A LESSON IN DEMOCRACY

"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost."
~ Aristotle.

Something historic took place in the US yesterday. Democracy happened--real democracy and not the phony shit that's usually passed off as democracy. From Counterpunch:

Incredible! This time, when the People spoke, Congress listened.

At least 228 members of the House listened. They voted early this afternoon to reject the Bush Administration's scaremongering, and the cowardly Democratic Congressional leadership's attempt at ducking and covering by attaching some meaningless verbiage to what remains a case of legalized highway robbery. At least for the moment, the bailout scam is killed.

Earlier in the day, the Congressional switchboard was jammed. You could get through, but it took a dedicated finger on the redial button of your phone. Operators at the Capitol say it's been that way for a week now, as Americans across the country have been flooding their Congressional delegations with phone calls (and emails) urging them to vote "No" on the Bush/Paulson Wall Street bailout.

[ . . . ]

The tsunami of calls and emails to Congress, and last week's nationwide demonstrations against the bailout suggest that the public is waking up to this looming disaster and to the fact that they are being sold a bill of goods.

The thing is that it wasn't just on Monday that the Congressional switchboard was jammed, and it wasn't just the Congressional switchboard that was jammed. Servers for Congressional websites were overwhelmed, too, and this logjam started last week at least by Thursday. I know. It took me quite a while to get into the Congressional sites to get fax numbers for my senators and congressman.

For the record, both candidates of the oligarch party, Obama and McCain, urged a "Yes" vote to save the Wall Street vermin. My suggestion for the November elections? Forget the oligarch party (Republicans + Democrats) and vote Green if that party will be listed on your state's ballots.

For more on the lesson of democracy that the last week has taught, check what Glenn Greenwald has to say at Salon:

For better or worse, yesterday's vote was the rarest event in our political culture: ordinary Americans from all across the political spectrum actually exerting influence over how our Government functions, and trumping the concerted, unified efforts of the entire ruling class to ensure that their desires, as usual, would be ignored.

[ . . . ]

Can anyone even remember the last time this happened, where the nation's corporate interests and their establishment spokespeople were insistently demanding government action but were impeded -- defeated -- by nothing more than popular opinion? Perhaps the failure of George Bush's Social Security schemes in 2005 would be an example, but one is hard-pressed to think of any other meaningful ones. We're a "democracy" in which nothing is less important in how our government functions than public opinion. Yesterday was an exceedingly rare though intense departure from that framework -- the kind of citizen defiance of, an "uprising" against, a rotted ruling elite described by David Sirota in his book, "Uprising." On the citizenry level, the backlash was defined not by "Republican v. Democrat" or "Left v. Right," but by "people v. ruling class." As Johnston argues, yesterday's events should be celebrated for that reason alone.

It's true that we don't live in a direct democracy where every last decision by elected officials must conform to majoritarian desire, nor should we want that. In general, elected officials should exercise judgment independent of -- in ways that deviate from -- majority views. But the opposite extreme is what we have and it is just as bad -- a system where the actions of elected officials are dictated by a tiny cabal of self-interested oligarchs which fund, control and own the branches of government and willfully ignore majority opinion in all cases (except to manipulate it).

This is something that Kurds can learn from, especially when we read some of the recent criticisms of the ruling elites of South Kurdistan:

Kurdish writer Mahmoud 'Othman likewise criticized the corruption in the Kurdish leadership. In a September 23, 2008 interview for the independent Kurdish paper Hawlati, he predicted that "many Kurds will refrain from voting [in the upcoming elections for the parliament] because they think it is useless. People would have preferred a parliament with an opposition to a parliament that is [jointly] controlled by [the two Kurdish parties, namely] the Kurdistan Democratic Party [headed by Mas'oud Barzani] and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan [headed by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani]... There are more freedoms in Baghdad than in the Kurdish region, and much greater freedom of the press..." [1]

Nusherwan Mustafa wrote in a similar vein in the Kurdish paper Roznama: "[The two Kurdish parties] are striving for greater and greater control over all aspects of government and [all aspects of] the people's daily lives... We want justice and [a fair] distribution of the national wealth... [while] they want to use this wealth, and [to exploit] their positions, in order to promote their private affairs and control people... We want transparency and openness in the financial, economic, business and political spheres... while they want to handle everything in [complete] darkness..." [2]

[Dr. Hussein] Sinjari too devoted a large portion of his article to this topic, saying: "[Our leaders] claim that they are sacrificing themselves and giving their very lives for the people - yet [in actuality] they are deceiving the people, usurping their rights, and [violating] their honor."

The problem with democracy is that its success lies with the people and not with the ruling class. Everything else is commentary. Go, and instill fear in the ruling class.

BLACK OPERATIONS IN IRAQ BY TURKISH CONTRA-GUERRILLAS

"Turkey is working in Iraq with 3 major Sunni radical groups: Ansar al-Sunni Army, Iraq Islamic Army, and the 1920 Revolution Battalion, especially within the last 6 months. Turkey is supplying technical and logistic support to them."
~ Özgür Gündem.

Someone else from the US military comes along and tries to spread propaganda for Washington's puppet government in Ankara. Posted over at the MoJo Blog:

Evidence is piling up that the Turkish government will commit its armed forces against the de facto Kurdish state in Northern Iraq sooner rather than later. . .

[ . . . ]

What most Americans don't know is that the Turkish government has tried to negotiate a settlement with the Kurds through its new Special Envoy for Iraq, Murat Ozcelik. People who know Ozcelik insist he is the best person to negotiate Turkey's peace with the Kurds. Unfortunately, his Kurdish counterpart, Massoud Barzani, has turned out to be a fool who thinks he leads a pan-Kurdish movement inside Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.

What the hell is Murat Özçelik doing "negotiat[ing] Turkey's peace with the Kurds" in South Kurdistan (Northern Iraq)? Turkey needs to negotiate peace with the 20 million Kurds inside Turkey and I've got a news flash for Özçelik and Douglas Macgregor, the author of the piece at the MoJo Blog: Mesûd Barzanî does not speak for the 20 million Kurds of Turkey. There are 20 DTP parliamentarians in the TBMM who were elected by the Kurds of Turkey as their representatives, and they are the ones that Özçelik must begin negotiations with.

Then we have the KCK Executive Council which also represents the Kurds of Turkey. Özçelik must also bring them into negotiations and then we can have a dialog along the lines already proposed by KCK in August 2006 (http://www.kurdish-info.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3467):

The framework for the steps that need to be developed mutually in the second phase for a permanent solution:

1- The acknowledgement of the Kurdish identity and the constitutional guarantee of all identities under the identity of a Citizen of Turkey as the main identity,

2- The lifting of obstacles on the development of the Kurdish language and culture, the acknowledgement of education in the mother tongue and Kurdish acknowledged as the official second language alongside Turkish in the Kurdistan region, and with this to show respect to other minority cultures,

3- The acknowledgement, on the basis of freely practicing politics and organizing, of the right to thought, belief and freedom of expression, the lifting of all social inequalities in the constitution and laws, firstly being those of gender discrimination,

4- A social reconciliation project with the aim of mutual forgiveness of both people’s for the development of a peace and freedom union, on this basis the release of political prisoners including the PKK Leadership, and no obstacles to them participating in politics and social life,

5- The removal of forces in Kurdistan there for the purposes of special war, the abolition of the village guard system and the necessary social and political projects to be developed for the return of displaced villagers,

6- In parallel to the realization of the above articles, the initiation, with a timetable determined by both parties, of the gradual disarmament and legal participation into the democratic social life.

All of this, of course, would take place within the current borders of Turkey:

We would like as a movement to emphasize once again that the right solution is a democratic autonomy within the borders of Turkey. We believe that a solution in the unity of Turkey will be for the benefit of firstly the Kurdish people and all the people of the region.

Contrast that with the propaganda of Macgregor:

. . . the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant group that seeks to establish a Kurdish state in the region.

Macgregor actually admits that current tension between Kurds and Sunnis in Iraq is the result of Turkish black operations:

Much of the violence that is picking up between the Kurds and the Sunnis may well be the first sign of a Turkish counter-offensive to punish the Kurds for their continued support of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant group that seeks to establish a Kurdish state in the region.

Thanks, pal, for confirming what was reported one year ago by Özgür Gündem and carried on Rastî:

According to Özgür Gündem, a contra-guerrilla base has been founded in Amed (Diyarbakır) by the Ankara regime. These contra-guerrillas not only will operate against Kurds in the region of Amed and North Kurdistan, but also against Kurds in Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

The goal of the contra-guerrillas is to delay the Kerkuk referendum through black operations. Since Turkey cannot conduct a military operation in the South, it's initiating black operations through this contra-guerrilla group, operating in the same way it did in Şemdinli, in the Council of State, and in the Hrant Dink murder. JITEM and the Patriots Movement were behind those operations.

Ostensibly the contra-guerrilla group raised donations from $500,000 per month to $1,000,000 per month for the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF). I say "ostensibly," because it's more likely that the "donations" are coming directly from the Ankara regime. In addition, the contra-guerrillas give rewards for each successful ITF operation.

Turkey is working in Iraq with 3 major Sunni radical groups: Ansar al-Sunni Army, Iraq Islamic Army, and the 1920 Revolution Battalion, especially within the last 6 months. Turkey is supplying technical and logistic support to them.

The contra-guerrillas contacted some Arab tribes in Mosul and promised economic assistance to the tribes if they encourage the Sunnis to attack KDP and PUK offices.

Turkey has also been in contact with Arabs in Kerkuk, who had moved there during Saddam's arabization. Turkey organized these Arabs into death squads and provided them with assassination lists of Kurdish leaders. Attacks against Turkmen leaders, including Iraqi Turkmen Front leaders, would be encouraged in order create chaos.

They have assassination plans for some Arab and Turkmen leaders in order to turn Kurds and other peoples against each other and create a basis for the justification of the assassinations of Kurdish leaders.

The goal is to delay the Kerkuk referendum and not to allow Kerkuk to become part of Kurdistan.

The Ankara regime has invaded South Kurdistan in pursuit of PKK a number of times in the past and the TSK has always left with its tail between its legs. If the Ankara regime thinks it will insert itself in order to save Kerkuk for the ITF, then it had better learn the meaning of the word "quagmire", from Andrew Lee Butters almost one year ago:

So this is going to be a slow motion disaster rather than a spectacular one. Turkey will have to go deeper and deeper into Iraq, committing itself more and more to a course that will at best be ineffectual and at worst drag it and Iraqi Kurdistan into the great sucking sound that is the American project in Iraq. The only way out of this is for the Turkish state to begin political negotiations with the PKK, an internal enemy that it has been unable to defeat for more than 20 years. But the US, which labels the PKK a terrorist group, is hardly in a position to preach to its allies about talking to terrorists.

At the same time, Murat Karayılan confirmed the potential "quagmire":

Speaking to The Associated Press deep in the Qandil mountains straddling the Iraq-Turkish border, some 150 kilometers (94 miles) from the northern Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, Karayilan warned an incursion would "make Turkey experience a Vietnam war."

[ . . . ]

"Iraq's Kurds will not support the Turkish army," he said. "If Turkey starts its attack, we will swing the Turkish public opinion by political, civil and military struggle."

[ . . . ]

Karayilan said the PKK was only defending itself against attacks by the Turks.

"This was not the first time. It happened many times before and no one talked about it, so why this time," he said, adding the clashes took place at least 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the border, within Turkey, not Iraq.

He said he believes the Turkish attacks are meant to destabilize Iraq, not remove the rebels.

"Turkey is only making pretexts to enter the Kurdistan region in Iraq," he added.

For those hard of understanding: Quagmire = Vietnam.

Not only should we expect meddling by the Ankara regime in the refusal to allow elections in Kerkuk, but we should also consider the recent turmoil in Xanaqîn as the result of Turkish contra-guerrillas, including recent roadside bomb attacks that resulted in the deaths of six peşmêrge.

Furthermore, let's not expect much from the KRG, Barzanî, or Talabanî. They have too much money tied up in business interests with Ankara for them to take a stand against Turkish black operations aimed against Kurdistan.

MORE REASONS TO LOOK TO THE EAST

"The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs."
~ Karl Marx.

The US is imploding. Seriously.

First of all, there has been the attempt by Wall Street vermin Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke to con the US taxpayer into handing welfare to Wall Street so that the financial elites can continue to live in the manner to which they've become accustomed. The problem is, the taxpayers seem to be on the verge of revolution the likes of which hasn't been seen since 1776:

An e-mail that began as a rallying cry from a lone journalist to an influential circle of friends to protest the U.S. government bailout of Wall Street has ignited a national day of street protests. Some demonstrators plan to dump their rubbish in front of the bronze bull sculpture near Wall Street in downtown Manhattan Thursday.

Some photos of the event on Wall Street can be seen at Alternet. My personal favorite:



And there's an article on the same protest, also at Alternet. Note the response by the vermin who need bailing:

Many Wall Street types greeted the protesters with contempt. "Just look at these people," sneered one broker as the march neared the Stock Exchange. Another group held a "Get a Job" sign in an office window, and one man dropped a few dollar bills out of his. They fluttered down short of the marchers, landing in a construction site.

Someone needs to give Wall Street a hard lesson in personal responsibility. TrueMajority.org reports that some 250 emergency protests were held in 41 states on Thursday. On Friday, the labor unions, such as they are in the land of the unfettered free market, protested. Almost 200 economists from the most prestigious American universities are protesting the bailout and the director of the Congressional Budget Office told Congress that the Paulson bailout could make matters so much worse.

Not that anyone in the government of the people, by the people, for the people is bothering to listen to the people. Ain't democracy wonderful?

What's interesting is that the bailout plan proposed by the criminal Paulson was actually put together by the Bush administration months ago:

[White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony] Fratto insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.

So if this "plan" were "drawn up as a contingency over previous months" then why the rush to get it passed in Congress? Why did Bush harangue the nation for fifteen minutes on Wednesday night with his usual, fear-mongering tactics:

With the situation becoming more precarious by the day, I faced a choice, to step in with dramatic government action or to stand back and allow the irresponsible actions of some to undermine the financial security of all.

I’m a strong believer in free enterprise, so my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention. I believe companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to go out of business.

Under normal circumstances, I would have followed this course. But these are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly. There has been a widespread loss of confidence, and major sectors of America’s financial system are at risk of shutting down.

The government’s top economic experts warn that, without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic and a distressing scenario would unfold.

Isn't this the same kind of thing we heard after 9/11? Isn't it the same kind of thing we heard in the run-up to the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq? Who benefited from that fear-mongering? The elites. Instead of addressing economic problems in a way that would benefit the country as a whole, the administration is attempting to railroad everyone into a plan that will only benefit the elites. This is the same tactic used by con artists the world over.

And as all of this was going on, the largest savings and loan in the US, collapsed and was seized by the government, the Congress gave $1 trillion to the Pentagon, and gave a $25 billion bailout to the failing US auto industry.

Oh, did I forget to mention . . . the CEO of WaMu may walk away with more than $13 million in his golden parachute and he's only been on the job for a few weeks.

In the US, socialism for the ordinary people is absolutely forbidden while welfare is handed out with largesse for the elites. The Germans are beginning to see it, too. In fact, the German Finance Minister is beginning to sound like Vladimir Putin by referring to multi-polarity:

"The world will never be as it was before the crisis," Steinbrueck told the Bundestag lower house of parliament.

"The United States will lose its superpower status in the world financial system. The world financial system will become more multi-polar," he said.

Speaking later at a news conference in Berlin, Steinbrueck said he was not predicting an end to the dollar's role as a leading reserve currency, but rather highlighting the rise of other major financial players besides the United States.

[ . . . ]

In the Bundestag, Steinbrueck denounced what he called an Anglo-Saxon drive for double-digit profits and massive bonuses for bankers and company executives.

"Investment bankers and politicians in New York, Washington and London were not willing to give these up," he said.

Other worrying news involves the Republican VP nominee, Sarah Palin and her interview with CBS talking head, Katie Couric. The general consensus is growing that Sarah Palin is dumber than a rock. But, see for yourself:

There were more installments of the interview which can be seen on Youtube if you're not embarrassed by so much stupidity.


Matt Taibbi, journalist for Rolling Stone, makes the case for the fact that Sarah Palin is a symbol of all that is wrong in the US:

Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power.

Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV -and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.

[ . . . ]

The great insight of the Palin VP choice is that huge chunks of American voters no longer even demand that their candidates actually have policy positions; they simply consume them as media entertainment, rooting for or against them according to the reflexive prejudices of their demographic, as they would for reality-show contestants or sitcom characters. Hicks root for hicks, moms for moms, born-agains for born-agains. Sure, there was politics in the Palin speech, but it was all either silly lies or merely incidental fluffery buttressing the theatrical performance. A classic example of what was at work here came when Palin proudly introduced her Down syndrome baby, Trig, then stared into the camera and somberly promised parents of special-needs kids that they would "have a friend and advocate in the White House." This was about a half-hour before she raised her hands in triumph with McCain, a man who voted against increasing funding for special-needs education.

[ . . . ]

All of which tells you about what you'd expect from a raise-the-base choice like Palin: She's a puffed-up dimwit with primitive religious beliefs who had to be educated as to the fact that the Constitution did not exactly envision government executives firing librarians. Judging from the importance progressive critics seem to attach to these revelations, you'd think that these were actually negatives in modern American politics. But Americans like politicians who hate books and see the face of Jesus in every tree stump. They like them stupid and mean and ignorant of the rules.

OUCH!! Really, it's worth it to read the whole thing because this is the kind of writing you'd never see about a political candidate in Turkey--or in South Kurdistan--however much they deserve it.

The Palin/Couric interview has also begun to horrify those on the fascist right in the US as it slowly dawns on them that the woman who will be one heart-beat away from the White House is a total and complete moron. From the NRO:

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

[ . . . ]

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”

When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama’s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: “I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?”

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

[ . . . ]

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

Hehehe . . . Maybe the fact that the US appears to be reaching critical mass is the reason that the US Army will, for the first time since the Civil War, begin operations within the US itself, to assist with civil disturbances and crowd control. From Glenn Greenwald:

Several bloggers today have pointed to this obviously disturbing article from Army Times, which announces that "beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the [1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division] will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North" -- "the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities."

[ . . . ]

For more than 100 years -- since the end of the Civil War -- deployment of the U.S. military inside the U.S. has been prohibited under The Posse Comitatus Act (the only exceptions being that the National Guard and Coast Guard are exempted, and use of the military on an emergency ad hoc basis is permitted, such as what happened after Hurricane Katrina). Though there have been some erosions of this prohibition over the last several decades (most perniciously to allow the use of the military to work with law enforcement agencies in the "War on Drugs"), the bright line ban on using the U.S. military as a standing law enforcement force inside the U.S. has been more or less honored -- until now.

[ . . . ]

It shouldn't take any efforts to explain why the permanent deployment of the U.S. military inside American cities, acting as the President's police force, is so disturbing. Bovard:

"'Martial law' is a euphemism for military dictatorship. When foreign democracies are overthrown and a junta establishes martial law, Americans usually recognize that a fundamental change has occurred. . . . Section 1076 is Enabling Act-type legislation—something that purports to preserve law-and-order while formally empowering the president to rule by decree."

Buckle your seatbelts. It's going to be a wild ride. And now that a multi-polar world is more close, it may be time to look to the East. Seriously.

WALL STREET AND CHICKEN FEED

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."
~ Benito Mussolini.

The best commentary on Führers Hank Paulson (US Treasury Secretary) and Ben Bernanke (US Federal Reserve Chairman) I've seen. From Cryptogon:

In a sane world, these monsters would be torn limb from limb and shredded into maggot food—a role in which they could actually do some good.

Drill holes around the base of a bucket. Place some banker parts in the bucket with a bit of straw and hang it a couple of feet above your chickens. After a few days (during warm weather), the maggots will spill out onto the ground. The chickens will gather below the bucket, waiting for the protein packed morsels to fall from above.

Oh, please; oh, please; oh please. . .

TARLABAŞI: REFUGEES FIGHT DEVELOPERS

"Current conditions in Turkey do not permit the return of internally displaced persons “in safety and with dignity,” in accordance with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement."
~ HRW, "Still critical" Prospects in 2005 for Internally Displaced Kurds in Turkey.

There's a very old neighborhood in Beyoğlu, Istanbul that, once upon a time, was the home of a large Greek population. Nowadays it's home to a lot of Kurdish refugees who were forcibly displaced from their villages by TSK in the 1990s. It's also home to Gypsies, Iraqi Arabs, some other refugees, and transsexuals. The neighborhood is called Tarlabaşı and it's slated for gentrification because it's located on some of Istanbul's prime real estate.

Last year, National Public Radio (NPR) aired a report on Tarlabaşı, which you can listen to at this page:

Waves of migration from the Turkish countryside have swelled Istanbul's population to more than 12 million people, making it one of the world's megacities. Economic migrants have overwhelmed the city's infrastructure and services.

And in what was once the capital of the Ottoman Empire, one of Istanbul's most notorious slums has spung up.

Tarlabasi is a densely populated maze of narrow streets that wend between crumbling Ottoman-era houses built on a hillside.

It's located right next to the commercial and cultural heart of Istanbul and, yet, most Turks consider Tarlabasi a no-go zone.

Not only is it considered a "no-go zone" by Turks, but Turkish police are afraid to go there. Given Tarlabaşı's winding, narrow streets, I'm willing to bet TSK is afraid of it, too. Maybe this is a big part of the reason for their fear:

"When you walk down in Tarlabasi — when you go to the market on a Sunday — you don't hear Turkish spoken at all. It's either Kurdish or Arabic," Pertan says. "And they all wear their own national costumes and sit in the street, so you think, really, that you're in an Anatolian village. Nothing to do with the 19th-century elegant Greeks."

In the weekly outdoor bazaar in Tarlabasi, rural life raucously collides with the modern urban world.

Here, less than a mile from Istanbul's five-star hotels, child shepherds herd flocks of sheep through the streets as Kurdish women in bright floral headscarves shop for fruit and cheap Chinese-made cosmetics alongside trembling, teenage glue-sniffers and illegal African immigrants.

This week, Hürriyet reported that some hitches have appeared in developers' efforts to encourage Tarlabaşı's residents to vacate, via TDN:

. . . [T]he winning bidder on the project, GAP İnşaat, is offering residents a property exchange program that many say is far from just. The company has offered a 50-square-meter house to the owner of a three-story house in which each floor is 50 square meters.

The conditions offered to owners of offices are even worse. The company has offered two stores 25 square meters and 65 square meters in size in a new shopping center to the owner of an eight-story office block located on Tarlabaşı Street.

Being that this is Turkey, it gets worse:

"We own a 75-square-meter house. The authorities told us that they would give us a house that is 40 square meters in size. Later, we asked the authorities how we will manage to live in a such a small house with our four children," said Fatma Yalçın, living in Halepli Bekir Street.

"The authorities told us that they would give us a 84-square-meter house in Küçükçekmece. We told an authority working in the municipality that we would not leave our house in such a valuable region and move to Küçükçekmece," Yalçın said.

"Return to your village, then," was the reaction of the authority, Yalçın added.

For many, if not most, forcibly displaced Kurds, a return to their villages is not possible, as HRW well-documented in 2002. Last year's human rights report on Turkey from the US State Department admitted the following:

In December 2006 Hacettepe University released the results of a study that was commissioned by the government, which concluded that an estimated 953,680 to 1,301,200 persons were displaced by conflict in the southeast between 1986 and 2005. The study found that the main reason for the large discrepancy between government and NGO figures was that the government only included persons evacuated by the security forces from settlements, and not those who were forced to flee because of general violence or for a combination of security and economic reasons.

[ . . . ]

On June 26, Jandarma and village guards forced villagers to leave the Ceme Kare hamlet of Yapraktepe village of Siirt's Pervari district after the Turkish military proclaimed a "special security zone" in portions of Hakkari, Sirnak, and Siirt Provinces. The villagers, members of the nomadic Kican and Batuyan tribes, were evicted for security reasons in 1989 but repatriated to the area in 2003. When villagers protested security forces' orders to evacuate, the troops forcibly loaded their belongings onto trucks and took the belongings to the Pervari Jandarma station. Many villagers remained in Ceme Kare hamlet, although without provisions and with no access to their crops. The following day, after several villagers filed an administrative complaint, security forces blocked the main point of access to the village. Villagers alleged that the action prevented a couple from obtaining treatment for their sick infant, leading to the baby's death. On August 8, a villager filed an administrative complaint with the Siirt governorship. Jandarma officials took the applicant and 15 villagers into custody for questioning and released them the same evening.

Village guards occupied homes abandoned by IDPs and have attacked or intimidated IDPs attempting to return to their homes with official permission. For example, village guards reportedly threatened and beat Hayrettin Yildirim on several occasions since he returned to the village of Kasyayla in Batman Province three years ago. On April 10, village guards opposed to Yildirim and other returnees' attempts to resettle the land beat him to the point where he required medical attention, according to the HRA and an April 23 report in Radikal newspaper.

In 2005, HRW discussed the prospects for the return of Kurdish refugees to their villages:

In place of policy or program achievements for internally displaced people (IDPs), the Turkish government supplied the E.U. with statistics suggesting that returns are proceeding at a regular pace. If a third of the displaced had returned to their homes, as the government claimed, this would be a respectable performance. In fact, progress has been much more limited. Human Rights Watch has compared some of the government statistics with the situation on the ground. Our analysis found that the official statistics are not entirely reliable, and that permanent returns are running at a much lower rate than indicated.

The practical obstacles to return remain: villagers are slow to return because their homes and villages have been destroyed and the security situation in the remote countryside remains precarious. Many of the villagers who return live in primitive shelters located in settlements without electricity, telephone, education, or health facilities. Assistance with reconstruction and support in re-establishing agriculture is minimal or non-existent.

Village guards—paramilitaries, usually Kurdish, armed and paid by the government to fight the PKK (Kurdish Workers’ Party, now known as Kongra Gel)—have not been disarmed, and are implicated in attacks on returning IDPs. Regular security forces have also committed extrajudicial executions of IDPs.

Current conditions in Turkey do not permit the return of internally displaced persons “in safety and with dignity,” in accordance with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (U.N. Guiding Principles).

Tarlabaşı's residents have joined together to fight the developers:

. . . [T]he residents of Tarlabaşı have established the Association of Cooperation and Improvement of Tarlabaşı Property Owners and Tenants in order to raise their voices against an urban regeneration program they say is harming their quality of life.

Developers never want to pay what land or buildings are worth when it comes to gentrification or other development projects, so I hope the residents of Tarlabaşı stick to their guns. If they decide to sell, they need to make sure the developers pay just compensation--down to the very last kuruş--because the Ankara regime's return and compensation programs have never been worth the paper they've been printed on . . . As many residents of Tarlabaşı well know.

TURKEY: PSYOPS, STATE CENSORSHIP, AND THE KURDS

"Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime."
~ Potter Stewart.

Even as Katil Erdoğan has been encouraging the Turkish public to avoid Doğan media because Doğan media published the news uncovered in a German court that linked Katil Erdoğan's government to international corruption, other newspapers in Turkey are being banned for publishing the Kurdish side of the long conflict in The Southeast.

It began at the beginning of August when a Turkish court seized copies of Turkish daily Birgün for its published interview with Murat Karayılan. An investigation was initiated against Birgün journalist Hakan Tahmaz, Birgün's general director İbrahim Çeşmecioğlu, and Birgün's licence holder Bülent Yılmaz for having published the interview.

Near mid-September, Taraf's Ahmet Altan--a venerable Turkish journalist--was charged with Article 301 for "denigrating Turkishness, the Republic, the institutions and organs of the State" for writing about Armenians. Charges were filed by a crackpot of the BBP. Another BBP crackpot, Kemal Kerincsiz, was indicted in the Ergenekon investigation. Previously, he was well-known for filing charges against Hrant Dink and Orhan Pamuk, also for reasons having to do with Armenians.

Then there was the case of Cengiz Kapmaz, who was convicted to ten months in prison for publishing his interview with former DEP parliamentarian Orhan Doğan.

TSK has also begun an "accreditation" process to approve those media outlets it will permit at its press conferences. This is an attempt by TSK to control the media, as described in its Information Support Activity Action Plan.

Most recently, Turkish paper Alternatif has been banned by the Ankara regime for publishing the statements of Öcalan and Karayılan.

In addition, a number of websites are officially banned by the regime: Professor Richard Dawkins' website, Youtube, kliptube, geocities, Yeni Özgür Politika, Özgür Gündem, Fırat News, and Rojaciwan.

You know they're scared shitless when their only response is censorship.

SENATE TO HOLD CONFIRMATION HEARINGS FOR NEW US AMBASSADOR TO TURKEY

"It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power."
~ David Brin.

It looks like there will be Senate confirmation hearings next Wednesday (24 September) for the next US ambassador to Turkey, James F. Jeffrey, from ANCA:

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) has called on members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to closely scrutinize ten serious shortcomings in the Administration’s handling of the U.S. - Turkey relationship, during the September 24th confirmation hearing for James Jeffrey to serve as the next U.S. Ambassador to Turkey.

In letters to panel Chairman Joe Biden (D-DE) and other key Committee members, ANCA Chairman Ken Hachikian outlined the Administration’s failings, and encouraged strict scrutiny of the nominee in order to “ensure accountability for past errors, as well as to apply the lessons learned from these setbacks in charting a more productive and principled course for U.S.-Turkey relations.”

Who is James F. Jeffrey? You can get the official rundown of his career from the State Department:

James F. Jeffrey assumed the position of Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs on August 21, 2006.

Ambassador Jeffrey, in collaboration with the Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, will lead the Bureau's Iran Policy Team and coordinate Bureau public diplomacy and internal management, serving as Acting Assistant Secretary when the Assistant Secretary is traveling.

A career member of the U.S. Foreign Service, James Jeffrey served as He served as Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State for Iraq from August 2005 to August 2006. Amb. Jeffrey served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad from June 2004 to March 2005. From March to June 2005 Ambassador Jeffrey was U.S. Charge d'affairs to Iraq. He served as Ambassador to Albania from 2002-2004. Previously he was Deputy Chief of Mission in Turkey and Kuwait. Other assignments have included Deputy Special Representative for Bosnian Implementation, postings in the Department's European and Near Eastern Bureaus, and overseas service in Turkey, Bulgaria, Germany and Tunisia.

But what about his real career? For starters, Jeffrey is involved with the administration's efforts to manufacture consent for a war with Iran, from the Boston Globe:

The existence of ISOG (Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group) reflects an intensification of the Bush administration's planning on Iran. Syria, which has linked itself to Iran through military pacts, is a lesser focus for the group. Its workings have been so secretive that several officials in the State Department's Near Eastern Affairs bureau said they were unaware it existed.

[ . . . ]

ISOG was modeled after the Iraq Policy and Operations Group, set up in 2004 to shepherd information and coordinate US action in Iraq. ISOG has raised eyebrows within the State Department for hiring BearingPoint -- the same Washington-based private contracting firm used by the Iraq group -- to handle its administrative work, rather than State Department employees.

[ . . . ]

ISOG is led by a steering committee with two leading hawks on Middle East policy as chairmen: James F. Jeffrey, prinicipal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, who once headed Iraq policy, and Elliott Abrams, deputy national security adviser for "Global Democracy Strategy." Michael Doran, a Middle East specialist at the White House, steps in when Abrams is away. Elizabeth Cheney, the vice president's daughter, who was the former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, served as cochairwoman before she took a maternity leave earlier this year.

Okay, right there we have Jeffrey linked with the Bush administration's efforts for regime change in Iraq, which were based on lies ranging from accusations that Saddam was behind the 9/11 attacks to the WMD lies and the Niger yellow cake forgeries.

We also have Jeffrey linked to BearingPoint which has some very shady history. From Sourcewatch:

* In July of 2003, BearingPoint was awarded a contract by USAID worth $79.5 million to facilitate Iraq's economic recovery with a two-year option worth a total of $240,162,688.[2][3] Responsibilities in this contract include:

1. Creating Iraq's budget

2. Writing business law

3. Setting up tax collection

4. Laying out trade and customs rules

5. Privatize state-owned enterprises by auctioning them off or issuing Iraqis shares in the enterprises.

6. Reopen banks and jump-start the private sector by making small loans of $100 to $10,000.

7. Wean Iraqis from the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program, the main source of food for 60% of the population.

8. Issue a new currency and set exchange rates. [4]


* In January 2003 BearingPoint won a $3.95 million contract financed by the World Bank to aid the Afghanistan government upgrade its accounting system.[5]

* In March of 2003, USAID awarded BearingPoint a $39.9 million contract to help rebuild the economy in Afghanistan.

[6] In November 2005, USAID awarded another contract, this three years and worth $45 million. [7] The overall worth of contracts in Afghanistan could be worth as much as $350 million. [8]

BearingPoint has also been involved in the drafting of the Iraq Oil Law for the benefit of Big Oil:

BearingPoint, a Virginia based contractor is being paid $240m for its work in Iraq, winning an initial contract from the US Agency for International Development (USAid) within weeks of the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. A BearingPoint employee, based in the US embassy in Baghdad, was hired to advise the Iraqi Ministry of Oil on drawing up a new hydrocarbon law.

BearingPoint employees gave $117,000 to the 2000 and 2004 Bush election campaigns, more than any other Iraq contractor.

The process of drafting the oil law has been particularly troubling. The timeline of which entities have seen the draft when suggests that Iraqi interests are not being considered first and foremost:

* Draft shown to US government and major oil companies – July 06

* Draft shown to the International Monetary Fund September 06

* Draft shown to Iraqi Parliament: February 07

The Iraq National Oil Company would have exclusive control of just 17 of Iraq’s 80 known oil fields, leaving two-thirds of known — and all of its as yet undiscovered — reserves open to foreign control.

Not surprisingly, the Iraqi Oil Workers' Union and the Electrical Utility Workers' Union opposed the law and protested BearingPoint's involvement in the drafting of it. Antonia Juhasz also mentioned BearingPoint's role in the drafting of the Iraq oil law at the time of the Baker-Hamilton report:

WHILE THE Bush administration, the media and nearly all the Democrats still refuse to explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever-pragmatic members of the Iraq Study Group share no such reticence.

Page 1, Chapter 1 of the Iraq Study Group report lays out Iraq's importance to its region, the U.S. and the world with this reminder: "It has the world's second-largest known oil reserves." The group then proceeds to give very specific and radical recommendations as to what the United States should do to secure those reserves. If the proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will be commercialized and opened to foreign firms.

[ . . . ]

For any degree of oil privatization to take place, and for it to apply to all the country's oil fields, Iraq has to amend its constitution and pass a new national oil law. The constitution is ambiguous as to whether control over future revenues from as-yet-undeveloped oil fields should be shared among its provinces or held and distributed by the central government.

This is a crucial issue, with trillions of dollars at stake, because only 17 of Iraq's 80 known oil fields have been developed. Recommendation No. 26 of the Iraq Study Group calls for a review of the constitution to be "pursued on an urgent basis." Recommendation No. 28 calls for putting control of Iraq's oil revenues in the hands of the central government. Recommendation No. 63 also calls on the U.S. government to "provide technical assistance to the Iraqi government to prepare a draft oil law."

This last step is already underway. The Bush administration hired the consultancy firm BearingPoint more than a year ago to advise the Iraqi Oil Ministry on drafting and passing a new national oil law.

Plans for this new law were first made public at a news conference in late 2004 in Washington. Flanked by State Department officials, Iraqi Finance Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi (who is now vice president) explained how this law would open Iraq's oil industry to private foreign investment. This, in turn, would be "very promising to the American investors and to American enterprise, certainly to oil companies." The law would implement production-sharing agreements.

As for BearingPoint's Afghanistan contracts:

USAID’s own March 13, 2007 announcement of the five year $218.6 million contract that will run through January 2012 states that it is for the purpose of: strengthening “the performance of ministries, businesses, non-governmental organizations, universities and local governments; establish(ing) permanent, sustainable capacity in the public, private and high education sectors; and build(ing) the skills of key personnel in the Afghan public and private sectors, through scholarship.”

For a company that is still correcting, according to the Washington Business Journal, its financial reports for accounting errors, whose revenues rose by 10 percent to $2.65 billion in 2006 over the previous year, a contract worth even $218.6 million must seem like a drop in the bucket. Still it adds up for a company which reaches out at every opportunity to take advantage of swelling its bottom line from US government outsourcing as a result of the downsizing of the US Foreign and Civil Service after the Cold War. It doesn’t hurt in filling the company’s coffers that BearingPoint,Inc. is close to the current administration and contributes to the Republican Party particularly in election years.

It's quite obvious that BearingPoint has not accomplished anything in Afghanistan for which it was paid. And what about those "accounting errors"? Would that be "accounting errors" like those of Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrel Lynch, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and, perhaps soon to be Washington Mutual and Wachovia? Behold the American way of doing business! Behold the failure of capitalism!

Jeffrey's other interesting link from the Boston Globe article is his close association with Mr. Iran-Contra himself, Elliot Abrams. Abrams' big deal is the promotion of "freedom" and "democracy" abroad, particularly in the Middle East. Of course, "freedom" and "democracy" only apply to American ruling elites. From Sourcewatch:

Hours before Bush's second inauguration in January 2005, the White House announced that Abrams would serve as Bush's deputy assistant and as the deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy under NSC Adviser Stephen Hadley, who had been Condoleezza Rice's deputy at the NSC when she was adviser. In his announcement of Abrams's new position, Hadley called Abrams one of the administration's strongest and most consistent advocates of American strength and the expansion of freedom worldwide.

Abrams is a key proponent of the "freedom and democracy" policy that Bush highlighted during his 2005 State of the Union Address, and has been an important figure in dealings with Israel. Prior to Rice's first trip to Israel as secretary of state, Abrams met with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's top adviser, Dov Weisglass, to establish the parameters of the Rice-Sharon meetings.

[ . . . ]

While Bush's supporters are generally pleased with the administration's strong backing of Israel, many criticize the State Department and Rice. Leading the attack has been Perle, who along with Feith, a former Pentagon undersecretary for policy, has worked with Abrams since the mid-1970s, when both worked for [Senator Henry "Scoop", D-WA] Jackson. In a Washington Post op-ed that coalesced conservative forces against Rice, Perle wrote that, having moved from the NSC to State, Rice is "now in the midst of—and increasingly represents—a diplomatic establishment that is driven to accommodate its allies even when (or, it seems, especially when) such allies counsel the appeasement of our adversaries" (June 25, 2006).

There we have James F. Jeffrey not far removed at all from the Prince of Darkness and "the stupidest fucking guy on the face of the earth", both of whom are tightly linked to the American Turkish Council (ATC). In turn, the ATC is so tightly linked to AIPAC that it's been referred to as the "mini-AIPAC".

The other person of interest who was involved with Jeffrey's ISOG was Dick Cheney's daughter, Elizabeth. Even now that she's out of public service, she's still doing a lot of footwork for ISOG, from the WaPo:

. . . judging from her remarks at AIPAC, Liz is one Cheney unhappy with key elements of U.S. Mideast policy, from Lebanon and the peace process to how the White House dealt with elections in the Palestinian territories. She was also critical of Israel's performance in the 2006 war in Lebanon, citing "Israel's inability, unwillingness to do what was necessary . . . to fundamentally deal a blow to Hezbollah."

"I think that getting back to a situation where our enemies in the region understand that America will stand up for its friends, that America will stand up for its principles and that we have red lines is critically important," Cheney told the friendly audience at AIPAC. "When those red lines aren't there, when our enemies like Iran and Syria begin to believe that they can act with impunity, you see situations like you have got in Lebanon today -- where Hezbollah now has a veto over that government, where Hezbollah will be able, I fear, to significantly continue its efforts to rearm in southern Lebanon, continue to threaten Israel and allow Iran a real chokehold on the region."

The big problem with Liz Cheney's AIPAC comments is that the US has no friends and fewer principles.

We'll be watching the news for more on Jeffrey and his confirmation hearings, both of which have been flying under the radar of official American state propaganda organs (i.e. the media). That fact alone makes me suspect that Jeffrey's appointment is something the regime doesn't want anyone to pay attention to.

Given the methods of the Washington regime, especially as regards the Middle East, "freedom", and "democracy", we should be prepared to expect the worst out of this appointment.

HACKING THE VOTE

"The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do."
~ Joseph Stalin.

Since we're just a little over six weeks away from the US presidential elections, you may want to take a look at a video of a C-SPAN press conference with so-called "third party" candidates in the US at Vineyardsaker's blog.

The Saker bills the video as an example of the "real opposition" in the US and I don't like to call them "third parties" because they are really the "second parties", with the Demopublicans and the Republocrats really forming only one political party. The only difference between the US and the former Soviet Union is that the Soviet Union had actual political dissidents.

Are the parties represented in the C-SPAN press conference really dissidents? Maybe. But, as the Saker comments, their biggest weakness is that the lapdog media, also known as "official state propaganda organs" totally ignore alternative parties.

Anyway, take a look at the press conference to get a view of a certain level of American dissent, such as it is. Run time is just over an hour. If you'd like to view the full screen version, check Youtube. For those of you in places where Youtube is banned, like Turkey, you'll be able to watch Vineyardsaker's embedded video because he's got it linked from another video site that may still be accessible from behind the Lokum Curtain.

Listening to some comments of US Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney got me to thinking about the whole hacked election results from the last two US presidential elections. In case you missed it, you may want to take a look at the documentary Hacking Democracy (Run time almost 1 hour, 20 minutes) to find out why it will be a huge waste of your time to go to the polls on 4 November.

You'd think some of those international organizations would come and observe the US elections to ensure that they're done in accordance with "democratic" principles, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that.

One item of interest that is not mentioned in Hacking Democracy is the fact that the Ohio congresswoman interviewed suddenly died recently from what is being called a "brain aneurysm" by state propaganda organs. In fact, state propaganda organs were expecting her to die, as can be seen by the editor's note that heads the article at the link.

Congresswoman Tubbs-Jones lodged a formal objection in the Congress against the electoral votes of 2004 that came from Ohio because of vote-count hacking that took place in the state, and particularly in her congressional district. You can read more about that at Harper's.

I find it very suspicious that Congresswoman Tubbs-Jones died on 20 August as we approach another presidential election scandal because I bet she would have been watching the voter hacking in her district like a hawk. Of course, I don't believe that she just up and died; I'm willing to bet that someone in the American Deep State assassinated her.

Remember--your vote really doesn't count.

From the Update Department: Some of you may remember that I posted a video of plans by former LA County District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi and his campaign to prosecute Bush and his administration for murder. Now he's found someone who will go ahead and do just that:

Lots of political candidates make campaign promises. But not like Charlotte Dennett's.

Dennett, 61, the Progressive Party's candidate for Vermont Attorney General, said Thursday she will prosecute President Bush for murder if she's elected Nov. 4.

Dennett, an attorney and investigative journalist from Cambridge, says Bush must be held accountable for the deaths of thousands of people -- U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians -- in Iraq, and that the Vermont attorney general would have jurisdiction to do so.

She said she would appoint as special prosecutor former Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, the author of "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder," a new book.

"Someone has to step forward," said Dennett, flanked by Bugliosi at a news conference announcing her plan. "Someone has to say we cannot put up with this lack of accountability any more."

In addition:

Dennett said Vermont is the ideal state to bring murder charges against Bush, since the state has carried the country's highest per capita deaths of soldiers in the war. It is also home to nearly 40 communities that moved to impeach the president last year.

"Lots of Vermonters feel very frustrated that the impeachment efforts did not go anywhere," she said. "This is another avenue for us."

Oh, you just know she's begging to have her votes hacked.

TURKISH ARMY CONTINUES TO COMMIT WAR CRIMES

"When a uniform exercise of kindness to prisoners on our part has been returned by as uniform severity on the part of our enemies, you must excuse me for saying it is high time, by other lessons, to teach respect to the dictates of humanity; in such a case, retaliation becomes an act of benevolence."
~ Thomas Jefferson.

War crimes continue in North Kurdistan, from Özgür Gündem:

The moment humanity died

These pictures, which reveal the dirty war in the region with all its clarity, were taken after a clash in Mutki, Bitlis.

This is the dirty war in the region

The practices which were put into use after intensified operations and clashes are not better than the ones of the 1990s. The troops who once became infamous by frequently cutting ears and [committing] beheadings, this time showed up in Mutki. After a clash on 26 August, these troops stepped on the eight corpses of HPG guerrillas and took a military souvenir.

The troops did not settle for poses

These troops did not settle for poses. The bodies that are seen in the pictures are whole, whereas the families of the guerrillas had declared that their bodies were in pieces when they [the families] buried them. In this clash Gülcihan Sönmez and Ümit Yakan were killed. Later on it was revealed that Gülcihan's body was in pieces, while Yakan's skull was crushed.

[1994: He is posing with his hands in his pockets. He extended his leg to the guerrilla's head, which he had crushed with a rock.]

[2008: The mentality did not change. First take a picture while stepping on a guerrilla's chest. After the picture, divide the body into pieces.]

On 16 September, these photos published in the Turkish daily Alternatif caused a tremendous reaction. Fatma Sönmez, the older sister of Gülcihan Sönmez, who was killed in the clash, commented on that treatment of the bodies as the moment when humanity died, from Yeni Özgür Politika:

"Even in Nazi Germany there weren't such things. Humanity must be ashamed of itself because of these incidents. No one is supposed to remain silent to this incident."

Hevals Gülcihan Sönmez and Ümit Yakan in life:

The atrocities and war crimes committed by TSK are typical of the war in North Kurdistan. Earlier this year, other shocking photos of HPG guerrillas captured alive by TSK in 2007 were published.

Such treatment is in violation of the laws of warfare as stipulated in the Geneva Conventions and protocols, as well as being violations of UN Resolution 3103:

3. The armed conflicts involving the struggle of peoples against colonial and alien domination and racist régimes are to be regarded as international armed conflicts in the sense of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and the legal status envisaged to apply to the combatants in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and other international instruments is to apply to the persons engaged in armed struggle against colonial and alien domination and racist régimes.

4. The combatants struggling against colonial and alien domination and racist régimes captured as prisoners are to be accorded the status of prisoners of war and their treatment should be in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, of 12 August 1949.

[ . . . ]

6. The violation of the legal status of the combatants struggling against colonial and alien domination and racist régimes in the course of armed conflicts entails full responsibility in accordance with the norms of international law.

All of this stands in stark contrast to the treatment of TSK prisoners of war by HPG last year in the Dağlıca operation:









Meanwhile, at Kato, a major operation has been ongoing for 12 days, beginning on 6 September and ending today. The results include more than 30 TSK casualties and the retreat of the TSK. Earlier this year in July, HPG Headquarters Command issued a statement of congratulations to guerrilla forces at Kato.

Today's news of TSK's retreat shows that congratulations are in order once again for all of our guerrillas, but especially for those in the Kato resistance.

DTP AWAITS A DECISION

"Don't try our patience, don't make us head to the mountains."
~ Pro-DTP protestors in Istanbul.

Ahmet Türk submitted DTP's oral defense against closure today, from Bianet:

Commenting about the defense after its presentation, Türk said, “The decision should be made by taking into consideration the European Human Rights Court (EHRC) and the Venice Convention.”

“In our defense, we told them that there cannot be weapons and violence in a democratic environment, that the weapons cannot be a solution to the pains endured. The DTP is a kind of party that demands democracy and wants people to live together with love. We conveyed these thoughts to the council. We hope that the decision will reflect these thoughts and that it will be positive.”

[ . . . ]

“When you close the door to the democratic politics then the people who believe in this will lose all their hope. We are trying to embrace 72 million politically. If a party with 2 million votes is closed then the hopes of those people who believe in it will be shattered.”

About the question if the DTP was established with the order of Abdullah Öcalan, imprisoned leader of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), and if they had an organic connection with this party, his answer was: “The DTP is a platform where every correct thought is evaluated. We have no organic connection with the PKK. But, there is a 25 year old reality and we want this to end. We will take into evaluation every correct method.”

Others are gathering signatures to keep DTP open:

Tanbay, the spokesperson of the Initiative, described the risk as “Closing the DTP means destroying the bridge of peace between the peoples.”

She said, “The Kurdish people have formed many parties. Every party that was formed by the Kurds was eventually closed by the Constitutional Court and their deputies were given various sentences. This is injustice. This is destroying the hopes for a peaceful and democratic solution.

Tanbay emphasizes that this is not only a problem of the Kurds, but everyone’s and adds that Turkey should stop being a graveyard for political parties; the pressures on democracy, the right to organize, to demonstrate and to think should end.

Ahmet Türk and the DTP remain optimistic as to the outcome:

The DTP regards the non-closure decisions given by the Constitutional Court in the closure cases against the Rights and Freedoms Party (HAK-PAR) and the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) as favorable developments for its case.

I do not share the optimism. For one thing, there's a world of difference between DTP and either AKP or HAK-PAR. For another, since the Amed Serhildan in March 2006, the Ankara regime has not only refused to engage in dialog with DTP but DTP politicians have been under severe persecution from the regime. DTP mayors were convicted for their letter to Danish PM Rasmussen in defense of Roj TV. DTP Diyarbakır mayor Osman Baydemir was convicted for his remarks during the Amed Serhildan. Abdullah Demirbaş came under fire for providing multi-lingual municipal services to his constituents. These are only a few examples of the pressures the fascist regime has brought against Kurdish politicians in Turkey.

Add to all of that the fact that every true Kurdish party in Turkey has been shut down.

Pro-terrorism think-tank Jamestown Foundation doesn't share DTP's optimism either:

Despite the likelihood of the DTP case ending in closure, party officials remain defiant.

“The error lies not with what we do or say but in a system that doesn’t accept but excludes what we do or say,” said DTP Co-Chair Emine Ayna.

They get something else right, too:

Yet the policy of suppression traditionally adopted by the Turkish state toward any expression of Kurdish nationalism, whether it is peaceful or violent, arguably plays into the PKK’s hands, enabling it to claim that the only way for Turkey’s Kurds to try to win greater cultural and political rights is through the use of arms. The concern now is that if, as expected, the DTP is eventually closed down, not only will it be replaced by another pro-Kurdish party with a similar agenda but that Kurdish nationalism will become irretrievably associated with violence both in the eyes of the Turkish state and those of Kurdish nationalists.

In the eyes of the Ankara regime, everything Kurdish is terrorist and it has always been this way. But with every political avenue for the Kurdish people blocked, there is no other way but the way of the mountains.

Amazingly enough, a CHP parliamentarian has argued against DTP's closure:

[Adıyaman CHP parliamentarian Şevket] Köse told bianet that “Basically both parties were charged with the same crime; they were accused of having become the center of activities to annihilate the secular and democratic republic. If the AKP was not closed after it was found guilty then the DTP should not either. There will be discord, if it is closed.”

Although the Constitutional Court had found the AKP guilty of the crime mentioned above, there were not enough votes to close it; its punishment did not go beyond losing its treasury aid.

[ . . . ]

Köse believes that closing of the DTP will not be good for the politics. He wonders if the court will show the same sensitivity it showed to the AKP.

“The law should not be on the side of the strong, the one with the more votes. It should defend those with the one percent of the votes as well. Is not democracy about defending the rights of the minorities, too?”

“It does not matter whether or not I agree with the thoughts of those 21 fellow deputies. They are the representatives of the Kurdish citizens in the Parliament. I will not be pleased to see the DTP closed.” Köse believes even if it is closed, there will be another party to take its place.

Meanwhile, the paşas are asking to extend the parliamentary approval for cross border operations, due to expire in October. I wonder which way Köse will vote?

TURKEY'S DILEMMA

"The independence of Kosovo is a terrible precedent. . . They have not thought through the results of what they are doing. At the end of the day it is a two-ended stick and the second end will come back and hit them in the face."
~ Vladimir Putin.

Here's an interesting analysis of Turkey's newest dilemma, it's relationship with Russia, from Eurasianet:

"Turkey is torn between the latest developments, not only between Russia and Georgia but mainly between Russia and the United States and NATO as well. Even if we do not go back to the Cold War, at the point that we have arrived to today, Turkey cannot manage this crisis with ’platonic moves,’" said a recent commentary published by the English-language Turkish Daily News.

[ . . . ]

The Turkish-Russian relationship has changed dramatically in recent years, though. Today, Russia is Turkey’s largest trading partner, with trade between the two countries expected to reach $38 billion this year, up from $27 billion the year before. Russia also supplies close to half of Turkey’s crude oil and 65 percent of its natural gas, used both to heat Turkish home and to run many of the country’s power plants.

But following the invasion of Georgia, Turkey is suddenly facing the prospect of a resurgent Russian presence near its border. "There is a dilemma which Turkey faces," says Ihsan Dagi, a professor of international relations at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University. "Georgia is indispensable to Turkey’s overall Caucasian and Central Asian strategy, and is central to its claim to being an energy corridor."

On the other hand, he says, "Russia is mostly indispensable for the Turkish economy. What is at stake is Turkey’s economic stability."

Moscow forcefully reminded Turks of this fact when it imposed new trade restrictions in August on goods coming from Turkey, holding up Turkish trucks at Russian border crossings for lengthy inspections. For many Turkish observers, the new restrictions were a clear warning for Ankara not to pick the wrong side in the Georgia crisis. Turkish trade officials say they may lose roughly $3 billion over the short term due to the new Russian restrictions.

Turkey’s leaders, meanwhile, have been treading carefully around the Georgia issue. Although Turkey has publicly called for Georgia’s territorial integrity to be respected, it has refrained from embracing the stronger rhetoric coming out of Washington and Brussels. . .

And with good reason. Turkey was among the first countries to recognize the independence of Kosovo. It recognized Kosovo independence so quickly, in fact, that the Fethullahcı paper Zaman characterized the recognition as "rushed":

Turkey has become one of the countries that proceeded with quick recognition of Kosovo's independence; the decision was a surprise for at least some, given that Turkish authorities had previously announced that Turkey would not be the initial recognizer, but would ultimately honor the independence.

Skeptics also criticized the decision on the grounds that recognition of Kosovo's independence was inconsistent with Turkey's best interests in the region, further recalling that countries which currently deal with separatist movements opposed Kosovo's recent move.

It appears that the same author made a rush to judgment in defending the rush to recognition:

Most importantly, recognition of Kosovo's independence does not bear serious repercussions for Turkey; it is relatively a risk-free diplomatic move.

It was a rush to judgment that, in its haste, overlooked the fact that "Russia is mostly indispensable for the Turkish economy", as stated by İhsan Dağı. Analysts at the Eurasia Daily Monitor, operated as part of the pro-terrorist thinktank, the Jamestown Foundation, explained away Turkey's rush to recognize Kosovo independence as a mixture of "pragmatism and self-interest":

Turkey’s decision to recognize Kosova stems from a mixture of pragmatism and self-interest. Kosova represents both an opportunity and threat to Turkish policy. On the positive side, Ankara might be able to use the issue as leverage to gain recognition for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). This self-declared state was established after the Turkish military invasion in 1974, but so far the only significant international actor to recognize it is Turkey. On the negative side, if Kosova’s action triggers a burst of unilateral declarations of independence by national minorities clamoring for freedom across Europe or the world, Turkey’s Kurdish minority might join the bandwagon and begin agitating for similar action. Ankara cannot have overlooked the fact that a number of countries with significant minorities, including Spain, Kazakhstan, Russia, and China, have all declined to recognize Kosova’s independence for this very reason.

Let's call to mind a quote from an analysis on the Russia-Georgia-Ossetia situation from Noam Chomsky:

[Former US ambassador to Russia Jack] Matlock is not alone in regarding Kosovo as an important factor. “Recognition of South Ossetia's and Abkhazia's independence was justified on the principle of a mistreated minority's right to secession - the principle Bush had established for Kosovo,” the Boston Globe editors comment.

The oil men of the Bush administration have attempted to explain away the need for Kosovo independence as a principle of human rights and not as a principle of the free-flow of Caspian energy resources. In this respect, these liars are in complete agreement with UN Resolution 3103, which states:

1. The struggle of peoples under colonial and alien domination and racist régimes for the implementation of their right to self-determination and independence is legitimate and in full accordance with the principles of international law.

2. Any attempt to suppress the struggle against colonial and alien domination and racist régimes is incompatible with the Charter of the United Nations, the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples and constitutes a threat to international peace and security.

3. The armed conflicts involving the struggle of peoples against colonial and alien domination and racist régimes are to be regarded as international armed conflicts in the sense of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and the legal status envisaged to apply to the combatants in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and other international instruments is to apply to the persons engaged in armed struggle against colonial and alien domination and racist régimes.

4. The combatants struggling against colonial and alien domination and racist régimes captured as prisoners are to be accorded the status of prisoners of war and their treatment should be in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, of 12 August 1949.

5. The use of mercenaries by colonial and racist régimes against national liberation movements struggling for their freedom and independence from the yoke of colonialism and alien domination is considered to be a criminal act and the mercenaries should accordingly be punished as criminals.

6. The violation of the legal status of the combatants struggling against colonial and alien domination and racist régimes in the course of armed conflicts entails full responsibility in accordance with the norms of international law.

Now, the same author who rushed to judgment in defense of Turkey's recognition of Kosovo independence included the following ignorant remarks:

Skeptics refer to Turkey's ongoing problem with regard to Kurdish ethno-nationalism, suggesting that Turkey should not have recognized Kosovo's independence since this would set a precedent for the separatist Kurds. However this allegation is baseless simply because Kurds will not attempt to gain a state of their own unless they have to undergo the same process as the Kosovars did; in other words, if they are not subjected to inequality, repression and persecution, they will not show an ambition toward independence. Even if they did, their quest for creating a separate state would not be honored by the international community. This considerably alleviates Turkey's concerns in regard to the Kurdish problem.

Everyone knows--even if they lie about it or refuse to admit it--that the Kurds of Turkey have been subjected to nothing but "inequality, repression and persecution" since 1923. Everyone also knows--even if they lie about it or refuse to admit it--that the US has been instrumental in helping Turkey carry out "inequality, repression and persecution" against the Kurdish population of Turkey for decades. But now US power is on the decline in the region and will continue to be eclipsed by Russia.

Russia bitterly protested the independence of Kosovo and included a warning from Vladimir Putin:

"Our position is extremely clear. Any resolution on Kosovo should be approved by both sides," Putin said. "It is also clear that any resolution on Kosovo will set a precedent in international practice."

Analysts said the comments could mean that if Kosovo declares unilateral independence, Moscow could support independence for pro-Russian separatists in Georgia.

Furthermore:

Russian President Vladimir Putin charges that Western support for the newly declared state, torn from Serbia this week, is "immoral and illegal" behavior that will provoke a global storm of separatism and explode the international order.

Turkey now finds itself in a dilemma of its own making. Russian payback for Turkey's rush to recognize Kosovo independence is upon it, with Turkey's economy and energy needs heavily dependent on Russian whim. When Russia settles the Georgian Question--and it most certainly will settle it according to its own criteria--Turkey can be pressured into settling its own Kurdish Question politically, one which is long bloody with "inequality, repression and persecution".

This is a goal that the PKK has long struggled to achieve, and current restructuring of regional relationships is a moment of opportunity that the Kurds of Turkey cannot let slip by.

In the meantime, Russia has issued warnings to Israel from both PM Medvedev and Foreign Minister Lavrov, as it renovates a Syrian port for use by the Russian navy.

By the way, CNN seems to be in trouble in Russia for not airing its recent interview with Putin in its entirety:

The word on the street here is Putin is out for blood. It's payback time. According to a source with high-level government connections, the Russians are planning punitive actions against CNN. At this point, it is just a rumor, but they are preparing to kick out about half of the half-dozen Western journalists working at CNN's Moscow bureau. Sooner or later they're going to have to apply for a visa renewal and that's when it's gonna go down. They'll be denied, clean and quiet like. We can only pray that the tool Matthew Chance is up for a new visa soon.

Oh, it's definitely time for the media lapdogs to get their well-deserved comeuppance.

2025: THE FACE OF HEGEMONY

"In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last."
~ Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard.

I think a little update on global politics is in order. First, a prelude to the next National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is out in which a reduced dominance for the US is predicted by 2025:

An intelligence forecast being prepared for the next president on future global risks envisions a steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming decades, as the world is reshaped by globalization, battered by climate change, and destabilized by regional upheavals over shortages of food, water and energy.

[ . . . ]

In the new intelligence forecast, it is not just the United States that loses clout. Fingar predicts plummeting influence for the United Nations, the World Bank and a host of other international organizations that have helped maintain political and economic stability since World War II. It is unclear what new institutions can fill the void, he said.

In the years ahead, Washington will no longer be in a position to dictate what new global structures will look like. Nor will any other country, Fingar said. "There is no nobody in a position . . . to take the lead and institute the changes that almost certainly must be made in the international system," he said.

The predicted shift toward a less U.S.-centric world will come at a time when the planet is facing a growing environmental crisis, caused largely by climate change, Fingar said. By 2025, droughts, food shortages and scarcity of fresh water will plague large swaths of the globe, from northern China to the Horn of Africa.

[ . . . ]

Energy security will also become a major issue as India, China and other countries join the United States in seeking oil, gas and other sources for electricity. The Chinese get a good portion of their oil from Iran, as do many U.S. allies in Europe, limiting U.S. options on Iran. "So the turn-the-spigot-off kind of thing -- even if we could do it -- would be counterproductive."

There's more on that from ComputerWorld, in which the upcoming NIE identifies six disruptive technologies that will emerge by 2025.

An example of reduced dominance by the US was seen in last week's visit by VP Dick Cheney to the Caucasus:

Cheney's Caucasus gambit is a desperate attempt to stir up trouble while making a last ditch effort for the oil and natural gas of the resource-rich Caspian Basin. So far, he and his colleagues in Big Oil have nothing to show for their 20 years of labor except a few under-performing puppets in Ukraine and Georgia. The whole plan has flopped leaving Cheney with another failure on his resume. Just this week, there was more news of Russia's progress in the Central Asia energy sweepstakes in an article by Paul Goble titled "Moscow Wins a Major Victory on Pipelines":

"With Iran’s declaration that it opposes the construction of any undersea pipelines in the Caspian on "ecological grounds" and thus will block any delimitation of the seabed that allows for them and Baku’s decision not to back the West’s push NABUCCO project, Moscow can claim its first major political victory from its invasion of Georgia.

These actions mean that the Russian government will now have full and uncontested control over pipelines between the Caspian basin and the West which pass through Russian territory and will be able either directly or through its clients like the PKK to disrupt the only routes such as Baku-Tbilisi-Ceylon that bypass the Russian Federation."

If Cheney is serious about catching-up to Russia, he'll have to act fast. Unfortunately, Cheney is more disliked in Central Asia than he is in the USA where his public approval ratings have been well below sea-level for the last 4 years. In fact, when Cheney arrived in Azerbaijan, neither President Ilkham Aliyev nor Prime Minister, Artur Rasizade, even bothered to meet him at the airport. Politicians everywhere know that its is political suicide to even be seen with him.

The PKK is hardly the "client" of Russia, but the Russian people, through their Duma, did unanimously call for political asylum for Öcalan so a cautious alliance would be completely reasonable.

For more on the Russia-US conflict, see the comments and analysis by the always brilliant Noam Chomsky:

In the background lie two crucial issues. One is control over pipelines to Azerbaijan and Central Asia. Georgia was chosen as a corridor by Clinton to bypass Russia and Iran, and was also heavily militarized for the purpose. Hence Georgia is “a very major and strategic asset to us,” Zbigniew Brzezinski observes.

It is noteworthy that analysts are becoming less reticent in explaining real US motives in the region as pretexts of dire threats and liberation fade and it becomes more difficult to deflect Iraqi demands for withdrawal of the occupying army. Thus the editors of the Washington Post admonished Barack Obama for regarding Afghanistan as “the central front” for the United States, reminding him that Iraq “lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves,” and Afghanistan’s “strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq.” A welcome, if belated, recognition of reality about the US invasion.

The second issue is expansion of NATO to the East, described by George Kennan in 1997 as “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era, [which] may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations.”

[ . . . ]

[Former US ambassador to Russia Jack] Matlock is not alone in regarding Kosovo as an important factor. “Recognition of South Ossetia's and Abkhazia's independence was justified on the principle of a mistreated minority's right to secession - the principle Bush had established for Kosovo,” the Boston Globe editors comment.

Which, of course, also means that the mistreated Kurdish minorities of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria also have the right to secession not only according to UN Resolution 3103 but also according to the Bush administration's Kosovo criteria.

Chomsky's quotation of Zbigniew Brzezinski reminds me of a quote in Brzezinski's book The Grand Chessboard about Eurasia:

Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, and "antihegemonic" coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances. It would be reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge once posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc, although this time China would likely be the leader and Russia the follower. Averting this contingency, however remote it may be, will require a display of U.S. geostrategic skill on the western, eastern, and southern perimeters of Eurasia simultaneously.

The Grand Chessboard, p. 55.

While that contingency may have seemed "remote" in 1997 when Brzezinski wrote those lines, the contingency is up close and personal now with the existence of the SCO. Especially since the predictions seem to be that the power of the SCO is on the increase:

"The SCO should eventually start playing a new role both in and outside the Caucasus. What we see now is a real crisis of the idea of a unipolar world now that the US and its NATO allies pretend they are unable to get to the core of what’s been happening in the Caucasus. I believe that organizations like the SCO and BRIC, that brings Russia together with Brazil, India and China, should play an important role here. Many people already realize the need for the SCO and other international organizations to start focusing more on ensuring global stability and security…"

Anatoly Bolyatko also said that closer interaction between the SCO and such observer nations as Iran, India and Pakistan could make it a major new instrument of collective security both in the former Soviet Union and neighboring regions.

If we take Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice as the ones who are to "display [ ] U.S. geostrategic skill" in Eurasia, as described by Kissinger protege Brzezinski, it should surprise no one that the spooks are predicting a reduction in US dominance by 2025.

Look to the East.

NEWS FROM THE FRONT

"Given the current situation of active fighting and no prospect of peace, this decision from the Kongra-Gel/HPG to renounce the use of AP mines is significant. It reflects the will of the Kongra-Gel/HPG to commit itself to respect certain rules of behaviour during warfare and to spare civilians from the effects of landmines. We will follow up the implementation of this humanitarian commitment and we call upon the Government of Turkey to facilitate our work on the ground."
~ Elisabeth Reusse-Decrey, President, Geneva Call.

TSK has a plan for minefield identification and clearing, from Taraf:

Let Civilians enter the minefields first

Şırnak Brigade Command General Ahmet Yavuz released an immediate order for precautions against mine attacks: Use the most frequently mined roads indirectly rather than directly, use the roads after civilian vehicles pass through, enter such mined regions after shepherds and civilian passengers use them.

First shepherds and passengers enter

In order to reduce the casualties from mines that have been planted by PKK in The East, it turned out that civilians would be pushed forward. In a top secret document signed by Şırnak Brigade Command's General Ahmet Yavuz, there were the following suggestions to reduce troop casualties: first sending civilians to the minefields, sending civilian vehicles on roads where the possibility of the existence of mines are high. and appointing trained dogs to such regions.

In addition to these suggestions, there is a demand to use Claymore mines, which are banned by international law.

Apparently, these decisions were made after a meeting of Şırnak Brigade Headquarters, which the unit commanders, headquarter lieutenants and battalion commanders had attended at the beginning of June 2007. This meeting came about as the result of two mine explosions which resulted in the deaths of six Turkish soldiers and another in which eight were wounded. These explosions occured in May and June 2007.

The top secret document, numbered HRK:7130-115-07 / (58557), was sent to İkizce and Doğanköy units, Şırnak Province Jandarma Command, Jandarma Special Operations Battalion Command, and Jandarma Security Protection Command.

Taraf obtained a copy of the document and, among the suggested solutions to the problem of regional minefields, was the following:

The roads and regions where mine and hand-made explosives are intensively used must be constantly surveilled; instead of going into those regions directly, an indirect strategy must be implemented; such roads must be used after opened to civilian vehicle traffic; such regions must be entered after shepherd and passenger use.

Why am I not surprised that NATO's second largest army, the TSK, is, once again, engaging in war crimes?

HPG stopped using anti-personnel mines in 2006, although it still uses command-detonated mines.

Now some news from the front. Note: the front is everywhere.

At the beginning of September, operations were continuing in Bingöl. Thirty-six Turkish soldiers were killed, one of whom was a major and nineteen were Special Team members.

This HPG operation occured on 2 September against the Tevzan Garrison in Kiğı of Bingöl. According to statements from HPG-BİM, the operation started with an infilitration at 1800 hours that encircled the garrison. The garrison was targeted from three points. All the materials in the garrison's yard were destroyed, including one artillery gun.

An hour and a half into the attack, Cobras arrived on the scene. One Sikorsky, which came to intervene and contained one major and twenty Special Team members, came under intense fire from our guerrıllas while trying to land in the garrison yard. It was downed by our guerrillas and exploded. There were no survivors of the explosion.

The war balance from this operation included four Turkish officers, one of whom was a major, and thirty-six enemy soldiers killed. Twenty-six were wounded.

There were four HPG şehîds as a result of this operation. BİM tells the struggle of the operation's commander Ahmet Tevfik (Kahraman Haseki) as follows:

"Comrade Kahraman Haseki was seriously wounded. Despite the other comrades' insistence that they take him [out of the operation area for medical attention], he rejected this offer and his final words were 'Say hello to all comrades. We took revenge for the Bingöl şehîds. Bijî Serok Apo!' Our comrade exploded his grenade and entered martyrdom. In addition to his martyrdom, our comrades İrfan Gündoğan (Munzur Sara), Şirzat Paşar (Sefkan Çiya), and Derviş Köşker (Özgür Roni) were martyred.

Kahraman Haseki had been a guerrilla for 15 years.

On 4, 5, and 6 September, operations continued in Hakkari, Şırnak, and Bingöl, in which eight soldiers and one JITEM were killed. Clashes between our guerrillas and the TSK in areas of Yüksekova, Hakkari on 5 September resulted in the death of four soldiers, with one wounded. On the same day, in Şırnak, Navyana Şeyxan garrison, YJA-STAR forces engaged in a clash with the TSK that resulted in two sergeants and three soldiers killed, and two soldiers wounded. On the same day in the Bingöl region, one JITEM and two soldiers were killed, and one wounded. On 6 September, in Kato Jirka of Beytüşşebap, operations were ongoing, including an operation initiated by TSK.

On 7 and 8 September, in two separate operations, HPG forces killed three enemy soldiers and wounded five others. On 8 September, a TSK command center was targeted by HPG in the Meydan Kolyan area, which was coordinating the Kato Jirka operation. The command center contained 15 officers, which were HPG's targets. Eight enemy soldiers were killed and seven wounded by HPG at the command center. After the operation, three helicopters came to remove the dead and wounded. Meanwhile, on 7 September in an operation in Şemdinli, HPG forces killed six soldiers and three village guards. Two of the dead soldiers were officers. The bodies were under the control of our guerrillas.

On 7 September, in villages of the Dicle district of Amed (Diyarbakır), three enemy soldiers were killed and two wounded. On 8 September in the Beytüşşebap district of Şırnak, YJA-STAR forces launched rocket attacks and heavy arms fire against police housing. Casualties from this attack have not yet been confirmed.

HPG has confirmed all of the şehîds from clashes on 16 and 28 August in the region of Bitlis, as follows:

Şehîd nemirin!

THE KANGAL AND THE ROOSTER

"Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot little puppies."
~ Gene Hill.

Stop for a minute and take a look at this Kangal puppy going after a rooster. He's so fierce, he's so adorable, he's so Kurdish:

Here's a Kangal pup and a sheep:

I want one.

SIX YEARS

"Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
~ George Orwell.

Let's see, what have our "brothers" of the AKP done for Kurds after six years in power?

Well, TDN reports that "Bureaucracy hinders villager return", in which a commission set up in Mardin to pay compensation for the fascist TSK's forced displacement of villagers, has come up with every excuse under the sun to refuse to pay compensation. Remember that the "bureaucracy" is appointed by the AKP.

But none of this is news, folks. It was news back in 2002 when Human Rights Watch called on the Ankara regime to establish a means of return or compensation for forcibly displaced Kurdish villagers. At the time, HRW noted:

A displaced villager from Mardin working as a taxi-driver in Istanbul asked: "If the villagers go back now, what is the guarantee that they won't get turned out again in a year's time-and perhaps with violence? More than help in returning or permission to return, our villagers are looking for guarantees of safety."

The Turkish authorities appear intent on limiting villagers' recourse to courts to enforce their rights. In recent years, Turkey has faced a growing number of lawsuits before the European Court of Human Rights, which has ordered that the Turkish government compensate displaced villagers for their losses. Many villagers told Human Rights Watch that the authorities would give them permission to return only if they signed statements absolving the government of responsibility for their original displacement. Villagers also find it nearly impossible to get any official written statement from the authorities either granting or denying their right to return. Human Rights Watch said the authorities seem determined to avoid creating a paper trail that may end up in court.

Human Rights Watch said the government's much-heralded return programs are under-funded and ill conceived, falling far short of established international standards.

How does that report differ in the TDN article on the commission in Mardin now, in 2008? The AKP came into power in November 2002, almost six years ago and the situation of the return of villagers has not changed one iota. The AKP has done nothing.

In its 2002 report, HRW condemned the village guard system, quoting a TBMM report from 1995 which "confirmed that village guards were involved in a wide range of lawless activities, including killing and extortion, and called for abolition of the village guard system." In 2006, HRW called upon Abdullah Aksu, AKP's Interior Minister at the time, to abolish the village guard system. The letter to Aksu outlined cases of continued abuse by village guards, particularly against villagers who attempted to return to the homes and lands from which they were forcibly displaced by the regime.

As with failure of the AKP to grant compensation or permission of villagers to return home, so with the issue of the abolition of village guards: The AKP has done nothing.

Now we're expected to believe that the AKP is going to really, really, really provide some kind of economic stimulus for The Region through the completion of GAP. Katil Erdoğan has even sent his boy, İlker Başbuğ, to The Region to push this old nonsense but with some additional bells and whistles--"the construction of entertainment centers, support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), techno-parks and the promotion of cultural tourism, renewable energy and agriculture." Katil Erdoğan allegedly has other bells and whistles to add to these.

But it's been six years and the AKP has done nothing yet but talk and talk and talk and talk. Like Katil Erdoğan talked in Amed (Diyarbakır) in August three years ago, when he talked about solving the Kurdish "problem" through democratization. Was that anything more than just talk?

Katil Erdoğan allegedly proposed a minimum monthly wage of YTL 250 for The Region, up from the current, below-subsitence-level average monthly wage of YTL 100. The unions want a minimum monthly wage of YTL 503 for adults, which is still extremely low, given the basic expenses of rent, food, medicine, and education costs for children that an average family in the region must pay. Katil Erdoğan wants his generous minimum wage to be "a temporary measure that will last 10 years".

Given that food costs alone have increased by a factor of three in the last three years, and show no signs of decrease globally, Katil Erdoğan is, once again, promising nothing.

To be fair, there was one time when Katil Erdoğan said something to Kurds and made good on his words:

"The events are under control... Security forces will intervene with every possible means indiscriminately, including against women and children."

That was during the Amed Serhildan in March 2006. That is the only thing the AKP has done for Kurds.

LOCKHEED MARTIN IN BUSINESS WITH BAGHDAD

"Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do."
~ Aldous Huxley.

My good friend, Anonymous, dropped off a couple of URLs in the comments to the last post. The first is from Reuters:

The Iraqi government has asked for information about buying 36 F-16 fighter aircraft built by Lockheed Martin Corp, the U.S. Defense Department said on Friday.

The request, received Aug. 27, is being reviewed "in the normal course of business" as part of the U.S. government-to-government arms sale process, said Air Force Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman.

Updated F-16s are among the world's most advanced multirole fighters and a powerful symbol of military ties to the United States.

Iraq's interest in the fighter jet, reported first by The Wall Street Journal, could spark concerns among neighbors worried about advanced arms in the hands of a country still facing major internal challenges.

[ . . . ]

Flush with billions of dollars from oil sales, Iraq is emerging as the biggest client for a wide range of U.S. weapons -- a shot in the arm for defense contractors such as Lockheed, Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp, General Dynamics Corp and Raytheon Co.

Among other systems, Iraq is seeking more than 400 armored vehicles plus six C-130 transport planes built by Lockheed, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier.

On July 30, the Pentagon notified Congress that Iraq also was seeking to buy 24 Textron Inc Bell Armed 407 or 24 Boeing AH-6 helicopters along with 565 120mm mortars, 665 81mm mortars, 200 AGM-114M Hellfire missiles and other arms that could be worth $2.4 billion.

More, from the WSJ:

There are potential pitfalls both for Iraq and U.S. officials in the move. A steady cadre of well-trained Iraqi pilots will need time to learn the planes' tactics and weapons, and ground crews will have to maintain them to high standards to avoid performance or safety problems. The U.S. currently uses a wide variety of planes for air support in Iraq, so it's unclear how big a role Iraqi F-16s could play.

The U.S. has previously seen weapons meant for fragile allies end up in unfriendly hands, as with Iran in 1979. The U.S. will have to consider how advanced F-16s and their weapons, such as satellite-guided bombs, should be.

The F-16 purchase must be reviewed by the Pentagon, Congress and the State Department. The F-16s would allow the Iraqis to carry out their own airstrikes on insurgent positions, something they currently need the U.S. to do for them. That shortcoming was a serious problem during the initial days of the Iraqi army's Basra assault in March, which didn't break in the Iraqis' favor until British and American warplanes bombed the positions of the Mahdi Army, Iraq's largest Shiite militia, throughout the city.

Air power is becomingly increasingly important in Iraq, where the amount of ordnance dropped by U.S. planes has jumped in recent months as U.S. and Iraqi forces press to eradicate the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq and other militant groups. Though the F-16 is a fighter designed to shoot down enemy aircraft, it can carry precision-guided bombs and missiles that can be used to support ground forces. The plane also is armed with a cannon that can be used for close air-support missions.

[ . . . ]

The F-16 would represent a significant upgrade for the Iraqi military, and -- depending on how the planes were outfitted with radar and other electronic systems -- could give it some of the most advanced fighter aircraft in the region. The planes can be equipped advanced missiles and bombs, and would give Iraq a more potent air force than it had under Saddam Hussein, when the Iraqi air force mainly consisted of Russian and French fighters.

With a fleet of U.S.-made fighters, Iraq would be able to better match up against neighbors like Iran, which relies on Russian and Iranian-made fighters and aging American jets. U.S. analysts cautioned, however, that Iraq would still have one of the weaker air forces in the region.

This is the same excuse used by the US to arm Saddam and encourage him in his war against Iran, with catastrophic consequences for the Kurdish people.

More, from the Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, whose congressional district includes the Lockheed Martin plant, said the request signals the Iraqi government’s intent to take responsibility for its own security to hasten the timetable for phasing out the U.S. military presence.

"We keep saying that the Iraqis have to take care of their own security," Granger said. "If the request is approved, then it would help move them toward providing their own security."

Granger, who has made three trips to Iraq, said its air force "is very, very weak" because of lack of resources. But with Iraq’s expanding oil wealth, the government is increasingly capable of buying Western military technology and has made plans to purchase U.S. helicopters, tanks, armored vehicles and other weapon systems.

Under dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq once had a formidable air force composed largely of Soviet aircraft. But the force was largely demolished in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and offered no resistance to U.S. air power during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

So what should all this tell Kurds? It says: You're screwed! Again! Second URL from Anonymous, from the AFP:

The speaker of northern Iraq's regional parliament warned Baghdad on Monday about the purchase of high-tech US military hardware, amid concerns the weapons could be used against them.

"The Kurds demand guarantees from the countries selling weapons to Iraq that they will not be used against our people and other Iraqis," said Adnan al-Mufti in a speech to MPs in the regional capital of Arbil.

[ . . . ]

"We want the Iraqi government to be strong and able to defend the sovereignty of the country but our concern is related to the crisis that has happened in Khanaqin," Mufti said.

He was referring to tension that flared last month between Baghdad and Kurdish leaders when Iraqi forces ordered Kurdish political parties to vacate their offices in Khanaqin, a district in the central province of Diyala.

Khanaqin, which includes a string of villages and some of Iraq's oil reserves, is home to about 175,000 people, most of them Kurdish Shiites.

During the Arabisation policies of former dictator Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, a large number of Kurdish Shiites were displaced by force from Khanaqin. Villages came under fierce Iraqi air strikes.

Guarantees? Adnan al-Mufti wants guarantees? Is this guy for real?

Forget about seeking phony guarantees from backstabbers like the US or Baghdad and get ready for more airstrikes like those at Xanaqîn . . . or maybe like those at Helebçe. In those days, the US knew very well what Saddam's regime was up to, what it was using advanced weapons systems for, and it did nothing. Has everyone already forgotten that "covert action should not be confused with missionary work"?

The KRG and the two ruling families of South Kurdistan aren't concerned when Turkey uses the very same type of aircraft to bomb its regions, which it has done since December. They weren't concerned when Turkey dropped cluster bombs in the same regions last summer. Nor were they concerned when Lockheed Martin lobbyist, Joseph Ralston, was appointed "PKK coordinator" for Turkey.

No, the KRG and the two ruling families have forgotten all about covert action and missionary work. Is it hubris that convinces one to trust the one who's betrayed you so many times in the past?

It wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that The Cohen Group is coordinating Baghdad's efforts to buy all that sophisticated ordnance, especially the F16s. The Cohen Group was working on arming the region at the beginning of this year:

When Congress gets back to business in the new year, one of its priorities will be consideration of the Bush administration’s request for a massive arms sale - in the neighborhood of $20 billion - to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states.

Israel and Egypt also stand to gain billions more in U.S. weapons as part of the package Congress will review.

The proposed deal is controversial because of the Saudi component. Given the Saudi government’s questionable record on fighting terrorism and curtailing terrorism financing, its funding of extremist wahabbist mosques, its supply of foreign fighters into Iraq and a judicial system that recently ordered 200 lashes for a rape victim, some in Congress don’t believe the kingdom should be rewarded with top-of-the-line American weaponry.

[ . . . ]

One of the of the big names supporting the deal is William Cohen, the former senator and defense secretary under President Bill Clinton and regular commentator on CNN.

Cohen has opined on the cable network that the arms deal is good for the U.S. and good for Saudi Arabia.

“The issue really is, are we going to help them modernize their forces so they can be a force to contend with an expansionist Iran, with Iran trying to spread its Shia and revolutionary zeal,” Cohen said last summer when the administration first proposed the sale.



“I think it’s an important idea,” Cohen said on CNN. The Persian Gulf countries “are worried about Iran. In order to help them prepare for their defense capabilities, we should be the country supplying it, so it will be interoperable with our own forces.



“They can buy it from us, they can buy it from the French, the British, the Russians, the Chinese or other country, potentially,” said Cohen. “So the real issue is, are we going continue to solidify our own influence or have it undermined by other countries quite willing to move in and take over the position that we had to date.”



While Cohen cloaked the sale in terms of what is best for American interests, he left out that the weapons sale is good business for him personally.


As chief of the Cohen Group, a lobbying and consulting firm based in the nation’s capital, Cohen represents some of the country’s largest weapons manufacturers, companies that stand to benefit from the weapons sale.

Including, of course, Lockheed Martin, as well as a bunch of other corporate murderers. But the point around which Katil Cohen was talking was the Almighty Dollar. With the American economy already in the toilet, you'd be an idiot to think that Congress will not approve the sale of fighter aircraft and all the rest to Baghdad.

All that talk about being careful or having concerns or taking the sale seriously is propaganda.

And where's that so-called Kurdish president of Iraq in all this, or his son, the so-called lobbyist for Southern Kurdish interests in DC? How much of this deal is going to end up in their bank accounts?

For more than five years now, the Barzanîs and Talabanîs have been busy with a bunch of bullshit construction projects in South Kurdistan, consisting mostly of hotels, resorts, and shopping malls. They've wasted precious time and money on these fantasies, when they should have been arming themselves with more than small arms and peşmêrge. Instead of counting profits, they should have been looking to the future and investing in pilot training and air defense systems, among other things.

We also know for a fact that the US, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey have passed around US and Israeli-acquired intelligence that fueled recent attacks against the Kurdish Freedom Movement. They'll all cooperate with the same intel-sharing against Southern Kurdish peşmêrge, too.

Now what to do? Stop all cooperation. Look to the East. Look to the North. Send the best and brightest--not Barzanîs and Talabanîs--to Russia and China to be trained as pilots and in air defense systems. Then buy the weapons systems necessary to defend Kurdistan. Because, as always, the US is going to look right at you and say nothing when Baghdad bombs you with American weapons.

TRAITORS AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS

"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
~ John Harington.

As Luke Ryland continues his series against a recent article regarding nuclear blackmarketing, there is something we should keep in mind. Marc Grossman, former US ambassador to Turkey and career State Department official with 29 years of "service" to his name, mysteriously "resigned" his position as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (State's number 3 position) in January 2005. This would have been following the Tinner arrest in 2004 in Switzerland, for supplying AQ Khan's nuclear black market network.

Coincidence? Probably not. As Luke explains, former US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, and current Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell ordered the Swiss justice minister to destroy evidence in the Tinner case to protect American traitors like Marc Grossman; Turkish MİT front organization, the ATC; and certain Turkish and Israeli businessmen who operated as part of the AQ Khan network from the US.

************

In last Monday's New York Times, David Sanger and William Broad wrote a front-page article about the CIA's involvement in the nuclear black market.

The article demonstrates (again) that the New York Times, Sanger & Broad in particular, has simply become a mouthpiece for the government (see my previous articles 1, 2, 3) but they did let one fact slip through to the readership. I can only presume that the slip was accidental, because they don't appear to have understood the ramifications of what they reported:
The US Government is covering up the fact that US citizens and entities are involved in the nuclear black market.

Background

Three members of the Tinner family in Switzerland were key suppliers to AQ Khan's nuclear black market ring. They were arrested in 2004 and have been awaiting trial but the US government has been trying to sabotage the Swiss trial because "compromising and embarrassing information about the CIA's activities with the Khan network" would be exposed if the trial were to proceed.

High-Level Visit

The New York Times reported that in July 2007, the Swiss Justice Minister came to the US to discuss the case with high-level US officials, apparently to find a mutually-acceptable arrangement regarding how to deal with the Tinner case.

According to an anonymous former Bush administration official:

"The State Department wanted the bomb plans destroyed as a way to stem nuclear proliferation, while the C.I.A. wanted to protect its methods for combating illicit nuclear trade."

Whether those two things are true or not I don't know - but the NY Times also notes, without elaboration, that the Swiss Justice Minister met with former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller (and Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence).

Domestic US Involvement

The US Dept of Justice and FBI have exclusively domestic jurisdiction. Why would the Swiss Justice Minister meet with Mueller and Gonzales regarding the planned destruction of evidence in a Swiss case involving the nuclear black market? The only logical explanation is that the case also involves US persons and US entities who have yet to be named and indicted. I presume that Gonzales and Mueller desperately argued that the Swiss needed to derail the Tinners' trial by destroying all the evidence because the FBI had an 'ongoing investigation' which would otherwise be exposed. What else could they have argued? Of course, there is no 'ongoing investigation, and there will not be any forthcoming indictments.

The AQ Khan network was officially exposed in 2003. Now we have proof that the Bush administration is well aware of the involvement of US persons and entities, and is apparently refusing to bring indictments against these people.

Sibel Edmonds Case

We know from the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds that the FBI has long been aware of nuclear black market activities within the US and has failed to do anything about it, going to such extraordinary lengths to gag Sibel using the State Secrets Privilege, and to illegally gag congress involving Sibel's case.

We know that high-level US officials were directly involved in these activities. We know that the Pentagon and State Department actively shut down the investigations that Sibel was involved with, and they also actively facilitated the gagging of Sibel.

We even know at least 3 of the US persons/groups that were actively involved in the nuclear black market:

Marc Grossman

Former #3 at the State Dept, Marc Grossman, was heard on FBI wiretaps facilitating the theft of nuclear secrets "from every nuclear agency in the United States." Other participants in the ring include officials from Pakistan, Turkey and Israel who were operating out of their respective embassies. Once the ring stole these secrets they were sold to the highest bidders on the nuclear black market.

Could it be that the US government was desperate to sabotage the Swiss case because they were afraid that Grossman's role in criminal activity would finally be exposed?

American Turkish Council (ATC)

The ATC is a powerful Military-Industrial-Complex lobby, home to some of the most pwerful people and companies in the US. It is also the "nexus" of nuclear black market activity in the US.

We also know that the CIA, via Valerie Plame's cover company Brewster Jennings, was investigating the ATC for its role in illegal nuclear proliferation.

Sibel Edmonds heard wiretaps of phone traffic between the Turkish embassy and the American Turkish Council involving dealings in the nuclear black market.

Could it be that the US government was desperate to sabotage the Swiss case because they were afraid that the ATC's role in criminal activity would finally be exposed?

Zeki Bilmen & Giza Technologies

Turkish businessman and US citizen, Zeki Bilmen, illegally supplied nuclear hardware to Pakistan's military program via Asher Karni, an Isaeli businessman in South Africa. Karni was indicted, but Bilmen was never charged, and his company, New Jersey-based Giza Technologies, continues operating to this day, with shipments to and from from proliferation hotspots" like Dubai, Spain, South Africa, Turkey."

Bilmen was also heard organizing the transfer of nuclear technology on wiretaps translated by Sibel, meaning that his FBI file is at least seven years old.

Could it be that the US government was desperate to sabotage the Swiss case because they were afraid that Zeki Bilmen's role in criminal activity would finally be exposed?

Summary

Former CIA official Phil Giraldi:

"Nothing deserves more attention than the possibility of ongoing national-security failures and the proliferation of nuclear weapons with the connivance of corrupt senior government officials."

The involvement of domestic US agencies in the decision to destroy evidence in the Tinner case in Switzerland proves that there is a domestic US component to the nuclear black market. Five years after the public exposure of the AQ Khan network, the US government still refuses to bring indictments against a number of criminal US participants.

Why not?

************

Posted at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak and DailyKos.


It kind of makes you wonder what other secrets Marc Grossman has sold as a middle man. Maybe that's why he pulls the big bucks from such shady businesses as İhlas Holding and The Cohen Group.

By the way, someone needs to add "treason" to the career highlights sections of Alberto Gonzalez's, Robert Mueller's, and Mike McConnell's Wikipedia entries.

NYET TO A UNIPOLAR WORLD

"Unipolarity is unacceptable, dominance is inadmissible. We can't accept a world order where all the decisions are made by one country, even a country as serious and authoritative as the US. This kind of world would be unsteady and conflict prone."
~ Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

CNN recently interviewed Russian PM Vladimir Putin. Videos of the complete interview are shown below, along with the one that aired in the West:

Here's what was aired on CNN for Western consumption:

CNN transcript here.

The world's power structure is shifting. In mid-August, as a result of the conflict in Georgia, Turkish PM Gül said that the US must share power with the rest of the world, and the message trickled down to others who are now beginning to say that "what is clear is that America's unipolar moment has passed--and the new world order heralded by Bush's father in the dying days of the Soviet Union in 1991 is no more."

As Putin said in February 2007:

The unipolar world that had been proposed after the Cold War did not take place either.

The history of humanity certainly has gone through unipolar periods and seen aspirations to world supremacy. And what hasn’t happened in world history?

However, what is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making.

It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.

And this certainly has nothing in common with democracy. Because, as you know, democracy is the power of the majority in light of the interests and opinions of the minority.

Incidentally, Russia – we – are constantly being taught about democracy. But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves.

I consider that the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today’s world. And this is not only because if there was individual leadership in today’s – and precisely in today’s – world, then the military, political and economic resources would not suffice. What is even more important is that the model itself is flawed because at its basis there is and can be no moral foundations for modern civilisation.

Over the weekend, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the same thing during an interview in which he outlined the five points of Russian foreign policy:

First - Russia accepts the superiority of the fundamental principles of international law which determine relations between civilised nations. And within the framework of these principles and this view of international law, we will develop our relations with other countries.

Second - the world should be multi-polar. Unipolarity is unacceptable, dominance is inadmissible. We can't accept a world order where all the decisions are made by one country, even a country as serious and authoritative as the US. This kind of world would be unsteady and conflict prone.

Third - Russia doesn’t want a confrontation with any country, and has no plans to isolate itself. As far as we can, we will develop friendly relations with Europe, the United States and with other countries.

Fourth - protecting the lives and dignity of our citizens is an absolute priority for us, wherever they are. This is where we’ll be starting from in our foreign policy. We'll also be trying to protect the interests of our business community abroad. And it must be clear to all, that if anyone attempts any aggressive action, they will encounter a response.

And fifth - just like other countries, Russia has regions where it has special interests. These regions include states with which our country has had particularly warm and friendly historical ties. We will be working very closely with these regions, and developing our friendly relations with these states, our close neighbours. This is what we will be basing our foreign policy on. As far as the future goes, it doesn’t just depend on us. It also depends on our friends and partners in the international community. They have a choice.

These priority regions are of course the border regions, but not only these.

Russia will not accept a unipolar world and it no longer has to:

In Syria, Libya, even Turkey (a US and European friend) politicians and analysts have noted the consequences of the Georgian crisis - not for what Russia has done but for what the US, EU and Nato have been unable to do: exercise their power to protect an ally.

And while US taxpayers have been volunteered to generously hand Georgia $1 billion for reconstruction of damage caused by a mini-conflict that Georgia instigated--at whose behest?--Dick Cheney is on the ground in the region looking for ways to ensure "additional routes for energy exports that ensure the free flow of resources." In other words, to undermine Russia's growing dominance in the energy industry.

At an SCO summit on 28 August, the organization issued a mild statement over Russian action in Georgia, which was most likely the result of China's influence in the organization and may well work in China's favor.

As I have said before, Kurdistan must start looking to the East for its future. Turkey is doing so. Iran is doing so. Syria is doing so. The clock is ticking; it is almost too late.

MANUFACTURING CONSENT FOR WHOM?

"I have the greatest admiration for your propaganda. Propaganda in the West is carried out by experts who have had the best training in the world — in the field of advertising - and have mastered the techniques with exceptional proficiency ... Yours are subtle and persuasive; ours are crude and obvious ... I think that the fundamental difference between our worlds, with respect to propaganda, is quite simple. You tend to believe yours ... and we tend to disbelieve ours."
~ Soviet correspondent based five years in the US.

More, from Luke Ryland, on America's Newspaper of Record, the spinning of yarns, and Sibel Edmonds:

************

A front page article "In Nuclear Net’s Undoing, a Web of Shadowy Deals" in last Monday's New York Times by David Sanger and William Broad details the destruction of evidence by the US government in a case involving the nuclear black market.

The article highlights again that the New York Times continues to engage in 'Judy Miller reporting' by warmongering and acting as a mouthpiece for the government.

This is the third article in a multi-part series. This article will focus on the NY Times' appalling reliance on government-friendly sources, the lack of any actual investigative reporting, the lack of supporting evidence, and the absence of any dissenting views. (The first piece of the series focused on the players in the AQ Khan / BSA Tahir nuclear smuggling ring, the second article focused on the countries involved.)

Given the New York Times recent history of being used and abused by their anonymous government sources you might think they ought to be a little more diligent when reporting a story such as this, but apparently they haven't learnt their lesson from the recent debacles such as Iraq/WMD or Anthrax/Hatfill.

David Sanger and William Broad need look no further back than their early reporting on this same story to see how badly they are getting spun - although given their performance, it appears that they don't even care.

As just one example, that previous article was a transparent attempt to spin the story away from the fact that the US government bailed out members of the AQ Khan nuclear proliferation network. The article noted that the AQ Khan had nuclear "blueprints" which are "rapidly reproducible for creating a weapon that is relatively small and easy to hide" which makes these weapons "attractive to terrorists."

Now Sanger and Broad tell us in their current article that these plans are "sketchy and incomplete" which have "little or no value for a terrorist..." There was no correction, no apology, no remorse or embarrassment, and apparently no lessons learned.

Despite this history, Broad and Sanger again spoke to "five current and former Bush administration officials" - presumably the same sources as their previous article - and gave them the cover of anonymity to again spread transparent nonsense. Apparently Sanger and Broad didn't even wonder why a handful of Bush administration officials were willing to talk to them about these 'classified' operations, and it surely won't occur to them to ask why the Bush administration hasn't opened up a leak investigation either.

Corroboration?

Last month, investigative journalist Joe Lauria joked that American journalists need five sources for something personally witnessed by the journalist. This is true for whistle-blowers, but there is a double-standard when it comes to official government sources. This kid-glove treatment of US officials is remarkable given the lies that we have been fed, particularly over the past seven years.

Did Sanger and Broad actually do anything to corroborate the story apart from speak to the five Bush officials who were all singing off the same hymn-sheet? Did they interview Richard Barlow, expert on Pakistan's nuclear program for his thoughts? Did they ask decorated British customs agent Atif Amin whether the story made any sense? Or former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds? Of course not.

Perhaps Sanger and Broad could have, for example, asked 'Dr Brian Jones, a former defence intelligence WMD specialist,' for his opinion. He was quoted in the Guardian on this very story back in June saying that he was "suspicious that the disclosure might be politically motivated." But that sort of thing would never get published in a US newspaper - unless it was a government source trying to undermine a whistle-blower.

Standard of Proof

If a whistle-blower tries to shed some light on government wrongdoing, then the Corporate Press in the US demands documents and multiple points of corroboration, and even then often don't run the story. They will question his or her motives, or they will argue that it is too difficult to establish the legitimacy of the whistle-blower case, or simply accept the government's denials.

In many cases, this standard of proof is legitimate, but it is applied so inconsistently that it turns the newspapers into organs of the government. The US corporate media will publish just about anything the government says, despite the Bush administration's documented history of lying to the press and the public. On the other hand, it is nearly impossible to get the US press to write about important matters that are not government-approved.

Again, take the case of Sibel Edmonds. Despite the fact that senators from both major parties reported that the case is credible, despite the fact that the FBI confirmed a lot of the case, despite the Justice Department's Inspector General's report, despite the State Secrets Privilege, despite the fact that there has not been a single substantial denial, despite the corroboration by Phil Giraldi, a CIA agent based in Turkey, despite the corroboration from veteran FBI agents John Cole and Gilbert Graham, the US media still can't report on the story.

I asked Sibel for a quote on this story, she said:

"You see this over and over again, and I'm not just talking about my case. As you know, my organization represents nearly 150 National Security whistle-blowers, and dealing with the US mainstream media, both the networks and print, we have faced the same double standards and bias consistently. Even if you get a high-ranking National Security whistle-blower with an impeccable record and no agenda, the response from the US media is "We need at least 2 or 3 more independent witnesses, as well as hard documents."

The same media reports the government propaganda & agenda-driven leaks as undisputed fact, based on a statement from a spokesperson from one of the agencies; no request for documents, no request for independent witnesses...

Another interesting thing with the whistle-blower cases is that the MSM always use words such as 'allegations' but when they act as government mouthpieces, you rarely see any evidence of doubt or phrases like that."

We've heard from numerous sources that the US government warned reporters off writing about Sibel's story earlier this year after the UK's Times published their series on the case. The reporters were told that they would be compromising a sting operation and harming national security if they published any information about this case - and they all fell for it! The same is true of the alternate media including the blogosphere to a large extent. Steve Clemons, respected by many, apparently spoke to some of his State Dept friends before deciding that Sibel must have been only seen the ""raw intel", unprocessed, or coordinated" communications of a sting operation - despite the corroboration of the FBI agents involved in the operation.

US Press vs Foreign Press

Sibel has another example involving the nuclear black market and the US press:

"Let me give you one other example, Luke. In 2004 when Josh Meyer of the LA Times did a long but incomplete story on the Karni case, it was reported to him that one of the most important actors and angles in his article was that of Zeki Bilmen & Giza Technology. Bilmen's role and nationality were conveniently censored in the article.

Despite my efforts to get Meyer to report the relevance and significance of the Bilmen angle, and the FBI's files on him, Meyer bought in to the government's protection of Turkey and the Turkish angle. Of course, later, other outlets (mostly foreign) picked up Bilmen's significance, but still not a peep or follow-up to this day from the LA Times on this important story."

Somehow, in the logic of the US corporate press, it is more legitimate to print unsubstantiated claims of a warmongering administration, with a history of lying in order to go to war, than the substantiated claims of Sibel Edmonds who has consistently demonstrated a clean, agenda-free, non-partisan, track record of trying to expose high-level officials whose activities endanger us all.

The foreign press is much better in these matters. The Guardian's reporting on the nuclear black market has been way ahead of the pack. Their May 31 article on the destruction of evidence in the Tinner case was 3 months ahead of this latest nonsense from the NY Times (which also calls into question the timing of this later Sanger/broad article), they have also reported on the case of Atif Amin, and shown appropriate skepticism regarding the leaks and spin on the Tinner case. Germany's Der Spiegel has also done great reporting on this nuclear black market ring.

"Make-Believe Journalism

For this article, I also interviewed Joe Lauria who was co-author of the UK's Sunday Times series on Sibel's case. I'll quote him extensively here:

"Obviously I believe that government sources must be held up to the same scrutiny as critics of government. Both need supporting evidence to back up their claims. When an official says something it might be "official" but it's not necessarily true. The role of corporate media as stenographer for government has grown in recent years, with Judy Miller's case being the most prominent. But I believe the dictates of careerism and the desire to be included in the "inner circle", especially in Washington, coupled with a vicarious sense of power, leads mainstream journalists to uncritically report the statements of government officials...

There was a brief period when American journalism fulfilled its promised, during the Watergate scandal. But today the vast majority of corporate reporters essentially fulfill the role of a state-owned press. Since we live in a corporatist state, it's not far off from the truth. I also think there is an element of naivete here. Many journalists really believe that government officials are working in the people's interests and not, more often, working for their own interests and those of their elite backers...

The result of all this is that American news reporting creates a "make-believe", almost childish view of America’s role in the world. It transmits the American myth of the nobility of America’s foreign policy and use of the military to spread democracy, or look for weapons of mass destruction, never entertaining that America could be the aggressor. The media is still rooted in America’s role in the Second World War as liberator, not explaining that that has diametrically changed. The reason for this is simple: it is a corporate press providing this "make-believe" cover for corporate and government agendas. Behind this media-created buffer or curtain between the people and the power is US involvement in the shadows with drug dealing, nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Even a suspicion of these dealings never gets through the curtain of news and entertainment distraction to reach the American people. The leading presidential candidates and the conventions of both parties of course uphold these myths, never leveling with the American people. Therefore they do not know that there is only so much money to pay for a military empire or for social services at home. And the press never explains it in these stark terms."

Summary

David Sanger & William Broad continue to promote the "make-believe" view of American foreign policy, hiding anything of significance from the American people.

They might serve a useful purpose for their government masters, but their function certainly isn't as 'journalists.' Whatever the reason for the Times to provide the government's preferred spin on this case, David Sanger and William Broad have earned their place in the Judy Miller Hall of Fame.

************

Cross-posted at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak and DailyKos.

The primary thoughts that I have on this article are those from Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky's book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. According to them, and backed up by copious examples--indicating research, that with which bullshit American media journalists (BAJ) are so loathe to engage--there are five filters to the modern Propaganda Model. These include:

1. Size, ownership, and profit orientation of the mass media

2. The advertising license to do business

3. Sourcing mass media news

4. Flak and the enforcers

5. Anticommunism as a control mechanism [these days, one can substitute "terrorism" for "anticommunism", although that old, phoney, bogeyman does occasionally still rear its ugly head]

According to Herman and Chomsky, the bullshit American media is "drawn into a symbiotic relationship with powerful suorces of information by economic necessity and reciprocity of interest". In other words, big, "reliable" sources, like the government is able to provide a steady flow of information, the details of which BAJs don't have to substantiate. And these BAJs don't want to. It makes a lot of work and their editors are not going to give the okay for the funds such research would require. Besides, you might find out your masters are lying to you and you'd catch "flak" from "the enforcers", and this would block the flow of advertising cash. It's so much easier all around just to ignore Truth, as we see in the matter of Sibel Edmonds.

To finish, I have to mention a long quote from Manufacturing Consent, because I feel it's most appropriate to the information contained in Luke's article:

In effect, the large bureaucracies of the powerful subsidize the mass media, and gain special access by their contribution to reducing the media's costs of acquiring the raw materials of, and producing, news. The large entities that provide this subsidy become "routine" news sources and have privileged access to the gates. Non-routine sources must struggle for access, and may be ignored by the arbitrary decision of the gatekeepers. It should also be noted that in the case of the largesse of the Pentagon and the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy, and the subsidy is at the taxpayers' expense, so that, in effect, the citizenry pays to be propagandized in the interest of powerful groups such as military contractors and other sponsors of state terrorism.

Because of their services, continuous contact on the beat, and mutual dependency, the powerful can use personal relationships, threats, and rewards to further influence and coerce the media. The media may feel obligated to carry extremely dubious stories and mute criticism in order not to offend their sources and disturb a close relationship. It is very difficult to call authorities on whom one depends for daily news liars, even if they tell whoppers. Critical sources may be avoided not only because of their lesser availability and higher cost of establishing credibility, but also because the primary sources may be offended and may even threaten the media using them.

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, second edition, page 22.

"[T]he citizenry pays to be propagandized in the interest of powerful groups such as military contractors and other sponsors of state terrorism." A shitty state of affairs but obviously true.

DISCLOSING WAR CRIMES IN AFGHANISTAN

"Here in Afghanistan, we have a mafia running the system."
~ Malalai Joya, Afghani MP.

I guess no one expects that there are brave women in Afghanistan, but here's something I've had bookmarked for a few weeks--bookmarked because I don't think Malalai Joya is the bravest woman in Afghanistan but because I think she's the bravest person in Afghanistan. Why? Because of the truth she speaks, as in this recent interview published in Counterpunch:

Well, this is a parliament in which 80 per cent of the members are warlords or drug lords. They either snatched their places in parliament at gun point or bought these seats off with US dollars. In some cases, both guns and dollars played a role. Even Human Rights Watch has accused some leading members of this parliament of war crimes. But this parliament, in a unique move, granted warlords an amnesty against crimes committed during the war. Even Mulla Umar can benefit after this amnesty.

Karzai, who was voted in as a lesser evil, has been co-operating with these criminals all the time. Hence, no wonder if he is unpopular today. But he is sustained in the presidential palace by USA and all the warlords co-operate with the USA.

[ . . . ]

Corruption and drug trafficking have become a big issues. In my view, security is the biggest issue. After that it is corruption. The so-called international community which in fact is US government and its allies, has sent a lot of money. This amount was enough to build two instead of one Afghanistan. But even Karzai himself confesses that the money has ended up in the pockets of ministers, bureaucrats and member parliaments. On the other hand, one hears about a mother in Heart (sic) selling her daughter for ten dollars. And not merely the brother of Karzai is a drug lord, foreign troops have been allegedly involved.

[ . . . ]

For instance, Russian state TV has hinted at US troops involvement in drug trafficking. That was reported in the press here. But this is like an open secret. Karzai in one of his speeches last year said that it was not only Afghans who are involved in drug trafficking. He hinted at foreign connections. Though he did not name any country or troops but people in Afghanistan understood what he meant. Now Afghan drugs are finding their way to New York and European capitals. Hence, no wonder today Afghanistan is producing 90 per cent of world opium. This is taking its toll on women. Now we hear about ‘opium brides’. When harvests fail, peasants are not able to pay back loans to drug lords; they ‘marry’ their daughters off to warlords instead.

It goes without saying that Joya's life has been even less easy under this patriarchal regime since she spoke out in the Loya Jirga against the warlords, but she does appear to have the support of the ordinary people.

Although I don't have any sympathy for the Taleban, yet there has been too much silence on the situation in Afghanistan which I suspect is contrived in order to cover up atrocities by NATO forces and Afghan government troops. Recently there was another report about an aerial massacre of almost one hundred Afghans, most of them children. An Afghan investigation into the killings has been substantiated by another from the UN. Meanwhile, the Pentagon continues to lie about the savage attack while mainstream American media has lent its usual assistance in official efforts to cover up the magnitude of the killing. The NATO commander in Afghanistan is now calling for a "joint inquiry" into the killings, which will probably result in an amazing piece of creative writing.

I guess this is why there is only a two-page note that serves as the status of forces agreement between the US and Afghanistan.

With that in mind, here's a documentary on a massacre of thousands of Afghans and non-Afghans, presumably Taleban, who surrendered to US and Afghan forces in 2001. Notice how the Prince of Darkness attempts to justify war crimes in a very Kissingerian way; but instead of speaking of missionary work, he prefers to make a reference to Mother Theresa.

Needless to say, the documentary has never been aired in the US. Run time 50 minutes.

Full screen version available here.