THE TURKISH LOBBY, THE NEOCONS, AND THE CRUSADE TO FREE THE ERGENEKON TERRORISTS

"The enlargement of the Ergenekon investigation will improve the standards of our democracy. Not only the Ergenekon on the western side of the Euphrates River, but also the one on the eastern side should be investigated, and a real 'clean hands' operation should be started."
~ Ahmet Türk.

A very interesting video was brought to my attention by a reader in the comments section here.

Let's take a look:

Wayne Madsen makes some interesting speculations about Katil Erdoğan's visit to Washington last week, which ended up with the resignation of Turkey's ambassador to the US, Nabi Şensoy.

Madsen speculates that Obama spoke to Katil Erdoğan about the Ergenekon prosecutions with the intent of dropping them and freeing the Ergenekon terrorists. He points out that the paşas would like to see an end to the prosecutions. We know that the Ergenekon terrorists were actually sponsored by the US as part of the CIA's Gladio stay-behind program and that the charges they face today are minor in comparison to the terror they carried out against the Kurdish people in The Southeast--for which they are not being prosecuted.

Madsen mentions that Turkish lobby organizations in the US, like the American Turkish Council (ATC), have been trying to influence the US government into pressuring the AKP to drop the Ergenekon issue. Although I have not seen evidence of the ATC's overt involvement in this particular aspect of influence peddling, there is a Turkish organization that has been working on exactly this matter and it has a relationship with the ATC. That organization is the ARI Foundation.

As was brought up in comments in a post on Sibel Edmonds' website, the ARI Foundation hosted a seminar last month for the US Congress in which the members of the foundation urged Congress to "intervene urgently to stop the trial . . . " From VoltaireNet:

. . . [O]n 18 November 2009 a seminar was held at the U.S. Congress to deny the existence of Ergenekon, putting it down as a myth invented by the Erdogan Government to discredit Army Chief of Staff, General Mehmet Yaşar Büyükanıt, and the U.S.-friendly officers in his entourage, in the hope of imposing an Islamic state.

The participants stressed that the United States should intervene urgently to stop the trial, but should not do so openly since it would feed into the "conspiracy theories" purporting that NATO has set up a "Deep State" in Turkey which has manipulated or attempted to manipulate public institutions for decades.

The seminar was organised by the ARI Foundation, a low-profile think-tank bent on promoting relations between Washington and Ankara. Actually, ARI is a front for the Atlanticist-Israeli lobby. In accordance with Robert Strausz-Hupé’s policies, ARI is promoting a Tel-Aviv-Ankara axis under NATO auspices for the control of the Middle East.

The piece mentions the ARI Foundation's connections to the Israeli lobby, especially the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). WINEP was founded by former US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, who started his "public service" career as a research director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC. Indyk also served as a founding director for WINEP.

Yurter Özcan, the president of the ARI Foundation, works with Turk neocon Soner Çağaptay, who is the director of WINEP's Turkish "Research" Program.

The first of ARI Foundation's symposia was presented in 2002 and featured Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum. Other contributors to their symposia include AIPAC spy Steve Rosen, who now works with Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum.

Former Florida congressman Robert Wexler has also been involved with the ARI Foundation. Wexler is a co-founder of the Caucus on US-Turkish Relations who recently resigned his congressional seat to take a temporary job with a minor pro-Israeli think tank while he waits out the one-year ban that former congressmen must wait before taking up lucrative lobbying jobs. My money says that, as soon as Wexler passes the one-year mark, he'll slide right into a nice, cushy, lobbying job for the Turkish government.

Also involved with the ARI Foundation is Zeyno Baran, an Ergenekon defender at the very neoconservative Hudson Institute.

For tax purposes, the ARI Foundation lists Gunay Evinch (Günay Övunç) as it's contact person. Övunç is, of course, the current president of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA). The ARI Foundation has conducted anti-Armenian Genocide propaganda in conjunction with the ATAA, and you had better believe that if an organization or person is anti-Armenian Genocide, they're anti-Kurd as well.

Furthermore, those who've been moaning the most about the suffering paşas, current and retired, are the Israelis and neoconservatives. Here's a sample from a recent column in the Jerusalem Post:

TURKEY'S BREAK with the West; its decisive rupture with Israel and its opposition to the US in Iraq and Iran was predictable. Militant Islam of the AKP variety has been enjoying growing popularity and support throughout Turkey for many years. The endemic corruption of Turkey's traditional secular leaders increased the Islamists' popularity. Given this domestic Turkish reality, it is possible that Erdogan and his fellow Islamists' rise to power was simply a matter of time.

But even if the AKP's rise to power was eminently predictable, its ability to consolidate its control over just about every organ of governance in Turkey as well as what was once a thriving free press [Haha, good one! -- Mizgîn], and change completely Turkey's strategic posture in just seven years was far from inevitable. For these accomplishments the AKP owes a debt of gratitude to both the Bush and Obama administrations, as well as to the EU.

The Bush administration ignored the warnings of secular Turkish leaders in the country's media, military and diplomatic corps that Erdogan was a wolf in sheep's clothing. Rather than pay attention to his past attempts to undermine Turkey's secular, pro-Western character and treat him with a modicum of suspicion, after the AKP electoral victory in 2002 the Bush administration upheld the AKP and Erdogan as paragons of Islamist moderation and proof positive that the US and the West have no problem with political Islam.

[ . . . ]

In Turkey itself, the administration's enthusiastic embrace of the AKP meant that Erdogan encountered no Western opposition to his moves to end press freedom in Turkey; purge the Turkish military of its secular leaders and end its constitutional mandate to preserve Turkey's secular character [Turkey is not secular; read the constitution -- Mizgîn]; intimidate and disenfranchise secular business leaders and diplomats; and stack the Turkish courts with Islamists. That is, in the name of its support for its water-downed definition of democracy, the US facilitated Erdogan's subversion of all the Turkish institutions that enabled liberal norms to be maintained and kept Turkey in the Western alliance.

So, yeah, we all know that Turkey was an absolute paradise while under absolute paşa rule, but if the JPost writer wants to blame the Bush administration, she'd damn well better blame her neoconservative colleagues. Here's a blast from the past (circa 2004) from the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, published by Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum:

While Erdogan and other AKP leaders unabashedly affirm their private religious convictions, they advocate secularism in the conventional Western sense of the term. "Before anything else, I'm a Muslim . . . I have a responsibility to God, who created me, and I try to fulfill that responsibility, but I try now very much to keep this away from my political life, to keep it private," Erdogan told the New York Times last year. "A political party cannot have a religion, only individuals can . . . religion is so supreme that it cannot be [politically] exploited or taken advantage of," he explained.[5]

[ . . .]

Ironically, the old line Kemalists, who for 80 years preached about the need to modernize and Westernize Turkey, have in many ways become the reactionaries in Turkey, while the "Islamists" have taken the lead in promoting Western-style reforms. In spite of the dismal electoral fortunes of nationalist political parties in 2002, the Kemalist elite continues to dominate not only Turkey's military, but also its civilian bureaucracy, judiciary, and media. The so-called "deep state" in Turkey has resisted many of the changes introduced by the AKP.

[ . . . ]

Turkey, a country of about 70 million Muslims, most of whom are religious, is ruled today by a conservative party with an Islamic pedigree and a humane, tolerant, and democratic track record. Can we generalize from the AKP's experience? Not without some care. Turkey is quite different from the rest of the Middle East, whether Arab or Persian. What works in Ankara will not necessarily work in Tehran, Damascus or Baghdad. Nonetheless, there are definitely lessons to be learned.

Read the whole thing because it contains an accurate description of how the Bush administration pushed aside long-time American allies in Turkey . . . you know, the paşas, in favor of Islamists. Then think about how the US has always chosen Islamist regimes over secular ones. Do the terms "Afghan mujahedin" or "Taliban" ring any bells? In 2004, it would appear that everything was sweetness and light, with the pro-Israeli neoconservatives praising AKP and Katil Erdoğan to the heavens. What a difference a few years makes among fascists! But for the pro-paşa, pro-Israeli neoconservative opinion on Ergenekon, check the AEI's Michael Rubin or the Middle East Forum or the columnist section of the Jerusalem Post, and all those who cooked up the Clean Break.

In any event, we can see that Madsen is totally correct when he emphasizes the links between the Turkish and Israeli lobbies, and it's extremely unfortunate that more people in media aren't talking about the fact.

Did Obama actually talk to Katil Erdoğan about releasing the Ergenekon terrorists? I doubt it. Obama and Erdoğan certainly had more pressing matters to talk about, like coordinating NATO's heroin industry in Afghanistan in order to keep Goldman Sachs alfoat. The US has backed the AKP and Fethullahçı from AKP's initial rise to power and Gülen's movement provides some inside access to The Grand Chessboard of Central Asia. Certainly Gülen was deeply involved with the Ergenekon terrorists but it no longer serves his purposes to have anything to do with them nor does he have any need to try to save them from prosecution. Besides, Gülen is a valuable asset to the US right these days.

Gülen's disciples have followed his command to "work patiently and to creep silently into the institutions in order to seize power in the state". The paşas no longer force out Islamists from the TSK's officer corps. Fethullahçı moles inside the Turkish general staff leaked the information about the coup attempts metnioned by Madsen. Gülen's star slowly rises while that of the paşas slowly sets, and who is hosting Gülen? Who is protecting him? Who was it that approved Katil Erdoğan as the leader of Turkey while Erdoğan was banned from holding political office?

Let the CIA worry when Tansu Çiller is arrested.

SIBEL EDMONDS LAUNCHES NEW WEBSITE

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again."
~ Thomas Paine.

Congratulations to Sibel Edmonds for launching her new website today. It's called Boiling Frogs: Home of the Irate Minority. With this website, she is expanding her horizons:

For the last few months I have been either in meetings or on the phone with many veteran investigative journalists and producers. We’ve been talking about the current sorry state of our media. We’ve been discussing the lack of bold and independent investigative reports and exposés. We’ve been sharing our views on ways to do something about it. We’ve been talking business: How can we collaborate and form a venue where we can present some of the significant stories, cases, news, and editorials that have been covered up, blacked out, or simply designated as radioactive topics too hot to touch?

[ . . . ]

After months of these discussions I decided to stop the ‘talk & complain’ cycle, and come up with an idea, a tangible objective, and a goal to follow and move (hopefully forward!) towards; to actually do something about it. At least try to do something about it. And with this came the decision to get this website designed and made functional, have some of these well-respected journalists and others come on board in support of this project, make arrangements to offer my Podcast Interview Series more frequently, and work on other ingredients – which you will hear more about once we are up and operational.

[ . . . ]

This project, these objectives, can only be accomplished with your support. Your voices, your ideas, and your suggestions in the comment section are all needed in order to make this site truly rich, informative, and effective; so please go ahead and register, and become a member of our ‘irate minority club.’ Your active participation in getting our information and messages out, and in bringing others here in search of a home for the irate minority, is the only way to build up our numbers, thus make our collective voices audible. And only through you contributions can I:

Purchase and publish investigative news stories and exposés
Bring to you in-depth commercial free Podcast interviews
Present independent editorials and analyses
Showcase original editorial cartoons
Facilitate lively discussions
Maintain and Manage this Website

I cannot do this without you. Going with foundational and organizational funding always comes with many strings attached. And that would defeat our purpose here. Reaching out to large corporations comes with its own baggage, and that too would defeat my purpose. That leaves me and you.

Please join me here at ‘Boiling Frogs Post,’ home of the irate minority, and please contribute what you can in order to make these goals a reality. Many thanks for all you do.

So go on over there. Take a look around. Lend whatever support you're able to lend. You won't regret it.

Last Friday Sibel posted her most recent podcast with Peter B. Collins, which was an interview with former FBI counter-intelligence officer John Cole.

Yesterday, Sibel and John Cole appeared in a joint interview with Scott Horton. They discuss Central Asia, counter-intelligence investigations into Israeli activity in the US, and all the usual suspects.

I highly recommend those interviews, but be warned: If you listen, you may end up becoming one of the irate minority.

FRIDAY NOTES

"One joy shatters a hundred griefs."
~ Chinese proverb.

Let me catch up with some things that I have wanted to post here this week but have not had the chance to do.

Firstly, thanks very much to the heval who pointed out to me that there is a series of twenty-one videos of the Peace and Democracy Groups in Diyarbakır on Youtube which were taken from Roj TV. When you watch these videos you will notice the celebratory mood of the people, something that has received intense criticism in Turkish media.

With that in mind, one should ask why these people are celebrating. Is it because this is a victory for PKK? In a way it is, but that's not the primary motivation for the celebration. Do the people celebrate because they are finally reunited with guerrilla family members that they never thought they'd see again? For some of these people, that is certainly the reason. They are seeing fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, and uncles that they never dreamed they'd see again. Every guerrilla goes to the mountains with the realization that they will not be coming back. Either they will die in the mountains or they will live out the rest of their lives there.

But the reunification of eight guerrillas with their families does not explain why ten thousand people descended on Silopi in joy, or why one hundred thousand showed up to greet the peace groups in Diyarbakır. So this cannot be the primary motivation for celebration either.

The primary motivation for the rejoicing we have witnessed in the last few days is that all of these people believe they can see the faint light that heralds the end of the long, dark tunnel of war. If there are tears being shed during these celebrations, they are not the tears of victory; they are tears of joy at the prospect of peace.

This is something that is not even remotely fathomed in Western Turkey because the people there--with rare exception--have no idea what has happened in The Southeast for the last twenty-five years. They have no inkling of the level of destruction that has taken place, whether that destruction has been physical or psychological. They have no idea of the level of poverty that still exists. They have no idea of the numbers of the missing, or the tortured, or the displaced. They have no idea . . .

Anyway . . . enough of that for now because I hate crying.

Next, Military.com ran a feature earlier this week on Sibel Edmonds and her claims of espionage at the Department of Defense. What's unique about this piece is that the author managed to get statements from some of the worst vermin that Sibel has named. Here's something from the Prince of Darkness himself:

“This woman is a nutcase. Certifiable,” [Neocon extraordinaire Richard] Perle said. “She makes wild accusations. She was fired from her job, and has been on a vendetta against … imagined demons ever since.”

There's also something from the guy General Tommy Franks called "the dumbest fucking guy on the planet":

[Doug] Feith, in an email to Military.com, said: “What I’ve read on the Internet about Ms. Edmonds’s claims about me is wildly false and bizarre.”

The only one who couldn't--or wouldn't--speak for himself was Mr. Susurluk, Marc Grossman:

Robert S. Tyrer, co-president of The Cohen Group, a Washington lobbying firm where Grossman is now a vice chairman, told Military.com in an email that Edmonds’ allegations against the former ambassador “are completely untrue and ludicrous.”

Okay. If these three little roaches think that Sibel Edmonds' claims are "completely untrue", "wildly false and bizarre", or that she "makes wild accusations", why don't they bring suit for defamation? Why don't they bring suit against all the publications who've printed Sibel's story or against those media that have interviewed her for television or radio? And that seems to be the general argument in the comments to The Brad Blog's report on Military.com's piece.

I'll tell you why these freaks don't bring suit against Sibel and that's because they know that they don't dare take this issue to court and let all the treasonous shit they've done in their lives be exposed to the light of day. If that ever happened, they ought to rightly find themselves dangling from a traitor's noose.

Thirdly, Luke Rosiak, who's been documenting the Turkish lobby for the Sunlight Foundation, notes that Robert Wexler (D-FL) has suddenly decided to abandon his seat in Congress to take a job at a little-known pro-Israeli think-tank. What's interesting about Rosiak's piece is that he discusses the sad state of Wexler's financial affairs. What links Wexler to the Turkish lobby is the fact that he was a founder and co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on US-Turkish Relations. One year from now we should definitely expect to see Wexler take a nice job working for the Government of Turkey as a lobbyist and--POOF!!--watch his financial woes disappear forever!

"Happy days are here again . . .

Finally, from a friend in Diyarbakir, the DTP's Union of Southeast Anatolian Municipalities has produced a tourist book for North Kurdistan which you can view at their website. If you click on the main photos for each city, you will be able to download a .pdf file which contains lots of photos of the cities and their surrounding areas as well as the history and culture of each region. The books are available in both Turkish and English and if you're going to the region, you should definitely read through the available files. I mean, there are tons more information about The Southeast in this book than in any generic travel book of Turkey that I've seen.

I have also posted a link to the book in the right margin under "Kurdish Cities".

WHO SPEAKS FOR ISLAM IN THE US?

“You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers, until the conditions are ripe."
~ Fethullah Gülen.

I came across something interesting the other day that I first noticed in an unusual place, the details of which are another story. However, there is a new book published called Who Speaks for Islam? It's the published results of a poll conducted by the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. The woman in charge of that center is Dalia Mogahed who was mentioned in Sunday Zaman as the Obama's appointee to the White House Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Mogahed was quoted in Zaman as saying:

. . . [T]he Gülen movement, a faith-based social movement named after Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, is a model and inspiration for all those working for the good of the society.

The guy who writes the book with her is John Esposito. He edited a book with Hakan Yavuz on the "Gülen Movement". Hakan Yavuz is running the Armenian Genocide denial program at the University of Utah, which Luke Ryland noted back in May. The Middle East Center at U of U, under which Yavuz's Armenian Genocide denial project falls, is also involving itself in the Kurdish issue through its PhD program (See page 5), notably mentioning one of their candidates as Emrullah Uslu, who claims to be a "terrorism expert" in the Turkish press, but that may be because he's police. Uslu publishes articles at a wide variety of websites, including the pro-terrorist Jamestown Foundation and Taraf.

Yavuz is also connected to the wider Turkish lobby system in the US, which continues to spread big bucks around--especially if the big bucks are meant to fuel Armenian Genocide denial. At this Turkish Cultural Foundation (TCF) page, under the grantee listings for 2007, there are two grants to the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) listed, one for $150,000 and another for $750,000. These were passed to Hakan Yavuz's Armenian Genocide denial program at the U of U. That's a grand total of $900,000, almost $1 million. Here's a CV for Yavuz. Under "Grants" about midway down, we see that the TCA handed over the $900,000 in 2009. Here's a mailing list page from the U of U political science faculty notifying everyone that the grant was approved for Yavuz:

Second, Hakan Yavuz has just been notified that his proposal titled "Memory, Migration and Trauma" was awarded $900,000 from the Turkish Cultural Foundation to advance Turkish Studies at the University of Utah. This award is through the Middle East Center and College of Humanities and will provide funds to support scholarship, conferences, graduate students, and community outreach related to the topic of the shaping of Turkish identity in the Republic of Turkey.

The Turkish Studies Project at the U of U doesn't want you to know that its funding originally came from the TCF, though; it issued a retraction of the fact here. Isn't that strange, especially when it was listed so prominently on Hakan Yavuz's own CV and announced through email to the political science faculty at the U of U?

It might be worth remembering that Utah and the Fethullahçı were linked to "electronic leakage" in a campaign to "harm the prestige" of the TSK. Now with the information about the $900,000 grant from the TCF to the TCA to the U of U, we can see that these Turkish groups have a network of their own in the US and the usual principle of Islamist v Secularist don't totally apply.

There's another tidbit to this story: Who was it that was among those luminaries who wrote reference letters for Fethullah Gülen when he was asking for a green card? John Esposito.

There we have Daria Mogahed and John Esposito neatly wrapped in the Fethullahçı web and, by now, most of you are probably wondering if I'm ever going to make a point. I am.

Daria Mogahed is making some tours of World Affairs Councils in the US to speak about Who Speaks for Islam? and not only in San Francisco, but in Montana and Florida.

So who's going to speak for Islam in the US? Fethullah Gülen.

FORMER FBI AGENT CONFIRMS INVESTIGATION ON MARC GROSSMAN

"I do not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this."
~ Marc Grossman, former US Ambassador to Turkey.

Those Rastî readers familiar with everything written here on The Cohen Group back in late 2006 when the Ralston conflict of interest was going on, will remember Marc Grossman.

Grossman was the US ambassador to Turkey from 1994 to 1997 and was pulled from that position before the end of his tour because he was involved with the Susurluk scandal as mentioned in yesterday's post.

Today another round of artillery was fired in Grossman's direction, from Sibel Edmonds and a friend:

"I read the recent cover story by The American Conservative magazine. I applaud their courage in publishing this significant interview. I am fully aware of the FBI's decade-long investigation of the High-level State Department Official named in this article [Marc Grossman], which ultimately was buried and covered up. It is long past time to investigate this case and bring about accountability..."

There's more on that at The Brad Blog.

I don't know about you, but all this knowledge about Grossman, especially the Susurluk connection, really fills this description, from The Cohen Group website, with an enormous amount of irony:

Ambassador Grossman was U.S. Ambassador to Turkey 1994-1997. In Turkey, he promoted security cooperation, human rights and democracy and a vibrant U.S.-Turkish economic relationship. Ambassador Grossman had previously served as the embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission from 1989 to 1992.

He promoted human rights and democracy?? In a pig's eye.

There is a funny side to this if you know where to look. In Grossman's bio it says, "Ambassador Grossman had previously served as the embassy's Deputy Chief of Mission from 1989 to 1992." Joseph C. Wilson was one of Grossman's buddies at the State Department and served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy, Baghdad, from 1988 to 1992--under US Ambassador April Glaspie. Both Grossman and Wilson served in comparable positions in two countries that border each other, during the same time frame. Their diplomatic paths had to have crossed during that time.

The funny part is that Wilson's wife is Valerie Plame, whose company, Brewster Jennings & Associates, was outed by Grossman to the Turks long before the news was ever splashed across headlines in the US. In other words, Grossman outed his pal's wife as CIA. For more on that, don't miss the interview with Phil Giraldi and Joe Lauria.

As The Brad Blog points out from The Times article--to which Joe Lauria contributed--on the sale of nuclear secrets, when contacted about the information that Sibel provided, this is what Grossman had to say:

“If you are calling me to say somebody said that I took money, that’s outrageous . . . I do not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this.”

Doesn't he sound like Dennis Hastert? Like Jan Schakowsky??

And nobody's really brought up Grossman's connection to the most powerful "cemaat holding" in Turkey, which is able to compete with Sabancı and Koç . . . namely, Ihlas Holding.

I think it's time for heads to roll.

UPDATES AND THINGS TO WATCH

"The speaker does not have any connections to American Turkish interests."
~ Spokesman for Dennis Hastert, while Hastert served as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Let me list a few updates on the interview in American Conservative magazine with Sibel Edmonds:

1. Congressional Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) responds to Sibel's statements that she, Schakowsky, was trapped in a Turkish espionage honeypot operation. Additional update here.

Now when you read what Schakowsky's spokesman says in reply, bear in mind what Dennis Hastert's spokesman said in response to the 2005 Vanity Fair article on Sibel:

"This is all nonsense. It's not being reported by the mainstream press because there's no factual evidence. The reporter does not have a transcript of any wiretapped conversations that we know of and, even if we did, it's preposterous. The speaker does not have any connections to American Turkish interests."

Hastert joined Dickstein Shapiro in 2008, where he was going to provide "strategy advice" to D & S clients, among which is BOTAŞ. For more, see Luke Ryland's post on the matter. Hastert now works on a $35,000 per month contract through D & S for the TC.

2. Sibel's letter to the Congresswoman, in pursuit of the facts.

3. Connecting the Deep State's trail in the US, from Susurluk and Chicago to Ergenekon.

4. Be prepared for additional information on the role of former US ambassador to Turkey and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (that would be the number 3 position in the US State Department), Marc Grossman, in connection with Sibel's story. As Sibel stated in the AmCon interview:

Grossman became a person of interest early on in the investigative file while he was the U.S. ambassador to Turkey [1994-97], when he became personally involved with operatives both from the Turkish government and from suspected criminal groups. He also had suspicious contact with a number of official and non-official Israelis. Grossman was removed from Turkey short of tour during a scandal referred to as “Susurluk” by the media. It involved a number of high-level criminals as well as senior army and intelligence officers with whom he had been in contact.

Grossman was pulled from Turkey "short of tour" because he was involved with Susurluk. The military representative in Grossman's embassy in Ankara was Douglas Dickerson, who worked as Grossman's weapons procurement guy. Kurds should know exactly what that means: early to mid-1990s, American weapons procurement for Turkey, slaughter of Kurds, Dirty War, extrajudicial murder, forced displacement, destruction of villages, torture, etc.

In 2005, Grossman abruptly and quietly left the number 3 position at State. Why?

5. The Schmidt v. Krikorian hearing with the Ohio Elections Commission is due to resume this week on 1 October and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we will witness a spectacular fireworks display.

SIBEL EDMONDS ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE KURDS

"But with what's going on with the Kurdish population today in Turkey and what they're doing to the Kurdish population, you can see that it's not a matter of history, that it's being repeated."
~ Sibel Edmonds.

Here's a longer video from Deposition Day on 8 August with Sibel Edmonds, the lawyers involved, and David Krikorian. Run time is almost 25 minutes and, again, thanks to the friend who passed this little nugget along.

Pay attention to what Sibel says when she is asked about her personal ideas on the Armenian Genocide (about 11:50 minutes):

"As a person, I have never denied it [the Armenian Genocide]. . . I accept it and I think it's even twice, three times more important because people . . . they think of it as something that happened a hundred years ago and should be forgotten or shouldn't matter today . . . But with what's going on with the Kurdish population today in Turkey and what they're doing to the Kurdish population, you can see that it's not a matter of history, that it's being repeated. And as they did a hundred years ago and they're doing with the Armenian Genocide. Especially the United States is turning a blind eye on the Kurdish issue, which is a big, major human rights issue in Turkey. So it hasn't gone away and it's not something that happened only a hundred years ago. We see the effects of it today and unless the international community, including the United States, really takes a strong and firm position on this, they're going to get away with it and they'll never respect human rights."

Çok yaşa Sibel! Bijî Sibel! Getztzeh Sibel!

VIDEO TAKEN AT SIBEL EDMONDS' DEPOSITION

"From my opinion, if I'm some of the current members of Congress, I'd be very very worried about the information that's going to come out of this."
~ David Krikorian.

Here's a short video taken at Sibel Edmonds' deposition on Saturday, 8 August, 2009, at the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition offices:

See yesterday's post for more on Saturday's struggle between the Turkish lobby and those devoted to truth and justice.

TURKISH ESPIONAGE OPERATIONS TARGET CONGRESS

"Sex and espionage certainly go together - that's an old tradition."
~ Markus Wolf.

Yesterday's deposition of Sibel Edmonds in the Schmidt-Krikorian legal battle seems to have gone off without a hitch. The day was live-blogged by Brad Friedman and you can read all about it at The Bradblog. Luke Ryland also has numerous posts at his place.

Here's some backgrounder on the legal battle between Schmidt and Krikorian:

Nationally renowned lawyer Mark Geragos will lead a legal team of attorneys from across the nation to represent Democratic Congressional Candidate David Krikorian in connection with a complaint initiated by Ohio Representative Jean Schmidt before the Ohio Elections Commission.

[ . . . ]

Schmidt has brought charges against her likely Democratic opponent in the 2010 election for what she claims are false statements made by Krikorian in connection with her vocal opposition to Congressional measures to commemorate the Armenian Genocide.

During the last election cycle, Schmidt received more than $30,000 in contributions from individuals and political action committees advancing the Turkish government’s position to deny the fact of the Armenian Genocide and oppose Congressional measures to commemorate what is widely acknowledged as the first genocide of the 20th century. The trial on Schmidt’s charges is scheduled for Aug. 13 before the Ohio Elections Commission.

Since her election to Congress, Jean Schmidt has become an active and vocal apologist for the Turkish government’s position on the Armenian Genocide, and has solicited and received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Turkish Americans and affiliated political action committees. David Krikorian has been working to expose the connection between Schmidt’s actions as a Member of Congress and her political contributions.

It would appear to be the same old story: Turkish lobby goes over the top to cultivate assets that will stymie any Armenian Genocide resolution in Congress. But there is something much darker going on here. Check out these bombshells that David Krikorian dropped yesterday at the deposition, via The Bradblog:

[Dan] Burton (R-IN), described as basically accepting bribes and involved in espionage for the Turkish government...she could not discuss the extremely illegal activities that Mr. Burton committed against U.S. interests, as she put it.

Also, a current female Democratic [ed note: I misheard, he later said he didn't know if she was Dem or Rep] member of Congress who has been blackmailed by the Turkish Government...called a 'hooking exercise'...she's apparently bi-sexual and they bugged her apartment, she's married with children, and they set up a relationship with another female who went in and had sexual relationships with her. And they had all the episodes bugged within this current Representative's home and they blackmailed her. ... She wouldn't give her name, but her photograph [is the one with the question mark on it in the "Sibel Edmonds Rogue Gallery." ]

Later, Friedman asked Sibel for a clarification on the congresswoman mentioned by Krikorian:

First, I asked if she specified whether the sitting bi-sexual, married Congresswoman who had been taped sleeping with a woman, without knowing, and then bribed by Turkish interests with the tape, to vote against the Armenian Genocide resolution had been a Democrat or a Republican. She said she is a Democrat, and that she testified to that during her deposition.

Friedman characterizes the blackmail tactic used against the bi-sexual Democratic congresswoman as a "hooking exercise"; however, there is a more widely known term for this tactic in espionage circles. It's called a "honeytrap" or "honeypot" operation:

In espionage, a honeypot or honeytrap is a trap set to capture, kill or compromise an enemy agent using sex as the lure.

[ . . . ]

The most common employment of this technique is by women, either female intelligence agents or (if the purpose is simply to obtain material for blackmail) prostitutes. Some intelligence agencies, particularly in the Soviet bloc, are alleged to have specially cultivated agents for this purpose. Not all traps are carried out by women, however — sometimes, women are ensnared by male agents, and sometimes, same-sex traps are used. (The latter were particularly effective eras or countries where homosexuality was frowned on, and the very fact that an agent was homosexual was material suitable for blackmail). . .

Obviously, a honeypot was set up for the congresswoman, according to the description by Krikorian:

. . . [S]he's apparently bi-sexual and they bugged her apartment, she's married with children, and they set up a relationship with another female who went in and had sexual relationships with her.

"[T]hey set up a relationship . . . " Who is "they"? The Turkish lobby. But this is an espionage operation, which leads me to believe that those old Cold Warriors of the MİT were the ones who really set out this honeypot. Isn't this the very reason why USAF officer Douglas Dickerson and his wife, Melek Can, tried to recruit Sibel, so that she could help them shield Turkish espionage activities in the US?

According to The Bradblog, a reporter for Horizon Armenian TV, Elizabeth Chouldjian, freelanced the deposition and managed to question Jean Schmidt's lawyer, Bruce Fein:

The reporter, Elizabeth Chouldjian, freelancing coverage today for Armenian Horizons TV, is also with Armenian National Committee of America, and she continue to press her points, and asked Fein if he didn't have a conflict of interest in this case. She had earlier told me that Fein was a Board member of the Turkish Coalition of America, Turkish American Legal Defense Fund and legal counsel for Assembly of Turkish American Associations. She wondered if it was appropriate for Fein to represent Schmidt, since he himself could be called to testify, as a witness on behalf of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations.

Chouldjian had told me that he's been flying around the country, essentially trying to deny that the genocide ever occurred, has sued the state of Massachusetts to put Armenian genocide "denialist" material in text books, is suing the Southern Poverty Law Center for putting out an article last year called "State of Denial" which, she says, focused on Turkish interests trying to block Armenian Genocide resolution from being passed.

Conveniently for Schmidt, Bruce Fein is one of two attorneys listed on the contact page for the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund (TALDF).

[Note: The other attorney listed at TALDF is David Saltzman, who has a law partnership with Günay Övünç, who happens to be the current president of the ATAA and would-be mercenary-advisor for Blackhawk Security, Inc. A "consultant" for Blackhawk is Şenkal Atasagun, a former MİT undersecretary. Interestingly enough, the domain name for the Saltzman-Övünç partnership is turklaw.net.]


According to a press release by the TALDF that features an interview with TALDF attorney David Saltzman, and posted by the ATAA's racist president-elect, Ergun Kirlikovalı, we learn that it's common knowledge that the TALDF's Bruce Fein is representing Jean Schmidt:

Recently, the TALDF has been retained to represent Representative Jean Schmidt (R-OH) in her case before the Ohio Elections Commission in which she alleges that one of her opponents in her last re-election, David Krikorian, violated Ohio election law by lying about her campaign funding (that it was derived from the Turkish government) and that she has in effect been bribed to not favor Congressional resolutions on the Armenian allegation of genocide. This case will go to trial before the end of the summer. This is a particularly important case because the TALDF feels strongly that Members of Congress should not have to yield to intimidation by Armenian activists who claim, without foundation, that the Turkish government is behind any Member's studied decision that the Armenian case constitutes a genuine historical controversy, one which is best studied by historians and not opined upon by Congress.

But the question is, Mr. Saltzman, should members of Congress be the targets of honeypot operations by the Ankara regime?

Saltzman goes on to explain TALDF's funding:

The TALDF is supported by the Turkish Coalition of America, a 505(c)(3) public charitable organization. Donations to the TCA that will benefit the work of the TALDF can be made by check and are tax-deductible. Please see the TCA website for contact information.

The Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) is actually a 501(c)(3) and, as such, is required to make its tax returns public. TCA's 2007 filing can be viewed here [Many thanks to the friend who passed this along].

On page 1 of the return, one can see that the total revenue, including assets, of the TCA is some $30 million. On page 4, one can see that the TCA has $29,706,000 in investments. Page 18 explains where the investments lie: in 600,000 shares of Hittite [Microwave] stock. Furthermore, on page 5 of the return, one can see that Yalçın Ayaslı is listed as the director of the TCA. Coincidentally, Yalçın Ayaslı is the founder of Hittite Microwave and, in 2008, his family donated more than $300,000 to political candidates of both parties, "and particularly to candidates supporting Turkey." And there's more:

Yalcin Ayasli, whose family hails from Turkey and now lives in Nashua, founded Hittite Microwave, a manufacturer of high-performance integrated circuits for communications systems, in 1985. He built it into a company that reported $45.5 million in revenue, with a profit of $13.7 million, in the last quarter.

In 2007, about half of its revenue came from government contracts, primarily the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force and NASA.

Although Ayasli resigned as chief executive in 2004 and as board chairman in 2005, his family still controls about a third of the company's stock according to latest filings with the SEC.

Ayasli and other family members gave more than $330,000 during the last election cycle, and for the most part did not give locally. The two top recipients were the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ($74,000) and the National Republic Congressional Committee ($72,000).

Nearly $39,000 went to the Turkish Coalition PAC, which at one point gave Hittite's address as its own, along with that of the Turkish Cultural Foundation.

The groups support Turkey in its various disputes, including the conflict in Iraq, supporting occasional Turkish military operations against Kurdish groups that cross back and forth over the Iraqi border. The groups also disputed the Armenian claim--and a U.S. congressional resolution--that the Turks engaged in genocide against the Armenians in 1915.

The Ayaslis spent nearly $14,000 to back Katrina Swett's aborted attempt to win the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination in New Hampshire. Swett is the daughter of the late Congressman Tom Lantos, who condemned Kurdish attacks in Turkey, though he also supported the congressional resolution against the Armenian genocide. Swett bowed out of the race after Shaheen declared her candidacy.

Nearly $11,000 of the Ayaslis' money went to Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who sponsored a resolution congratulating Turkey for celebrating Republic Day. Foxx's son-in-law is a Turkish businessman and Foxx herself is a member of the congressional Caucus on U.S.-Turkish Relations. She has been a leader against the Armenian genocide resolution.

In his spare time, Yalçın Ayaslı also enjoys escorting congressional staffers around Turkey on the American Turkish Council's (ATC) annual trips.

Members of the Ayaslı family have donated to Jean Schmidt. In the 2008 cycle, the Ayaslı's donated $2300 to Schmidt and $2300 to Dan Burton, accoding to OpenSecrets. They're still working on the 2010 cycle. The Ayaslı family seems to continually funnel the money into the TCA, an organization which, for all intents and purposes, the Ayaslı's own.

Strangely enough, Yalçın Ayaslı is not mentioned as the director of the Turkish Coalition of America's website, although both Bruce Fein and David Saltzman, also of the TALDF, are listed.

At yesterday's deposition, when reporter Elizabeth Chouldjian questioned Bruce Fein about having a conflict of interest with regard to the Schmidt-Krikorian legal battle, she was absolutely on target. No wonder Fein "became very defensive". The question that needs to be asked next is whether or not the TALDF is working pro bono for Schmidt? If so, that means that the TCA is funding Schmidt's side of the legal battle. Isn't that also a conflict of interest for Schmidt, given that she's been accused of taking Turkish "blood money" and using her congressional seat for the interests of the Ankara regime?

And why is it that the worthless American media is not reporting on the very obvious Turkish espionage operations that are targeting members of the US Congress? Or why isn't the worthless American media doing some deep digging to trace the financing of the multi-headed Hydra known as the Turkish lobby?

Why is the worthless American media helping to hide this information?




UPDATE: I just came across a blog that refers to a Wayne Madsen Report that has named the bi-sexual Democratic congresswoman mentioned above. I don't know if this information is correct and I don't know where the WMR got the name, but I know it wasn't from Sibel Edmonds. However, it comes as no surprise to me to learn that congresswoman named is from Illinois. Once again, here's what Sibel had to say about Chicago, from the Vanity Fair article:

. . . in December 2001, Joel Robertz, an F.B.I. special agent in Chicago, contacted Sibel and asked her to review some wiretaps. Some were several years old, others more recent; all had been generated by a counter-intelligence that had its start in 1997. “It began in D.C.,” says an F.B.I. counter-intelligence official who is familiar with the case file. “It became apparent that Chicago was actually the center of what was going on.”

Mehmet Çelebi was based in Chicago and helped fundraise for Rahm Emanuel back in 2002. The ATAA's president, Günay Övünç (mentioned above) is also from Chicago. Susurluk's Abdullah Çatlı spent ten years in Chicago, from the mid-1980s until right before the Susurluk scandal in 1996, as I mentioned recently in a post on Sibel Edmonds' blog last week. While he was living in Chicago--with a US green card--Çatlı went by the name Mehmet Özbay (later Özbey). Oh, yeah, Çatlı was also wanted by Interpol at the time.

The Seminal, which is carrying the WMR information, has more about the honeypot operation:

Perhaps the most explosive part of the deposition involved the Turkish government being engaged in a sexual blackmail operation against a sitting member of the House of Representative [sic]. In what the FBI termed a "hooking process," an ATC female operative enticed a female member of the House into a lesbian sexual encounter at a Washington, DC townhouse. A Turkish intelligence surveillance team had placed surveillance bugs throughout the townhouse, including the bedroom and captured the lesbian tryst on tape, according to Edmonds's testimony. To ensure the surveillance team successfully completed its technical surveillance operation, another Turkish operational team was present outside the townhouse to make sure the surveillance team carried out its task.

After the surveillance recordings were made known to the House member, she changed her support for the Armenian genocide resolution and announced her opposition to it.

[ . . . ]

The first sexual encounter between [the congresswoman] and the Turkish lesbian prostitute reportedly occurred at a vulnerable time for [the congresswoman], just after her mother's death. The first sexual encounter was followed by numerous others, according to U.S. law enforcement sources.

Let me translate for you: "Turkish intelligence surveillance team" and "another Turkish operational team" both mean "MİT".

Then what do we make of the "ATC female operative" and the "Turkish lesbian prostitute"? Does this mean the ATC is engaged in human-trafficking operations in the US? Or is this something the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is running through it's embassies and consulates, kind of a side industry to go along with Turkish embassy heroin trafficking?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Stay tuned.

THE ATAA: DEEP STATE AND PSYCHOSIS

"Psychosis, with adjective psychotic, literally means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality". People suffering from psychosis are said to be psychotic."
~ Wikipedia.

Last week someone kindly brought to my attention the fact that Günay Hakkı Övünç (Evinch, according to his Americanized spelling) had become the president of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA). Rastî readers will remember Övünç in connection with an American-based Turkish mercenary company that has a training facility in Silopi. More on that from Yeni Özgür Politika:

On some 1,000 acres of land between Silopi and the Habur Border Crossing the Black Hawk Security Company is working feverishly using up to 20 trucks carrying sand, five heavy plant and various other vehicles to get the base finished. The company was reportedly structured according to a model used by the Special Forces. The Washington-based company is shaping its organizations in Turkey and Iraq in order to meet the requirements of a low intensity war. With a cadre comprised of retired soldiers and intelligence operatives taken from special units the company provides a broad spectrum of activities including armored convoy security, defense tactics, low intensity combat, counter-terrorism and intelligence, air operations and hostage rescue.

The company, which has named its site in Habur "Black Hawk 1 Headquarters," will also have three other HQs in Zakho, Kirkuk and Baghdad.

The company will also have over 1,000 "retired" military personnel from the Turkish army attached to it. They will undergo a short refresher training course at the HQ in Silopi. At the Habur HQ, where some 300 service personnel will also be on duty, there will be a mobile hospital, a helipad, one casevac helicopter, one escort helicopter, and 300 vehicles including armed Hummers, and a truck park for 8,000 vehicles.

[ . . . ]

Günay Hakkı Övünç: Company partner and legal architect Günay Hakkı Övünç owns a law practice in Washington. Övünç, who for years has pursued law suits in the United States filed by the Turkish Embassy and the General Staff, is also the American-Turkısh Assembly's deputy chairman in charge of Washington.

Also involved in Black Hawk Security, Inc. is the TSK's retired Lieutenant General Köksal Karabay, who was in charge of Turkish special forces when American marines "bagged" them on 4 July, 2003.

YÖP asks some pertinent questions about the purpose of "Black Hawk 1 HQ" at the Habur border crossing:

The company will also have over 1,000 "retired" military personnel from the Turkish army attached to it. They will undergo a short refresher training course at the HQ in Silopi. At the Habur HQ, where some 300 service personnel will also be on duty, there will be a mobile hospital, a helipad, one casevac [medevac] helicopter, one escort helicopter, and 300 vehicles including armed Hummers, and a truck park for 8,000 vehicles.

[ . . . ]

There are many unanswered questions such as how did the partners meet one another, why did they take on this job, how did they get permission, what kind of relationship do they have with the US authorities, with whom do they share the intelligence they obtain, when the day comes how are they going to use "Turkish-Kurdish-Arab" and perhaps even American personnel, and are they simply going to be escorting trucks and nothing more? As part of an agreement made with this company the Koc Group and Milangaz Company send 1,600 tankers of LPG into Iraq every month. They send 200 tankers of aviation fuel ever day. They provide 70 percent of the United States requirement for diesel fuel via this crossing. When they talk about "security for Turkish trucks" they mean these tankers. However, this much military hardware and these names beg other questions.

Indeed.

Another interesting fact about Övünç is that he's from Chicago. According to the Sibel Edmonds case, Turkish nationals were apparently deeply engaged in covert activity in two major American cities and one of those was Chicago:

It may be more than another embarrassing security scandal. One counter-intelligence official familiar with Edmonds’s case has told Vanity Fair that the F.B.I. opened an investigation into covert activities by Turkish nationals in the late 1990’s. That inquiry found evidence, mainly via wiretaps, of attempts to corrupt senior American politicians in at least two major cities—Washington and Chicago. Toward the end of 2001, Edmonds was asked to translate some of the thousands of calls that had been recorded by this operation, some dating back to 1997.

[ . . . ]

. . . in December 2001, Joel Robertz, an F.B.I. special agent in Chicago, contacted Sibel and asked her to review some wiretaps. Some were several years old, others more recent; all had been generated by a counter-intelligence that had its start in 1997. “It began in D.C.,” says an F.B.I. counter-intelligence official who is familiar with the case file. “It became apparent that Chicago was actually the center of what was going on.”

I wonder how close a relationship there is between Övünç and another Turkish Chicagoan, Mehmet Çelebi, whose fundraising for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was eventually dropped faster than a hot potato.

We know that sometime in 2005 or, perhaps, very early 2006, Övünç was "summoned" to Iraq, in Övünç's own words:

I was summoned to Baghdad. As I did not want to worry my wife, I told her I was going to Turkey for a conference on the Armenian matter – which was true. But, the complete truth was that after the conference I would continue to Iraq via Istanbul Atatürk International Airport, one of the safest routes to Baghdad for civilians. Passengers go through four levels of security checks, and the pretty woman sitting next to you in the plane might be a Turkish sky marshal who can break your neck faster than you can say, “Turkish Delight.”

So who "summoned" him and for what purpose? Inquiring minds want to know.

What may be even more scary is the ATAA's president-elect, Ergün Kirlikovalı (Check the ATAA's board of directors page for verification). He should be Övünç's successor as president of the ATAA in the not-too-distant future. You can get an idea of some of the things Kirlikovalı believes in these comments to a Forbes opinion piece asking, "Should Turkey Apologize to the Armenians".

Or check out a blog entry at the Orange County Weekly, which has a lot of interesting links to comments Kirlikovali is making all over the Internet . . . Like his psychotic babbling here or his anti-Mexican rant here.

And there's more raving at the Huffington Post. Or check out comment #168 here:

Turks are the new Jews. Genocide crowds are the new KKK.

Although there has been no due process or a jury verdict by any competent tribunal, these genocide crowds have already made up their minds about the characterization of the Turkish-Armenian conflict during WWI. Facts, figures no longer matter to them as they are all classified under the heading denials.

These genocide lynch mobs burn crosses not on Turkish lawns (yet,) but in public conscience. They claim, scream, and attack… They insult, intimidate, and terrorize… They already have their chosen verdict in their minds which comforts their anti-Turkish bias: Turks are guilty and there is no need to discuss this lay verdict; it is execution time… get the rope!

Or how about comment #173:

If Turks wanted to kill all Armenians why did they let one go? If Turks were afraid of foreign political pressure, why did they go ahead with the tereset (temporary resettlement?) What is wrong with defending your home when certain elements are trying to destroy your home from within, in total callusion [sic] with forced from outside? If Turks wanted to kill all Armenians, why would they save the ones in Istanbul? and Izmir? and Edirne? and Aleppo? and many other city centers (Urfa, Marasah, Anteb, and more?) Why would they exclude Catholic or Protestant Armenians? Why would they exclude many other Armenians like those dwelling in city centers, and clerks, etc.? And then why would Turks allow Armenians to use the trains where there were railroads (Konya, Adana, etc.?) Why would they allocate ox, horse, donkey carts where available? Why would they assign soldiers to protect them? Why would they allow American aid to help Arenians [sic]? Why would Turks invite an investigation of the charges by an international committee, other than those who started the tragedy in the first place, like Russia, Britain and France?

Can someone explain to me how Kirlikovalı's ranting squares with Övünç's vision for the ATAA in a statement last month, in which he says, "ATAA is a proud interlocutor, as the voice of reason and credibility in Washington DC for nearly 500,000 Turkish and Turkic Americans nationwide"? And why is it that we should believe the psychotic ravings of the future president of the ATAA on his word alone?

HASHISH AND THE MARDIN MASSACRE

"What are they trying to hide?"
~ Ahmet Türk.

Some of you may remember Akin Birdal before he became one of DTP's Diyarbakır parliamentarians. If so, you will recall that he was the IHD president whom the state attempted to assassinate in 1998. Birdal has also been imprisoned for publicly urging a peaceful solution to the Kurdish situation in Turkey. In other words, there are very few others in Turkey who are as qualified to investigate human rights violations or state assassinations than Akin Birdal.

According to Akşam, the TBMM's Human Rights Commission has formed a sub-commission of five parliamentarians (out of the nine parliamentarians on the Human Rights Investigation Commission) to investigate the Mardin massacre and Akin Birdal, who is one of the nine members of the TBMM's Human Rights Commission, has been refused a place on the sub-commission.

My first thought about stuff like this is: "What are they trying to hide?" I'm not the only one who thinks that way. So does Ahmet Türk (Source: http://www.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=nuce&nuceID=7451):

"To this date, we have always been excluded. However the behavior of the Human Rights Commission is quite thought-provoking. The idea of creating a parliamentary investigation commission for the violence in Mardin came from our friend Akin Birdal. But although he is a member of the commission, he is not included in the sub-commission for Mardin. Whereas the sub-commission consists of five members. Despite this fact, our party, which has a group in the parliament, is excluded from the sub-commission's investigation. This contradicts justice and equality principle. Why are we being excluded? We are not going to be silent about this."

[ . . . ]

"What are they trying to hide? We are not going to be silent about the behavior that excludes our party. Although there wasn't any member from MHP at the commission's meeting, the chairman calls him and tells him to come. However, he [the commission's AKP chairman] excludes our friend, who is already present at the meeting. In the past, I was also the Human Rights chairman. From all the political parties which have groups in the parliament, the subcommission gets members. There is a logic of exclusion in this case. We came here [to parliament] to represent our people, not to be excluded. The chairman of the parliament must intervene immediately [in this case of injustice].

Maybe they're trying to hide that business about the hashish in Bilge village (Source: http://www.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=nuce&nuceID=7430):

Hashish fight over 40 thousand donums [Note: a donum is a unit of area equal to 1,000 square meters]

After the Assyrians and Armenians emigrated from their Bilge village land, the land became state property. However, the right to own that land divided the Çelebi family in two. The planting of hashish in almost 40 thousand donums in Bilge village caused the fight between village guards over shares.

Last month when there was a study for land registry, the debate over sharing of the land, which is marked as state property, was revealed Two weeks ago, the same debate heated up between nephew and uncle families [the Çelebis]. After the debate over the land--whose real owners were Assyrians and Armenians--was revealed, the Çelebi nephew family decided in favor of the massacre and the date for the massacre was chosen consciously. According to them, the wedding celebration was the most suitable time when everyone from the other family would be together. Thus they could massacre all of them without any witness.

Scapegoat PKK by not leaving any witness

The Çelebi nephew family wanted to massacre the members of the family of the [Çelebi] uncle without leaving any living witness, thus they would be able to blame PKK for this massacre.

In the massacre, where 44 people died, if there weren't any witnesses, the incident would have been blamed on PKK because, at the very beginning hours of the incident, several news agencies and TV news channels stated that village guards had fired back against "terrorists" who succeeded in escaping due to a dust storm.

However, the three wounded witnesses who survived the massacre and gave the village guard perpetrators' names, turned their plan upsidedown.

The Sultan village garrison is two kilometers away from Bilge village, however the troops arrived at the village where the incident took place two hours later.

All of this is despite the fact that, as I mentioned previously, right after the massacre began, one of the victims managed to escape and go to the military garrison to warn a village guard relative of what was happening. The village guard at the garrison warned the military commanders, saying "they have left no one in our village; we should go." The response of the military commanders was "If you want, you can go, but we are not going now."

How typical is all of this? A fight over illegal drugs, a massacre, attempt to blame the Kurdish freedom movement, and the state's authorities in the region showing up well after any danger is passed . . . kind of like state authorities acted at Güngören.

Also, as I mentioned previously, the survivors screwed the whole thing up.

For more on the Mardin massacre, check Children of the Sun for a discussion from İsmail Beşikçi on the purpose of village guards.

Zerkesorg has a discussion of the massacre, too, with a translated opinion piece on what the massacre is called and what it would be called under other conditions. Very interesting, particularly since the Ankara regime's propaganda about the massacre has saturated English-language media to such an extent that even bat-shit crazy, ultra-rightwing, neo-nazi, pro-terrorist, anti-Muslim fascist extremists, like this one, are advertising, for free, the spin of the Islamist regime in Turkey . . . And they're calling it "honor killing," but only because that's also a racist site.

It reminds me of the old adage that says that the biggest mistake intelligent people make is to refuse to believe that people are a stupid as they really are.

Hevallo's recent post mentions a subject that I'll be working on soon, and that will be the translation of Hasan Cemal's interview series at Milliyet with Murat Karayılan. Lots of speculation is flying around about this, especially since Abdullah Gül said that he wanted to see Hasan Cemal, along with certain other politicos such as the new foreign minister, Davutoğlu, and Cemil "Chicken Little" Çiçek.

Regarding the interview with Karayılan, we need to remember that nothing he's said in the interview is new to us. Karayılan has been saying the very same things that PKK has been saying for years now, especially since PKK issued its statement on a democratic solution to the Kurdish question back in 2006--three years ago! Because the information is censored by Google, you'll have to copy-and-paste http://www.kurdish-info.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3467 to read the three-year-old declaration.

At this point, I see Hasan Cemal's interview as introducing PKK's long-standing offer of a democratic solution, which has been ignored or denied by the Ankara regime and its worldwide publicists, to the Turkish public for the first time. Hevallo is absolutely correct in warning about provocations because we all know what happened the last time a Turkish president seriously considered a peaceful solution. Things are not much different now; there are still a lot of Deep State types who are making a lot of money from the status quo.

It may turn out to be a very interesting summer after all.

FALSE FLAG OPERATIONS CONTINUE

"To suppress the revolts quickly, the Turkish Republic set up a "village guard" system. This type of citizen's defense force has been used by the U.S. army in Vietnam. So a militia of about 50,000 armed men was established, as well as a special unit of 12,000 men. And in addition, the state moved an army of 300,000 soldiers against the Kurds. Nobody knows what else has been mobilized. But the most horrific creation was the "contra guerrilla" under the command of the Turkish army."
~ Yaşar Kemal.

Wow, that's really something, that massacre outside of Mardin yesterday. A bunch of guys masked, armed with automatic weapons and grenades, who go to a wedding and murder 44 people. How many "blood feuds" have we ever heard of that were handled like that? How about zero?

DTP Diyarbakır parliamentarian Gültan Kışanak finds it odd that there's a military garrison located some five minutes from the massacre site but that it took them two hours to arrive on scene. Villagers ran to the garrison to notify the village guards there of what had happened. The village guards, in turn, notified the security forces. The security forces told the guards that if they wanted to go, they could go, but security forces would not go.

Why? Because Turkish security forces knew what was going on. They wanted the attackers to get away.

DTP Şırnak parliamentarian Hasip Kaplan tells it like it is. It's not an honor massacre but The System's massacre. The TSK has 800,000 to 1,000,000 members. The Turkish police are thousands more. Yet these servants of the state have been incapable of protecting the population--citizens of the state--for decades.

Why? The state and the state's security forces are unwilling to protect the population because the state is the one perpetrating the crimes against the population.

Then there is the fact that the village guard system was created not to do the job of state security forces in protecting the population, but to arm Kurds in order to fight Kurds. It's a simple case of the old "divide and conquer."

After all, how many "blood feuds" have you heard of that have gone down like this one did?

The Murderer Erdoğan had to say something:

"The incident is not a terrorist attack but the result of a hostility between families. The detained have the same surname as most of the dead. No tradition and understanding can justify this action at all."

So did the Murderer Gül:

"Such primitive and violent acts that cause deep suffering can never be justified."

What they're saying here is that this massacre occured because Kurds were involved. That's what the Murderer Erdoğan means when he talked about "a negative understanding of tradition". See? They want us to believe that Kurds don't even know their own tradition.

It's never been "tradition" to conduct a "blood feud" murder by getting together a bunch of guys who could pass as a commando team, arm them like a commando team, and then have them commit the act of a commando team. Kurds just don't handle "blood feuds" this way.

But the remarks of the Murderer Erdoğan and the Murderer Gül are simply examples of the racist claims of the "civilized" ethnicity in Turkey.

I'm not the only one who notices that this is an odd way of handling a "blood feud". So does some guy at Dicle University:

"What happened in Mazıdağı, Mardin, is a massacre. It is not amenable to customs and rules of clans and blood feuds," Associate Professor Rüstem Erkan, head of Diyarbakır Dicle University’s sociology department, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

Erkan said contrary to outsiders’ perceptions, blood feuds, despite the despicable results, have rules everyone obeys. "According to customs, you cannot do something like this at funerals or weddings. This region has never seen such a thing. They did not regard the rules when they did this. They did not pay attention to who they killed," he said. Erkan, who has extensively studied the region’s socioeconomic structure, said this case was not a classic blood feud case. "This is a slaughter. It is not a classic blood feud case," he said.

I don't agree with his conclusions, but he's definitely got a point in saying that this was no "blood feud".

Three years ago, HRW petitioned AKP's interior minister at the time, Abdülkadir Aksu, to abolish the village guard system. HRW's letter contained a summary of the human rights violations reports that the organization had received for almost twenty years--violations and abuses committed by village guards.

The AKP government disregarded the call for abolition of the village guard system but this was after the Amed Serhildan, during which the Murderer Erdoğan gave security forces the order to murder indiscriminately women and children.

So what is it with this massacre? It was another state-sponsored massacre of Kurds but it went badly because there were survivor witnesses. If the state's assassins had killed everyone, as one survivor heard one of the assassins tell the others, the state would have blamed this black operation on PKK, just as the Ankara regime has done so many times in the past.

And if you don't believe that, then you tell me when you've ever heard of a "blood feud" carried out like this.

THE CORRUPTION CONTINUES

"Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer."
~ John F. Kennedy.

Sibel Edmonds has an opinion piece just out about the Jane Harman/AIPAC/Israeli spies scandal which I first mentioned in this post. There's an update on Hypocrite Harman's weekend activities at Glenn Greenwald's blog:

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about one of the most shameless and absurd spectacles to appear in Washington in some time: the self-righteous, self-obsessed rage expressed by Blue Dog Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) -- leading defender of Bush's illegal domestic eavesdropping programs -- upon learning that one of her conversations had been legally eavesdropped upon as part of a criminal investigation into the actions of a suspected Israeli agent. Over the weekend, Harman (along with half of the U.S. Congress) appeared at the AIPAC conference and continued her new anti-eavesdropping crusade, actually vowing to lead an investigation into potential eavesdropping abuses to assure that it would never happen again. Atrios notes just some of the points that makes her behavior incomparably shameless.

What would have been the result if Hypocrite Harman's Israeli agent had been able to lean on Nancy Pelosi in order to get Pelosi to name Harman as head of the House Intelligence Committee? How about this:

Just imagine if Harman had obtained either senior intelligence position that she sought. She would have had access to every sort of top secret intelligence possessed by the US government and would have been in a good position to influence policy. From the Israeli perspective, she would have been their spy, a highly placed agent of influence who could also provide every bit of sensitive intelligence in the CIA cupboard.

Now this story has gone basically nowhere in the bullshit American media. Kind of like how the espionage trial of AIPAC officials Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman has gone nowhere in the bullshit American justice system. And, now that I think about it, that's exactly how the Turkish bribery scandal of Dennis Hastert went--nowhere. But Hastert did have a happy ending since he's now an official lobbyist for the Ankara regime, with a contract valued at $35,000 per month for Hastert to secure Turkey's interests in the US Congress.

If there were such a thing as justice, the Congressional criminals like Hastert and Harman would get their comeuppance in a court of law. Their shame would be front page news and the first story up on the evening news. But those of us familiar with Susurluk know that there is no justice and the criminals always move on to greener pastures.

It would appear that I'm not the only one who thinks this way because the deliberate downplay of these kinds of scandals in the bullshit American media and the lack of any kind of dispensation of justice from the bullshit American legal system and the protection of criminals in high office is what, it seems to me, bothers Sibel Edmonds, too. And make no mistake about it, this whole rotten System is a bipartisan effort.

The recent stunning but not unexpected revelations regarding Jane Harman (D-CA) by the Congressional Quarterly provide us with a little glimpse into one of the main reasons behind the steady decline in the integrity of Congress. But the story is almost dead - ready to bite the dust, thanks to our mainstream media's insistence on burying 'real' issues or stories that delve deep into the causes of our nation's continuous downward slide. In this particular case, the 'thank you' should also be extended to certain blogosphere propagandists who, blinded by their partisanship, myopic in their assessments, and ignorant in their knowledge of the inner workings of our late Congress and intelligence agencies, helped in the post-burial cremation of this case.

Ironically but understandably, the Harman case has become one of rare unequivocal bipartisanship, when no one from either side of the partisan isle utters a word. How many House or Senate Republicans have you heard screaming, or even better, calling for an investigation? The right wing remains silent. Some may have their hand, directly or indirectly, in the same AIPAC cookie jar. Others may still feel the heavy baggage of their own party's tainted colleagues; after all, they have had their share of Abramoffs, Hasterts and the like, silently lurking in the background, albeit dimmer every day. Some on the left, after an initial silence that easily could have been mistaken for shock, are jumping from one foot to the other, like a cat on a hot tin roof, making one excuse after another; playing the 'victims of Executive Branch eavesdropping' card, the same very 'evil doing' they happened to support vehemently. Some have been dialing their trusted guardian angels within the mainstream media and certain fairly visible alternative outlets. They need no longer worry, since these guardian angels seem to have blacked out the story, and have done so without the apparent need for much arm twisting...

[ . . . ]

How does it work? How do these people escape the consequences of accountability? Are we talking about the possible use of blackmail by the Executive Branch against Congressional representatives, as if the days of J. Edgar Hoover were never over? Cases such as NSA illegal eavesdropping come to mind, when Congressional members were briefed long before it became public, yet none took any action or even uttered a word; members of both parties. Or is it more likely to be a case of secondhand blackmail, where members of Congress watch out for each other? Or, is it a combination of the above? Regardless, we see this 'all for one, one for all' kind of solidarity in Congress when it comes to criminal conduct and scandals such as those of Hastert and Harman.

[ . . . ]

Despite a certain degree of exposure, cases such as Harman's and Hastert's, involving corruption of public officials, seem to meet the same dead-end. Criminal conduct, by powerful foreign entities, against our national interest, is given a pass, as was recently proven by the abandonment of the AIPAC spy case. The absence of real investigative journalism and the pattern of blackout by our mainstream media seem now to have been almost universally accepted as a fact of life.

Read the whole thing here and prepare to be disgusted.

For more disgust, take a look at a recent post on Zerkesorg, which outlines the Ankara regime's efforts to remove the wildly popular Osman Baydemir from his mayoral seat. A sample, from the MGK meeting in January 2006--months before the Amed Serhildan:

Commanders of the armed forces request that Mayor of Diyarbakir [Amed] be removed from his post:

All units of government must show their decisiveness about terrorism. We have two expectations. The first one is that the mayor of Diyarbakir is committing a crime. Conditions for his removal [Mr. Baydemir][from his post] by the Ministry of Internal Affairs have ripened. This request is not out of legal norms. If tolerance continues, the terrorist organization will bring its activities all the way to the cities. Our second expectation is that the village guards [korucular] are targets of sympathizers of the terrorist organization; we benefit from their contribution to the security forces. There are two problems regarding these issues. First: we cannot make up for the loss of village guards. We want the declaration and action plan of 2000 to be reviewed. The second [problem regarding village guards] is with softening down the volunteered village guard system.

Azadîxwaz has a translation of something from columnist Etyen Mahçupyan on trusting the Turkish state . . . or not:

The ones who are talking about PKK’s disarmament are acting as if they are not aware of the history of the Republic of Turkey in the minds/memories of the Kurds. PKK could seriously lay down the arms, and they could genuinely want this, too… But it will not lay down arms as far as possible, because the Kurdish society does not trust the state. There is no guarantee that a more tyrannical regime will not be imposed upon the Kurds under the disguise of politicization of the PKK and there isn’t any state authority that can guarantee this. Because history has proven that these kinds of guarantees are (never) executed.

[ . . . ]

Nowadays, you could explain to the Kurds what a “right” decision it would be if the PKK laid down the arms. As a matter of fact that is how they think, too. They know that peace can only be achieved in an environment where there are no weapons. But they also know the history of this region and they don’t trust the state. That is issue…

Not only regarding disarmament, but this is exactly the same kind of argument that goes through my head whenever I hear someone talk about the "repentance" law or the granting of a general amnesty. What in the hell do those things really mean and why should we trust such schemes?

Something to keep an eye on . . . earlier today the news broke in English-language media that 44 people had been killed during a wedding in Mardin province. You can get the basic rundown from The Times. Early reports have mentioned that this attack might be the result of a blood feud between korucu families. However, the gunmen were described as masked and armed with "assault rifles" and grenades. Certainly it could be the result of a blood feud gone very bad but it's also highly possible that it's a state operation, since the Ankara regime has specialized for decades in the massacre of unarmed civilians.