the Times recently could have easily come out four years ago in the US press. We now need everyone to focus on the important issues.

I have one message for the US media: If they think this is over, it's not over. Much more will come out. They won't be able to ignore it any longer, and so I hope they get over any reluctance they might have.

And there's much more in the interview, so go over to Luke's place and take a look.

APPEARANCES

"In Spain, the 28 murders committed by the GAL have become a matter of concern at the highest government level, whereas in Turkey, which likes to present itself as a law-abiding state and which is seeking admission to the European Union, not one single perpetrator of more than 4,500 unsolved murders carried out since 1991 - the so-called ’faili mesul cinayetleri’- has thus far been arrested. In my country, the murderers are on the streets and the intellectuals are behind bars."
~ Akın Birdal.

With the recent Ergenekon arrests, one should bear in mind that things are not always what they appear to be in Turkey. As one anonymous commenter remarked [emphasis Mizgîn's]:

Ergenekon was a part of the Turkish deep state. The Turkish state didn´t make a move against the deep state, there motive was against this fraction that operate independent. This was a clear message from the Turkish deep state. This was only matter of time. Our freedom movement PKK told the media many times in the past of the fractions inside the Turkish deep state. This is evidence!

As I mentioned, "we should not expect too much from this so-called 'operation'". It's very likely that Veli Küçük's Ergenekon gang will take the fall for purposes unclear at this moment. Remember, nature abhors a vacuum even in connection with the Deep State and their Islamist brothers. Let no one mistake the Ergenekon arrests for an exercise in the practice of democracy on the part of the AKP government, a government that is carefully controlled by the real rulers of the Ankara regime--the Paşas.

Reality is explained well by a heval at Kleine Kurdistan-Kolumne:

But appearances can be vastly misleading. Members of paramilitary terror gangs are arrested and released often. Most of those now arrested already appeared in the 1996 Susurluk scandal, and remained unmolested. Especially Veli Küçük, the imagined mighty founder of JITEM, the worst state-terrorism group of the'90s, enjoyed a hitherto unprecedented immunity. It remains to be seen whether that immunity for the obvious sponsors of the "Ergenekon" and likely perpetrators of the murder of Hrant Dink, now gets more than just a few scratches himself.

The "deep state" is unfortunately more than just a gang of 30 ultra-nationalists. It is based on a broad ideological consensus against Kurds, Christians and Left, and its ramifications extend far into bureaucracy, security apparatus and politics. To render the deep state unworkable requires a little more than a few media arrests. As long as Erdogan rides on the wave of nationalism, the shock of his police against a few excesses, especially anti-government, remains implausible.

Vahe Balabanian at Hyelog carries a portion of an article from Sabah which mentions some of the assassinations ordered by Küçük. In another article from Sabah, Abdullah Gül is quoted as saying "There will be no unresolved murders," except in The Southeast, naturally.

Meanwhile, Zaman outlines some of the charges against the Ergenekon gang:

Evidence so far also suggests that 700 kilograms of explosives found loaded on a van in İstanbul belonged to this gang. An attack against the Association for the Union of Patriotic Forces (VKGB), also a murky group with shadowy affiliations, in Diyarbakır was actually staged by the VKGB itself, according the investigation. The attack had then been blamed on the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) organization.

Ah, yes, false flag operations . . . the hallmark of Gladio. It's odd, isn't it, that with all the talk of the alleged "War on Terror," that guys like those in the Ergenekon gang are never referred to as terrorists?

Now why is that?

SIBEL, NUKES, AND COVERING ASS

"But I can tell you that Turkey is a classic example in our judgment of a nation that we would like to work in partnership with, not to bring old technology, but to bring advanced technology and the benefits of nuclear power."
~ Clay Sell, US Deputy Secretary of Energy.

London's Sunday Times has a third article out on Sibel's story, in which they discuss the Valerie Plame and Brewster Jennings connections to the information Sibel heard on the wiretaps she translated at the FBI:

AN investigation into the illicit sale of American nuclear secrets was compromised by a senior official in the State Department, a former FBI employee has claimed.

And who was that "senior official in the State Department"? All together now: Marc Grossman!

Her latest claims relate to a number of intercepted recordings believed to have been made between the summer and autumn of 2001. At that time, foreign agents were actively attempting to acquire the West’s nuclear secrets and technology.

Among the buyers were Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s intelligence agency, which was working with Abdul Qadeer Khan, the “father of the Islamic bomb”, who in turn was selling nuclear technology to rogue states such as Libya.

Plame, then 38, was the glamorous wife of a former US ambassador, Joe Wilson. Despite recently giving birth to twins, she travelled widely for her work, often claiming to be an oil consultant. In fact she was a career CIA agent who was part of a small team investigating the same procurement network that the State Department official is alleged to have aided.

Brewster Jennings was one of a number of covert enterprises set up to infiltrate the nuclear ring. It is is believed to have been based in Boston and consisted of little more than a name, a telephone number and a post office box address.

[ . . . ]

The FBI was also running an inquiry into the nuclear network. When Edmonds joined the agency after the 9/11 attacks she was given the job of reviewing the evidence.

The FBI was monitoring Turkish diplomatic and political figures based in Washington who were allegedly working with the Israelis and using “moles” in military and academic institutions to acquire nuclear secrets.

The creation of this nuclear ring had been assisted, Edmonds says, by the senior official in the State Department who she heard in one conversation arranging to pick up a $15,000 bribe.

And who was that "senior official in the State Department"? All together now: Marc Grossman!

One group of Turkish agents who had come to America on the pretext of researching alternative energy sources was introduced to Brewster Jennings through the Washington-based American Turkish Council (ATC), a lobby group that aids commercial ties between the countries. Edmonds says the Turks believed Brewster Jennings to be energy consultants and were planning to hire them.

But she said: “He [the State Department official] found out about the arrangement . . . and he contacted one of the foreign targets and said . . . you need to stay away from Brewster Jennings because they are a cover for the government.

“The target . . . immediately followed up by calling several people to warn them about Brewster Jennings.

“At least one of them was at the ATC. This person also called an ISI person to warn them.” If the ISI was made aware of the CIA front company, then this would almost certainly have damaged the investigation into the activities of Khan. Plame’s cover would also have been compromised, although Edmonds never heard her name mentioned on the intercepts. Shortly afterwards, Plame was moved to a different operation.

Now, get this, from Grossman:

The State Department official said on Friday: “It is impossible to find a strong enough way to deny these allegations which are both false and malicious.”

Dude, try harder.

Let's hear what Phil Giraldi had to say, who wrote the recent article on Sibel for American Conservative magazine. Giraldi was interviewed by Scott Horton on Friday:

Quite honestly, if I were Marc Grossman, who allegedly is now making $3 million a year working for the Cohen Group, I would be kind of concerned about my personal reputation where people are saying that I was taking money, and I would want to straighten out the record and I would want to the FBI to produce a definitive statement about me, and he hasn’t demanded that. He hasn’t gone after that, and none of the other people in this case have gone after that, so I’m wondering why, if these people are innocent, they aren’t making a more serious effort to demonstrate that they are.

It's too bad Giraldi didn't mention Grossman's "consultation" work for Islamist-affiliated Ihlas Holding and his $100,000 monthly salary.

Anyway, it's an excellent interview which you can listen to here--thanks to Luke for that. The discussion of Sibel's story starts around 24 minutes into the interview. Luke also has the link and a full transcript of that portion of the interview which concerns Sibel. I urge everyone to take a look at Luke's post in order to read his always insightful comments.

Luke also has comments on the new Times article.


On Thursday, Luke posted information indicating that the Bush administration is pressing Congress for approval of sales of nuclear technology to Turkey. He highlights an interesting statement from the White House press release [emphasis from Luke]:

"My Administration has completed the NPAS review as well as an evaluation of actions taken by the Turkish government to address the proliferation activities of certain Turkish entities (once officials of the U.S. Government brought them to the Turkish government's attention)."

NPAS stands for nuclear proliferation assessment statement, but what's interesting about the statement is that in it, the Bush administration admits that there are already nuclear proliferation activities in Turkey, carried out by "certain Turkish entities". I'm willing to bet that these "entities" refer to the Turkish companies, very possibly including those that Sibel has mentioned in connection with nuclear technology black-marketing. Furthermore, according to the White House press release, the US government had to bring these "Turkish entities" to the attention of the Turkish government.

That is the biggest load of baloney ever! Does anyone--naive Westerners excepted, of course--honestly believe that, in a fascist regime like Turkey, either the civil government or the Paşas wouldn't know about nuclear "proliferation activities" taking place inside the country? Such an idea is not only absolutely preposterous, it's also impossible. Especially given that Turkey, along with Grossman, was involved with assisting Pakistan in it's own nuclear "proliferation activities."

Remember that the tapes Sibel listened to dated back to the late 1990s, and Turkey has been attempting to acquire nuclear technology for allegedly "peaceful" purposes, i.e. nuclear power. Greenpeace has some documentation on Turkey's efforts to acquire nuclear power dating back to 1998.

There are two things to remember when considering nuclear power plants in Turkey. The first is that Turkey is one of the most active and dangerous earthquake zones in the world. The second is the question of what the Ankara regime would do with nuclear waste. Given the facts that the Ankara regime has destroyed and then neglected the Kurdish region for the last 84 years and that the Ankara regime is dead set on continuing the destruction of the Kurdish region with the Ilisu Dam project, what is the likelihood that the regime would store its nuclear waste in North Kurdistan?

In addition, you have to worry when TDN comes up with an article titled, "Turkey to face serious brainpower deficit in nuclear power". In reporting on a meeting about nuclear energy in Istanbul on January 18, it's clear that Turkey is not ready to address even the most basic questions on the matter. But that may not make any difference. Those who worship the almighty dollar are going to want to turn an buck anyway. A year ago, the US State Department--the same people who brought you Lockheed Martin's Joseph Ralston as "PKK coordinator" and his co-worker at The Cohen Group, Marc Grossman--announced another scam: the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. Apparently, the State Department is as enthusiastic about selling nuclear energy to Turkey as it is about selling Lockheed Martin product:

QUESTION: Thank you. Onur Sazak with Turkish Business Daily Referans. There are rumors that Turkey is buying nuclear energy -- nuclear reactors from the United States. Can you confirm that? And my second question is certain lawmakers in Turkey are accusing of the -- the United States of selling raw (inaudible) technology, first-generation nuclear reactors to the country. And if I can get your comments on this. Thank you.

DEPUTY SECRETARY SELL: I cannot confirm the rumor. But I can tell you that Turkey is a classic example in our judgment of a nation that we would like to work in partnership with, not to bring old technology, but to bring advanced technology and the benefits of nuclear power. So I would anticipate this is something that leaders in Turkey would -- I would welcome and it's something that I hope we could work with them on.

That brings us back to the White House press release mentioned in Luke's post, and his commentary, specifically in reference to this phrase: "(once officials of the U.S. Government brought them to the Turkish government's attention)"[my emphasis]:

Given that the entire press release is basically written in 'legalese', this unnecessary parenthetical aside stands out like a sore thumb. I wonder who injected this statement into the announcement, and why. It sure looks like butt-covering to me, given the latest revelations in the Times.

The phrase 'once officials...' also appears to be a curious formulation. I'm not overly familiar with presidential statements and US government protocols, but I would imagine that "Agencies" or "Departments" would normally communicate with foreign governments on such important matters, and I would imagine that presidential statements would normally refer to such agencies, rather than 'officials.' Perhaps I'm wrong, and perhaps this is common practice, but it sure looks like an attempt to exonerate certain individuals such as Marc Grossman who was accused of some very serious crimes in the Times article.

I have to agree, it certainly does look like "an attempt to exonerate certain individuals such as Marc Grossman," who have been deep into the deep shit of the Deep State's nuclear black-marketing. What is more worrying, however, is Luke's closing:

Congress has 90 days to amend or block this legislation, otherwise it automatically becomes law.

This is exactly what happened with regard to the Pentagon deal to upgrade Turkey's F-16's. Since the White House is quietly pushing for congressional approval, while the State Department officially promotes the spread of nuclear technology to regimes as unstable as Turkey, we may all be screwed.



And since I've mentioned Ralston, Grossman, and The Cohen Group, check out Scott Horton's recent interview with Chalmers Johnson to learn more about how dependent the US economy is on the military-industrial complex and ridiculous schemes like the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

ERGENEKON BUSTED?

"There are three bases to the [organized] gang. First is the police, second is the [state] bureaucrats and third is the military. We can question the police and some of bureaucrats, but we cannot question the military."
~ Mehmet Elkatmış, Chairman, Susurluk Commission.

The most interesting news of the day comes from Bianet:

Retired Major General Veli Kücük, nationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz, lawyer Fuat Turgut, who is the defense lawyer of Yasin Hayal, a murder suspect in the Hrant Dink case, Aksam newspaper journalist Güler Kömürcü, retired Colonel Fikri Karadag, who is the leader of the ultra-nationalist Kuvayi Milliye Association, and Turkish Orthodox Patriarchy spokesperson Sevgi Erenerol, are under police custody.

All 33 taken from their homes on Tuesday (22 January) are charged with forming a clandestine group to plot against the government, and attempts at the lives of Kurdish politicians, as well as storing weapons in a secret arsenal.

Photo Radikal. Article: "İşte Ergenekon."

That's right, folks, the Ergenekon gang is in police detention. The news appeared in Turkish online media late last night, US time, but it may have only a brief appearance, as noted in the Bianet article:

According to the NTV news, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecution made a written statement about the detentions and then immediately announced a broadcasting and publishing ban on the case.

It's this ban that tells us we should not expect too much from this so-called "operation." If they're ordering censorship about the case, it means that there is something to hide on the part of the government. However, one should remember Veli Küçük in connection with the Susurluk scandal, as a close associate of the notorious Grey Wolf, Abdullah Çatlı and the infamous Turkish state assassin, Mahmut Yıldırım, aka Yeşil. Küçük was also named in connection with the 2006 Council of State attack and with Hrant Dink's murder. For a roundup of Küçük's crimes, see a Rastî post from last year.

Zaman has more about what Küçük and the rest of the Ergenekon gang has been up to:

The gang was plotting to kill Nobel Literature Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk and had already hired the hit man to do the job, the investigation found. Thirty-three suspects accused of being part of the gang, which calls itself Ergenekon, were detained by the İstanbul Police Department's counterterrorism unit in İstanbul and other parts of the country in dawn raids on Tuesday, the culmination of an eight-month operation. The police have been observing the actions of the suspects for three-quarters of a year as part of an investigation into a house full of explosives and ammunition found in a shantytown in İstanbul's Ümraniye district in the June of 2007.

The investigation has found that the gang is linked to a clandestine phenomenon referred to as the "deep state" in Turkey that stages attacks using "behind-the-scene" paramilitary organizations such as Ergenekon to foment public opinion according its own political agenda. Ergenekon is the title of a legend that describes how Turks came into existence.

This particular gang is suspected of involvement in a number of political attacks on individuals and institutions, including the murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. At least eight of the suspects are retired from the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK).

The suspects, who include retired military generals, journalists and underground bosses, have not yet been charged and are still under interrogation, but the police found a list of people the gang had planned to assassinate, including pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) deputies Ahmet Türk, Leyla Zana and Sebahat Tuncel; Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir; Nobel Prize-winning author Pamuk; and journalist Fehmi Koru, who is also a regular columnist for Today's Zaman.

Khaleej Times adds a little more information:

Police are also investigating whether the suspects were involved in several politically motivated attacks that shocked Turkey over the past two years, the daily Sabah said.

They include the murders of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, Italian Catholic priest Andrea Santoro and a senior judge killed by a gunman who stormed into the country’s top administrative court, the daily said.

And, in what may be a very felicitous coincidence, Martin Lee--who's done more to expose the Deep State, Grey Wolves, and the likes of Veli Küçük, in English than anyone else--may now be connecting Sibel Edmonds' case about the Deep State criminals in the US with the Deep State criminals in Turkey. At least Consortium News, which ran Lee's original article on the Deep State in 1997, feels it's necessary to run the article again to give some background context to Sibel's story. From Consortium News, "Turkey's Drug-Terrorism Connection":

Edmonds, who left the FBI in 2002, said she stumbled upon this corrupt network – which also may have involved money laundering and drug trafficking – when she was hired after the 9/11 attacks to translate a backlog of tapes dating back to 1997.

That was the same year when Consortiumnews.com published a remarkable story by Martin A. Lee about Turkish government officials caught in a web of corruption with notorious drug traffickers and right-wing terrorists.

In view of the Sunday Times article and a follow-up on Jan. 20, we are republishing our earlier story to provide historical context for Edmonds’s allegations:

In broad daylight on May 2, 1997, 50 armed men set upon a television station in Istanbul with gunfire. The attackers unleashed a fusillade of bullets and shouted slogans supporting Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Tansu Ciller.

The gunmen were outraged over the station's broadcast of a TV report critical of Ciller, a close U.S. ally who had come under criticism for stonewalling investigations into collusion between state security forces and Turkish criminal elements.

Miraculously, no one was injured in the attack, but the headquarters of Independent Flash TV were left pock-marked with bullet-holes and smashed windows. The gunfire also sent an unmistakable message to Turkish journalists and legislators: don't challenge Ciller and other high-level Turkish officials when they cover up state secrets.

For several months, Turkey had been awash in dramatic disclosures connecting high Turkish officials to the right-wing Grey Wolves, the terrorist band which has preyed on the region for years. In 1981, a terrorist from the Grey Wolves attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in Vatican City.

But at the center of the mushrooming Turkish scandal is whether Turkey, a strategically placed NATO country, allowed mafiosi and right-wing extremists to operate death squads and to smuggle drugs with impunity. A Turkish parliamentary commission is investigating these new charges.

The rupture of state secrets in Turkey also could release clues to other major Cold War mysteries. Besides the attempted papal assassination, the Turkish disclosures could shed light on the collapse of the Vatican bank in 1982 and the operation of a clandestine pipeline that pumped sophisticated military hardware into the Middle East -- apparently from NATO stockpiles in Europe -- in exchange for heroin sold by the Mafia in the United States.

Read the rest at Consortium News.

STUPIDITY AND CRIMINALITY

"What's a Kurd, anyway?"
~ Norman Podhoretz.

Okay. Here's an example of just how stupid the "counter"-terrorists are:

The U.S. National Counter-Terrorism Center says it was a mistake to include the symbol of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan -- the political party headed by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani -- on a list of "terrorist logos" that police should be on the lookout for during traffic stops and other contacts with members of the public.

The PUK, one of the two Kurdish political parties that makes up the regional government in Iraq's Kurdish area, is not on the lists of designated foreign terror groups maintained by the U.S. departments of State or Treasury, and indeed is considered by many in the U.S. government as one of the closest U.S. allies in its war on terrorism.

"After a review, we determined that the PUK logo should not have been included, and we have updated the online version," National Counter-Terrorism Center spokesman Carl Kropf told United Press International Saturday.

In other words, after the morons at the U.S. National Counter-Terrorism Center pulled their heads out of their asses . . .

That level of stupidity ranks right up there with the stupidity of neoconservative freak Norman Podhoretz, as related by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic:

Just before the “Mission Accomplished” phase of the war, I spoke about Kurdistan to an audience that included Norman Podhoretz, the vicariously martial neoconservative who is now a Middle East adviser to Rudolph Giuliani. After the event, Podhoretz seemed authentically bewildered. “What’s a Kurd, anyway?” he asked me.

And these are the idiots who are running the War on Terror, Inc. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Speaking of the so-called War on Terror, Edward Herman, along with David Peterson, has an excellent article at ZNet in which they call out the emperor for wearing no clothes. Some Rastî readers may remember that Edward Herman co-authored Manufacturing Consent with Noam Chomsky. Like Chomsky, Herman has also spoken out against the Ankara regime's brutal repression of Kurds, and American backing of Turkish repression.

Now, Herman confirms what we already knew, that there is no "War on Terror," and he does it very, very well. From ZNet:

The United States and Israel actually engage in big-time terror, like strategic bombing, helicopter attacks, torture on a continuing basis, and large-scale invasions and invasion threats, not lower-casualty-inflicting actions like occasional plane hijackings and suicide bombings. This has long been characterized as the difference between wholesale and retail terror, the former carried out by states and on a large scale, the latter implemented by individuals and small groups, much smaller in scale, and causing fewer civilian victims than its wholesale counterpart.[20] Retail terrorists don’t maintain multiple detention centers in which they employ torture (at the height of its state terror activities in the 1970s the Argentinian military maintained an estimated 60 such centers, according to Amnesty International;[21] the United States today, on land bases and naval vessels and in client state operated facilities, uses dozens of such centers).

Furthermore, retail terror is often sponsored by the wholesale terrorists—notoriously, the Cuban refugee network operating out of the United States for decades, the U.S.-supported Nicaraguan contras, Savimbi’s UNITA in Angola in the 1980s, backed by both South Africa and the United States, the South Lebanon Army supported by Israel for years, and the Colombian rightwing death squads still in operation, with U.S. support. Thus, a meaningful war on terror would surely involve attacks on the United States and Israel as premier wholesale terrorists and sponsors, a notion we have yet to find expounded by a single one of the current war-on-terror proponents.

In short, one secret of the widespread belief that the United States and Israel are fighting—not carrying out—terror is the remarkable capacity of the Western media and intellectual class to ignore the standard definitions of terror and the reality of who does the most terrorizing, and thus to allow the Western political establishments to use the invidious word to apply to their targets. We only retaliate and engage in “counter-terror”—our targets started it and their lesser violence is terrorism.

We can add Turkey to complete the US-Israel-Turkey troika of wholesale terror. Of course, that brings up another item: Sibel Edmonds. There's another interesting article on her case and the recent revelations in London's Sunday Times, from Philip Giraldi and American Conservative magazine. An interesting point made by Giraldi is that Sibel was not hit with court-ordered gags from the FBI, but by the Pentagon and the State Department, whose personnel were the ones identified as big time criminals on the FBI wiretaps:

Curiously, the states-secrets gag order binding Edmonds, while put in place by DOJ in 2002, was not requested by the FBI but by the State Department and Pentagon—which employed individuals she identified as being involved in criminal activities. If her allegations are frivolous, that order would scarcely seem necessary. It would have been much simpler for the government to marginalize her by demonstrating that she was poorly informed or speculating about matters outside her competency. Under the Bush administration, the security gag order has been invoked to cover up incompetence or illegality, not to protect national security. It has recently been used to conceal the illegal wiretaps of the warrantless surveillance program, the allegations of torture and the CIA’s rendition program, and to shield the telecom industry for its collaboration in illegal eavesdropping.

There's a lot there, too, on Grossman, the Turks, and Grossman's bribe-taking from the Turks. Go read, because this particular article explains a lot about Sibel's case in plain English.

Once again, while there remains a deafening silence about American officials and their rat's nest of Turkish and Israeli moles, and the sale of nuclear information to Pakistan, another British paper has taken up Sibel's story, this time in the form of an op/ed from The Guardian, which slams the US media for its refusal to touch Sibel's story:

An American human rights group attempted to obtain further proof of this amazing tale by making a freedom of information request for a specific numbered document relating to the case. The FBI responded by claiming that it did not exist. But the Sunday Times countered that it had obtained another document, signed by an FBI official, showing the existence of the file.

That's why the Sunday Times's latest story, under its old Insight logo, began by accusing the FBI of a cover-up. This looks to me like a very hot story indeed that should surely have been taken up by mainstream newspapers in the United States.

As always, Luke Ryland has his own commentary on The Guardian's piece, so make sure to take a look at it, and check the rest of Luke's posts for the most complete information.

Luke also puts us on notice that Grossman will be present at a congressional committee hearing tomorrow, Wednesday, January 23, at 10am, at Room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building. Sibel is urging supporters to show up and give Grossman hell and take video of the event.

So if you're in the DC area tomorrow and can dish some hell, go to it.

MONDAY'S NEWS AND THEN SOME

"Congress could do a good job theoretically, but it can't. Why? It's owned lock, stock, and barrel by Corporate America."
~ Mike Gravel, former US Senator (D-AK).

Oh, you have to see the photos Hevallo has up from the protest against war criminal Yaşar Büyükanıt, in London on Sunday. I'll post one here as a teaser:




Isn't that great?! Go take a look at the rest. Big kudos to Hevallo and all those in the UK who helped to expose the Turkish Pinochet! Now expect some big Turkish military operations in the near future because, as a friend noted, trips by the Paşas to the UK tend to precede big operations. Credit where credit is due, after all. It was the British who cooked up the Gladio program. I mean, who else would come up with such a stupid Latin name for terrorism? The sows who populate the British government think they are such classicists.

Perhaps the biggest news on Sibel's news from yesterday's Sunday Times article on the FBI's cover-up of evidence against the Deep State in the US, is the commentary on the US media by Daniel Ellsberg. He's the guy who leaked the Pentagon's top-secret, in-house study of how the US government was making decisions on the Vietnam War--during the Vietnam War. This study became known as the Pentagon Papers. Here's a little backgrounder on the release of the Pentagon Papers, from Wikipedia:

Because he held an extremely high-level security clearance, Ellsberg was one of the very few individuals who were given access to the complete set of documents. They revealed that the government had knowledge, early on, that the war would not likely be won, and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was ever admitted publicly. Further, the papers showed that high-ranking officials had a deep cynicism towards the public as well as disregard for the loss of life and injury suffered by soldiers and civilians.

Ellsberg was appalled by the cynicism and hypocrisy reflected in these papers, and, after a period of soul-searching, became determined to make their contents public. He knew that releasing the papers violated the trust placed in him by his colleagues, would damage reputations and would most likely result in his conviction and a lengthy prison sentence.

[ . . . ]

Throughout 1970, Ellsberg covertly attempted to persuade a few sympathetic U.S. Senators — among them J. William Fulbright, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and George McGovern, a leading opponent of the war — to release the papers on the Senate floor, because a Senator could not be prosecuted for anything he said on-the-record before the Senate.

When these efforts came to naught, Ellsberg finally leaked the documents to New York Times correspondent Neil Sheehan. On Sunday, June 13, 1971, the Times published the first installment of the 7,000 page document.

Obviously, Ellsberg has some experience in the matter of releasing classified materials to the American public, which makes him the best expert to comment on Sibel Edmonds' story and to blast the mainstream American media for its complicity in the cover-up of Sibel's story. From The Brad Blog:

In support of the official cover-up, various American journalists in the last weeks have reportedly received calls from "intelligence sources" hinting that "what Sibel Edmonds stumbled onto" is not a rogue operation by American officials and Congressmen working to their own advantage --- as believed by Edmonds and some other former or active FBI officials --- but a sensitive covert operation authorized at high levels. If there is any truth to that, we clearly have another prize candidate --- giving us, as blowback, the Pakistani Bomb and nuclear sales --- in the category of "worst covert operation in U.S. history," rivaling such contenders as the Bay of Pigs, Iran-Contra, and the secret CIA torture camps abroad.

In the first two of those, the American press gullibly responded to official warnings of "sensitivity" and sat on information they should have reported (as did the New York Times, for a year, on the illegal NSA surveillance program). If the Washington Post had heeded such warnings and demands with respect to the covert torture camps, they would have missed a well-earned Pulitzer Prize and the camps would still be torturing.

Many, if not most, covert operations deserve to be disclosed by a free press. They are often covert not only because they are illegal but because they are wildly ill-conceived and reckless. "Sensitive" and "covert" are often synonyms for "half-assed," "idiotic," and "dangerous to national security," as well as "criminal." All of these would apply to the pattern of activities revealed by Edmonds if it were truly presidentially authorized, as is being whispered. Such activities persist, covertly, to the point of national disaster because the press neglects what our First Amendment was precisely intended to protect and encourage it to do: expose wrongdoing by officials.

Ellsberg asks if the mainstream American media would publish the Pentagon Papers today. I doubt very much that they would. The chickenshit American media is nothing more than a propaganda tool to "manufacture consent" for Corporate America. Remember, Sibel offered her story to the chickenshit American media way back in October 2007 and nothing happened. NOTHING.

All of this nonsense from the manufacturers of consent in the chickenshit American meida about Sibel stumbling onto some "rogue" operation is just that--NONSENSE. Anyone who knows anything about how the Turkish state works, or about Susurluk and hundreds of other Turkish scandals, or Sibel's posting of Mehmet Eymür's photo in her "Most Wanted" gallery, or the Turkish Dirty War against the Kurdish people--anyone who knows these facts also knows, without a shadow of any doubt that what Sibel says about the Deep State in the US is pure truth.

Luke also has a post up on Ellsberg's reaction, and he asks the following:

As an aside, where are the major bloggers on this story? They justifiably criticize journalists for being stenographers, and they justifiably criticize journalists for delaying stories like such as the New York Times withholding the illegal spying story for a year. Where are they on this story? It's time to step up, people.

Luke's absolutely correct; major bloggers have done as excellent a job as the chickenshit American media in avoiding exposure of the Deep State in the US. And if the FBI has destroyed the evidence connected to Sibel's claims and translation work, then things are even worse. The guilty should be strung up publicly.

Don't miss Luke's interview today with Scott Horton on Antiwar Radio (run time about 45 minutes). Luke got up at 4:30 in the morning to talk about Sibel, so honor his sacrifice and listen.

Now, it's been noted before that the criminals associated with Sibel's story come from both the Demopublicans and the Republicrats. In other words, the Deep State in the US is completely bi-partisan and, since this is an election year in the US, I wouldn't want anyone to think that their vote meant a damned thing. In that vein, check out a video interview with former senator, Mike Gravel (D-AK), brought to my attention by the The Saker and reposted here. Let me add, too, that Gravel was the only Senator to enter a large portion of the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record of his subcommittee back in 1971:

Seriously, the best thing that could possibly happen to the US would be the reinstatement of the draft.

DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE AND SIBEL EDMONDS

"... But isn't the full name of Kubrick's film 'Doctor Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb'?"
~ Mathieu Verboud, director, Kill The Messenger.

While the CIA has been busy destroying its own torture videotapes, it looks like the FBI has been busy "covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets."

Again, from London's The Sunday Times:

The assertion follows allegations made in The Sunday Times two weeks ago by Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, who worked on the agency’s investigation of the network.

[ . . . ]

One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file.

Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of an “outright lie”.

Marc Grossman was mentioned as the "well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan" in connection with the 6 January report in The Sunday Times, and he's mentioned again in today's story:

The anonymous letter names a high-level government official [Note: Grossman] who was allegedly secretly recorded speaking to an official at the Turkish embassy between August and December 2001.

It claims the government official warned a Turkish member of the network that they should not deal with a company called Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear black market. The official’s warning came two years before Brewster Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie Plame, was revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause célèbre in the US.

The letter also makes reference to wiretaps of Turkish “targets” talking to ISI intelligence agents at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and recordings of “operatives” at the ATC.

Just as over the last two weeks there has been a deafening silence in the US media over Sibel's story and the connection of Marc Grossman to the sale of nuclear secrets to Pakistan through the ATC and the Turkish Embassy in DC, expect another deafening silence over the FBI's continuing attempt to cover up the agents of foreign interests that have infested Washington.

In the meantime, expect to see more bullshit stories like the one that surfaced this week in US media, about a US lawmaker-turned-lobbyist who was involved with a charity group that allegedly funnelled a piddly $260,000 to an Afghan warlord in cahoots with the Taliban and al-Qaeda--both of which are long-time CIA assets. The chump change mentioned in this stupid little distraction went to Pakistan--the country to whom Grossman sold The Bomb. Now, ask yourself why that son-of-a-bitch Grossman isn't indicted for selling nuclear secrets to Turkish middlemen who turned around and sold them to Pakistan. This would be the same Marc Grossman who, as ambassador to Turkey in the mid-1990's facilitated the Ankara regime's genocide of the Kurdish people.

So the US media is telling us, by all means let's go anal over the details of a bare quarter of a million dollars to some Afghan warlord in Pakistan but, whatever we do, let's not breathe a word about high-ranking US government officials who have done all they can to push the nuclear clock much closer to midnight.

Check out more on the latest Sibel news over at Luke's place. In the first post, Luke addresses the following questions:

a) The use of Turkish front groups to supply nuclear hardware to the network

b) The extraordinary legal steps the US and UK governments have used to hide their guilt

Along with the usual suspects (the ATC and the Turkish Embassy), Luke focuses on Giza Technologies, in New Jersey, and Turkish businessmen Selim Alguadiş (of EKA) and the late Güneş Cire (of ETI Elektroteknik--now operating under the direction of Cire's son). Luke also discusses the so-called "state secrets privilege" as a way for both the US and the UK to cover up the criminals in government who have been crucial to the nuclear arming of states like Pakistan.

In his second recent post, Luke discusses today's Times article and makes the case that either the FBI is lying about the file on Grossman, the ATC, the Turkish Embassy, Giza Technologies, et.al., or the FBI has taken a page out of the CIA's playbook and has "destroyed the evidence of this multi-year investigation concerning the corruption of high-level US officials, the nuclear black market, money laundering and narcotics trafficking."


In other news, here's a "person of interest" you should know about: Robert Wexler (D-FL), thanks to an email from a friend:

Robert Wexler loves to talk Turkey. The congressman from Boca Raton gobbles on and on about that troubled country, calling it a role model for all Muslim nations to follow and praising its help in the so-called war on terrorism.

[ . . . ]

It's a stretch to call the Republic of Turkey a democracy, but everything is a little exaggerated when it comes to Wexler and Turkey. He doesn't just vote for the country's causes; he founded the Congressional Turkey Caucus last year to help build a pro-Turk coalition in the capital. He isn't just friendly with the powerful Turkish lobby; he won a "leadership award" from the American-Turkish Council this past March. Wexler doesn't just want to increase trade with Turkey; at the behest of leading Turkish businessmen, he is working hard in Congress to end tariffs on the country's exports to the United States.

All this for a near-military state with a terrible history of human rights abuses, illegal invasions, and genocide. The republic's anti-democratic ways have kept it from membership in the European Union, but the congressman, along with the Bush administration, hails it as a shining light among nations.

And Wexler, bless him, is doing it all for war.

If you read on, you'll see that Wexler is a kind of hub, a "person of interest" in whom both the Turkish and the Israeli lobbies intersect. Of course, he's doing it all for war; he voted a resounding "YEA" to give carte blanche to Bush and Cheney for the Iraq War, which turns his current project as head impeachment crusader into nothing more than politics-as-usual. Why didn't Wexler initiate impeachment proceedings in November 2006, when the Democrats took the majority in Congress? Because Wexler's little project is only for show and contains absolutely no substance.

What else does Wexler do for war? Condemns PKK, with no mention of PKK's August 2006 offer of a peaceful, political solution to the Kurdish situation in Turkey. In this, he resembles no one so much as Lockheed Martin's Joseph Ralston.

When you think about the Deep State in the US, don't forget to think about Wexler.

Finally, Hîwa's got a post up about a spat that's developed between the KDP and PUK on one side, and Michael Rubin and Hawlatî on the other, and it looks like Talabanî intends to take Erdoğan's approach and sue Hawlatî, because Hawlatî published a translation of one of Rubin's articles about the corruption in South Kurdistan.

I'm as frustrated as Hîwa over the corruption issue and I have to agree with his conclusions, particularly this:

It is time to take a tough love approach to Iraqi Kurdistan.

Yes, indeed. It's high time for the "tough love approach."

WE DO NOT FORGET

"The brutality, the impunity, the violence of Hrant’s murder serves several political ends. First, it makes Turkey less interesting for Europe, which is exactly what some in the Turkish establishment want. Second, it scares away Armenians and other minorities in Turkey, from pursuing their civil and human rights. Third, it scares those bold Turks who are beginning to explore these complicated, sensitive subjects in earnest."
~ Vartan Oskanian, Armenian Foreign Minister.

One year ago.

The victim.

The murderers.

The survivors.

The protesters, one year later, outside the office of the Agos newspaper.

From Bianet:

In the year since the murder, the Dink family has had to discover that it is difficult to “question the darkness.” Although the official murder suspects are on trial, it seems clear that those really responsible are will not be prosecuted. The Trabzon Gendarmerie and the Istanbul Police are accused of gross negligence, as they knew of murder plans long before the attack happened. Evidence has been withheld and permission to investigate security officers has been refused.

[ . . . ]

Saying that “the pain has made us relatives,” Rakel Dink reminded the crowd of the many sickening indicators of approval of the murder: the gendarmerie officers arresting suspected triggerman O.S. [note: Ogün Samast of Trabzon], who put a flag in his hand and took souvenir photographs of themselves with the suspect, football fans who reacted to the slogan at the funeral procession by shouting in stadiums, ‘We are all Ogün’ [referring to one of the murder suspects], the intelligence officer Muhittin Zenit who spoke to Erhan Tuncel , police informant and murder suspect, shortly after the murder and evidently knew of the murder plan.

There is no justice from the "Model of Democracy" yet for the Dink family or for the people of Turkey. Until justice comes, there will be no resting in peace for anyone.

Gordon Taylor at Progressive Historians has a little something from his own experience with Turkish fascists, the same kind who murdered Hrant Dink and others this past year, and have gone around terrorizing Kurds for 84 years:

On the night appointed for Turan's address I took my place in the lecture hall and waited with great interest, my pencil and notebook at the ready. Turan was introduced. Then, smiling, he strode to the lectern and proceeded to deliver the most appalling speech I have ever heard outside the documentaries of Leni Riefenstahl. When he began, Turan pitched his voice slightly below a scream. There, for the next thirty minutes, it remained. Occasionally it dipped somewhat in pitch; more often it rose into a keening wail. Never did it present the slightest coherent argument for a "Turkish position" on the Cyprus problem. Turkish babies were starving; this was clear. Turkish houses were destroyed. Turkish women were being violated. Turkish men were slaughtered. And, yes, Turkish babies were still starving. As a speech, it was quite effective at one thing: it kept the question-and-answer period to a minimum. No one had the least interest in asking questions of someone who had spent the last half hour shrieking at us. Imagine a press conference post-Nuremberg: "Excuse me, Mr. Hitler: could you explain a bit more your position on the Jews?" Afterward, as we stood in line for coffee and cookies, I spied Turan with several embarrassed-looking Volunteers. He smiled at me and nodded, seemingly eager to talk. Somehow I managed a smile, but I knew that talking was out of the question. With my empty notebook in hand, I found a convenient exit.

Don't forget to read the rest for much more.

AMED, US BASES, AND TORTURE

"While scads of bases were being built -- including four huge ones whose geographic placement correlated fairly strikingly with the four mentioned in the Times article -- reports about U.S. bases in Iraq, or any Pentagon planning in relation to them, largely disappeared from the American media."
~ Tom Engelhardt

Here are some comments from Murat Karayılan on the Amed (Diyarbakır) bombing, taken from an interview at Yeni Özgür Politika:

What is the exact relationship between your movement and the explosion that occured in Amed on 3 January against a military vehicle?

There is no relationship between our movement and that incident. Since the incident happened, we are investigating in several ways in order to get correct information. However, we have not gotten clear and concrete information yet. It seems like it is an incident that has been done by a regional unit on its own initiative. However, due to the method, the location, and the timing of this operation, it is an unacceptable attempt. Therefore our movement's headquarters is not claiming responsibility for this attempt.

It is still debatable who perpetrated this incident. We have opened an investigation already. Let me say this: we have not yet ordered our forces to use all possibilities and methods against the Turkish government and army. Had we given such an order, neither Erdogan nor Buyukanit would have gone to Amed so comfortably. We have that power; let no one deceive himself. We, as the movement, have not given such an order yet. We have hundreds of "immortals" company members and forces that are waiting for suicide operations. If this attack policy continues and the Turkish government's full mobilization against the Kurdish freedom movement keeps going as it is, a big war will occur. We adopted a limited defensive war and we are behaving according to the calls for a solution that we made.

For that reason, everyone must know this very well, that currently we are not even using ten percent of our military potential. Had we really pushed the button with all means, had we said, "Everyone must do what he or she can," then very different consequences would have occured. But we have not made such a decision yet.

AKP wanted to use this incident in a very opportunistic way, for preparing the ground to get Amed in the next regional election. We see this underhanded attempt as very atrocious. We are accepting the share of responsibility that belongs to us. We should have better control and inspection from our side. However, the main responsibility of this incident--and similar incidents--lies with Turkey and the AKP government.

There was also something about two US military bases being constructed, one in North Kurdistan and one in South Kurdistan, and the focus of these bases will be Iran. From Firat News (Note: see the link for photos):

Blood Price For The US Support To Turkey’s PKK Operation: A Military Base Against Iran

by Mehmet Yaman (source: ANF Fırat News Agency)
Monday, January 14, 2008

Editor's note: This was translated from Turkish by Cem Ertür from CASMII.

Having given no support to Turkey’s struggle against the PKK for a long time, the US supported the Turkish army’s recent bombing of the Qandil Mountain.

The reason behind this support is becoming clear now: An agreement made between the US, Turkey and the Federal Administration of South Kurdistan for the construction in South and North Kurdistan [i.e. Northern Iraq and Southeastern Turkey respectively] of two strategic US military bases targeting Iran.

According to a military specialist who trained Kurdish Special Security Forces in Salahaddin, a military base has already been established on the strategically important Korek Mountain in the Diyana (Soran) district of South Kurdistan. A specialist team consisting of seven US and Israeli staff members set up the connection of new satellite systems and powerful radar receptors and dealt with technical organisation.

The US dispatched the equipment for this base via Turkish territory. Entry to and exit from the Korek mountain area was banned before the launch of the construction work, with the exception of US and Israeli specialists and the special teams that support them. A US-trained 1,500-strong red beret Peshmerga force was deployed in the area surrounding the high-security base.

Before the US intervention on Iraq, the Turkish intelligence agency MIT was operating in the region to collect intelligence by intercepting communication between guerillas. An Israeli newspaper has previously reported that the US was establishing a military base a few kilometers from the Iraq- Iran border.

The Wall Street Journal came up with a similar news item on September 11, 2007. Images of the base are being published for the first time by the ANF Fırat News Agency. A second team reportedly began its activities for setting up, with Turkey’s approval, a similar military base in the Yüksekova district (province of Hakkari, Turkey) near the Iranian border. Although the technical devices aren’t installed yet, similar work is being carried out there as well. Sepelke region is also being used for the two bases. According to the political analysts in the region, if the ongoing US-Israeli intelligence and reconnaissance work on the PKK will be successful, then this will also be applied to Iran in different ways. For that reason, the phase that began with the provision to Turkey of intelligence on PKK seeks to achieve strategically important results in the medium- and long-term. The first step in that direction was made during a meeting at the Khanzad Hotel which is located between Hewler [Arbil] and Salahaddin. In that meeting, it was agreed that in return for receiving intelligence on the Qandil area, Turkey would refrain from harsh statements and threats against the Kurdish administration and provide support for the construction of the military bases targeting Iran and Syria.

And, in case you missed it:

London (KurdishMedia.com) 15 January 2008: About 60 percent of those who are tortured in the Turkish prisons are of Kurdish ethnicity while the rest of the other ethnicities in the courty, including Turks, are only constitute about 40 percent, reported in Kurdish website sbeiy.com on 13 January 2008.

On 13 January 2008, the Centre of Social and Investigation of Rights (Tuhav) in Turkey reported that 60 percent of the torture cases are carried out in Turkish prisons are detainees of Kurdish ethnicity. A member of the centre Selimoglu stated that "there are 70 to 80 thousand prisoners in Turkey and they are chiefly ill-treated"

No surprise there except for the ignorant.

TIME TO EMAIL

Regarding the welcome we hope is given Büyükanıt in the UK on 20 January, Hevallo has a request for readers to send an email "to the UK Home Secretary responsible for crime."

Here's the generic email from Hevallo which everyone can use:

Dear UK Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith,

The General of the Chief of Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, General Yasar Buyukanit is to visit London on the 20th Jan 2008.

General Buyukanit has committed serious and grave human rights abuses in Turkey against the Kurdish people during his time as commander of the 7th Turkish Army and during his time as General of the Chief of Staff.

There are so many cases that need further investigation, but there is sufficient evidence in two of the cases to justify an immediate arrest under international human rights law.

The first case is in regards to the large amount of bones and human remains found in a mass grave in the grounds of the military prison facility based in the notorious HQ of the Turkish 7th Army on 21st Sept 2007. General Buyukanit was the commander of 7th Army during the late nineties when many disappearances and killings by ‘unknown persons’ took place. He will certainly know where these human remains have come from.

The second case involves General Buyukanit being accused by a Turkish prosecutor of setting up rouge and secret militias to carry out killings and assassinations of Kurdish targets in the South East of Turkey.

These accusations came to light after a bombing of a Kurdish bookshop in the Kurdish town of Semdinli 9th Nov 2005. One man was killed in the attack. As the bombers made their getaway a crowd gathered around their car and captured them. In the car investigators found a cache of weapons, maps of the area and a list of further names of prominent Kurdish people listed for assassination.

General Buyukanit when responding to this attack, called one of the bombers who were caught red handed a ‘good chap’. The man served under General Buyukanit.

In any other country these serious crimes would have been investigated and the men responsible would be behind bars but these crimes remain unsolved and covered up.

The man who has been leading and directing these acts of ‘state terrorism’ against the Kurdish people, General Yasar Buyukanit is visiting London on 20th Jan 2008.

This is a chance to detain, question and charge him with crimes against humanity.

The UK authorities cannot just ignore and excuse such serious and systematic human rights abuses. By doing so the UK will be condoning and supporting ‘state terror’.

Please take action to arrest General Buyukanit.

Yours sincerely,

I'm sure Hevallo wouldn't mind if readers decided to personalize this. When you're all ready, send your email to the following addresses:

public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Smithjj@parliament.uk

Please do your part to help insure that Yaşar Büyükanıt gets the welcome he so richly deserves.

AIMING AT A WAR CRIMINAL

"At the heart of the concept of war crimes is the idea that an individual can be held responsible for the actions of a country or that nation's soldiers. Genocide, crimes against humanity, mistreatment of civilians or combatants during war can all fall under the category of war crimes. Genocide is the most severe of these crimes."
~ Tarik Kafala.

Hevallo and the UK Bakûrî are preparing a nice welcome for Yaşar Büyükanıt when he visits the UK on 20 January. They want to make sure that Büyükanıt the War Criminal gets everything that he deserves and plan to make a proper introduction of The Criminal to British polic authorities through a dossier of Büyükanıt's war crimes against the Kurdish people.

Everyone knows that Büyükanıt praised the Şemdinli bombers as "good boys" but not everyone may know that Büyükanıt was the commander of the Turkish 7th Corps, headquartered in Diyarbakır, from 1996 to 1998. Altay Tokat, the retired Turkish general who admitted to ordering bombings of Turkish civil servants in The Region during his time in The Southeast:

Turkey's Chief of General Staff Prosecutor's Office has drawn up its indictment against retired Lieutenant General Altay Tokat for his public revelation that he was responsible for ordering one or two clandestine street bombings when assigned to the Southeast region "to bring judges and civil servants in line".

[ . . . ]

Diyarbakir Bar Association Sezgin Tanrikulu had said Tokat's revelations were a self-confession and that he had directly committed the offences of threatening, influencing the judiciary and praising crime. In its complaint and application, the Bar Association had requested for an investigation to be launched into the general's past activities and other possible clandestine acts in the Southeast.

Human rights associations and the Bar Association not only want the full spectrum of Tokat's activities investigated but for him to be put on trial for human rights violations in the region based on his statements.

[ . . . ]

"In my time," the retired general said, "I also had them throw a few bombs to some critical points. These were empty places! My issue was to give a message".

Tokat said the message given through street bombings targeted civil servants and judges who were assigned to the region and the explosions occurred close to were they lived.

"Civil servants, judges that come from the West [of Turkey] don't understand the seriousness of the situation... when things became calmer, they started to take this business nor seriously... In consequence I had [bombs] thrown at two places close to their houses. After that they understood that they needed to be careful. One [act of] disaster is better than a thousand words of advice. This way I educated them," he said.

"You can't immediately evaluate this by saying throwing bombs is illegal. I might have saved the lives of those people. I did not tell them either. Now if you construe this as assassination, I'll laugh at that" he was quoted as further saying.

When did MHP'er Altay Tokat serve in The Southeast, you ask? From 1995 to 1998, meaning that he served under Büyükanıt. Therefore, Büyükanıt, as the commanding officer, is also responsible for Tokat's bomb-tossing at Turkish civil servants and judges.

Not only did Tokat's bombs go off during Büyükanıt's watch, but a mass grave also found its way to "the courtyard of the Turkish 7th Army Headquarters in the Kurdish capital of Amed (Diyarbakir) in northern Kurdistan (southeastern Turkey.)". Büyükanıt may also be responsible for the deaths of the victims buried in the 7th Army Corps Headquarters mass grave.

Büyükanıt is responsible for everything that happened and failed to happen in The Southeast during his time there, so he is guilty of numerous atrocities. If anyone has any information linking Büyükanıt to any specific incidents, please email me and I will forward your information to Hevallo to be included in the dossier on the War Criminal Büyükanıt.

Wouldn't it be nice to see Büyükanıt running for his life, à la Donald Rumsfeld?

CORRUPTION AND BLOWBACK

"Corruption never has been compulsory."
~ Anthony Eden.

The BBC has discovered something that some of us--like Hîwa and I--have complained about for some time: corruption in South Kurdistan and how difficult it is for the ordinary Kurd to get by.

As I said, from the BBC:

Flying into the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, Irbil and its glitteringly new international airport, it is difficult to believe you are entering Iraq.

[ . . . ]

Irbil looks like a boom town. Cranes and new multi-storey buildings litter the skyline.

There are shopping malls, luxurious gated communities, conference centres and grandiose headquarters for the factions who once fought Saddam and now rule Kurdistan - the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

[ . . . ]

Meanwhile, ordinary Kurds are struggling to get by. People described rampant inflation, high unemployment and erratic water and electricity supplies.

In Sulaimaniya, Iraqi Kurdistan's second city, people said they got running water for four hours every three days and electricity for three-to-four hours a day.

Contaminated water supplies have led to cholera outbreaks.

"Too many times, we have asked the government to help us,"said one woman who had lost her father-in-law and a baby to cholera said. "But it is in vain. They promise and do nothing."

She described the fear of living through an outbreak last September, knowing her water supply was contaminated, but not having the electricity to boil the water.

"When I think of the budget and the millions and see my situation," she said, "I feel like I am dead."

Kurdistan's budget is large - more than $6bn last year - the region's share of Iraq's oil revenues. But there is a growing gap between ordinary Kurds and the political elite.

"I see some of the officials who, 20 years ago, were with us in the mountains," said Ari Harsin, another former peshmerga, who is now the Irbil bureau editor of the independent Awene newspaper.

"They used to be purists, partisans. Now they are driving land cruisers with dark windows and a lot of body guards. They see how ordinary people are living. They have no shame."

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

There's also a podcast of the BBC's Crossing Continents radio program on which this story aired. It's got a 28-minute run time, and I recommend a listen. Young people from Helebçe who helped destroy the memorial in protest against the PUK are spoken to, as are people in government, Kurdish journalists, and contractors who are building exclusive, gated, residential areas for the elites. You can download the mp3 file here. The program was originally aired on 10 January.

If you had been planning to see the new flick with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, called Charlie Wilson's War, you'd better read something from Chalmers Johnson before you get propagandized yet again by Hollywood. From TomDispatch:

Which brings us back to the movie and its reception here. (It has been banned in Afghanistan.) One of the severe side effects of imperialism in its advanced stages seems to be that it rots the brains of the imperialists. They start believing that they are the bearers of civilization, the bringers of light to "primitives" and "savages" (largely so identified because of their resistance to being "liberated" by us), the carriers of science and modernity to backward peoples, beacons and guides for citizens of the "underdeveloped world."

[ . . . ]

When imperialist activities produce unmentionable outcomes, such as those well known to anyone paying attention to Afghanistan since about 1990, then ideological thinking kicks in. The horror story is suppressed, or reinterpreted as something benign or ridiculous (a "comedy"), or simply curtailed before the denouement becomes obvious. Thus, for example, Melissa Roddy, a Los Angeles film-maker with inside information from the Charlie Wilson production team, notes that the film's happy ending came about because Tom Hanks, a co-producer as well as the leading actor, "just can't deal with this 9/11 thing."

[ . . . ]

Today there is ample evidence that, when it comes to the freedom of women, education levels, governmental services, relations among different ethnic groups, and quality of life -- all were infinitely better under the Afghan communists than under the Taliban or the present government of President Hamid Karzai, which evidently controls little beyond the country's capital, Kabul. But Americans don't want to know that -- and certainly they get no indication of it from Charlie Wilson's War, either the book or the film.

Read the rest, especially if you're going to see the movie. Actually, read the rest anyway, because Chalmers Johnson knows what he's talking about--and get his Blowback trilogy, if you can--and you might actually learn something about how the CIA works, how American policy works, how the media works, and how Hollywood works.

NO CHANGE IN SIGHT

"We stand for the maintenance of private property... We shall protect free enterprise as the most expedient, or rather the sole possible economic order."
~ Adolf Hitler.

Here's Obama's plan for Kurdistan--thanks to Anonymous, who dropped off the link in comments.

Why am I not surprised? Maybe because of the people behind Obama:

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Anthony Lake, Clinton administration national security adviser

Sarah Sewall, Clinton administration deputy secretary of defense, counter, insurgency czar

Richard Clarke, Clinton and Bush administration counter, terrorism czar

Susan Rice, Clinton administration Africa specialist and NSC member, Brookings

Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer, NSC Near East and Asian affairs, Brookings

To see who's behind the other major candidates, take a look at this. Are you among the deluded who believe having a Demopublican in the White House will change US policy? Remember, they are all the same, so think again:

The “war on terrorism” will not only continue but likely intensify and expand under “new management." The only question is whether the bias will be towards a neoliberal brand, , , the “more nuanced” multinational New World Order, a “bipartisan consensus” in Washington, more orderly economic and political declines, etc. . . . .or a continuation of the open brutality and criminality of Bush-Cheney.

[ . . . ]

The Republican candidates have uniformly and consistently echoed the Bush/Cheney/neocon war agenda and 9/11/“terrorism” lies. Huckabee, the bizarre dark horse of the Republican side, has voiced criticism of some Bush-Cheney policies, but not the “war on terrorism” in general.

The Democratic candidates have each declared themselves the champion “anti-terrorist," or the “real” anti-terrorist that George W. Bush is not.

Obama’s murderous views on war are well documented, and similar to those of Bush-Cheney. In addition to war on Iran, Obama has declared that he would attack Pakistan if his administration possessed “actionable intelligence” that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan, and the government there did not act.

Don't miss Huckabee's plans for the Kurdish people at Foreign Affairs. Check page 2.

The forecast: No change in sight.

Also, read about the special gift some Turkish high school students sent Büyükanıt:

Have you heard the news? A group of high school kids from Kırşehir, a central Anatolian city, sent a special Turkish flag to the commander in chief of the Turkish military, Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt. What made the flag special was the stuff it was made of. The red color in the background was not any ordinary paint. It was literally the blood of these students, which they had joyfully spilt to symbolize their devotion "to the homeland."

According to the daily Bugün, which ran the news from its headline yesterday, Gen. Büyükanıt was deeply touched by this present. In a public speech, he mentioned it as symbolic of the fact the whole nation is ready to "spill its blood for the sacred cause of our national unity."

As is pointed out at the TDN link, this special gift gets very close in idea to the "blood flag" of the Nazi Party, and it's an appropriate comparison: the Nazi regime was, and the Ankara regime is, fascist. The Nazis attempted to carry out a genocide against Jews, Gypsies, and others, while the Ankara regime continues to carry out genocide against the Kurdish people. Obviously, the Ankara regime's taste for genocide is a carry-over from the Ottomans. Contrary to the other claims in the TDN article, Turkey did not remain neutral during WW2, but was among those countries that "' . . . played an equally critical rold in sustaining the war effort' by providing Nazi Germany with minerals essential for making weapons."

Don't forget to stop by Hevallo's place to get the link to Sibel Edmonds' Kill the Messenger video, if you haven't seen it yet. And considering that those in the US may have to wait for hell to freeze over until it's aired here, watching it at Google may be your only opportunity to see it.

THE BEST ARGUMENT FOR NOT VOTING

"Maybe, maybe, maybe its not the politicians who suck. Maybe it's something else sucks around here . . . like the public."
~ George Carlin.

The best, and wisest, commentary yet for the American elections of 2008:

With that in mind . . . here's an example of how worthless the democratic process is in the US, check Lukery's recent post about Congressman Waxman (D-CA) and his avoidance of Sibel Edmonds' case:

Congressman Henry Waxman has used every possible trick to deny Sibel hearings in congress.

After years of promising that he would hold hearings when the Dems were in the majority, he caved and has settled on a 'talking point' where he and his staff say "we have no plans to hold hearings at this time."

[ . . . ]

Waxman was then asked about the absurdity of him holding hearings into baseball but not Sibel's case, and he responds by saying that it's important that the kids have good role models. *choke.*

By coincidence, today I found another little report on Waxman, apparently from his own constituents. They, too, are interested in what Sibel has to say:

Waxman’s more than 30-minute speech focussed on health care, corrupt charities, rampant steroid use in major league baseball, and he touched lightly with pride on the fact that Congress had just passed the Whistle Blower Protection Act. He clearly stated with regard to any impeachment bill that his opinion differed from those in the room and that he would not support such hearings nor would he entertain a new 911 investigation because it would look bad for the Democratic Party. When the disagreeing crowd interrupted his speech at that point, Waxman, who was clearly agitated and sounding almost childish said,


"Hey this is not right, the way you are treating me".

OH, BOO-HOO-HOOOOOO!

Later, when the audience was allowed to ask questions they lined the center isle for their turn to speak. From the beginning Waxman was bombarded with question after question about Sibel Edmonds – the gagged FBI Whistleblower, WTC7 and other issues related to the crimes of 911.

[ . . . ]

The questions ranged from why the Congressman refuses to have Sibel Edmonds testify under oath in an open session to when will Congress open a new 911 investigation - while also hitting hard on HR 1955. Waxman was obviously caught off guard and cornered with little to say on those issues.

After hearing George Carlin's commentary, it should be pretty obvious why Waxman refuses to do something about significant national--and global--security and corruption issues, and prefers to push the cause of the vastly overpaid and overrated drug addicts of major league baseball.

Garbage in; garbage out.

FAWNING AT THE FEET OF MAMMON

"The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread."
~ John Swinton, NYTimes editor, 1953.

At the moment we are still waiting for an official statement on the Amed (Diyarbakır) bombing from KCK, reference this article. The official investigation by KCK is not complete yet and the leadership has not yet determined exactly what has happened. They feel that they owe it to the Kurdish people to reveal the truth and they plan to do exactly that when the investigation is completed. Out of deep respect for the leadership and all the fighters of the Kurdish freedom movement, I will wait for their official statement.

At the moment, I am following the situation and am bookmarking the pertinent pages and when the moment is right, I will faithfully report what our freedom movement has to say.

In the meantime, there has been much chatter on the Sibel Edmonds case. On the surface, it may seem strange that I have followed Sibel's case and have tried to bring as much of it as possible to the readers of Rastî, but perhaps Hevallo's comments on Luke Ryland's recent post will help to explain why Sibel's case is important for Northern Kurds:

To get to bottom of this 'dirty' relationship is part of the Kurdish struggle for freedom. I have spoken to officials from the Kurdish parties in Turkey about your campaign and they asked me to send their very best wishes and solidarity. I will continue to do everything within my own modest capacity to help.

Sibel's case goes to the heart of the political battle in North Kurdistan because the actors in this sordid chapter of Deep State crime are all complicit in the genocide of the Kurdish people and they should all be exposed no matter where they are--in the US, Turkey, or Israel. This is why Sibel's information should be dispersed as widely as possible, and here are some links for doing just that:


"'Nükleer köstebek' Marc Grossman mı" (For Turkish-language speakers, thanks to Miguel for that link. Believe it or not, it's a Hürriyet article that is actually true to Sibel's story. It summarizes The Sunday Times article well, and also draws from Sibel bloggers, especially Luke Ryland's work. It's a good, complete summary of Sibel's case in Turkish.)

Luke also has a couple of posts to update The Sunday Times: "Media Coverage" and "Facts & Thanks". He also has a link to something Chris Floyd has written.

Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire has a very detailed post here. Remember the guy who, back in 2005, was arrested in Turkey for building bombs he was going to use against Israeli ships? Cannon mentions him in reference to The Times article last November--the article that prompted Sibel to approach The Times with her story. Here's what Cannon has to say:

Sakka and the spooks: I'm still not sure why news reports about this man triggered Edmonds to go into action. But the following may be of interest.

According to the Turkish newspaper Zaman, 2000 was the year when the Americans "turned" Sakka, who received an unspecified (but large) amount of money from the CIA. More than that: He received protection during his time in Turkey -- while he ran those Al Qaeda training camps.

Then came his mysterious sojourn in Germany in 2000-2001. During this period, he appears to have met Atta -- and then he went "underground.

Germany's BND -- their version of the CIA -- aided Sakka while he was on the run. This, despite the fact that Sakka was considered a wanted man in Germany, due to his role in earlier terror plots.

In late 2005, after Sakra’s arrest in Turkey (see July 30, 2005), the German television news show Panorama will report that the German BKA (Federal Office of Criminal Investigation) suspects the German BND (Federal Intelligence Service) to have helped Sakra escape from Germany in late 2001. Supposedly, German police had learned where he was staying in Germany, but the BND enabled him to escape via France to Syria in order to prevent further investigations about him. Panorama will report that Sakra was secretly still working for Syrian intelligence and was giving them information about al-Qaeda’s leadership. Sakra will go on to mastermind a series of suicide bombings in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2003...

We cannot know what Sakka was up to in Syria, but one thing seems clear: Western intelligence placed greater value on his services than on bringing a 9/11 plotter to justice. His protection continued in the face of the 1999 plots, the 9/11 tragedy, and the 2003 bombings. It ended only when he decided to go after Israeli ships.

At his 2005 trial, his lawyer offered an intriguing observation:

Sakra’s lawyer will claim that if Sakra revealed all that he knew, “a few states would collapse.”

This was the guy referred to in The Sunday Times:

She [Edmonds] approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

If the CIA gave the guy money and "turned" him, and if the Ankara regime protected him while he was running al-Qaeda training camps in Turkey, and another American ally, Germany, aided the guy while he was on the lam, does that make him a CIA asset?

Do you find that surprising? You shouldn't. Remember who the real terrorists are.

Lastly, there's a video interview with Brad Friedman of The Brad Blog at INN World Report, discussing Sibel's case. Perhaps the thing that comes across most clearly in the interview is that Friedman notes that the US media has not breathed so much as one syllable of Sibel's case.

I never thought I'd live to say it, but Sibel's case makes me respect Turkish media so much more than American media.

Ax!

HPG STATEMENT ON AMED BOMBING

HPG has issued a Statement about the explosion in Amed (Diyarbakır).

To the people and public opinion:

There is a possibility that the explosion in Amed Yenişehir on 3 January 2008, in which a military vehicle carrying lieutenants, including some pilots, was carried out by one of our units' own initiative. We have not received exact information about this operation yet.

We want you to know that we will share the exact results when the investigation is completed.

Stay tuned.

POISONING SIBEL EDMONDS

"Disinformation is deliberately misleading information announced publicly or leaked by a government, intelligence agency, corporation or other entity for the purpose of influencing opinions or perceptions. Unlike misinformation, which is also a form of wrong information, disinformation is produced by people who intend to deceive their audience."
~ Sourcewatch

Well, the good news is that this morning when I started looking at news, Sibel's bombshell from The Sunday Times was all over the place, including Counterpunch and OpEd News, The Times of India, Pakistan's Daily Times, Iran's PressTV, Israel's Haaretz, and TDN.

The news is also ricocheting around the blogosphere at, among many, The Agonist, Lukery's always excellent diary at Daily Kos, and The Brad Blog. Hevallo has not only one post on Sibel, but two!

The bad news is that there already appears to be a disinformation campaign begun against Sibel, and it's starting to spread through the blogs. Sibel posted a photo gallery of "subjects of interest" on her own website while Lukery put names to faces. However, someone is already tampering with Sibel's gallery:

UPDATE: I have made some changes to the list. I have removed Lantos, despite what I have heard being confirmed by Sibel's gallery of people. I have added Kissinger too.

Alexandrovna gives no explanation for her tampering, and her "adjustments" were made without any knowledge of Turkish and no access to the FBI tapes that Sibel translated.

Why remove Lantos? Just because he's had to resign from the House due to cancer? Sorry, but that's no excuse to let the guy off if he's guilty, and if he's posted in Sibel's rogues' gallery, he's guilty. Let justice hound him to the grave because his criminal involvement with the Deep State has caused severe suffering for countless hundreds of thousands in North Kurdistan alone. Give me twenty years and I'd still be trying to squeeze out a tear for this dirty old bastard of American politics.

Why add Kissinger? We all know that Kissinger is a douchebag and is also guilty of the blood of millions, but if he's not mentioned in the FBI tapes that Sibel translated, then why drag him into Sibel's case?

If we scroll down, we read this:

Henry Kissinger (He is not shown in Sibel's gallery, but I believe him to be on of the MIA photos)

Oh, I see. Despite what she has heard being confirmed by Sibel's own gallery and by Sibel's own facts, this fine, upstanding example of American journalism--and that's not a compliment--believes Kissinger to be part of Sibel's case, then it simply has to be.

That, boys and girls, is what's known as "blowing it out of your ass."

The photo information came from Sibel and is posted at Sibel's site; Alexandrovna didn't come up with any of it on her own. Why, then, is there any need to change names, take out names, or add any other non-factual, irrelevant crap? If Sibel listed those people in her photo gallery, then Sibel did so for reasons that are fully backed by facts. Why would Alexandrovna tamper with the information that Sibel is able to tell? Why attempt to obfuscate and poison the facts that Sibel has been trying to tell for years? I mean, Alexandrovna can claim that she's been trying to publish for years the information that she's learned of Sibel's case but the fact is that, aside from Sibel, Luke Ryland is the expert on the case. I add that, contrary to Alexandrovna's claim, she hasn't put so much as a nanofraction of the work into Sibel's case as Luke Ryland has.

Sibel's information, including the photo gallery, is based on the facts as backed up by Sibel's own, direct evidence, and here we have someone altering it based on what? Partisanship? Ideological allegiances? Or just plain malice?

The evidence against the Deep State in the US, Israel, Pakistan, and Turkey must always be backed up by pristine evidence. So far, Sibel has presented us with nothing but pristine evidence, as far as she can given the Deep State's court-ordered gag against her.

Who is Alexandrovna covering for? Who's she spreading disinformation for? What's in it for her that she's attempting to discredit Sibel Edmonds?

THE MAN WHO GAVE PAKISTAN THE BOMB

"He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives."
~ Sibel Edmonds.

We have not heard too much from Sibel Edmonds since the end of October, when she let it be known publicly that she was willing to tell the whole story of her work at the FBI and the information she learned from the translations she made--information that would expose and damn the Turkish lobby in the US and that great American work of fiction, The 9/11 Commission Report.

The silence since Sibel's offer to go public has been mainly the result of the chickenshit American media, which continually refuses to show any interest in Truth or in telling a story that requires a bit of mental concentration to understand--no matter how important the story is. So much for the tradition of muckraking.

Until today, anyway.

Britain's The Sunday Times has placed Sibel's story front and center to tell who it was that was involved with selling nuclear secrets to Pakistan:

Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said: “He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”

Oh, let me take three nanoseconds of my time to guess who that "well-known senior official in the US State Department" was: Marc Grossman.

Those familiar with the details of the conflict of interest surrounding the State Department's appointment of Lockheed Martin's Joseph Ralston as "PKK coordinator" for Turkey, will remember that Ralston works as a vice-chairman of The Cohen Group. The other vice-chairman of The Cohen Group is Marc Grossman.

The Cohen Group, founded by former Defense Secretary William Cohen--a Clinton appointee--has been involved in nothing but dirty business since its creation, such as its role in the cover-up of Oil-for-Food kickbacks and the Australian Wheat Board. Then, of course, there was the appointment of Ralston as "special envoy" to Turkey to "coordinate" the PKK, even while he was listed as a lobbyist for The Cohen Group in order to export tactical fighter aircraft--and this while maintaining his position as a member of the Board of Directors of Lockheed Martin.

So it should come as no surprise that The Cohen Group should attract and employ a major rodent like Grossman.

Marc Grossman climbed his way to the number three position at the State Department during his 29 years at the department, during which time he worked in Turkey and Pakistan. As the US ambassador to Turkey, he supervised the procurement of American military hardware for the Turkish military and the guy who was directly in charge of that procurement was none other than US Air Force Major Douglas Dickerson who, with his wife, MİT operative Melek Can Dickerson, figures prominently in Sibel's story.

Note that Grossman and Dickerson worked together to provide Turkey with American weapons and military training at the height of Turkey's genocidal Dirty War against the Kurdish people, during which time the US provided more weapons to Turkey than it had during all the other combined years of the Cold War.

Grossman has also been seriously implicated in tipping off both the Pakistanis and the Turks as to the true nature of Brewster Jennings, earning him the status of "subject of interest" by US intelligence circles:

"When Beyaz Enerji began to encounter 'consultants' with Brewster Jennings, they expressed an interest to their ATC interlocutors in buying the firm along with other energy consulting companies. In the two phone calls intercepted by the FBI, Grossman told the called parties to 'stay away from Brewster Jennings . . . they're the government . . . they're nothing but a cover.' One of the calls was to a Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) top agent in Washington. The other call, bearing an almost identical message, was made to a Northrop Grumman official who was a key player with the ATC. The Northrop Grumman official made a phone call to his ATC handler, stating, 'Our guy warned us off Brewster Jennings.' A U.S. intelligence source stated that 'Grossman's name was all over the FBI wiretaps in 2001.'

"Grossman, who now works for the Cohen Group of former Defense Secretary William Cohen, was, according to U.S. intelligence sources, a subject of interest to counter-intelligence agents since his stint as U.S. ambassador in Ankara."

Then there was Grossman's Pakistan connection:

Ahmed [General Mahmoud], the paymaster for the hijackers, was actually in Washington on 9/11, and had a series of pre-9/11 top-level meetings in the White House, the Pentagon, the national security council, and with George Tenet, then head of the CIA, and Marc Grossman, the under-secretary of state for political affairs. When Ahmed was exposed by the Wall Street Journal as having sent the money to the hijackers, he was forced to "retire" by President Pervez Musharraf. Why hasn't the US demanded that he be questioned and tried in court?

A better question: Why hasn't the US demanded that Marc Grossman be questioned and tried in court?

Did claims against our "subject of interest" pan out? If not, then why did Grossman resign from the number 3 position at the State Department under cover of darkness--normal activity for rodents--by the beginning of 2005?

Sibel herself put it best:

The second Vice Chairman of Cohen’s firm is Marc Grossman, who was the U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs in the State Department from 2001 until 2005. From November 1994 to June 1997, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. In January 2005 Grossman resigned from his position and joined the Cohen Group. In late December 2005, Grossman joined Ihlas Holding, a large and alleged shady Turkish company which is also active in several Central Asian countries. Grossman is reported to receive $100,000 per month for his advisory position with Ihlas.’ Most and foremost, Grossman is known for his extraordinarily cozy relationship with Turkey and Israel; followed by Pakistan.

[ . . . ]

Please do not make the grave and naive mistake of assuming that Grossman found and obtained his highly lucrative and questionable positions after his resignation in January 2005. Within two months after his confident resignation, this boy got the vice chairmanship of the Cohen Group. Only six months later, Grossman ended up securing a ‘special advisory’ position for a foreign company that reported his monthly fee at $100,000 a month. The industrious Grossman seems to be juggling so many balls simultaneously: numerous foreign sponsored dinner speeches, the demanding pimping activities of Cohen’s firm, the very ‘special advising’ of a shady foreign company…

As Sibel noted, that "shady foreign company" is Ihlas Holding, a Fethullacı (i.e. Islamist) business. Obviously Marc Grossman was able to make a very comfortable transition to the private business world because he had made a lot of lucrative connections during his time at the State Department. These connections were his retirement plan, you might say. The fact is also that Grossman didn't cultivate any of his connections for high-minded ideological purposes; he did it for the money and the power.

Let's make it clear what I'm saying here, and what Sibel is saying: Marc Grossman sold nuclear secrets to the Turks, who turned around and sold them to Pakistan. Marc Grossman gave Pakistan The Bomb.

The rodent Grossman is in complete denial, again from today's Sunday Times:

The senior official in the State Department no longer works there. Last week he denied all of Edmonds’s allegations: “If you are calling me to say somebody said that I took money, that’s outrageous . . . I do not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this.”

But American intelligence types corroborate Sibel's version of the story, just as every official investigation into Sibel's accusations have done:

In researching this article, The Sunday Times has talked to two FBI officers (one serving, one former) and two former CIA sources who worked on nuclear proliferation. While none was aware of specific allegations against officials she names, they did provide overlapping corroboration of Edmonds’s story.

And if Grossman is truly innocent, he won't have anything to hide and, therefore, will not mind a public investigation . . . will he?

By the way, check out this little zinger at the beginning of the article:

She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

Let's see now . . . Turkey . . . that would be America's close ally and Model of Democracy for the Middle East, right . . . training 9/11 hijackers in Turkey?

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Americans are so stupid.

For more on Sibel and The Sunday Times, see Luke Ryland's latest post at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak. Also, see Grossman backgrounders:

"Marc Grossman, Man of Mystery".

"Doug Feith, Richard Perle and Marc Grossman"

"Lesser Neocons of L'Affaire Plame"


In order to put faces to names, Sibel has a State Secrets Rogues Photo Gallery. The list of rogues reads as follows, from left to right:


Richard Perle
Douglas Feith
Eric Edelman
Marc Grossman

*****

Brent Scowcroft
Larry Franklin

*****

Dennis Hastert
Roy Blount - ( Republican, Missouri)
Dan Burton - (R - IN)
Tom Lantos - (D- CA)
?
Bob Livingston
Stephen Solarz

*****

Graham Fuller- RAND
David Makovsky - WINEP
Alan Makovsky- WINEP
?
?

*****

Yusuf Turani (President, Turkistan)
Professor Sabri Sayari (Georgetown, WINEP)
Mehmet Eymur (Turkish MIT)


UPDATE: Luke has a post with the photos of the guilty. Take a look and read the comments.

NO CONSPIRACIES HERE

"Although the institute calls itself a "non-partisan policy research organization," scholars at Hudson consistently reveal an ideological agenda in their work."
~ Hudson Institute entry at Right Web.

Hevallo brings up a good point to remember about the recent Amed bombing and the development of the situation in North Kurdistan in the last few months:

Remember the Hudson Institute 'Scenarios'?

Where the Turkish military was exposed going through all sorts of different 'scenarios' in the right wing 'think tank' in the US earlier in the year. And the leaked reports about US/Turkish 'special operations' in South Kurdistan.

My guess is that all these 'scenarios' that have so far been carried out, Beytussebap, bombings of Qandil and now this Diyarbakir bomb are all pieces of pre planned campaign, to justify not only the severe repression of the Kurdish Freedom Movement in Turkey, that is at its strongest in history but also to gain support for and justify a military invasion of South Kurdistan.

At the beginning of the year it sounded like a conspiracy theory, Turkey and the US plotting to invade Kurdistan and grab Kurdish oil. But now it seems all too plausible.

Who was sitting with the Paşas and the same Americans who faked all the "intelligence" for the Iraq War and now attempt to bullshit their way to a war in Iran? Qubad Talabanî, whose father lectures Northern Kurds to support the AKP. So you have to ask yourself what kind of deal the Southern Kurdish leadership has cut with both the Americans and the Turks at the expense of the Kurdish people.

Believe me, they ain't doing it out of the goodness of their little black hearts.

If you take the time to actually read the Hudson Institute entry at Right Web, you'll see names that repeat over and over in neocon circles, such as Norman Podhoretz, Meyrav Wurmser, Elliot Abrams, Francis Fukuyama, Richard Perle, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Center for Security Policy, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), and the RAND Corporation--filth all.

Goran at Zanetî has something new up about the US-Turkey relationship. Among other facts, he mentions that which very few bother to mention:

The complicity of the United States and NATO in the oppressive policies of the Turkish State may come as a surprise to many. The moral support or even the billions of dollars worth of weapons during the Cold War era are not the only things that were provided to Turkey. The U.S. military through the hundreds of their advisors actively trained the same Turkish military, Special Forces and intelligence services that carried out the vast array of human rights abuses that continue to this day. In more recent times, the U.S. continues to extend their support through Joint Combined Exchange Training led by U.S. Special Forces. The human rights abuses including the “numerous violations of the laws of war, including village destruction, indiscriminate fire, and ‘disappearances’" carried out by the Turkish Special Forces - trained by the U.S. forces - have been carefully documented by various groups such as the Human Rights Watch (HRW).(11) The serious war crimes, which could be questionably labeled as acts of genocide, committed by these U.S.-backed Turkish forces have been condemned by the HRW and reports recommend that such forces should not be deployed in Kurdish civilian regions.

Now think about that in light of Hevallo's point about the planning that went on at the Hudson Institute.

Nor is Hevallo alone in wondering if there are "any journalists or editors left in this world that have enquiring minds"; so does Axin Arbili at The Conservative Voice:

Despite all the deceptions and lies spread by Turkish and Western governments, and by so-called independent journalists or political analysts, the truth and reality is quite different: The Turkish army is not fighting terrorism, it is bombing the Kurdish resistance against Turkish tyranny and oppression.

[ . . . ]

The West prefers to believe in a friendly Turkey and supports it financially and militarily. Turkey is, after Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the third-largest recipient of US military aid. US tax monies finance Turkey in its dirty war against a defenceless people.

The Kurdish resistance and liberation leader, Abdullah Öcalan, was captured by the US secret services and handed over to the Turks. How strange that at the same time, the West supports two million Muslims in seceding from Serbia and establishing a second Albania.

Even more outrageous is the West's support of the Arabs, who call themselves Palestinians, in establishing a 23rd Arab state; notwithstanding that it is to be carved out of ancestral and biblical Jewish territory. The injustices done to the Kurds, whose history and legitimate claims to an independent, sovereign state infinitely transcends those of the so-called Palestinian Arabs. But Kurdish aspirations are ignored.

If Kurdish aspirations are ignored, then it's high time for a little in-your-face resistance to spread like wildfire . . . from Turkey, to Europe and beyond.

Serkeftin!

BLACK OPERATIONS IN THE KURDISH CAPITAL

"A good Kurd is a dead Kurd."
~ Türk İntikam Tugayı, 12 September 2006.

The last bombing in Amed (Diyarbakır), carried out on 12 September 2006, was the work of Turkish state forces, in particular Türk Intikam Tugayı (Turkish Revenge Brigade--TİT). At the time, TİT claimed the bombing on their website (quickly pulled from the Internet shortly thereafter):

"To the great Turkish people. In the recent period in many areas of our country, the bloody PKK terrorist organization has martyred our soldiers, police officers and our youth. We, as the Turkish Revenge Brigade, swear on our flag colored red with the blood of our martyrs, that for every Turk that PKK kills in [western Turkey], we will kill 10 Kurds in Diyarbakir. [ . . .] Here are photos taken during the preparation for the operation on September 12, 2006, dedicated to Private Ali Balikci who was martyred during duty by the PKK terrorist organization in the Eruh district of Siirt [ . . . ] A good Kurd is a dead Kurd."

DozaMe captured the photos for posterity from TİT's website and can be viewed at the .pdf link given above.

It looks like TİT has carried out another bombing in Amed today, again detonating the blast with a remote-control device:

A bomb exploded near a shopping mall in the largely Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey on Thursday, killing five people and wounding more than 60, in the largest attack on a Turkish city in months, the authorities said.

The bomb was placed in a parked car and detonated by remote control shortly before 5 p.m., just as a shuttle bus carrying military personnel passed, Turkish officials said.

At this point, unfortunately, Turkish soldiers only appear to have been wounded and reports indicate that TİT's blast only managed to kill civilians--school kids.

You should ask yourself who it is that can pack a car full of explosives, park it next to a Turkish military compound in The Southeast, and blow it up? Remember how the attempted assassination of Beytuşşebap's DTP mayor was set up? Does anyone honestly think that PKK sympathizers who set cars on fire with molotov cocktails could possibly drive around in The Southeast with that much explosives and not be stopped?

Or, if someone wants to believe that PKK sneaked so much explosives across the border from Iraq, how could they get it passed the hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the region? How could they drive it through OHAL areas without being stopped?

No. Only the Ankara regime could carry out such an attack in the world's largest Kurdish city.

The Turkish education minister tried to fudge his way around the bombing by saying, "I deeply condemn this blast if it is the result of a terrorist attack," which means that he's not condemning it because, in his view, it was not a terrorist attack. It was an attack by the Turkish Republic, and is, therefore, acceptable to the regime.

Let's note one other piece of trivia, shall we? The date of the Ankara regime's last bombing of Amed was significant as the date of the beginning of the current war against the Kurdish people--12 September 1980. In addition, 12 September 2006 was the day that Lockheed Martin's "PKK coordinator" Joseph Ralston arrived in Ankara on his first official mission as "PKK coordinator":

It is no coincidence that this most recent attack against the Kurdish people happened on the same day that "special envoy" Joseph Ralston arrived in Ankara. The US is backing Turkey in its renewal of the Dirty War, and the bombing in Amed is one more sign that "psychological operations," a special kind of warfare for which the US trained Turkish security forces, are being resurrected.

It's also no coincidence that this recent attack by the racist Ankara regime takes place just days before Abdullah Gül's 6 January visit to the US. I mean, he has to come with a reason to beg and I guess he couldn't find any Saudis to fly commercial jet aircraft into the Dedeman Hotel, so he has to settle for a TİT bomb.

AMED IS BOMBED AGAIN

Vehicles burn after an explosion in Diyarbakir, south eastern Turkey, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2008. A car bomb exploded in the Kurdish-dominated southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Thursday, wounding at least 20 people, including some military personnel, news reports said. (AP Photo/Ibrahim Yakut, Anatolia)

Vehicles are engulfed by flames following an explosion in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, January 3, 2008. REUTERS

Turkish police officers inspect the wreckage of a military bus following an explosion in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir January 3, 2008. At least three people were killed in an explosion on Thursday that wrecked a military vehicle in the southeast Turkish city of Diyarbakir, NTV television quoted police sources as saying. REUTERS/Anatolian

Police inspect the area of an explosion in Diyarbakir. A powerful car bomb exploded Thursday near a military base in Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, killing five people, hospital officials said. (AFP)

TURKEY BURNS

"The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done."
~ George Carlin.

Does anyone remember back in 2005, how night after night, cars were set on fire in Paris? Does anyone remember how the French car-burnings were all over the news?

Good.

You may not have noticed, because it hasn't been too prominent in the media . . . mainly because the AKP government has forbidden the Turkish media from covering it . . . but cars have been burning all over Turkey for the last few weeks.

TDN has reported that 50 cars have been burned in Istanbul in the last two weeks. Of course, that's an official figure--meaning that it's not likely to be accurate:

Six more cars were torched in Istanbul Thursday while police arrested three people carrying Molotov cocktails.

Unidentified culprits poured gasoline before setting a parked car on fire in the Eminönü district. Firemen arrived at the scene and extinguished the flames but the car incurred serious damage.

Three trucks and one van were also set alight in the Küçükçekmece region.

Two people who had torched a car with Molotov cocktails in the Aksaray district were apprehended but two police officers were injured in the scuffle. Relatives of the two arsonists also got involved, and the police were forced to fire warning shots to end the disturbance. One of the policemen who sustained stab wounds is in critical condition, reports said.

Talk about efficiency! Not only was a car torched but a police got a few well-deserved stab wounds. Not only were trucks and vans torched in Küçükçekmece, but it's possible that a small bomb went off in the same district that wounded three.

Good.

According to Zaman, it appears that luxury cars are particularly targeted.

Excellent!

What could possibly be the reason for so many barbeques-on-wheels? Let's check that Zaman link again:

Gazi University’s Önder Aytaç points out that there might be "political reasons" behind the attacks, noting that it might be the PKK or some provocateurs aiming to create a Turkish-Kurdish rift in society. He also underlines that it is a possibility that if the police cannot catch the perpetrators soon, the attacks may well spread.

It might be "political"? No shit, Sherlock.

I might add that there's no need "to create a Turkish-Kurdish rift in society" when, in fact, the rift already exists and bears more resemblance to a chasm than to a rift. And here's a news flash for the brilliant professor at Gazi University: The attacks have already spread.

There have been car-burnings in Amed (Diyarbakır), Mersin, Adana, Ankara, Sinop, and Wan (Van). İzmir.

In Yüksekova, they say that PKK is behind the car-burning. Fabulous! Then who's behind the car-burning in Amed, Mersin, Adana, Ankara, Sinop, Wan, and İzmir?

Is PKK everywhere? Or is this all just a matter of jealousy against those who buy luxury cars? Then how does one account for soldiers' cars that are burned in The Southeast? What about military or police vehicles that are burned? Can a Turkish conscript afford a BMW? Is the TSK or the Turkish police German, that they drive Mercedes?

These car-burnings are the proper response to a system that closes every avenue that Kurds try to take in the struggle, including all the political avenues. These attacks are just when considering that the victims here are the same ones who bomb Kurdish civilians in their homes, in the middle of the night, and have destroyed at least 4,000 Kurdish villages in The Southeast.

Remember--that 4,000 is only an official figure.

Yes, it's all political. Yes, PKK is everywhere because PKK is the people. Yes, these acts of resistance will continue.

NO INVASION NECESSARY

"Contrary to the received wisdom, global markets are not unregulated. They are regulated to produce inequality."
~ Kevin Watkins

What happens when globalization comes to Kurdistan? Slavery. From the right-wing reactionaries at the NYTimes:

Thousands of foreign workers have come to the Kurdish districts in the last three years, a huge turnaround for a place that had hardly any before, making it one of the fastest-growing Middle Eastern destinations for the world’s impoverished. They come from Ethiopia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Somalia, supporting an economic boom here that is transforming Kurdish society.

But nearly all foreign workers interviewed over a two-week period here said they had been deceived by unscrupulous agents who arrange the journeys. Unable to communicate, some arrive not knowing what country they are in. Once here, their passports are seized by their employment agencies, and they are unable to go home.

[ . . . ]

Nisha Varia, an investigator with Human Rights Watch, said the combination of unscrupulous brokers in the workers’ home countries and labor practices in Kurdistan left the workers with few options.

“Each side denies that it knows what other is doing,” she said. “In reality, they are much more interconnected than that. They are doing business together, and that leads to these recruiting fees and debts, and puts the workers at risk of forced labor.”

I wonder why the NYTimes didn't contact the KRG's Ministry of Human Rights? Surely the ministry should be investigating this situation and the companies involved with this kind of abuse should be kicked out of the South. Additionally, employers in Kurdistan should be hiring Kurds but to do so, they must pay a just wage. After all, all the talk of the "economic boom" is highly misleading. There's only an "economic boom" for those on the take, for the elites, and not for the average Kurd.

But I think we all know very well why this contemporary slavery is tolerated in South Kurdistan. It's tolerated by both the KDP and PUK.

What else happens when globalization comes to Kurdistan? Your enemies take you over. In his interview after the US and Turkey began their air strikes against South Kurdistan, HPG Headquarters Commander Bahoz Erdal noted that the Southern Kurdish leadership "stepped back" after the Turkish parliament's cross-border operation vote. That stepping back has its answer in the tightly interconnected business interests between Ankara and the Barzanîs and Talabanîs. From the hevals at Firat News:

Turkish corporations in South Kurdistan provide heavy financial support to KDP- and PUK-affiliated press and broadcast organizations in order to divert the people from the real face of current military operations, by broadcasting advertisement and variety programs.

Turkish corporations in South Kurdistan began to support KDP- and PUK-affiliated press and broadcasting organizations. At first, the KRG warned Southern media to cut off broadcasting about PKK. Now it has been revealed that Turkish corporations have given over $1 million as "gifts", for advertisement, and as tax.

Immediately following Turkish military operations in South Kurdistan, Turkish corporations which have marketing shares there, such as Oyak, Arçelik, Ülker, Nursoy, and Gürbağ, started to broadcast variety programs on TV, radio, and other satellite-based broadcast media which are affiliated with the KDP and PUK. It is believed that the goal of these attempts is to distract people from Turkish military operations.

KDP General Secretary Fadil Mirani's broadcast organs, such as Vin TV, are heavily supported by Turkish corporations.

Arçelik-Ülker and OYAK corporations organize street competitions and variety programs through Korek Telecom and AsiaCell telephone service operators, which are affiliated with KDP and PUK. These operators promise to give gifts ranging from $100 to $1,000 USD for text messages sent.

Arçelik had promised to deliver large appliances and electronics through the regional and satellite-based TV. As an example, when Turkish military operations began on 16 December, Arçelik started delivering large appliances, such as refrigerators, televisions, washing machines, ovens, and the like, to the people.

In addition, Arçelik is operating a lottery in South Kurdistan. Using the Bayram and New Year holidays as a pretext, it promised to give a brand new car, money, and such gifts to the people.

In addition to this, OYAK, Ülker, and the other Turkish corporations are arranging competitions on the streets where golden Kurdistan flags, made by Southern Kurdish jewelers, are delivered to people.

The irony here is that even though the Ankara regime does not trust the KRG, as HPG's Bahoz Erdal noted, and the Turkish prime minister opposes Kurdish autonomy "even in Argentina. Another irony is that OYAK is the Turkish military's holding company and the other Turkish corporations mentioned in the Firat article (Arçelik, Ülker, Nursoy, and Gürbağ), along with the AKP, belong to Fethullah Gülen's Islamist empire . . . or should I say "caliphate"?

For more on that, see something from Aland Mizell, and his latest, at KurdishMedia.

No wonder the cehş Talabanî is urging Northern Kurds to support the AKP.

No invasion is necessary. The cehş of the South have capitulated for personal gain and the barbarians are inside the gates.

Gordon Taylor at Progressive Historians has translated something of interest to Kurds from Le Monde, and his own comments are to the point [original emphasis]:

Turkey is not, cannot, will not be a truly viable candidate for membership in the EU as long as its government continues in its present form. And there is no power, domestic or foreign, that can change that government in any substantial way for the foreseeable future. Turkey is what it is: a nation where the politicians pretend to govern and armed bullies pretend to let them, a land where the average liberal has more courage than a thousand Americans. Those like me who cherish their memories of this land need to start speaking out. The years of diplomacy and forbearance, of hope for democratic change, have left us with ruined villages, imprisoned journalists, and good people murdered while their killers are congratulated by the police. With that kind of record we may as well try truth.

Too bad the leaders of South Kurdistan cannot admit the same, but it may be too late for that now anyway. They have become irrelevant.