THE VARIETIES OF TREASON

"Is there not some chosen curse,
Some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven,
Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man
Who owes his greatness to his country's ruin?"
~ Joseph Addison.

Guess who's arranging an oil deal between Turkey, Kazakhstan, and "Northern Iraq"? The Prince of Darkness himself. Yes, that would be prominent neocon and Turkish agent, Richard Perle. A little bird dropped this into my email today:

Iraq War Advocate Denies Taking Part In a Consortium


Influential former Pentagon official Richard Perle has been exploring going into the oil business in Iraq and Kazakhstan, according to people with knowledge of the matter and documents outlining possible deals.

Mr. Perle, one of a group of security experts who began pushing the case for toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein about a decade ago, has been discussing a possible deal with officials of northern Iraq's Kurdistan regional government, including its Washington envoy, according to these people and the documents.

It would involve a tract called K18, near the Kurdish city of Erbil, according to documents describing the plan. A consortium founded by Turkish company AK Group International is seeking rights to drill there, the documents say. Potential backers include two Turkish companies as well as Kazakhstan, according to individuals involved.

AK's chief executive is Aydan Kodaloglu, who, like Mr. Perle, has been involved with the American Turkish Council, an advocacy group in Washington. She didn't respond to requests for comment. Phyllis Kaminsky, who identified herself as the U.S. contact for Ms. Kodaloglu, said she herself was aware of the drilling plan but referred questions about it to Mr. Perle.

"Richard would know the most," Ms. Kaminsky said. "He is involved, I know that."

This comes from the WSJ, but you'll need a subscription to read it there.

Now the KRG sees fit to do business with this bunch of devils? This is treason against the Kurdish people.

Aydan Kodaloğlu, the founder of the AK Group International in question, is a former board member of the ATC (American Turkish Council--not so much an "advocacy group" as an MİT asset), and "is a recognized expert on Turkish-American and Turkish-Israeli relations. Ms. Kodaloglu was a member of official delegations of former President Turgut Ozal and Prime Ministers Suleyman Demirel, and Tansu Ciller and was involved in the planning for the official visit to Turkey of former U.S. President George Bush." So this woman is clearly no friend of the Kurdish people and there should be extreme public censure of those Kurds who choose to do business with her.

That the Prince of Darkness himself has a pedigree that's also hostile to the Kurdish people, as well as to any theoretical description of democracy. Perle holds a position of prominence in Sibel Edmonds' gallery of rogues but, as Sibel's information shows, scumbags like Perle have long profited from Turkey and for Turkey:

Someone has to be in the middle (of the Turkish, Israeli, American military/economic machine) to keep the happy affair going, so enter the neocons, intent on securing Israel against all comers and also keen to turn a dollar. In fact the neocons seem to have a deep and abiding interest in Turkey, which, under other circumstances, might be difficult to explain. Doug Feith's International Advisors Inc, a registered agent for Turkey in 1989 - 1994, netted $600,000 per year from Turkey, with Richard Perle taking $48,000 annually as a consultant.

[ . . . ]

Contracts in the hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars provide considerable fat for those well placed to benefit. Investigators are also looking at Israel's particular expertise in the illegal sale of US military technology to countries like China and India. Fraudulent end-user certificates produced by Defense Ministries in Israel and Turkey are all that is needed to divert military technology to other, less benign, consumers. The military-industrial-complex/neocon network is also well attested. Doug Feith has been associated with Northrup Grumman for years, while defense contractors fund many neocon-linked think tanks and "information" services. Feith, Perle and a number of other neocons have long had beneficial relationships with various Israeli defense contractors.

There's more on that at Deep Journal. Let's not forget that Perle was one of the co-authors of the "Clean Break" that created the alliance between the members of the Iron Triangle--the US, Israel, and Turkey.

Kiss democracy in South Kurdistan goodbye; Show's over, folks.

The Ankara regime is using the excuse of the Güngören bombing to bomb civilians in South Kurdistan. Fırat News reports that the villagers have emptied Bokriskan village in the Qendil region. The Turkish military conducted aerial bombing over the Balekan valley, Lewce, Inzo, and Bokriskan villages, and Geliye Bedran. In the villages where civilians were targeted, a lot of animals have been killed and the irrigation project under construction in Bokriskan has been totally destroyed. The people themselves have fled to Çoman and Ranya.

The PUK confirmed the attacks. HPG confirmed that Turkish aircraft had bombed civilian areas and also confirmed that it suffered no casualties--in stark contrast to the BS being served up in Turkish media. The attacks started forest fires in the Zap and Haftanin regions. Not too surprising as the entire region has been suffering a severe drought for months now.

On 27 July, the Turkish military conducted a comprehensive attack against PJAK positions, reinforcing the fact that Turkey and Iran are cooperating in their war against the Kurdish people.

On 24 July, Turkish aircraft attacked Çemço, Saca, and Şamke villages in the Zap region. On 19 July at 1920 hours, TSK artillery shelled the villages of Maye, Ormana, and Ura, in Kanimasi, Amediye region. At 0200 hours on the same day, Turkish bombing began and did not end until 0720 hours. On 18 July at 1230 hours, Turkish aircraft bombed the Deraluk district, Nerwe and Rekane villages, also in the Amediye region.

Yesterday, I mentioned that the grenades found in the Ergenekon house in Istanbul Ümraniye had been traced to Şemdinli. Today, Radikal has a fairly long article on the subject. To make a long story short, the Ergenekon chief prosecutor Zekeriya Öz ordered an investigation into the grenades. That investigation shows that the grenades were seized in a police operation against Turkish Hezbollah in Şırnak, in 1999. There, the grenades were further linked to a TSK major, Mehmet Zekeriya Öztürk, an Ergenekon member who had been stationed in Şırnak from August 1997 to August 1999.

Yaşar Büyükanıt, now the chief of the Turkish general staff, served in The Southeast from 1997 to 2000. Like the Ergenekon grenades, Büyükanıt was also linked to the Şemdinli bombing when he admitted that he knew the bombers, TSK non-commissioned officers Ali Kaya and Özcan İldeniz. Büyükanıt said that he knew them and that they were "good boys". In fact, Büyükanıt knew them so well that when Van prosecutor Ferhat Sarıkaya tried to indict Büyükanıt for his involvement in the Şemdinli bombing, Sarıkaya was told to shut up, go away, and don't bother practicing law ever again.

Büyükanıt is also a party to the Dolmabahçe Deal with the AKP. And so the Deep State comes full circle.

SPEAKING OF INJUSTICE

"Injustice boils in men's hearts as does steel in its cauldron, ready to pour forth, white hot, in the fullness of time."
~ Mother Jones.

Ahmet Türk had a few things to say today about the Ergenekon gang and the AKP closure case, from Zaman:

At a parliamentary group meeting yesterday, Türk pointed out that there have been many gangs in the history of Turkey. “We know that since the establishment of the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa [an Ottoman intelligence agency] in 1915-1917, state assassins have been used in certain killings,” Türk said.

He added that the activities of gangs intensify when the Kurdish question is on the agenda.

“Ergenekon and similar gangs are holding the society like an octopus. We want these gangs to be uncovered completely, but the investigation is not going in this direction. We are seeing a power struggle, not a struggle for a transparent and democratic state,” he said.

This follows additional Ergenekon arrests over the last weekend, which included: Doğu Perinçek, chairman of Turkey's Worker's Party (İşçi Partisi--a hardline nationalist party); İlhan Selcuk, the editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet newspaper; and Kemal Alemdaroğlu, former rector of Istanbul University. The main battle here appears to be between AKP and the secularists, particularly CHP, with CHP chairman Deniz Baykal accusing AKP of "trying to build its own 'deep state'" and Erdoğan responding with "If there is a deep state in this country, you (Baykal) would be one to know it best. You are the architecture of the deep state."

Thus the poo-flinging rages fast and furious in this power struggle. Of course, all of this leads people to suspect that the Ergenekon investigation has now become a tool for AKP to use against its enemies, who brought a closure case against it.

That brings us to Ahmet Türk's comments on AKP's closure:

"The government did not show any reaction when the court case opened against us, but today they are seeking formulas to save themselves. Bring the new constitution to Parliament and, if you don’t have a majority, submit it to the public. But you are only out to save yourself."

Certainly AKP is only out to save itself; it's not the "democratic" party that ignoramuses in the West would have us believe. On that, check the points of failure enumerated by Cengiz Çandar at TDN:

If you stop halfway and push the decision with some other calculations in mind to dig out anti-democratic structures within the state structure and seek reconciliation, then the "Ergenekon boomerang" will come back and hit you through the closure indictment.

If you do not adopt a decent and determined approach to the closure of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) and needlessly impose in parliamentary sessions and say "I will not speak with you until you name the PKK terrorists," then you suddenly share the same fate with it.

Instead of undertaking the responsibility to do your best as the executive party in the Dink murder investigation, but rather adopt a different attitude and say "the issue has been transferred to the judiciary," making excuses about Article 301 and any anti-democratic provisions in the legal system yet say "Let's see the implementations," you would be "transferred to the judiciary" all of a sudden.

How can the AKP have a right to object to the closure case, if there is inconsistency in its own acts?

The AKP's wrongdoings are innumerable. You name it; from putting the draft constitution on hold and focusing on the headscarf issue, which unnecessarily turned the political agenda upside down, to not touching the Political Parties Law as one of the by-products of the 1983 Constitution in its fifth year in the government.

The case against the AKP finds legal ground with the current Political Parties Law.

The Political Parties Law, forumlated by the MGK (National Security Council) in 1983, "which was intended to regulate the formation of political parties in advance of the November 1983 National Assembly elections, stipulates that political organizations cannot be based on class, religion, race, or language distinctions . . . Political parties are prohibited from criticizing the military intervention of September 1980 or the actions or decisions of the NSC. The Political Parties Law empowers the NSC and its successor, the Presidential Council, to investigate all party members and candidates for office and to declare any unsuitable."

Ahmet Türk had some words about state-sponsored Newroz violence:

Türk said that before Nevruz they had met with Interior Minister Beşir Atalay and asked him to give the DTP permission to hold celebrations at its own discretion. He said Atalay told them the decision had to be made by the individual governorates.

“We warned them. If we had been allowed to celebrate as a party according to our own schedule, we would have been able to establish discipline. But we witnessed terrible events that we wish we hadn’t had to see,” Türk said.

Apparently, DTP has additional video of the violence which it will submit to Erdoğan and Gül. If no results come from that--and the real shocker would be if results did, in fact, come from the AKP--then DTP plans on releasing the video to the international public to "pass judgement on the videos."

But there's an easy explanation for the failure which is AKP, and that explanation is widely known and is not limited to the Ergenekon case:

But the “Justice and Development Party” is not concerned with justice, but with control, no matter which means, which compromises, which approval were needed for this control…The AKP’s control is guaranteed by the “mutual agreement in Dolmabahce Palace” which Prime Minister Erdogan and Chief of General Staff Büyükanit made, and it is thus naïve to think that justice will be handed out to anyone at a higher level than retired general Veli Kücük. The fact that the AKP has formed a single-party government has made it easy to remain committed to this agreement. On the other hand, this agreement gives the AKP a free hand to deal with the “extra-parliamentarian” pursuits which do not clash with the protected zones of the General Staff.

Ain't that the truth?