SEEING THE LIGHT

"The citizen, whose life is threatened, will defend himself if he has the chance."
~ R. Tayyip Erdoğan.

I have a few bits and pieces for your perusal tonight.

Firstly, there's another example of AKP's Kurdish policy at Özgür Gündem, where you'll find a video of a Kurdish youth run over by a police vehicle in Yüksekova.

Does everyone remember when Katil Erdoğan said that PKK was using children in protests after Erdoğan's disastrous visit to Amed (Diyarbakır)? Check out this photo from Radikal:





There you see a robocop encouraging children to throw stones for him. No sign of Bahoz Erdal in the photo, however.

On this election night, Hevallo bids a fond farewell to President Bush by publishing some of his more memorable remarks.

Next, the Fethullahcı university has opened in Hewlêr:

Diplomatic relations between Ankara and Arbil, the capital of the northern Iraqi administration, were almost frozen after the foundation of the regional Kurdish government there and Massoud Barzani's election as its president. Recently the relations have seen a period of thaw, and some of the walls between the two parties have been brought down, Barzani explained yesterday after his meeting with Turkey's special envoy to Iraq, Murat Özçelik. Ankara emphasizes the importance of "silent diplomacy" with the Kurdish administration in this regard.

Along with the breaking down of walls has come the building of bridges between Turkey and its northern Iraqi neighbors. Ishik University, newly opened by the Turkish Fezalar Educational Co. in Arbil, is one of those bridges. Fezalar has been active in education in the region for 14 years and has 10 schools in Arbil, Sulaimaniya and Kirkuk. The university is now accepting student registration, and classes will begin in mid-November.

So it appears that Gülen is doing the same thing in Hewlêr as he's doing in the Central Asia and the US:

After the Soviet Union collapsed, the super powers began to fight over Central Asia’s oil and gas wealth, as well as the geopolitics of the region. The U.S. did not want Iran to have control over the Central Asian republics. The U.S. knew that it could not easily have access to the region; therefore, it used the movement of a Turkish Islamic imam, Fethullah Gülen as a perfect proxy to gain control quickly and effectively because Turkey shared the same history, culture and religion with Central Asians. However, this odd but fortuitous relationship made it easy for Gülen later to have entry into America. The U.S. used Gulen’s movement by comparing what it perceived to be a bigger threat to a lesser threat. Rather than standing by for a radical Islamic group to infiltrate Central Asia in the vacuum left by the Soviets, the U.S. choose to support Gulen’s missionaries who were armed with Turkish Sufism. Similarly, the U.S. reasoned that allowing the CIA to support Osama Bin Laden to defeat the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in1979, would ensure the defeat of the Russians.

[ . . . ]

These strange bedfellows of U.S. foreign policy and the Turkish-brand of “moderate Islam” lead Gülen into a cozy relationship with the U.S. In 1999, Gülen escaped to the U.S. citing health issues as an excuse; however, in 2000, he was charged by the Turkish government with forming a terrorist organization to dismantle the secular state in order to replace it with a pro-Islamic government. Today Gulen’s Islamic party is in charge of the Turkish government, and they seek out those who want to act against Gülen, one by one putting them in jail and naming them “the Erkenekon gang.” For example, the Turkish government has charged the owner of the Cumuhuriyet newspaper, some high military officials, and some other party leaders with various crimes, but this strategy is just another way Gülen is taking revenge and wanting the military to be under the control of the civilians or the police because most of the police chiefs are his followers.

The United States’ law allows Gülen Muslim missionaries to operate easily in America. Gülen does not have to challenge the existing political order; he knows how to achieve his goals without violating U.S. law. Actually, it is much easier to gain followers and then position them in key institutions in the U.S. than it was in Turkey. Because the Constitution of the United States guarantees freedom of religion, Gülen uses that existing system for his Islamic aims. In Turkey Gülen initially had problems and lacked the freedom to gain power because the military did not allow his religious activities to be used as a tool to take over the government. Gülen has always taken advantage of situations and used them as opportunities to spread his global Islamic missionaries’ activities under the platforms of Interfaith Dialogues, opening schools around the world, holding conferences, and starting more house mosques, as in the U.S.

Read all of it at Kurdish Aspect to find out how Gülen spreads his poison.

More on Internet censorship in Turkey from Yahoo News:

"In terms of Internet censorship, Turkey is for sure now one of the significant countries," says Clothilde Lecoz, head of the Internet freedom desk at the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. "We are very, very concerned about it."

The European Union, which Turkey hopes to join, has previously been critical of Turkey's record on freedom of expression, particularly in regard to its prosecution of writers and journalists under Article 301, a vague law that punishes those who insult the state and its institutions.

Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish author and Nobel laureate who was tried under Article 301, used his opening speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair this month to criticize Turkey's YouTube ban.

"YouTube, like many other domestic and international websites, has been blocked for residents of Turkey for political reasons," Mr. Pamuk said. "Those in whom the power of the state resides may take satisfaction from all these repressive measures, but we writers, publishers, artists feel differently, as do all other creators of Turkish culture and indeed everyone who takes an interest in it: Oppression of this order does not reflect our ideas on the proper promotion of Turkish culture."

Reporters Without Borders calls for the amendment of Law 5651, under which Turkey is currently censoring the Internet:

Commenting on the latest developments, Reporters Without Borders said: "All this arbitrary blocking of websites has demonstrated that this law is the main source for the deterioration in online free expression. Furthermore, ISPs are forced to do the blocking of access to sites that break this law. This makes them accomplices to censorship."

The press freedom organisation added: "We call for Law 5651 to be amended as quickly as possible. Rather than block an entire website, only the content regarded as 'sensitive' should be the challenged before the courts."

Turkey was ranked 102nd out of 173 countries in the 2008 press freedom index which Reporters Without Borders released on 22 October.

Bianet reports that Blogger.com is temporarily available in Turkey, pending collection of "evidence":

The 1st Criminal Court of First Instance of Diyarbakır has lifted the ban on blogger.com and thus freed the blogs, the internet journals.

According to ntvmsnbc, the decision to lift the ban on the blogs affiliated with blogger.com and blogspot.com went into effect yesterday (October 27).

Today, the internet users witnessed the lifting up of the ban gradually.

Google’s blogger.com and blogspot.com, which provide free internet journal keeping, had become inaccessible in Turkey since October 24. The internet users, the freedom of expression defenders and the telecommunications organizations had been protesting the decision that banned the blogs.

Blogger.com is one of the most visited ten internet sites. It has millions of blog users.

Finally, here's a video of a guy in Istanbul threatening DTP supporters with a shotgun:

For the record, let me point out a Erdoğan's remark on the shotgun incident:

"I advise patience. But I am also concerned about when this patience will end. The citizen, whose life is threatened, will defend himself if he has the chance," Erdogan said on Monday.

Thank you, Sayın Başbakan. This is exactly what PKK has been doing for twenty-four years. I'm overjoyed to know that you finally see the light.

APPLYING THE MILITARY SOLUTION

"It was not the PKK that did this. The soldiers did it. And the next day they burnt down our shops".
~ Survivor of the Lice Massacre, 1993.

At the end of the month, there will be major changes of command within TSK, as is customary for August. The Higher Military Council (YAŞ) met earlier this month and the changes have been made public. It's no surprise that Land Forces Commander İlker Başbuğ will succeed Büyükanıt as the Chief of General Staff. On the other hand, what is surprising is that YAŞ expelled no Islamist officers, as it had done in previous years. For more on that, see what pro-terrorism think tank Jamestown Foundation had to say about the matter one year ago:

In recent years the expulsion of officers suspected of Islamic activities has become a regular occurrence at YAS meetings. In addition to its regular meeting in August, YAS can also be convened at a time chosen by the chief of the Turkish General Staff (TGS), which has usually been in November or December. A total of 17 officers were expelled in August 2006 and another 35 in November 2006. In 2005 the totals for the two YAS meetings were 11 and four respectively.

Since the early 1990s, identifying Islamist sympathizers in the armed forces has become one of the primary objectives of Turkish military intelligence. Although the expelled officers are usually accused of Islamist “activities,” suspected intent rather than action is usually sufficient to ensure their expulsion. The expelled officers are rarely allowed access to the evidence gathered against them and, under Article 125 of the Turkish Constitution; there is no right of appeal against YAS decisions. Expelled officers automatically lose all their pension rights and frequently have difficulty finding alternative employment.

[ . . . ]

Until relatively recently, the TGS’s primary fear was infiltration by supporters of the Islamic preacher Fetullah Gulen, who is currently in exile in the United States. Gulen’s supporters in Turkey currently control a vast network of businesses, schools, charitable foundations, and media outlets. The movement was an outspoken supporter of the AK Party in the run up to the July 22 general election (Today’s Zaman, July 21).

Alas, no more, according to Akşam, which recently noted that this year's YAŞ appointments included no expulsions:

After a long period of time, TSK, in its Higher Military Council (YAŞ), did not expel any military member. Prior to the YAŞ assembly, there were speculations that TSK would expel military members who were involved with Ergenekon. However, there were no files of any military members regarding expulsion.

This is more evidence that the TSK is involved with a deal with AKP in order to cover up the identities of the true Deep Staters, while blaming Deep State crimes on those currently detained in the Ergenekon case, all of whom are retired and well-known embarassments to the Islamist regime in Ankara, and their lapdogs among the Turkish General Staff.

The Akşam article lists all of the new command appointees, confirming Başbuğ's rise as the new Turkish Chief of Staff at Büyükanıt's retirement at the end of the month. Isık Koşaner will replace Başbuğ as Land Forces Commander. Katil Erdoğan also met with Koşaner the day before his meeting with Başbuğ, according to Islamist Zaman:

Erdoğan, more than a month before the YAŞ meeting and a day before his contact with Gen. Başbuğ on June 24 -- when Başbuğ was the Turkish Land Forces commander -- also met with Gen. Işık Koşaner, when Koşaner was the chief of the Gendarmerie General Command, said informed sources.

The Islamist coup took place on 31 July, the day before YAŞ met to begin confirmations of the new TSK chain of command, when the Constitutional Court ruled on the AKP closure case:

Ten of the 11 judges found the AKP guilty of the charge of being “a centre of anti-secular activity”, Mr Kilic said. But only six voted to close it, one short of the number required to ban the party. Instead, the AKP faces a big cut in its state funding, a penalty that will be compensated for easily by its wealthy backers.

As for Başbuğ, no one should forget that he was one of the butchers of Lice in 1993. Hevallo has more on the Lice Massacre, including pictures, for those who are memory-challenged.

Münir Erten, who confirmed PKK's casualties from the December 2007 aerial bombing campaign, has also been retired.

In the meantime, as part of his preparation for retirement, Yaşar Paşa is getting ready to receive his brand new 1 million Euro armored car, courtesy of the AKP regime:

Yaşar Büyükanıt, who was rescued from the Şemdinli incident by the AKP, has been awarded with a brand new car for his retirement. However, this disturbs CHP. In addition to the YAŞ decision without expulsion of religious officers, the purchase of an Audi A8, worth 1 million Euros, by AKP for Büyükanıt, raised several questions. CHP group parliamentary deputy Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, referring to the Council decision without expulsion, and the purchase of a new car for Büyükanıt, mentioned that this incident raises suspicions of a deal between AKP and TSK. Right after CHP's suspicions [were made public], the General Staff released a severe statement. In the statement, it was mentioned that Büyükanıt survived four assassination attempts, thus it [the armored car] is a necessity.

Turkish president Gül, who, according to the constitution, is supposed to be neutral, also supported this purchase and criticized CHP for its suspicions.

[ . . . ]

In Necati Doğru's column in Vatan, he revealed the vehicle's picture, bill, the document for its export from Germany, the vehicle's price with and without armor, the document for entrance into Turkey, technical specifications, a document sent from the National Defense Ministry to the Customs Ministry to order the Customs Ministry not to charge duty on the import, and a document that shows the vehicle entered Turkey duty-free.

According to Doğru's source in the National Defense Ministry (MSB), the car was imported from Germany for 1 billion YTL. It's an ice-silver metallic color, 4-door, gasoline-burning, 12 cylinder, 6,000 motor engine, 2008 Audi A8 W12 luxury automobile. The vehicle will be for retired Büyükanıt's personal use and TSK claims that any deal between AKP and TSK is mere fantasy.

But the fantasy is unlikely. For example, the previous Chief of General Staff, Hilmi Özkök--widely believed to be Islamist--was so worried about assassination at the end of his tenure as TSK chief that he started bringing his own lunch from home in a lunch box. But there were no indications at the time of his retirement that he was going to get so much as an armored lunch box, much less an armored car for personal use.

When he does retire, Büyükanıt will be able to drive his new armored Audi A8 W12 to his new villa, which is almost complete, in a village near Kuşadası.

Since we're on the subject of armored cars, Turkey is also providing armor for five Toyota Landcruiser V8, four-wheel drive SUV's for the not-so-bright Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili. Turkey is also armoring Saakashvili's official Mercedes.

Abdullah Gül, who along with Saakashvili, can clearly read the Russian writing on the wall in the Caucasus, has suddenly become an avid supporter of a New World Order. No doubt this also has to do with the Islamist Turkish regime's warm relationship with the Islamist Iranian regime, but Gül extends it to a so-called AKP "solution" for the Kurdish situation:

Gül repeatedly returned to the importance of Turkey's democratisation process. He said it would ultimately resolve all of the country's domestic problems, including the long-festering conflict with Kurdish nationalists in south-eastern provinces. "Some call it terror, some call it the south-east problem, some call it the Kurdish problem - whatever you call it, we will find a solution," he said.

But we all saw very clearly what the AKP's "solution" for the Kurdish situation was, in September last year, when Gül made his first visit as president to TSK installations in The Southeast. We also saw clearly what AKP's "solution" was last December, February, and in March, during Newroz.

As with Başbuğ's solution in Lice in 1993, so now AKP's solution is also the military solution.