US EMBASSY ANKARA CABLEGATE DOCUMENTS

"This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community."
~ Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

You can read or search the Wikileaks secret US embassy cables at this site. If you'd like to cut to the chase for the moment, you can browse all the cables from the US Embassy in Ankara here.

I haven't made a thorough search of the site yet, but did check out the Ankara cables first. At this point there doesn't seem to be anything shocking in the revelations . . . at least, if you know the real situation in Turkey, there's nothing really shocking, nothing to justify old woman Clinton's hysterics.

Germany's Spiegel Online has an interesting take on the Ankara Embassy cables, though:

The leaked diplomatic cables reveal that US diplomats are skeptical about Turkey's dependability as a partner. The leadership in Ankara is depicted as divided and permeated by Islamists.

SHOCK!! He,he, just kidding. Spiegel Online continues:

The US diplomats' verdict on the NATO partner with the second biggest army in the alliance is devastating. The Turkish leadership is depicted as divided, and Erdogan's advisers, as well as Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, are portrayed as having little understanding of politics beyond Ankara.

The Americans are also worried about Davutoglu's alleged neo-Ottoman visions. US diplomats quote one high-ranking government adviser as saying that Davutoglu would use his Islamist influence on Erdogan, describing him as "exceptionally dangerous." According to the US document, another adviser to the ruling AKP party remarked, probably ironically, that Turkey wanted "to take back Andalusia and avenge the defeat at the siege of Vienna in 1683."

The US diplomats write that many leading figures in the AKP were members of a Muslim fraternity and that Erdogan had appointed Islamist bankers to influential positions. He gets his information almost exclusively from newspapers with close links to Islamists, they reported. The prime minister, the cables continue, has surrounded himself with an "iron ring of sycophantic (but contemptuous) advisors" and presents himself as the "Tribune of Anatolia."

"Sycophantic" advisors?! Personally, I prefer to call them "toadies" but sycophantic advisors will work.

Frankly, yes, the AKP is far more dangerous than the paşas. On the other hand, who's in charge of the "Muslim fraternity" quoted in the cables, according to Spiegel Online? Where is this leader living? Why, in the US itself and he's got his own green card. You'd think after all the problems the US has had with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, they'd give up on aiding and abetting Islamists. But now they're whining about the problems their Turkish Islamists are causing them.

BOOO-HOOO-HOOOOOOOO!!

According to the Cablegate site, 278 of the 251,287 cables have been released so far. It's definitely worth watching what's next.

It'll also be worth watching to see if Katil Erdoğan is going to prosecute the US for its criticism of him, like what happened to some students in Istanbul recently or to Hürriyet . . . or to another journalist . . . or to Musa Kart . . . or to Michael Dickinson, et cetera, ad nauseum.

Best in Show ~ Michael Dickinson

Tribune of Anatolia, indeed. What a weenie.

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.

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.

AT THE HEART OF THE MATTER: CENTRAL ASIA

"This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam."
~ Sibel Edmonds.

Luke Ryland has done it again:

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds dropped a bombshell on the Mike Malloy radio show, guest-hosted by Brad Friedman (audio, partial transcript).

In the interview, Sibel says that the US maintained 'intimate relations' with Bin Laden, and the Taliban, "all the way until that day of September 11."

These 'intimate relations' included using Bin Laden for 'operations' in Central Asia, including Xinjiang, China. These 'operations' involved using al Qaeda and the Taliban in the same manner "as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict," that is, fighting 'enemies' via proxies.

As Sibel has previously described, and as she reiterates in this latest interview, this process involved using Turkey (with assistance from 'actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia') as a proxy, which in turn used Bin Laden and the Taliban and others as a proxy terrorist army.

Control of Central Asia

The goals of the American 'statesmen' directing these activities included control of Central Asia's vast energy supplies and new markets for military products.

The Americans had a problem, though. They needed to keep their fingerprints off these operations to avoid a) popular revolt in Central Asia ( Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan), and b) serious repercussions from China and Russia. They found an ingenious solution: Use their puppet-state Turkey as a proxy, and appeal to both pan-Turkic and pan-Islam sensibilities.

Turkey, a NATO ally, has a lot more credibility in the region than the US and, with the history of the Ottoman Empire, could appeal to pan-Turkic dreams of a wider sphere of influence. The majority of the Central Asian population shares the same heritage, language and religion as the Turks.

In turn, the Turks used the Taliban and al Qaeda, appealing to their dreams of a pan-Islamic caliphate (Presumably. Or maybe the Turks/US just paid very well.)

According to Sibel:

This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.

Uighurs

Sibel was recently asked to write about the recent situation with the Uighurs in Xinjiang, but she declined, apart from saying that "our fingerprint is all over it."

Of course, Sibel isn't the first or only person to recognize any of this. Eric Margolis, one of the best reporters in the West on matters of Central Asia, stated that the Uighurs in the training camps in Afghanistan up to 2001:

"were being trained by Bin Laden to go and fight the communist Chinese in Xinjiang, and this was not only with the knowledge, but with the support of the CIA, because they thought they might use them if war ever broke out with China."

And also that:

"Afghanistan was not a hotbed of terrorism, these were commando groups, guerrilla groups, being trained for specific purposes in Central Asia."

In a separate interview, Margolis said:

"That illustrates Henry Kissinger's bon mot that the only thing more dangerous than being America's enemy is being an ally, because these people were paid by the CIA, they were armed by the US, these Chinese Muslims from Xinjiang, the most-Western province.

The CIA was going to use them in the event of a war with China, or just to raise hell there, and they were trained and supported out of Afghanistan, some of them with Osama Bin Laden's collaboration. The Americans were up to their ears with this."

Read the whole piece at Against All Enemies.

The comment I have is to urge everyone to read The Grand Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski. The entire book is available for download here.

Brzezinski's thesis in the book would appear to be:

"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia... Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia - and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained."--p. 38 of the online version.

Here's some reinforcement:

"It follows that America's primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it." --p. 148.

"Global community" means the corporate world and vermin like those at Goldman Sachs, naturally.

Then there are these interesting items:

"Moreover, they [the Central Asian Republics] are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold."--p. 124.

"The world's energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or three decades. Estimates by the U.S. Department of energy anticipate that world demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East. The momentum of Asia's economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea." --p. 125.

Or how about this:

"In fact, an Islamic revival - already abetted from the outside not only by Iran but also by Saudi Arabia - is likely to become the mobilizing impulse for the increasingly pervasive new nationalisms, determined to oppose any reintegration under Russian - and hence infidel - control." -- p. 133.

And abetted from the outside by the US, too. Instead of "infidel control", simply put a Turkish proxy in there like, say, Gülen schools, to educate the children of the upper classes so that they'll be good Muslims sufficiently under the control of the US.


Brzezinski's ideas about Uzbekistan are interesting:

"Uzbekistan is, in fact, the prime candidate for regional leadership in Central Asia." --p. 130.

Why?

"Uzbekistan, nationally the most vital and the most populous of the central Asian states, represents the major obstacle to any renewed Russian control over the region. Its independence is critical to the survival of the other Central Asian states, and it is the least vulnerable to Russian pressures." --p. 121.

Could control over Uzbekistan have been the reason for linking the Fethullahçı to the assassination attempt of Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov in 1999?

I wonder, too, if, at the time of writing this book, Brzezinski was anticipating the next "Pearl Harbor" in order to make an outright move to control an area he obviously believes is crucial to maintain US hegemony:

"The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. -- p. 24-25.

In light of the shock effect of the attacks of September 11, 2001, is this statement merely a coincidence?

Is it also coincidence that Brzezinski so glowingly endorsed Obama and that Obama now continues the war in Afghanistan and expands it to Pakistan?

And why did Obama lie about his relationship with Brzezinski?

Change you can believe in, all the way back to the Carter administration:

The CIA’s proposal [to "slow down Soviet progress in Afghanistan but also help deflect some of the energy of Middle Eastern Muslims, inspired by the Iranian revolution"] found a sponsor in Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Polish émigré and fierce anticommunist hawk. Brzezinski, an academic who had done work for the CIA, believed the Afghan situation offered the United States a rare opportunity to frustrate the Soviet’s expansionist goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He recommended covert assistance to the Islamic fighters. On July 3, 1979, President Carter signed a directive authorizing nonlethal support. On that same day, Brzezinski said he sent a note the president saying his actions would result in direct military intervention by the Soviets.

And it did.

Another thing . . . it's not just the Turks in Central Asia who are helping to achieve US domination of that vast region. Check the activities of MASHAV, including Israeli military activity, in Central Asia and you will see that the Iron Triangle--the US, Turkey, and Israel--is alive and well in the heart of the Eurasian landmass.



On a separate note, I'm happy to announce that I have been invited by Sibel Edmonds to contribute from time to time at her blog. But Sibel has the details on that and there should be something coming up fairly soon. I'll keep you posted.

THE EVIL REGIME

"No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand."
~ J. Michael Straczynski.

As if it weren't enough that Turkish Special Operations police weren't cracking the heads of Kurdish kids in Hakkari, you should check out the recent post at Children of the Sun:

In Wan (Van) an armored police vehicle hit a seven year old Kurdish girl. The girl, named Maziye Aslan, died at the scene. Maybe one day people who are not Kurdish will understand that the song Mihemedo is there for a reason...

Below is translation of the article by Hasan Bildirici published in Kurdistan Post on 26 April 2009 in response to the recent brutality of special forces who caused death of a child and smashed skull of another child with butt of a rifle (check the posts at Zerkesorg or Hevallo for details):

"We don't expect justice from you; we are just warning you:

"Don't hit our children! We want to remind you that hitting children is a sick behaviour.

"It's not your women who gave birth to the children of Kurdistan, a country you have invaded; you haven't fed those children. You didn't caress their head in sickness and hunger.

"Your crap-faced officers have melted those kids' fathers in acid wells; dragged mother and grandmothers of those children at the gates of Diyarbakir [Amed] prisons, just because a word in Kurdish slipped out their mouth...

"All those bravery tales you tell your women and children are lies. It's true that you try your bravery on our women, who throw their scarfs aside and march on the streets and our dark-eyed children who circle around your vehicles..."

And there's more there on state atrocities against Kurdish children, so don't miss this one, either.

Now, let me see . . . what was it that son-of-a-bitch Erdoğan said at Davos?

"When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill. I know well how you hit and kill children on beaches."

It looks like the shoe fits and the Murderer Erdoğan has been walking around in the shoe since, at least, March 2006, from HRW:

On March 29, members of the public—and in particular male youths—attending the funerals of the PKK militants, clashed violently with police, throwing stones and petrol bombs. In street battles that took place in Diyarbakır over the next days, the police fired bullets, gas grenades, and stones at the rioters, killing eight civilians. Ten people died in all and some, such as 78-year-old Halit Söğüt, beaten to death, were clearly bystanders. Three of the dead were children: nine-year-old Abdullah Duran, eight-year-old Ismail Erkek and six-year-old Enes Ata. (A bullet fired by police during similar disturbances in Batman also killed three-year-old Fatih Tekin on March 31.)

[ . . . ]

. . . [Y]our government has repeatedly failed to confront the security forces’ reckless use of violence and hold accountable those who are responsible through administrative and criminal penalties. Not only has the government failed to penalize those who commit such violations, you have not even condemned the sudden increase in the use of lethal force. Instead your statement in the days following the deaths that “[t]he security forces will intervene against the pawns of terrorism, no matter if they are children or women" appeared to excuse the security forces from any responsibility even for the four children they had killed. Your government’s failure to do condemn the use of excessive force and hold accountable those who have violated international policing standards contributes to the atmosphere of impunity for law enforcement that prevails in Turkey and increases the likelihood that there will be further such violations.

Obviously this evil regime has committed "further such violations" and it continues to do so. After the Amed Serhildan, the HRW letter goes on to discuss the number of those arrested, including 199 Kurdish children, and Murderer Erdoğan's security forces did the same things they have continued to do, even until today:

The Diyarbakır branch of the Human Rights Association interviewed A.T., a fourteen-year old boy, on April 3, 2006. He said: “I was detained on March 29. About fifteen police beat me with truncheons. My right arm was broken, but they dragged me in that condition for about 100 metres, and then took me to the sports hall of the Security Directorate... They beat me with truncheons, refused permission for me to use the toilet, and made me constantly stand and sit... In the morning at 3:00 am they made me go to sleep, and then woke me up at 5:00 and beat me with truncheons again.”

Behold, the Fethullahçı's Kurdish policy!

Yes, Murderer Erdoğan, you know very well how to hit children and kill them, whether they are in your prison, in a wide open rural area, in the streets of Wan or Hakkari, or drowning in rivers while fleeing your filthy thugs.

And you do the same to Kurdish women, again from HRW:

F.K., a forty-six year old woman, gave the following account on April 5, 2006: “On March 28 I went to collect my daughter from school. While going to the Koşuyolu district, police stopped me, insisting that I had been throwing stones. Giving me no opportunity to respond, they beat me and detained me. They first took me to the sports hall at the Security Directorate, and then to the Anti-Terror Branch. They constantly beat, cursed and insulted me ... They hit me, struck me with truncheons on every part of my body (my back, my arm, my legs, but especially my head). I felt constantly nauseous from the blows I received... they gave me one meal in three days but I could not eat it... a policewoman pulled my hair.” She also described perfunctory medical examinations at which police insisted on being present.

Erdoğan's police did the very same thing in Van during Newroz 2008:

And this is the evil regime that the entire world supports--this evil regime that refuses to admit it's role in the first genocide of the twentieth century as well as its ongoing occupation and genocide of the Kurdish people.

And when the Murderer Erdoğan fails in legitimate elections, when his washing machines and refrigerators and bribes fail to buy The Southeast, he rounds up and arrests members of the only opposition party in Turkey, the pro-Kurdish DTP. But this also goes back to March 2006 because that was when the Murderer Erdoğan first refused to talk to DTP. For three years, Murderer Erdoğan has refused to speak to DTP.

Yes, Katil Erdoğan, when it comes to murder, you know very well how to murder. I know how well you hit and murder Kurdish children in the land you occupy, the land whose true name terrifies you.

There is only one answer and it stretches from İmralı to the mountains, and beyond.

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DEEP STATE

"Many Americans, due to the effective propaganda and spin machine of Turkey’s agents in the U.S., and relentless efforts by high-level officials and lobbying groups on Turkish networks’ payroll, do not know much about Turkey; its position and importance in the areas of terrorism, money laundering, illegal arms sales, industrial and military espionage, and the nuclear black-market."
~ Sibel Edmonds.

Luke Ryland has posted a partial transcript of Sibel Edmonds' interview on Electric Politics on 10 April. His partial transcript covers heroin, the Turkish-Israeli lobby in the US, the US Deep State, state secrets privilege and Susurluk, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the worthless US media.

Luke has also posted his own commentary on the interview at his own blog, Against All Enemies. Luke's own comments are always insightful because they're based on his extensive knowledge of the Sibel Edmonds case.

Because I know that he's particularly knowledgeable about this case, I'm not surprised that he found a mistake in my earlier post about the interview. At that time, I had mentioned that Murat Demirel was the brother of Süleyman Demirel, which was incorrect. Murat was the nephew of Süleyman Demirel as Luke correctly points out.

However, I don't feel too badly about the mistake given that there were so many members of the vastly corrupt Demirel tribe that were involved with some very shady banking dealings that ultimately led to Turkey's banking collapse at the end of the 1990s.

Süleyman Demirel's brother, Şevket Demirel--the father of Murat--was involved with Murat in the collapse of Egebank as was Murat's sister Neslihan, his wife Aysenur, and 36 other employees. There's no mention if those other employees were also Demirel family members. The Demirel's pillaged at least $1.2 billion from Egebank and apparently farmed the cash out to a variety of "front [i.e. phony] companies and offshore banks in northern Cyprus and the Virgin Islands".

The night before Egebank was seized by the Ankara regime, Murat Demirel was caught on security camera video carrying out suitcases of cash from Egebank's vaults. His uncle, Süleyman, was still president at the time and no doubt had something to do with tipping of the rest of the tribe as to the state's pending seizure of the bank. More on that at WRMEA.

Later, Murat received credits from Halkbank through other "firms":

It has been found out that Murat Demirel, the former owner of Egebank and who was imprisoned, used credits worth of 96 million dollars, 12,5 million marks and 38.5 billion liras from Halbank's branch in Levent district of Istanbul. The illegal credits given by the bank to 20 separate firms will be closely examined.

The fall of the Turkish banks was precipitated by the Susurluk Scandal and the closing of Turkish casinos, as mentioned in Sibel's interview. It would appear that the Ankara regime wanted to move the money-laundering operation of it's heroin industry out of the country to Azerbaijan and Central Asia to give itself the ability to claim plausible denial regarding those operations.

As late as two years ago, the old drug-runners were gathering in Azerbaijan. But that was before most of them were picked up in the Ergenekon fiasco. Just as those old Deep Staters consolidated the heroin industry under Tansu Çiller, Süleyman Demirel, and the Islamist Necmettin Erbakan, so now the Fethullahçı, through the AKP, are consolidating the heroin industry under their control. Ergenekon is the Fethullahçı struggle for control of the Deep State.

We should consider that Fethullah Gülen is the most likely candidate to be heading the money-laundering of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of heroin money through Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and, from there, is funneling the laundered money out through his empire of holding companies, banks, and schools around the world, including Central Asia. Remember:

Gülen now helps set the political agenda in Turkey using his followers in the AKP as well as the movement's vast media empire, financial institutions and banks, business organizations, an international network of thousands of schools, universities, student residences (ışıkevis), and many associations and foundations. He is a financial heavyweight, controlling an unregulated and opaque budget estimated at $25 billion.[3] It is not clear whether the Fethullahist cemaat (community) supports the AKP or is the ruling force behind AKP. Either way, however, the effect is the same.

Oh, the AKP is the Fethullahçı; of that there is no doubt.

The ability to launder the vast sums of money that Turkey's heroin industry rakes in has become crucial to propping up the capitalist system, as the UN reported earlier this year:

The United Nations' crime and drug watchdog has indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis, its head was quoted as saying on Sunday.

Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in an interview released by Austrian weekly Profil that drug money often became the only available capital when the crisis spiralled out of control last year.

"In many instances, drug money is currently the only liquid investment capital," Costa was quoted as saying by Profil. "In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system's main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor."

Luke Ryland wrote more on Turkey's role in the heroin industry and how this role is kept hushed by The System two years ago.

Just as the Gray Wolves were CIA assets in that organization's Gladio operation in Turkey, so now Gülen is most likely the CIA's most recent asset. He resides in the US, as does Mehmet Eymür, former chief of MİT's "counter-terror" department. He is a green card-holder, as was Abdullah Çatlı--at the time that he was on Interpol's "wanted list", no less. Gülen continues to be supportive of the MHP and BBP. the two Gray Wolf parties, and went so far as to give money, through Ergenekon's Tuncay Güney, to the recently dead Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu so that he could establish BBP. Thus the connections between Gülen and these Turkish-Islamist terrorists continue.

For more on the Deep State, including the role of that nasty old Harman bitch, whose corruption I first mentioned the other day, you need to check out the latest interview by Scott Horton, with Philip Giraldi [Run time slightly over 40 minutes]. Here's something to reflect on, since this is the 24th of April:

SH: . . . Jane Harman had done this major flip-flop and there's a link to a Youtube video of the Armenian lobby group, of a lot of young people protesting quite loudly calling hera a genocide denier. Apparently she was a co-sponsor of the Armenian Genocide recognition resolution, or whatever it was, while at the same time it was discovered that she had written a letter to Tom Lantos to scotch the thing . . . So that reminded me, of course, of Dennis Hastert because, I believe the story goes, according to Vanity Fair, and Daniel Ellsberg, and people familiar with the Sibel Edmonds case--which I know you've written about--that this was something that Hastert got a direct cash pay-off for--thousands of dollars, the former Speaker of the House--in order to thwart the Armenian Genocide resolution, in order to protect America and, apparently, Israel's relationship with Turkey. Can you expand on that?

PG: Yeah. I think you hit it right on the end there. Ithink that what she [Harman] was doing obviously--she's a congressman from Los Angeles . . . District 34 . . . She has apparently a strong constituency of Armenians who are wealthy and politically-motivated and, so, she was, indeed, one of the co-sponsors. But the Israel lobby and Israel decided they really didn't want this to go ahead for a couple of reasons--the relationship with Turkey being the most important one--and a lot of congressmen, as a result of a shift on the part of Israeli interests, also shifted their votes. So she was one of them. Tom Lantos, of course, was involved with this, too. Nancy Pelosi did a shift on it, as you know. So a lot of it goes back to Israel.

Later:

PG: Let's go back to our Turkish example. Why are the Turks so cosy with the Israelis? Do they have any real community of interests? You know, they have some common enemies in the area, and so on and so forth, but the big reason is that being chummy with the Israelis is a big plus for the Turks vis-a-vis the United States.

There's a lot more there about corruption, heroin, the military-industrial complex, the American Turkish Council, and all the rest of that good, old, Deep State criminality stuff.

If any of these Deep Staters had even the slightest nano-particle of honor, they'd blow their own brains out.

I'm just saying.

ASSIMILATION AND SERVITUDE

"The pressure that has been brought to bear upon the native people, since the cessation of armed conflict, in the attempt to force conformity of custom and habit has caused a reaction more destructive than war."
~ Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux.

It's confirmed. The attack against students at Salahaddin University was an operation approved at the highest levels of the KRG. From Nêçîrvan Barzanî:

"We are not going to allow this land to be used against Turkey. Therefore, we stopped the protest held in Erbil [Hewlêr] for the anniversary of Ocalan's capture."

There is nothing here that indicates the students were rioting or otherwise acting in a threatening manner. The only violence came from the regime, something that has been standard operating procedure for protest in South Kurdistan since at least the time of Şîrvan Qaderî's murder by the mullah regime to the east.


More from Nêçîrvan, who responds to the journalist's question about what kind of message the KRG is sending to PKK by allowing the Abant Platform conference to be held in Hewlêr on 15 and 16 February:

"This conference doesn't have anything to do with PKK. Here we are talking about how to solve the problems peacefully. As long as the issue is peace, we accept everything. Besides, we do not care as much about PKK as you think."

If you google Abant Platform, you'll hit a link that directs you to--tah-dah!--Fethullah Gülen's website. Surprise, surprise, surprise! Or maybe not, considering that Hewlêr is also home to one of Fethullah Gülen's colleges. For more on the Fethullahçı invasion of South Kurdistan, check this from a year ago.

Nêçîrvan is also asked if he called any Kurdish artists to "ask" them to appear on TRT 6. Here's what he said:

"Yes. I called Rojîn and told her how important that step was and I encouraged her. I also called some other artists. For instance, Ciwan Haco. I encouraged him as well."

Ciwan Haco did not comply.

It doesn't matter if all the Barzanîs and all the Talabanîs lined up on their knees before Erdoğan, Gül, Gülen, or Başbuğ to play the role of servants to the Ankara regime. They will never accept Kurds as Kurds until a very serious scenario plays out in Turkey. No amount of Turkish propaganda in Kurdish will change that either.

However, as long as the Fethullahçı run the show in South Kurdistan, assimilation will be the fate of Kurds there--at least among the Southern Kurdish elites. Clearly this option is already well underway.

NOTE: There's a new link under the blog roll in the right margin. Welcome Serhat Daran, a member of the Swedish crowd. He writes in Swedish, but English users can visit Google's language tools to get a decent translation. Serkeftin!

BAD SIGNS, HYPOCRISY, AND COWARDICE

"The U.S. has done more to assist Turkey in its fight against the PKK than any other country. In full coordination with the Turkish government, we have used our diplomatic, military, and intelligence resources to combat PKK operations, logistics, and fundraising. This cooperation continues today, and has saved Turkish lives."
~ Joseph Ralston, Lockheed Martin lobbyist.

A bad sign for Ker Kurê Kerdoğan:




From KorucuTV (TRT 6) and Bugün. And the fake Kurds at the Bugün article complain in the comments about how embarrassed they are to see such a sign because Bugün explains what "ker" means.

Where in the hell have the fake Kurds been all this time? People have been referring to Kerdoğan for some time now.

Turkish journalism awards for 2008 have been announced and SURPRISE, SURPRISE, nothing for Taraf. I do notice, however, that there's an award for a charicature of Hüseyin Üzmez, the Fethullahçı septuagenarian who recently made news for sexual abuse of his 14-year-old "bride" and AKP attempts to lower the age of marriage to 14 for girls. How convenient. Remember, these are the people the US supports. More on that child-bride bullshit, here.

A Turkish "humanitarian delegation" was finally allowed to enter Gaza. For some reason, the Ankara regime can't understand why there was a "brutal" hold-up with their aid:

“We cannot understand why the Turkish delegation faced an almost brute force approach and wasn’t let in, although a lot of foreign delegations, including French, German and Irish ones, were let in. We cannot understand this harsh stance by the Egyptian authorities. We are going to that region only for humanitarian purposes, and most of the delegation members are doctors anyway,” a member of the delegation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Anatolia news agency on Saturday.

Well, maybe everyone was a little nervous because much of the aid was transported by the Turkish Red Crescent, and Turkish Red Crescent is well known for carrying arms shipments. There's no reason why a rational person should not believe that the Islamist Ankara regime would not be trying to ship arms to Islamist HAMAS.

In the meantime, Turkish families are sponsoring Palestinian orphans, something they've never done for the Kurdish orphans they've created in both North and South Kurdistan for more than 80 years now. In fact, they applaud the murder of Kurdish infants and children by TSK because it's helping to get rid of their "terrorist" problem.

I continue to find the Ankara regime's attitude towards HAMAS to be highly hypocritical, according to Babacan:

They have made mistakes, too. On the other hand it is impossible to ensure peace by ignoring Hamas.

On the other hand, it's impossible to ensure peace by ignoring PKK, no matter what Lockheed Martin or Babacan say.

In other news, Turkey, the US, Iraq, and the Southern Kurds are setting up a "joint command center" in Hewlêr to combat the big, bad PKK. This is going to be an intelligence dispersal point so that the Americans can continue to give intel to the Ankara regime so it can continue to bomb civilian areas in South Kurdistan, with the blessing of Baghdad and the Southern Kurds. They'll probably move the Israelis from Batman to Hewlêr to help with the effort as well.

Good luck with that. These same groups have been fighting against PKK since the 1990s and have failed miserably. Besides, this move should be seen for what it is: a piss-poor excuse to avoid doing what they are afraid of doing. And what all of them--Turkey, the US, Israel, Iraq, and the KRG--are afraid of doing is growing a pair and actually going to the mountains to fight. But, then, it's so much easier to simply blast away at Kurdish civilians with targets provided by the US and Israel. . .

THE NEOCONS AND FETHULLAH GÜLEN

"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."
~ Thomas Patrick Carroll.

The neocons are upset with Turkey again and particularly with Fethullah Gülen's AKP. This month's edition of The Middle East Quarterly, a publication of the neoconservative Middle East Forum and whose editor is the extremely anti-Kurdish Michael Rubin--also of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)--has an article on Gülen that was most likely dictated by the paşas. The author is the director of the Turkish Media Project at MEMRI.

Here's something on MEMRI from Sourcewatch:

According to its website, founded in February 1998 "to inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East, MEMRI is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization. MEMRI's headquarters is located in Washington, DC with branch offices in Berlin, London, and Jerusalem, where MEMRI also maintains its Media Center. MEMRI research is translated to English, German, Hebrew, Italian, French, Spanish, Turkish, and Russian."

MEMRI's stance is that it is opposed to Islamic fundamentalism, not Islam itself, although the integrity of this position may be questioned because of links on MEMRI's website to certain evangelical Christian organizations who take a harder line on Islam. Yigal Carmon, MEMRI's founder, is a former advisor on terrorism to the Israeli Prime Ministers, Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin, so he actually worked for both Labor and Likud governments. Praise for MEMRI should be taken with a grain of salt since it is almost always motivated by politics, not the quantity or quality of MEMRI's work.

MEMRI has gained currency with most pro-Israel writers, as well as right-wing publications. For example, New York Times writer Thomas Friedman, a influential foreign affairs columnist, has used MEMRI translations a number of times in his columns. MEMRI is cited in several publications, such as The Times, The Washington Times, The Weekly Standard, The Jerusalem Post, The National Review, The Toronto Sun, Wall Street Journal, Libertad, FrontPageMagazine, Columbia Journalism Review, Associated Press, etc.

Also, from Rightweb:

According to MEMRI—which maintains offices in Washington, Berlin, London, Tokyo, and Jerusalem—its main subjects of interest include jihad and terrorism, U.S. and Mideast politics, reform in the Arab and Muslim world, Arab-Israeli conflict, inter-Arab relations, economic studies, and Arab antisemitism. MEMRI's slogan, "Bridging the Language Gap Between the Middle East and the West," does not convey the institute's stridently pro-Israel and anti-Arab political bias. MEMRI was previously more forthcoming about its political orientation in its self-description and in staff profiles on its website. But its website now offers no information about its staff, board of directors, or funding.

[ . . . ]

The background of MEMRI's founders illuminates its political orientation. Yigal Carmon is a reserve colonel in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), having served in the IDF/Intelligence Branch from 1968 to 1988. In that capacity, Carmon, who was born in Romania, was acting head of the civil administration in the West Bank from 1977 to 1982. He served as counterterrorism adviser to premiers Shamir and Menachem Begin from 1988 to 1993. In 1991 and 1992 Carmon was a senior member of the Israeli delegation to peace negotiations with Syria in Madrid and Washington.

Meyrav Wurmser, an Israeli-born analyst of Mideast affairs, received her doctorate from George Washington University in Washington, DC, where she wrote on Zeev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement. According to Arab Media Watch , Jabotinsky "brokered the marriage between Zionism and fascism." Wurmser, who has taught at Johns Hopkins University and the U.S. Naval Academy, is a central figure in the right-wing's web of Middle East policy institutes, as is her husband, David Wurmser. According to the Hudson Institute, "Through her work at MEMRI [she] helped to educate policymakers about the Palestinian Authority two-track approach to 'negotiating peace' with Israel: calling for peace in the English press and with Western policymakers while inciting hatred and violence through official Arab language media." Before joining the George W. Bush administration as a State Department policy adviser under John Bolton, her husband was an American Enterprise Institute scholar and associate of the Middle East Forum.

Just as during the last few years Michael Rubin has written paşa-inspired anti-AKP articles at The Middle East Forum and the AEI, so the current anti-Fethullahçı piece at The Middle East Forum is an interesting work of propaganda and, like all good propaganda, it uses truth to weave together a number of whoppers. For example, on the number of mosques and imams in Turkey:

Today, Turkey has over 85,000 active mosques, one for every 350 citizens—compared to one hospital for every 60,000 citizens—the highest number per capita in the world and, with 90,000 imams, more imams than doctors or teachers. It has thousands of madrasa-like Imam-Hatip schools and about four thousand more official state-run Qur'an courses, not counting the unofficial Qur'an schools, which may expand the total number tenfold.

On Fethullahçı education:

Nurettin Veren, Gülen's right-hand man for thirty-five years, estimated that some 75 percent of Turkey's two million preparatory school students are enrolled in Gülen institutions.[12] He controls thousands of top-tier secondary schools, colleges, and student dormitories throughout Turkey, as well as private universities, the largest being Fatih University in Istanbul. Outside Turkey, his movement runs hundreds of secondary schools and dozens of universities in 110 countries worldwide. Gülen's aim is not altruistic: His followers target youth in the eighth through twelfth grades, mentor and indoctrinate them in the ışıkevi, educate them in the Fethullah schools, and prepare them for future careers in legal, political, and educational professions in order to create the ruling classes of the future Islamist, Turkish state. Taking their orders from Fethullah Gülen, wealthy followers continue to open schools and ışıkevi in what Sabah columnist Emre Aköz called "the education jihad."[13]

The overt network of schools is only one part of a larger strategy. In a 2006 interview, Veren said, "These schools are like shop windows. Recruitment and Islamization activities are carried out through night classes ... Children whom we educated in Turkey are now in the highest positions. There are governors, judges, military officers. There are ministers in the government. They consult Gülen before doing anything."[14]

Just remember that whenever you think about the new Fethullahçı university that's recently opened in Hewlêr and don't be shocked when the next generation of Southern Kurdish leaders "consult Gülen before doing anything."

On the Turkish police, no surprise here:

Fethullahists have also made inroads into Turkey's 200,000-strong police force. Their infiltration has had a compounding effect, as Fethullahist officials have purged officials more loyal to the republic than the hocaefendi. According to Veren, "There are imam security directors; imams wearing police uniforms. Many police commissioners get their orders from imams."[21] Adil Serdar Saçan, former director of the organized crimes unit within the Istanbul Directorate of Security, confirmed these statements in reports he prepared on the Fethullahist organization within the security apparatus. In a 2006 interview, he said . . . At present, over 80 percent of the officers at supervisory level in the general security organization are members of the [Gülen] cemaat.[22]

Now you know why the police were beating the shit out of Kurdish women and children last Newroz and why I blamed it on AKP--the Fethullahçı.

On the TSK and its Islamists:

According to Veren, Gülen has argued that the military expels no more than one in forty Islamist officers; the rest remain in undercover cells. While such allegations may seem the stuff of conspiracy theory, recent leaks to pro-AKP media suggest a number of Islamist sources within the military ranks, creating speculation that followers of Gülen now populate the senior infrastructure of the Turkish General Staff. Such speculation gained additional credence after the August 2008 Supreme Military Council (Yüksek Askeri Şura, YAŞ), which, for the first time, declined to expel suspected Islamists from military ranks.

Just like you read here in August.

There's much more at the article, here, at The Middle East Quarterly.

Of course, I have a really difficult time believing the paşas propaganda which says, as it does in the article, that Taraf is a Fethullahçı paper. If that's true, then why has Taraf had trouble getting advertising revenue? Why couldn't Taraf just get funding from a Fethullahçı bank? Simple answer: Taraf is not Fethullahçı. Why is this neoconservative author complaining about the severe police crackdown against Turkish leftists at Taksim Square last May Day? Since when have neoconservatives ever cared about Leftists or trade unions? Where were the neoconservatives or the extreme right-wing fascist Americans when Leftists were massacred in Taksim Square on May Day in 1977? Well, they don't bitch about that because at the time the paşas were in full control.

The fact also remains that Gülen is a resident of the US, recognized as an educator of "extraordinary ability" even though his only formal education consists of five years of elementary school.

But this article is an expression of frustration between the neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby against the Fethullahçı government's anti-Israel statements over Gaza. They needn't be alarmed, however; in spite of Vecdi Gonul's lie that the AKP government has never signed an arms deal with Israel, Cemil Çiçek, and others, assures everyone to the contrary. In fact, the AKP government did sign a deal with Israel in 2005 for Israeli Heron UAVs, with a pricetag of at least $150 million.

At one time the neoconservatives did support the AKP, with Bush giving his blessing for Erdoğan's takeover of the Prime Ministry, when he was not in any position to take that job due to his conviction for crimes against laiklik.

The US thought it could control the Islamists it backed in Afghanistan and it thought it could control the Islamists it imported into Bosnia. That's just like both the US and Israel thought they could control HAMAS and the paşas thought they could control Turkish Hezbollah. These idiots have always thought this way and they've always been dead wrong.

Well, there's one thing the neoconservatives, the Israel lobby, Gülen, and the paşas all have in common--none of them have ever shed a tear over the Ankara regime's severe repression of the Kurdish people.

JUDGING THE HYPOCRITES

"Surely the hypocrites strive to deceive Allah, and He shall requite their deceit to them, and when they stand up to prayer they stand up sluggishly; they do it only to be seen of men and do not remember Allah save a little."
~ Quran, The Women 4.142.

Here's something you won't see in the corporate lapdog media--Israeli intelligence has been targeting Israelis protesting against the Gaza attacks:

Transcript here.

Remember this? With that in mind, here's something else you're not going to see much of in the corporate lapdog media, from Reuters via Cryptogon:

The U.S. is seeking to hire a merchant ship to deliver hundreds of tonnes of arms to Israel from Greece later this month, tender documents seen by Reuters show.

The U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command (MSC) said the ship was to carry 325 standard 20-foot containers of what is listed as "ammunition" on two separate journeys from the Greek port of Astakos to the Israeli port of Ashdod in mid-to-late January.

A "hazardous material" designation on the manifest mentions explosive substances and detonators, but no other details were given.

"Shipping 3,000-odd tonnes of ammunition in one go is a lot," one broker said, on condition of anonymity.

"This (kind of request) is pretty rare and we haven't seen much of it quoted in the market over the years," he added.

The U.S. Defense Department, contacted by Reuters on Friday in Washington, had no immediate comment.

The MSC transports armour and military supplies for the U.S. armed forces aboard its own fleet, but regularly hires merchant ships if logistics so require.

The request for the ship was made on Dec. 31, with the first leg of the charter to arrive no later than January 25 and the second at the end of the month.

The tender for the vessel follows the hiring of a commercial ship to carry a much larger consignment of ordnance in December from the United States to Israel ahead of air strikes in the Gaza Strip.

A German shipping firm which won that tender confirmed the order when contacted by Reuters but declined to comment further.

And here's something you're never going to see--Emine Erdoğan crying her eyes out for Kurdish repression like she did this weekend for Palestinian repression:


Now this bitch is an ethnic Arab from Siirt, so she knows exactly what the repression is in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan and what kind of atrocities are committed, but I guess she's been taking crocodile-tear crying lessons from Gülen. Speaking of Gülen, Aland Mizell asks how history is going to judge Turkey:

“History will be the judge of Israel,” Prime Minister Erdogan said in a damning speech over the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip while addressing his Justice and Development Party’s (AK) parliamentary group. I wonder how history will judge Turkey. When the Turkish government denied the Kurdish people the most basic right, freedom to speak, when Turkish airplanes pounded bombs onto the mountains killing many innocent Kurdish children; when Erdogan refused to talk to the Democratic Society Party’s (DTP) democratically elected parliamentarians, but he agreed to meet with the Hamas leader in spite of Hamas being on the terrorist list; what will history say? The DTP is also democratically elected by the Kurdish people unlike the Hamas, that has determined to wipe Turkey off of the map and to condemn Israel for not wanting to talk to Hamas. Also, the Hamas does not want to negotiate with Israel because they see negotiation as a sign of weakness, much like the Turkish military does not want to talk to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) because they see bargaining as a sign of weakness.


[ . . . ]

We ask how history will judge Turkey because Turkey killed Ahmet Kaymaz and his twelve-year-old son, Ugur, calling him a terrorist when Ugur was only helping his dad work. But most importantly, Turkey hides, denies, or distorts the historical facts regarding the case. Is this an apparent crime itself when they conceal the truth? The first law of historical writing is telling the truth. When will this administration admit the truth? Not such a long time ago the Turkish government called Kurds “Mountain Turks.” Will they ever apologize for what they did to the Kurds and to the Armenians? Prime Minister Erdogan and Mr. Fethullah Gülen, his mentor, may think their sin may be forgotten; they may believe that they do not need to teach their students the details of history because of their shameful atrocities, but they should know that what is more shameful is not to admit their guilt and to cause others to be ignorant about it.

[ . . . ]

How will history judge Turkey? Still the Kurdish people live in an open-air prison because every step a traveler takes in the Kurdish region of the country he encounters a military checkpoint. Prime Minister Erdogan and Mr. Gülen have conveniently forgotten that Israel tells Hamas either to stop killing innocent Israelis, or we will come after you to make you stop. If Palestinian lives have value, and they do, then Kurdish and Israeli lives are also worthy to live; they are also human beings; they also have feelings. Can Erdogan and Mr. Gülen not see? How many times has the PKK asked for the destruction of the Turkish people? Never has this been its objective. Instead, what the PKK is asking for is justice and equal treatment for all Kurdish people. What Israel is doing in Gaza, Turkey has been doing for many years in Southeastern Turkey and in Northern Kurdistan.

And I'm going to leave it at that because I could go on and on and on about the Ankara regime's hypocrisy towards the repression it implements against the Kurdish people. Let's make no mistake: No matter what kind of show the AKP or their wives put on about their huge concern for atrocities and human rights abuses in Gaza, they're not going to end the relationships that makes them complicit in Gaza atrocities or Kurdistani atrocities.

After all, the MIC is making money hand-over-fist as the recent Turkish-Israeli military hardware deals and the Reuters article linked above prove.

ALREADY IN TROUBLE

"Feto is more dangerous than Apo."
~ Banner protesting Erdoğan during Women's Day protests.

Is President-elect Obama in trouble with the Ankara regime already? Maybe:

“Prison sentence of up to 15 years for OBAMA...

… has been asked for by a prosecutor in a case against him”…

… if you read a report like that do not be bewildered. For the article 305 of the new Turkish Penal Code reads:

Acting Against the Fundamental National Interests

ARTICLE 305 - (1) Those persons who directly or indirectly receives material benefit for himself/herself or for others from foreigners or foreign organizations as a result of or in exchange of committing acts that are against fundamental national interests shall be sentenced to jail for between three and ten years, and a judicial fine of up to ten thousand days. The same sentence shall be given to persons who offer and receive benefit.


[ . . . ]

The preamble of the article clarified the cases where the article would be applied:

“… such as the withdrawal of Turkish soldiers from Cyprus or for the settling of a solution that is disadvantageous for Turkey, or such as making the propaganda by the means of press and media, merely to damage Turkey and as contrary to the facts, that Armenians suffered a genocide at the beginning of the First World War…”

However in quick time it was understood that the preamble would cause a scandal hence that part was omitted when the law was published as a book but it was too late. For the part omitted from the book had not been omitted from the text published in the Official Gazette. Non-governmental organisations and then the European Union inquired about it. The government tried to cover it up by saying “Well there must have been a mistake …” however did nothing to amend the law. Article 305 is there like a dynamite waiting to be ignited and nobody knows on whose head it will explode.

Has Obama violated article 305?

Without doubt. Look at what he said:

“A political solution to be reached through negotiations would end the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus and the tragic division of the Island into two.” Source.

“I will recognise the genocide if I get elected” AA - WASHINGTON – Second leading candidate of Democrat Party in the marathon for setting the candidate for US presidential election due in November, black senator Barack Obama promised to recognise the allegations of “Armenian genocide”. Source.

What about receiving benefit or money in return?

Sure, he beat the record.

According to a report in Wall Street Journal last week, Obama raised 127.2 million dollars and spent 366 thousand dollars in the quarter between February and May. Source.

Yes but he is a foreigner, could article 305 be applied to him?

Let’s go back to the famous preamble of the article. The paragraph 2 of the preamble, it was not felt necessary to sweep that part under the carpet, says:

“Perpetrator of the said offence may be a citizen as well as a foreigner”.

In brief:

1. Obama has publicly said both of the statements which had been given as examples in the preamble.

2. He raised and spent a considerable sum of money in his election campaign as part of which he said those things. Thus the crime has been materialised. Relevant sentence would be: prison sentence between 3 and 10 years!

3. Moreover the offence has been committed by the means of press and media. 50% increase: from 4 and half years up to 15 years!

4. Being a foreigner does not make any difference, he should have known that there is no escaping from Turkish justice.

OOPS!

Gordon Taylor has more:

Already Ahmet Davutoglu, chief foreign policy advisor to the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has come to Washington and warned Barack Obama against supporting a genocide resolution by Congress. Turkey and Armenia have in recent months made important steps toward reconciliation, and Davutoglu has warned that this process would be endangered by a genocide resolution. In other words, "It's not a good time." Of course, it's never a good time to tell unpleasant truths to Turkish nationalists.

Barack Obama, however, has renewed a pledge, previously made to the Armenian-American lobby, to support such a resolution. Clearly Obama will face a difficult choice. On one side will be historical truth as confirmed by millions of documents, eyewitness reports, and photographs, plus Armenian political pressure. On the other side will be semantic nitpicking ("Was it really 'genocide'?" "Did the Ottoman authorities authorize murder, or just removal?"), and massive political, bureaucratic, and diplomatic pressure from pro-Turkish forces.

Read the rest and check the links, as well as a copy of the heart of a potential Armenian Genocide resolution.

Don't forget to check Hevallo, who has a translation of the letter from KCK to Obama.

Perhaps even more importantly, check Hevallo's post on Katil Erdoğan's children. A teaser:

I have just finished watching a programme broadcast on UK ITV's Tonight programme where undercover reporters including the former UK Princess, Sarah Ferguson exposes the barbaric and disgusting conditions in which children with learning difficulties are held in jail like conditions in state institutions, that seem like concentration camps in Tayyip Erdoğan's Turkey. Turkish authorities tried to take legal action to stop the broadcast.

[ . . . ]

What was uncovered in these state 'concentration like camps' was an absolute disgrace, devoid of any humanity and constitutes gross and massive human rights abuses against vulnerable children.

Undercover reporters uncovered systematic abuse in many different camps in Istanbul and Ankara, including imprisonment and neglect, 24 hour sedation and treatment of kind that you would only find in Nazi concentration camps. See some of the footage leaked to Kanal D here

In a camp called Saray, near Ankara almost 7oo people with learning difficulties live a prison like existence in conditions that beggar belief.

One young man was filmed squirming along the floor following the sun rays that entered the 'wards', the undercover reporters were told that he is never allowed outside.

Others were filmed tied to bed posts and chairs while many simply rocked to and fro like caged animals. When Sarah Ferguson gave any of the children any attention and comfort the children soaked it up like they had never seen such attention in their lives.

"Vile, disgusting and shameful" indeed. Check the post for links to footage of the ITV expose.

Although shocking, it shouldn't come as a surprise, really. We are, after all, speaking about the same prime minister under whose ruling party we have seen the deaths of many infants in hospitals just this year:

A hospital in Turkey's third biggest city, Izmir, was being investigated by a prosecutor for possible medical negligence yesterday after 13 newborn babies died in its care in 24 hours.

The babies - who were all born prematurely - died at Izmir's state-run Tepecik hospital at the weekend, re-igniting concerns about the country's standards of postnatal care and prompting the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to question whether the deaths had been caused by neglect.

It was Turkey's second such case in as many months. In July, 27 babies - also premature - died over a 15-day period at the Zekai Tahir Burak hospital in Ankara, the Turkish capital. Doctors attributed those deaths to hypertension, heart failure or birth complications, but government-appointed investigators concluded that the risk of infection due to staff shortages could have been to blame.

TDN, now Hürriyet, reported at the beginning of October that university hospitals were even worse:

New born infants need emergency care units for premature births, abortions or for dealing with asphyxia developed during birth. In Turkey the rate of these infant disorders is 5 per cent. They have to be taken care of for about a month or three months in these units. As the number of these emergency care units remains the same, and no patients are turned back from hospitals, problems are rising. To solve the problem sometimes three infants are put into the same emergency care unit, raising the risk of infants catching infections.

[ . . . ]

The situation in university hospitals is worse. All their applications are turned down. They are treated like step children. Even public debts to the university hospitals are paid after long negotiations. Let's say the money is found for purchasing an emergency care unit. But from where will you find additional staff nurses, interns and doctors who will run it? When qualified staff in university hospitals quit their job their open place is immediately cancelled.

[ . . . ]

The prime minister says nobody will be turned away from hospitals. On the other hand, the management of all hospitals are complaining that they are in a dire shortage of medical equipment, beds and staff, while the Minister of Health's position is very clear: "Anybody who opposes our orders will be banished from work or sent to exile in a remote part in the country.

Another item, published after the July deaths:

As Turkey once again turns its gaze to its failure to properly care for its babies and children with the latest series of infant deaths in an Ankara hospital, statistics reveal that infant mortality is several times higher in Turkey than in the nations of the EU that it desperately wants to join

And all of this under the watch of a ruling party whose leader told Turkish women on International Women's Day, 2008, that they should all give birth to at least three children.

"Vile, disgusting and shameful" . . . but consistent if you're a religious nut case.