MORE ON THE BTC OPERATION

"Such operations against economic resources, we think, have a deterrence characteristic in the war that aims to annihilate a people in Turkey. Naturally our operations will continue if the Turkish state persists in this war."
~ Dr. Bahoz Erdal, HPG Headquarters Commander.

More on the BTC pipeline operation from Yeni Özgür Politika and Dr. Bahoz Erdal:

"Guerrillas will continue to strike the economy"

HPG Headquarters Commander Erdal said, "We think that attacks against economic resources have a deterrence effect in a war that aims to annihilate a people. If the Turkish state insists on waging the war, similar operations [by us] will continue."

Commenting on the sabotage against the BTC oil pipeline, HPG Headquarters Commander Dr. Bahoz Erdal said, "Naturally, such operations will continue if the Turkish state insists on war." While the fire at the BTC oil pipeline, by sabotage, continues, more sabotage news came from Tatvan. In its statement, HPG announced that the guerrillas conducted a sabotage against a loaded train, heading from Tatvan to Muş, that was carrying military materiel. HPG Headquarters Commander, Dr. Bahoz Erdal warned as follows: "We think that attacks against economic resources have a deterrence effect in a war that aims to annihilate a people. If the Turkish state insists on waging the war, similar operations [by us] will continue."

The 29th and 31st valves of the pipeline are still not opened; they were shut down after a sabotage operation was conducted by HPG forces against the BTC crude oil pipeline, between Erzincan and Refahiye on 5 August. Officials mentioned the fire was ongoing but under control; however, they did not reveal any particular date when [the fire] would end. Because of the fire, caused by the sabotage operation, oil cannot be delivered to customers. Since the stored 7 million barrels of oil were loaded onto ships in Ceyhan, the process of loading oil has been stopped. BOTAŞ officials announced that they would need one to two weeks after extinguishing the fire, in order to solve the problem. After this statement, oil prices increased.

One more sabotage

In a statement yesterday from HPG, BİM announced that a sabotage operation was conducted against a train carrying military materiel on 6 August. Regarding the sabotage operation between Tatvan and Muş, HPG gave the following details: "Our HPG forces conducted a sabotage operation against a cargo train that was carrying military materiel, heading from Tatvan to Muş. After the sabotage operation, one wagon was destroyed completely and four were derailed and turned over. After the operation, two Cobra-type helicopters, which came to the scene [of the derailment], randomly bombed the area."

Convoy ambushed

HPG BİM announced that a mobile military convoy was ambushed on the road between Şemdinli and Gerdiya on 7 August. The vehicle carrying 13 troops was targeted and destroyed completely. BİM said: "While enemy casualties in this vehicle are still not clarified, three enemy troops were killed and three were wounded in the operation, which began after the ambush."

Dr. Bahoz Erdal: Attacks against economic resources will continue

According to an interview with ANF, HPG Headquarters Commander Bahoz Erdal pointed out KCK leader Abdullah Ocalan's calls for the peaceful and democratic solution of the Kurdish question; Erdal said, "The period since 1993 is full of calls for democratic dialog, ceasefire announcements, peace packages and projects. However, despite all these efforts, the Turkish state continues its denial and annihilation policies." Dr. Erdal continued, "Despite our persistent approach and declarations of unilateral ceasefires, denial policies and annihilation operations create an unresolved and chaotic environment."

"There is a comprehensive attack against us"

Dr. Erdal continued as follows: "As the Kurdistan people's freedom struggle defense force, HPG, we endeavored not to intensify the clashes and were very concerned about this. However, especially in recent years, isolationist policies and psychological warfare, [directed] particularly against our leadership that went beyond limits, forced us, as an army, into a defense war with great intensity. The attempts to lynch our people in the 2008 spring Newroz celebration, overdosed annihilation attacks within Turkey's boundaries, and also the aerial and land attacks against our guerrilla forces in South Kurdistan, naturally and rightfully necesitated our raising the bar of our legal self-defense struggle."

"We think it will be a deterrent"

"Targeting the economic resources which nourish the war that the Turkish state implements against the Kurdish people and democratic-advanced humanity, came about in these bases," said Dr. Bahoz Erdal. "Such operations against economic resources, we think, have a deterrence characteristic in the war that aims to annihilate a people in Turkey. Naturally our operations will continue if the Turkish state persists in this war."

In the meantime, the Western-backed Georgian government invaded South Ossetia Friday, which prompted a Russian response. Part of that response consisted in aerial bombing of the area through which the BTC pipeline runs:

Early Saturday, Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said the Vaziani military base on the outskirts of the Georgian capital was bombed by warplanes during the night and that bombs fell in the area of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. He also said two other Georgian military bases were hit and that warplanes bombed the Black Sea port city of Poti, which has a sizable oil shipment facility.

Georgian aggression has been encouraged not only by the US, which has equipped and trained the Georgian military, but also by Israel and for the same reasons, according to DebkaFile:

Jerusalem owns a strong interest in Caspian oil and gas pipelines reach the Turkish terminal port of Ceyhan, rather than the Russian network. Intense negotiations are afoot between Israel Turkey, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Azarbaijan for pipelines to reach Turkey and thence to Israel’s oil terminal at Ashkelon and on to its Red Sea port of Eilat. From there, supertankers can carry the gas and oil to the Far East through the Indian Ocean.

I guess DebkaFile missed the news at the end of July, that Gazprom is now the ruler of Turkmenistan's energy supplies:

Gazprom, Russia's energy leviathan, signed two major agreements in Ashgabat on Friday outlining a new scheme for purchase of Turkmen gas. The first one elaborates the price formation principles that will be guiding the Russian gas purchase from Turkmenistan during the next 20-year period. The second agreement is a unique one, making Gazprom the donor for local Turkmen energy projects. In essence, the two agreements ensure that Russia will keep control over Turkmen gas exports.

In addition to having an interest in the transport of energy supplies through Georgia, Turkey is also a supplier of its military materiel.

The regional pipelines are the real reason for NATO and the West to provoke Russia through proxy Georgia, and if Russian aerial bombardment does not damage the BTC pipeline, South Ossetian "separatists" will:

The first major attack on the pipeline took place only last week - not in Georgia but in Turkey where part of it was destroyed by PKK separatist rebels.

Output from the pipeline, which is 30 per cent owned by BP and carries more than 1 per cent of the world's supply, is likely to be on hold for several weeks while the fire is extinguished and the damage repaired.

But the threat of another attack by separatists in Georgia itself is very real.

Only a few days before the Turkish explosion, Georgian separatists threatened to sabotage the pipeline if hostilities continued.

Good! It's definitely time to target the oppressors where they live, and that's their energy resources.

HPG: BTC PIPELINE TARGETED

"The oil pipeline that crosses through Kurdistan is an economic source for the Turkish Military for this reason it is possible for the guerrilla to go for it."
~ Murat Karayılan.

HPG has claimed responsibility for a blast on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, from Yeni Özgür Politika:

HPG stated that it conducted a sabotage operation against the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline. The aftermath of this operation has resulted in a great economic cost.

HPG BİM stated that the guerrillas conducted an operation against the BTC pipeline in Refahiye district of Erzincan. BİM said, "Later on, more information will be shared with the public about this high-cost economic incident."

Within 50 kilometers of the Refahiye garrison, near Yurtbaşı village, where the pipeline passed, an explosion occured the day before yesterday [5 August] around 2300 hours and this explosion was very powerful. After the explosion, flames reached a height of 50 meters and smoke blackened the sky. Officials in Ankara had to shut down the pipeline's valve near that region. Officials did not say anything about this incident.

The pipeline was always referred to as a "secured" pipeline by Turkey. Previously HPG conducted some sabotage operations against this "secured" pipeline, which were very effective. Also, last year in October, the guerrillas conducted an operation against a Turkey-Iran gas pipeline. On 8 May, between Mersin and Sivas, they targeted the pipeline. In addition, on 25 May in Ağrı's Doğubayazıt district, HPG again conducted a sabotage operation against a Turkey-Iran pipeline, which mainly destroyed the pipeline in the region between Hallaç and Süphan.

HPG also conducted an operation against a Turkey-Iran gas pipeline in August 2006.

Turkey appears to be in denial over the actual source of the attack against the pipeline, as reported by Hürriyet (English):

"No trace suggesting sabotage has been found so far, but the cause will become clear after the fire is over," the [BOTAŞ] official said.

Now that's amazing! Here, in a region where HPG regularly operates, against a target that HPG has, not only spoken about publicly, previously attacked, the Ankara regime refuses to suggest even a hint that HPG might be involved, even when "PKK" claims the operation. But a bombing in a place, like Güngören, where HPG does not operate, against targets that HPG attempts to avoid, the Ankara regime declares a "PKK" operation. . . even after "PKK" publicly denied involvement.

Moreover, with the exception of one source quoted below, the entire international "free" press has fallen in line with the regime's story, just as the same "free" press did with the regime's Güngören story. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out why all that is so.

Hürriyet gives an indication of the economic effects of HPG's operation:

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (BTC), which is still ablaze, will remain shut for about 15 days after an explosion sparked a fire in a section in eastern Turkey, news agencies reported on Thursday. The supply concerns pushed oil prices back to over $119.

[ . . . ]

The supply concerns helped to push oil prices higher and jump back above $120 a barrel on Thursday. Light, sweet crude for September delivery advanced $1.64 to $120.20 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier rising as high as $121.78.

In London, September Brent crude added $1.45 to $118.51 a barrel.

HPG's operation also managed to get some action out of BP:

BP said the BTC partners had declared force majeure on exports, freeing themselves from contractual obligations, Reuters reported.

BP said on Thursday the group which it leads producing oil in Azerbaijan had started diverting crude slated for the Turkish port of Ceyhan to other routes, including the Georgian port of Supsa, after the explosion.

"We are actively considering alternative routes," BP's spokeswoman in Azerbaijan told Reuters.

I wonder how much it costs the Ankara regime when other countries begin to "actively consider alternate routes" away from Ceyhan?

Energy Daily, in contrast to the rest of international media, has considered other possibilities:

Initial Turkish media reports stated an explosion occurred in the Refahiye BTC section, which resulted in a conflagration sending flames 160 feet into the air and halting oil flow. According to the reports, investigators are attempting to determine whether the explosion was an industrial accident or, more ominously, the result of PKK sabotage.

As Turkey, stung by PKK attacks across the border into its territory, last autumn deployed troops along the frontier, the PKK, well aware of the vulnerabilities of Turkey's energy imports, upped the ante last October, threatening, in the event of a Turkish military action, not only to strike Iraq's Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil export pipeline, but even to attack tankers heading for Turkey's Mediterranean port.

The same month the PKK's Abd-al-Rahman Chadarchi stated that if PKK forces in northern Iraq were attacked, his group would assault Turkish oil targets, "since they bring huge amounts of money to Turkey," adding, "The military regime in the country will use this (energy revenues) to develop its war machine to utilize it against the Kurdish people in Turkish Kurdistan," while Iraqi Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani said, "Northern Iraq cannot be pressured. Iraq is a rich country, and if there are economic pressures, we will cut off the (Kirkuk-) Ceyhan pipeline." Turkey subsequently launched a limited incursion against PKK forces ensconced in northern Iraq in February.

According to Wikipedia, BP leads the pack in share ownership of the BTC pipeline at 30%. Other companies involved in the consortium include the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), Chevron, StatoilHydro, Türkiye Petrolleri Anonim Ortaklığı (TPAO), Eni/Agip, Total, Itochu, Inpex, ConocoPhillips, and Hess Corporation.

"More ominously", indeed. Bijî Serok Apo!

NO REPRESSION LIKE IT IN THE WORLD

"Across this last weekend, the Western propaganda machine was working overtime, celebrating the latest NATO miracle: the transformation of Serbian Kosovo into Albanian Kosova. A shameless land grab by the United States, which used the Kosovo problem to install an enormous military base (Camp Bondsteel) on other people's strategically located land, is transformed by the power of the media into an edifying legend of "national liberation"."
~ Diana Johnstone, "Independence in the Brave New World Order".

State Department hack defends US recognition of Kosovo independence to the Chinese:

Kosovo's situation is "unique", a senior U.S. diplomat told China on Tuesday, trying to assuage Beijing's opposition to independence for the region from Serbia.

"As I emphasized to our Chinese interlocutors today, it is quite a unique situation in Kosovo, really very unique, and there's nothing like it in the world," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill told reporters in Beijing.

Really?? "There's nothing like it in the world"? Not quite:

. . . [I]f bad treatment of the local population were to disqualify a state from exercising sovereignty over part of its territory, then an awful lot of countries would be eligible for enforced amputation: Turkey would have to be stripped of Turkish Kurdistan . . .

At the same link, check the numbers:

The Foundation for Humanitarian Law led by Nata_a Kandi_, much beloved and much bankrolled by Western governments and non-governmental organizations, runs a project seeking to establish the number of dead and missing in Kosovo. According to an article in the Croatian magazine, Globus, "The project has documented 9,702 people dead or missing during the war in Kosovo from 1998 to 2000. Of this number, as things stand now, 4,903 killed and missing are Albanians and 2,322 are Serbs, with the rest either belonging to other nationalities or their ethnic identity remaining uncertain."

At least 40,000 Kurds were murdered by the Turkish state during the 1990s, the same time that Serbia was allegedly trying "to annihilate over one million Kosovar Albanian Muslims," according to another State Department hack, Daniel Fried.

Compare Turkey's program of "ethnic cleansing", from Hill and Fried's employer:

The exact number of persons forcibly displaced from villages in the southeast since 1984 is unknown. Most estimates agree that 2,600 to 3,000 villages and hamlets have been depopulated. A few NGO's put the number of people forcibly displaced as high as 2 million. Official census figures for 1990--before large-scale forced evacuations began--indicate that the total population for the 10 southeastern provinces then under emergency rule was 4 to 4.5 million people, half of them in rural areas. Since all rural areas in the southeast have not been depopulated, the estimate of 2 million evacuees is probably too high. On the low end, the Government reports that through 1997 the total number of evacuees was 336,717. Rapidly growing demands for social services in the cities indicate that migration from the countryside has been higher than this figure. Although this urbanization is also accounted for in part by voluntary migration for economic or educational reasons also related to the conflict, the figure given by a former M.P. from the region--560,000--appears to be the most credible estimate of those forcibly evacuated.

Compare against figures released in December 2006:

The long-awaited results of the government-commissioned national IDP survey were released in December 2006, confirming that the number of IDPs in Turkey is significantly higher than the previous government estimate of 355,807. According to the survey between 953,680 and 1,201,200 people were displaced for security-related reasons from the east and south-east of the country between 1986 and 2005.

How many ethnic Albanians were "ethnically cleansed" from Kosovo? After crunching the numbers, Kosovo looks less and less like "a really very unique" situation and more and more like much ado about nothing. Or I should say "much ado about oil":

Camp Bondsteel, the biggest “from scratch” foreign US military base since the Vietnam War is near completion in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. It is located close to vital oil pipelines and energy corridors presently under construction, such as the US sponsored Trans-Balkan oil pipeline. As a result defence contractors—in particular Halliburton Oil subsidiary Brown & Root Services—are making a fortune.

[ . . . ]

The contract to service Camp Bondsteel is the latest in a string of military contracts awarded to Brown & Root Services. Its fortunes have grown as US militarism has escalated. The company is part of the Halliburton Corporation, the largest supplier of products and services to the oil industry.

In 1992 Dick Cheney, as Secretary of Defence in the senior Bush administration, awarded the company a contract providing support for the US army’s global operations. Cheney left politics and joined Halliburton as CEO between 1995 and 2000. He is now US vice president in the junior Bush administration. In 1992 Brown & Root built and maintained US army bases in Somalia earning $62 million. In 1994 Brown & Root built bases and support systems for 18,000 troops in Haiti doubling its earnings to $133 million. The company received a five-year support contract in 1999 worth $180 million per-year to build military facilities in Hungary, Croatia and Bosnia. It was Camp Bondsteel, however, that was dubbed “the mother of all contracts” by the Washington based Contract Services Association of America.

[ . . . ]

According to leaked comments to the press, European politicians now believe that the US used the bombing of Yugoslavia specifically in order to establish Camp Bondsteel. Before the start of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the Washington Post insisted, “With the Middle-East increasingly fragile, we will need bases and fly over rights in the Balkans to protect Caspian Sea oil.”

The scale of US oil corporations investment in the exploitation of Caspian oil fields and the US government demand for the economy to be less dependent on imported oil, particularly from the Middle-East, demands a long term solution to the transportation of oil to European and US markets. The US Trade & Development Agency (TDA) has financed initial feasibility studies, with large grants, and more recently advanced technical studies for the New York based AMBO (Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria Oil) Trans-Balkan pipeline.

[ . . . ]

The $1.3 billion trans-Balkan AMBO pipeline is one of the most important of these multiple pipelines. It will pump oil from the tankers that bring it across the Black Sea to the Bulgarian oil terminus at Burgas, through Macedonia to the Albanian Adriatic port of Vlore. From there it will be pumped on to huge 300,000 ton tankers and sent on to Europe and the US, bypassing the Bosphorus Straits—the congested and only route out of the Black Sea where tankers are restricted to 150,000 tons.

US support for Kosovo is all about the oil. And that may help explain why the new NATO protege is a criminal society.

For the moment, it appears that Russia will bide its time. China, with its own ethnic "problem" in Xinjiang, is standing with Russia.

What might Russia and China do? It might be appropriate for them to gather a consensus within the SCO to restrict Western access to Central Asian energy resources. Russia recently struck a couple of blows against the Western-backed Nabucco pipeline, which may explain Turkish foreign minister Babacan's current visit to Russia. Babacan may be trying to save an agreement between Russian Gazprom and Turkish Botaş.

Maybe, too, Putin can whisper something in Babacan's ear about possible Russian support for the "unique" situation of the Kurds under Turkish repression.

DECONSTRUCTING DISINFORMATION, PART 2

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society."
~ Edward Bernays.

We left off yesterday by demonstrating that PKK is clearly not Maoist nor has ever been, and that it is the Deep State and its supporters who created and continue to perpetuate this lie, we can move on to the rest of the Deep State's propaganda at Another Day in the Empire (ADITE).

First of all, in the transcript of the German ARD TV report, the very first paragraph contains a huge lie. It says that there's a "secret" war going on that is unnoticed by the world's public. The fact is that the war in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan is far from secret. Millions of words have been written on it since the 1990s with many of those words typed out by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, or journalistic organizations such as Reporters Without Borders or the International PEN organizations. Millions of other words documenting the atrocities perpetrated by the Ankara regime, with the full backing of the US, the EU, and the rest of the international community can be found in the evidence, trial transcripts,and judgements against Turkey by the European Court of Human Rights. Academics and journalists have written millions more words in further documentation of atrocities committed against the Kurdish people. In English alone the story of the genocide of Kurds under Turkish occupation can be read by such writers as Noam Chomsky, John Tirman, Kevin McKiernan, Jonathan Randal, David McDowall, and Paul White.

How then can anyone claim in all seriousness that there is a "secret" war going on? Unless, of course, they are the lapdogs of fascism as practiced by the Ankara regime? Who benefits from such a claim? The US government, whose foreign policy is formulated by Lockheed Martin? The Paşas, who run a business empire and a so-called democratic, civil government?

Just as a month ago the propagandists of the Deep State wanted to make us believe a ceasefire had been called by PKK in the middle of June when PKK's ceasefire had gone into effect on 1 October 2006. What's notable about the ceasefire is that it may be the first ceasefire in history that was rejected days before it went into effect, and that rejection came from the Washington and Ankara regimes just as the American "PKK coordinator," Joseph Ralston--who also happens to be a registered lobbyist with The Cohen Group in order to export tactical fighter aircraft, as well as having served in 2006 as a member of the advisory board of the ATC, as well as serving on the board of directors of Lockheed Martin . . . well, you see how it goes--was wrapping up Turkey's $13 billion purchase of Lockheed product.

So tell me, who are the real terrorists here?

The rest of the German transcript contains nothing that we don't already know. Cemil Bayık confirmed as much last November. At the end of June a small news item appeared in Kurdish-language media about the very same ARD report and it's most likely the source of the pro-mullah PressTV report. According to both reports, the American generals give a pretty good impression of CYA; they have to "overlook" PJAK's activities because there isn't a damned thing they can do about them, short of sending a bunch of grunts humping up and down those 12,000 foot peaks--on foot, mind you--to play hide-and-seek with the gerîlas. Ditto for PKK's gerîlas.

And while we're on that subject, let's make it crystal clear for the umpteenth time (just like Heval Cuma did): PJAK, and HAK, its armed wing, fall under the umbrella of KCK, which is the real organization that "outsiders" always refer to as "PKK." PKK itself no longer exists as a party, but as an ideological school. But this is what Cuma quite openly said to Western media last November, that anyone who wants to have anything to do with PJAK or HAK must go through KCK (or as those out-of-the-know keep saying, "PKK"). There is no "cover" here; PJAK/HAK are members of KCK and all of their support comes from the Kurdish people through KCK.

The hand-wringing of ADITE for the loss of filthy pasdarans blown to bits by HAK's remote-control bombs is, frankly, pretty damned hypocritical in light of the fact that you don't read anything there about any concern for the atrocities committed by the mullahs against the Kurds under Iranian occupation. But, since I'm aware of the atrocities and repression, I'm of the opinion that every time a pasdaran has his guts blasted all over a wall or a road in Iranian-occupied Kurdistan, it's a moment for a celebratory drink or two. And not only for that reason, but also for the continued health, well-being, and success of all "PKK's" gerîlas.

Naturally, I wonder, too, at the hypocrisy of quoting a journalist famous for his "unnamed" sources, Seymour Hersh, because I wonder why-- if Seymour Hersh is so concerned with Israeli involvement in South Kurdistan--did he never write anything about this during the heyday of Israeli involvement back in the 1960s and 70s? I mean, Hersh never even mentions the fact. Or why does neither Hersh nor ADITE mention the fact that PKK (back in the day when it really was PKK) received its initial training from the Palestinians in Lebanon? That's pretty ironic, given that the link to Hersh takes you to a Palestinian website. Maybe both Hersh and ADITE can start bitching about the Palestinians for helping the nascent PKK to get its military start. At least then they'd be consistent.

I'd also like to see some consistency from Hersh over the atrocities his pals in the Ankara regime have inflicted on the Kurdish people because he's one of those who's never contributed so much as a single word to all those millions of words written on the matter that I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

Don't hold your breath for that, though, because neither Hersh nor ADITE is concerned about things like justice or human rights; they're out to simply bash the American administration over the head a few times for the simple pleasure of bashing. Human rights and justice are not the concerns of the overwhelming majority of Americans. For them, "might makes right" is the main concern and if it guarantees a cool few hundreds of millions of dollars per annum for Lockheed Martin, then it's even better. What's a little blood money among friends anyway?

There's a glaring omission in the ADITE post, and that's the fact of a few hundred thousand Mehmetçiks swarming at the border like flies on stink. They've been there since the end of April 2006, when Condoleezza Rice made a visit to Ankara. They were bombing Kurdish villages as Condoleezza Rice was in Ankara. Her very presence in the Turkish capital while the good NATO ally was lobbing artillery fire into Kurdish villages and flocks was the green light. People are saying there will be no invasion before the 22 July elections in Turkey, but there may not be an invasion until after Iraq makes a decision on Washington's oil revenues laws. But you don't hear anything about that from ADITE or from Hersh as he prattles on and on about his so-called "Plan B."

Instead, it's very likely that Hevallo has nailed the matter once again. A Turkish invasion of South Kurdistan will be the US Plan B, if Baghdad does not agree to Big Oil's theft of Iraqi oil revenues.

For a little review of the rapacious plans of Big Oil, check out the following:

Future of Iraq; The spoils of war.

Blood and Oil.

Keeping Iraq's Oil In the Ground.