CAPITALISTS, MERCENARIES, AND THE SAME STATE SECRETS PRIVILEGE

"Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class."
~ Al Capone.

What? The financial "elites" siphoning money out of the US? Illegally sucking capital out of the US? Using "privatization" to steal assets? Why, those dirty parasites wouldn't kill their own host like that, would they?

I described a meeting that had occurred in April 1997 . . . I had given a presentation to a distinguished group of U.S. pension fund leaders on the extraordinary opportunity to reengineer the U.S. federal budget. I presented our estimate that the prior year’s federal investment in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area had a negative return on investment.

We presented that it was possible to finance places with private equity and reengineer the government investment to a positive return and, as a result, generate significant capital gains. Hence, it was possible to use U.S. pension funds to significantly increase retirees’ retirement security by successfully investing in American communities, small business and farms — all in a manner that would reduce debt, improve skills, and create jobs.

The response from the pension fund investors to this analysis was quite positive until the President of the CalPERS pension fund — the largest in the country — said, “You don’t understand. It’s too late. They have given up on the country. They are moving all the money out in the fall [of 1997]. They are moving it to Asia.”

Sure enough, that fall, significant amounts of moneys started leaving the US, including illegally. Over $4 trillion went missing from the US government. No one seemed to notice. Misled into thinking we were in a boom economy by a fraudulent debt bubble engineered with force and intention from the highest levels of the financial system, Americans were engaging in an orgy of consumption that was liquidating the real financial equity we needed urgently to reposition ourselves for the times ahead.

Read the whole thing.

Engels was right. Capitalism is eating itself. I guess that's why his associate was on the cover of the European edition of TIME magazine this month. I guess that's also why copies of Das Kapital began to fly off German bookstore shelves last October.

Blackwater, the infamous mercenary company who murdered a bunch of civilians in Nisoor Square, Baghdad, two years ago has changed its name to Xe and beefed up its aviation "support" in order to assist with global narcotics trafficking. Now that the global financial parasites have sucked legitimate capital dry, they need to kick the infusion of illegal capital into high gear in order to save their own asses.

Oh, by the way, in case you were wondering if Sibel Edmonds might have a chance at justice with the new administration . . .

Members of the US Congress re-introduced bipartisan "state secrets" legislation on Wednesday, aimed at protecting executive privilege while ensuring judicial review.

The introduction of the bill comes as Obama administration lawyers on Monday urged a federal appeals court in San Francisco to continue the policy of the previous White House and invoke state secrets privilege in a case about CIA clandestine detentions and rendition.

"The State Secrets Protection Act will help guide the courts to balance the government's interests in secrecy with accountability and the rights of citizens to seek judicial redress," Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.

And let me remind you that, once upon a time, that worthless Leahy was one of those senators who "publicly support[ed] Edmonds and [ . . . ] pushed the Justice Department to declassify at least some of its investigation into her dismissal."

Now that's all change you can believe in!

Let me also add that Gordon Taylor has an updated post on Noah's ark and Cudi Dağı that makes for very interesting reading, so go have a look.

GENOCIDE AND THE KURDS

"I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them! The international community and those who listen to them."
~ "Chemical Ali" Hassan al-Majeed.

CNN recently aired a documentary on genocide. Among those interviewed for the documentary was Peter Galbraith, the only person in the West who tried to draw attention to Saddam's attempted genocide of the Kurds. From CNN:

Years before the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was slaughtering Iraq's Kurds with bombs, bullets and gas.

The Reagan White House saw it as a ruthless attempt to put down a rebellion by a minority ethnic group fighting for independence and allied with Iraq's enemy, Iran.

But Peter Galbraith thought it was something worse.

"A light went off in my head, and I said, 'Saddam Hussein is committing genocide,'" said Galbraith, who was on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time.

An unabashed idealist, Galbraith was known for tackling unconventional issues.

"If you're going to be idealistic in life, you're going to be disappointed," he said. "But that's not a reason to abandon idealism."

Galbraith was one of the first Westerners to witness the effects of the slaughter. During a fact-finding trip for the Senate in 1987, he saw something troubling.

"When we crossed from the Arab part of Iraq into the Kurdish part of Iraq, the villages and towns that showed on our maps just weren't there," he said. Bulldozing Kurdish villages was just the first phase of Hussein's war against the Kurds. In 1988, it escalated with chemical weapons.

"Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people were killed in those attacks, and then Iraqi troops moved into those villages and gunned down the survivors."

There are several video clips of Galbraith talking to CNN's Christiane Amanpour: Video 1, Video 2, and the bullshit excuses can be seen in Video 3.

More on the documentary can be found here.

It was "special interests" that saw to it the Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988 was never enacted. In her book A Problem from Hell America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Power notes that it was agricultural "special interests", notably wheat and rice growers who were engaged in supplying Iraq with their products, who helped to kill Galbraith's legislation. But there were other "special interests", too:

According to a 1988 confidential State Department cable, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the non-profit National Security Archive (NSA), U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie wrote that Bechtel officials threatened to bypass the sanctions, passed by the Senate in 1988.

”Bechtel representatives said that if economic sanctions contained in the Senate act are signed into law, Bechtel will turn to non-U.S. suppliers of technology and continue to do business in Iraq,” the cable said.

The document also shows further behind-the-scenes particulars of how the U.S. corporation, now part of President George W. Bush's project to bring democracy to post-Saddam Iraq, courted the dictatorial regime with full knowledge of Saddam's use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and the Kurds -- with the approval of U.S. diplomats.

”They (Bechtel) were certainly well aware of what was going on in Iraq and had no qualms about making a buck there,” said Jim Vallette, research director at the Washington-based Sustainable Energy and Economy Network.

”So they had no concerns over what Saddam was doing to his own people.” [sic]

[ . . . ]

In the 1980s Bechtel signed a technical services contract to manage the implementation of Iraq's two-billion-dollar petrochemical project II. U.S. firms, including Bechtel, won 300 million dollars in contracts to build the plant.

But the deal was jeopardised when the U.S. Senate wanted to penalise Baghdad for using chemical weapons against the Kurds, although it was well documented that Saddam had employed such weapons against Iran for at least four years before he used them on the Kurds.

The Senate initiative came on the heels of a series of Iraqi chemical weapons assaults against Kurds -- most notably in Halabja in March 1988 -- and called for strict economic sanctions against Baghdad, including blocking all international loans, credits and other types of assistance.

The government's then minister of industry, and Saddam's son-in-law, Husayn Kamil, told Bechtel officials he was angry the Senate passed the 'Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988', according to the cable.


[ . . . ]

Fearing to lose the contract, Bechtel officials threatened then to use non-U.S. suppliers and technology to keep the lucrative deal, in spite of the Senate's decision.

Isn't capitalism great?! Aren't "free" markets wonderful?!! Let's not forget that Turkey was also involved in the genocide of Kurds along with Saddam.

Ah, well . . . at least Hussein Kamel got his. Now if only scumbags like those at Bechtel and in the Ankara regime would get theirs.

While we're on the subject of hoping for just desserts, Blackwater mercenaries were indicted by a federal grand jury in DC of the slaughter the mercenaries carried out in Baghdad in September 2007. It looks like every attempt now is to make the mercenaries look like honorable human beings, but the fact is they are simply mercenaries, whores of war, so to speak.

Man, I'd pay to see these guys swing. I'd even bring the popcorn.

CHANGE? YOU SAY YOU WANT CHANGE?

"Barack Obama's first appointment, that of Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, is quite frankly unsettling and suggests that voters who had hoped for real change in Washington will be disappointed."
~ Philip Giraldi.

Thanks to the heval who sent me this piece of interesting information, from Reuters:

Russia has evidence that citizens from NATO member states including the United States and Turkey fought for Georgia in the five-day August war, Russia's top investigator said on Monday.

A senior security official in Tbilisi dismissed the statement and said by law only Georgian nationals could serve in the country's armed forces.

Asked to list the nationalities of the foreign fighters it believes were involved, Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Prosecutor-General's investigative committee said: "America, the Czech Republic, Chechnya, the Baltic States, Ukraine and Turkey."

OOPS!

I guess that's why Russian special ops types were joking around about invading Turkey:

"Next time we should invade Turkey. It's nice down there," said the second soldier, who wore a ski mask and drank bottles of beer with Georgian lettering on them.

On the other hand, maybe the Russian wasn't joking. And as for the secretary of Georgia's security council blowing off the information, I wouldn't be so quick to do that. After all, Condoleeza Rice admits that Georgia started the war and that great whore of the American media, the NYTimes finally admitted at the beginning of this month that Georgia started the war . . . in sharp distinction to everything else it ever published on the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia.

So who are you going to believe? The Russians or some Mickey Mouse Georgian security council dude?

I hope the Russians holds everyone's feet to the fire over this Reuters report of foreign fighters doing their dirty deeds for Georgia and the US.

And now, for those of you who wanted change and thought you would get it with a new American administration, you need to spend 36 minutes of your time and listen to a recent interview by Scott Horton with Philip Giraldi, here.

Some of you may remember Philip Giraldi's name from a number of Rastî posts about the Sibel Edmonds case. Once upon a time, Giraldi served as the CIA's Istanbul chief of base. In the interview linked above, Giraldi talks about Obama's pick as White House chief of staff, the congressman from Illinois, Rahm Emanuel.

Like Obama, Emanuel comes from Chicago. Chicago was the hub of Turkish activity in the US on the FBI wiretaps that Sibel Edmonds translated. From the Vanity Fair article:

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

[ . . . ]

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

[ . . . ]

In her secure testimony, Edmonds disclosed some of what she recalled hearing. In all, says a source who was present, she managed to listen to more than 40 of the Chicago recordings supplied by Robertz. Many involved an F.B.I. target at the city’s large Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associates.

The Turkish "cultural" crowd in Chicago would appear to be problematic. The Turkish "cultural" crowd in Chicago has been active in fundraising for other politicos besides Dennis Hastert, including one Mehmet Çelebi. Çelebi was a big time fundraiser for the politico who's been nominated to become Obama's secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. From Luke Ryland:

In the meantime, another important angle to Edmonds' case has opened up. Earlier this week, the New York Post ran a Page 6 piece, ODD FILM BY HILLARY BACKER, which highlights the close relationship between Hillary Clinton and Chicago-based Turkish businessman Mehmet Celebi.

Celebi, "one of the national leaders of the Turkish-American community in the US," is a key fundraiser for Clinton, and is one of Clinton's Chicago delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Celebi was also heavily involved in the controversial 2006 movie "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq" which has been widely regarded as "anti-Semitic, anti-American, conspiratorial agitprop."

Mehmet Celebi is also a key figure in the Sibel Edmonds case - he is heavily involved in the narcotics trade in the US and the corruption and bribery of high-level US officials.

According to Celebi's bio:


"He has been serving as the President of the Turkish-American Cultural Alliance (TACA) since 2000, and as Member of the Board/Vice-President of the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations (ATAA), a Washington, D.C. based umbrella organization representing 57 organizations."


The Chicago-based Turkish-American Cultural Alliance (TACA) and the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations (ATAA) both figure prominently in Sibel Edmonds' case. Both are reported to be front groups for criminal activity involving illegal weapons sales, narcotics trafficking, and the bribery and corruption of high level US officials.

Mehmet Celebi first came to my attention in my first interview with Sibel in January 2006. My notes from that interview read:


"Sibel mentioned the mafia nature of the Turkish business establishment - in particular she mentioned Celebi as one of the key players - apparently they are involved in an arms trading cartel, and they ship narcotics in the cargo of their planes as they zoom around.

"One of the Celebi family members (Mehmet Celebi) is chairman of the Turkish American Cultural Association (TACA) in Illinois. (Sibel has often pointed to both Chicago, and also to 'cultural exchanges')."


TACA and the ATAA were both targets of an FBI counter-intelligence operation investigating the corruption and bribery of high-level US officials from 1997 onward, including the period when Celebi had high level positions at these organizations.

But Clinton wasn't the only one Çelebi has raised funds for. He's fundraised for Rahm Emanuel as well (The photo below shows Emanuel, center, and Çelebi, far right):

Well-versed in international policies, Emanuel acknowledges the importance of Turkey in such a strategic part of the world. "I encourage the continuation of strong ties between Turkey and Israel and would urge European governments to admit Turkey into EU as soon as possible," he said. "Such a move would benefit the U.S. which is highly appreciative of Turkey's membership in NATO."

Emanuel said he would support the construction of the pipeline to go through Turkey. He also touched upon the Cyprus controversy as a difficult challenge and said he did not know enough about the Turkish point of view dealing with the Armenian conflict of 90 years ago

Mehmet Celebi, TACA's president promised to send him material on the Ottoman-Armenian conflict and encouraged him "to keep politicians out of the debate and analysis of historical events that took place during the demise of the Ottoman Empire." Historians, not politicians, should research and write about this subject, was the consensus of those attending the meeting.

Here's a photo from Yeni Şafak, which shows Clinton on the left and Çelebi on the right:




Remember that the Clinton administration gave more arms to Turkey than anyone else in US history. I do mean "gave" because those arms were funded 80% by the US taxpayer, meaning they were virtual freebies for Turkey.

Remember that in February, Bill Clinton left no doubt as to Hillary's support for Turkey:

"Turkey is a very significant country for us. We need to have good relations with Turkey. The biggest contribution to this will come from Hillary. There will be great progress in relations if Hillary is elected."

He went on to thank the many Turks who "contribute a lot to Hillary's election campaign" and assured readers that relations with Turkey will prosper under a Hillary administration.

She can do all of that as the head of the State Department.

Remember the Clean Break Strategy of the neocons, specifically Perle, Feith, and their International Advisors, Inc., which have also been brought up in connection with Sibel Edmonds' information. More on that can be found at The Nation.

Remember, too, that they're all running together--Hillary Clinton, Mehmet Çelebi, Rahm Emanuel, and the American Deep State.

Is that the change you voted for . . . chumps?

DEBATABLE EFFECTIVENESS

"The time for North Iraq's independence draws nearer each day, and all we do is try to deal with the PKK. We don't attach enough importance to this issue. Yet, the independence of Northern Iraq could divide Turkey."
~ İlker Başbuğ, Land Forces Commander.

Turkish foreign minister, Ali Babacan, insisted that Condoleezza Rice put a stop to PKK at this very moment. He was also on a tear at the UN about RojTV. Babacan's upset because HPG recently whacked his cousin, who was a member of the terrorist TSK in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. Now Babacan's probably kicking himself for not getting his cousin out of military service . . . like Erdoğan did for his son.

TNA has sunk to a new low by claiming that PKK plans to assassinate the DTP mayors. Of course, this should serve as a warning to the DTP mayors that they should look out for assassination attempts from the usual suspects--the Turkish state. Remember Musa Anter? Remember Akın Birdal? Hevallo has his take on TNA's propaganda on one of his posts.

While TNA is busy scraping the bottom, there's a fairly accurate article on the anti-PKK agreement between Iraq and Turkey at Eurasia Daily Monitor, a branch of the neoconservative Jamestown Foundation:

. . . [I]t is debatable whether the measures cited by the Turkish media will have a significant impact on the PKK’s ability to infiltrate its militants into Turkey from the organization’s camps in the Qandil Mountains of northern Iraq. Turkey’s border with Iraq is long and mountainous and riddled with age-old smuggling routes. Even though they have installed sensors and night vision equipment on their side of the border, the Turkish security forces are still able to intercept only a small proportion of the militants attempting to enter Turkey. It is difficult to see how a handful of liaison offices will make much difference.

Similarly, the concept of “hot pursuit” is based on operational continuity. If a unit of the Turkish armed forces that is pursuing members of the PKK toward the Iraqi border has to ask Baghdad for permission to cross and then wait for a reply, in most cases the trail will rapidly go cold.

[ . . . ]

On September 26, the Turkish press quoted Iraqi Kurdish officials as telling the local Peyamner News Agency that any agreement on measures to be taken against the PKK would need the approval of the KRG and that none had been forthcoming. Peyamner quoted an Iraqi Kurdish militia spokesperson as warning that the Iraqi Kurds would resist any incursion by the Turkish military, even in hot pursuit of PKK militants. “No one will be allowed to enter the Kurdistan region or violate its sovereignty by crossing the border,” he said (Vatan, September 27).

(There's also something there on Şehîd Nazan Bayram of YJA-STAR, but I will do something more on her in the coming days. Şehîd Namirin!)

South Kurdistan had better pay attention to the real reasons behind Turkish intentions. It may have less to do with PKK than with the perceived threat of the South to Turkish "territorial integrity." Or so claims the next chief of the Turkish general staff. One should be careful in choosing one's "brothers".

For those who have been following the situation with mercenary forces in general, and Blackwater USA in particular, there are two must-read articles that have been published in the last couple of days. The first is from Scott Horton at Harper's. Writing about US military reactions to Blackwater:

A number of officers described the security contractors as a group, and Blackwater in particular, as “cowboys,” and “trigger-happy jackasses.” An account published over the weekend by London’s Independent which drew on interviews with Iraqi eye-witnesses, sharply contradicts Blackwater’s claims and the characterizations put out by the State Department. The Iraqi Interior Ministry has also claimed that it has a video which will conclusively demonstrate that the shootings by Blackwater personnel were unprovoked.

According to Horton, the crux of the problem is described by a State Department official thusly:

“The core of the relationship is simple,” a U.S. diplomat described the State Department’s dealings with Blackwater USA. “They protect us, and we protect them.”

Now there are indications that both the State Department and Blackwater are working together to cover up the whole mess and an investigation by the House Oversight Committee is rumored. I say "rumored" because that committee is headed by Congressman Waxman, the very same congressman who's persistently avoided investigation of the Sibel Edmonds case.

Word of advice: Don't. Hold. Your. Breath.

Finally, the second must-read is from Blackwater expert, Jeremy Scahill at The Nation. Scahill also mentions the allegations that Blackwater weapons ended up in the PKK's possession. However, those who've actually been to Qendil have seen no American weapons there.

Instead of blaming PKK for American weaponry that allegedly made it across the border into Turkey, maybe someone should check out the possible gun-running at the Turkish consulate in Mûsil.

BLACKWATER, COFER BLACK, AND ANOTHER CONFLICT OF INTEREST

"But the flip side of it is you also have guys who are just straight-up thugs who go over there—they’re soldiers of fortune, you know, they’re making six, seven times what a regular U.S. soldier is making. They have much better equipment, much better body armor and they’re simply in it for a buck."
~ Jeremy Scahill on Blackwater USA.

Interesting addenda to the recent Blackwater atrocity:


MediaMatters rightly points out that several major US media have not made so much as a squeak about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's ties to Blackwater:

The CNN.com article, as well as reports by the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, the Associated Press, and an additional segment during a later hour of CNN Newsroom, all failed to note the reported connection between Romney and Blackwater USA. On September 13, The Boston Globe reported that Romney "tapped" Black, "a former CIA official, who is now a top officer in a private security firm with widespread operations in Iraq, to head his counterterrorism policy advisory group."

From the Boston Globe article linked at MediaMatters:

Mitt Romney today tapped a former CIA official, who is now a top officer in a private security firm with widespread operations in Iraq, to head his counterterrorism policy advisory group.

Cofer Black, who also served as a top State Department counter-terrorism official, is now chairman of Total Intelligence Solutions and vice-chairman of Blackwater USA. That firm came to public attention in 2004, when four employees were ambushed, killed, and mutilated in Fallujah.

MediaMatters further notes that TIME only mentions the Romney-Blackwater connection on a blog on its website. The MoJoBlog included the information early yesterday.

Remember, a vote for Romney is a vote for Blackwater!


Wired's national security blog had a very enlightening post on Blackwater by a guy who's really dug into the question of the use of mercenary forces, P.W. Singer, and Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, was interviewed on CNN International for his take on the recent Blackwater atrocities. The interview can be viewed at Crooks and Liars.

The award for the biggest outright lie about the freaks at Blackwater comes from NROnline. Check this:

[T]he American military bureaucracy could learn a lot from Blackwater. Unlike the Pentagon, Blackwater has thought carefully since 2003 about how best to equip and protect its employees in the specific environment of Iraq, and has acted swiftly to buy appropriate vehicles, aircraft and weapons.

Now this makes one want to ask whether or not the author of that propaganda, Jonathan Foreman, is simply a very bad propagandist or if he's just an outright liar because Blackwater, as everyone ought to remember, sent its employees into Fallujah on 31 March, 2004 short the needed number of personnel with the needed amount of equipment. Hell, they didn't even have the proper maps.

After the families of the Blackwater victims brought a lawsuit against the company, Blackwater turned right around and sued the families. Maybe someone can explain to me exactly how those facts square with Foreman's trash talk about Blackwater thinking "carefully since 2003 about how best to equip and protect its employees in the specific environment of Iraq, and has acted swiftly to buy appropriate vehicles, aircraft and weapons."

I wonder if Cofer Black's previous relationship with the State Department had anything to do with Blackwater? I wonder if that might be another dirty little conflict of interest deal of which the State Department is so fond of? Kind of like State's cosy little appointment of Lockheed Martin director, ATC advisory board member, and The Cohen Group lobbyist, Joseph Ralston? From The Nation:

Government records recently obtained by The Nation reveal that the Bush Administration has paid Blackwater more than $320 million since June 2004 to provide "diplomatic security" services globally. The massive contract is the largest known to have been awarded to Blackwater to date and reveals how the Administration has elevated a once-fledgling security firm into a major profiteer in the "war on terror."

Blackwater's highly lucrative "diplomatic security" contract was officially awarded under the State Department's little-known Worldwide Personal Protective Service (WPPS) program, described in State Department documents as a government initiative to protect US officials as well as "certain foreign government high level officials whenever the need arises."

Oh, yeah. Smells like conflict of interest to me.

You gotta know Blackwater and the US Department of State aren't going to do squat for the Iraqis they've murdered. In the meantime, the Iraqi government now says it may back down on the ban of Blackwater, so I guess if you're ordinary folks and not a member of the ruling elites, or their SS-style protectors, you're just plain screwed.

BLACKWATER MERCENARIES OUSTED

"We will push those crooks, those mercenaries back into the swamp."
~ Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.

Blackwater USA mercenaries are going to be banned from Iraq following their slaughter of civilians over the weekend. From the Guardian:

The Iraqi government said Monday that it was pulling the license of an American security firm allegedly involved in the fatal shooting of civilians during an attack on a U.S. State Department motorcade in Baghdad.

The Interior Ministry said it would prosecute any foreign contractors found to have used excessive force in the Sunday shooting. It was latest accusation against the U.S.-contracted firms that operate with little or no supervision and are widely disliked by Iraqis who resent their speeding motorcades and forceful behavior.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said eight civilians were killed and 13 were wounded when security contractors believed to be working for Blackwater USA opened fire in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad.

"We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities,'' Khalaf said.

The spokesman said witness reports pointed to Blackwater involvement but said the shooting was still under investigation. It was not immediately clear if the measure against Blackwater was intended to be temporary or permanent.

The Christian Science Monitor has more, including blog reactions to the banning. There's also something at AFP.


Ah! It's going to be a good day.

MERCENARIES, RACISTS, AND SOUR GRAPES

I swear to the Lord
I still can't see
Why Democracy means
Everybody but me.
~ Langston Hughes.

Does anyone remember the kidnapping of Crescent Security Group's mercenaries last November? I always thought it was interesting the way a wall of silence fell over the incident, but now--lo and behold--today there's an article about the kidnapping and Crescent Security at the WaPo. What do all of these mercenary firms have in common? Love of money. Check it out:

Most of Crescent's employees were military and law enforcement veterans willing to accept extreme risk in exchange for fast money and adventure. Crescent handed out monthly pay in envelopes stuffed with Kuwaiti dinars. The guards took the money to currency exchange houses, which transferred the funds into their bank accounts.

"All you're thinking about is the money," said Chris Jackson, 28, a former Marine from Salem, N.H. "You have $50,000 in the bank, and all you're thinking about is, 'Another month and I'll have $57,000, another month and I'll have $64,000.' " By the end of last year, Jackson said, he had saved $55,000, even after splurging on Las Vegas vacations and a $5,000 Panerai watch.

"I hate to say it, but I am so thankful for this war," he said. "I only came over here for the money, and I didn't even know I could do this job until two years ago. I didn't know it was available to me."

Crescent's Iraqi employees were recruited by word of mouth; most lived around the southern city of Basra, a hotbed of Shiite militias, and were largely unknown to the company. Crescent used a two-tiered pay scale. Guards from the United States, Britain and other Western countries earned $7,000 a month or more. Iraqi guards earned $600 -- roughly $20 a day -- but performed the most dangerous work, including the manning of belt-fed machine guns while exposed in the back of the Avalanches.

Picco said the system was not ideal but was necessary to hold down costs. "To put 12 white people on a team, it's not economically viable," he said.

This "economically viable" system led to a deterioration of relations between the Western mercenaries and Iraqi mercenaries--no doubt because of the old-timey colonialist, white-man's-burden attitude at the heart of the mercenary business. Shortly after relations deteriorated, a lot of military equipment used by Crescent "disappeared."

Gee, I wonder where it went?

Read the whole thing. It's an incredible scandal. But don't think Crescent is alone in its quest for lucre; Blackwater USA is guilty of the same and body count be damned.

Hevallo has something on Turkish machinations to keep Sebahat Tuncel, parliamentarian-elect from Istanbul, in prison. Turkish "lawmakers," who specialize in changing laws to maintain a racist regime, are now claiming that Sebahat cannot enjoy parliamentary immunity because she was accused of separatism. If it were true that those accused of "crimes against the unity of the state" cannot be granted immunity then why did they free her from prison a few days ago? If the law were already in place and the interpretation of the law against the accused prohibited immunity, then why did they release Sebahat when they knew she would not be able to claim parliamentary immunity?

The answer is because Turkish "lawmakers" have only now come up with this brand-spanking-new interpretation in order to keep Kurds out of parliament and cut them off from the political process. This is consistent with the racist nature of the regime.

Another point: Turkey defended its right to host the HAMAS leader last year in Ankara, even though HAMAS is widely recognized as a terrorist organization by the US and EU, because it's on the same List as PKK. But Turkey defended the right of HAMAS leader Khaled Mashaal to sit down with Abdullah Gül for talks in Ankara. Gül defended the visit thusly:

Gul said that since Hamas won a democratic election, from now on it must act in a democratic way.

Yet Gül's--and AKPs--support for Sebahat Tuncel, who won her parliamentary position in a "democratic election," appears to be non-existent. Additionally, she is merely accused of membership in a "terrorist" organization whereas Khaled Mashaal is the acknowledged leader of a "terrorist" organization. Why is AKP not as eager to settle the problems its predecessors created in its own backyard, but it has to travel the world over to rescue others under repression?

Well, again this is consistent with the racist nature of the Turkish regime.

And, from the Who Cares Department, the Paşas are planning to stage a walk-out when all the new deputies are sworn in, in order to protest the presence of DTP in the parliament. It seems they don't like the idea of the support given by DTP constituents for the Kurdish freedom movement and Abdullah Öcalan.

It's pathetic to be so out-of-touch with reality. Either the Paşas are suffering from a collective case of dementia or the taste of sour grapes has given them a bad case of indigestion. Either way, too bad.

There's one more thing I've been meaning to draw attention to, and that's the recent encounter between Western archaeologist and JITEM in Sêrt (Siirt) at Samarkeolog:

It should be borne in mind at all times that this is only what visiting Westerners are subjected to; the plight of those who live there is immeasurably worse. Unfortunately, there are a range of sources that simplify the situation to the point that they hinder the struggle for human rights and democracy of all of the communities in Turkey, but particularly the Kurds.

[ . . . ]

This is an inordinately long post, for which I can only apologise; I'll try to make a summary of it, but I felt it was important to have as full an account as possible, to help other researchers and people concerned with northern Kurdistan/south-eastern Turkey understand the realities of the situation there (and to show the people there that some foreigners are trying to help).

These notes were largely written during those days and those immediately afterwards, but because of the conditions during the visit and the lack of time and the continuing search for information afterwards, some of them were written more recently.

I ought to make clear, now, that they are summaries of prolonged, stressful encounters, the conversations held almost exclusively in Turkish: some of the conversations were hours-long; sometimes, afterwards, I was still under surveillance, or the threat of it, so I couldn't make notes; my fieldwork diary was repeatedly read by the intelligence services, so I didn't want to make notes.

The conversations presented were written down, albeit sometimes a long time afterwards; they are summaries of the conversations, but the sentences and exchanges included are accurate translations, give or take the difficulty of translating Turkish to English semantically.

If you don't know anything about the situation, believe me, this post will be an eye-opener. In a perverse sort of way, I'm relieved to know that someone besides Kurds sees just how troublesome these JITEM vermin are.

ANOTHER WARNING

"The potential of women, who make up half of the society, in the service of the revolution and their hidden and suppressed talents and intelligence in creating an entire society based on equality is the most humane and the most radical characteristic of our revolution."
~ PKK 5th Congress Resolution Concerning the Women's Army and the Free Women's Movement.

Earlier I had posted something about the likely effects of permanent military bases in South Kurdistan, part of which had to do with the possible effects on Kurdish women. It's likely that the effects would seriously impact the work of women's rights activists in a region where repression of women is still all too common.

In 2005, Amnesty International issued a report on the situation of women in Iraq and significant examples of abuse in South Kurdistan are included. The examples provide a snapshot of Kurdish women's situation in the recent past, including the sale of Kurdish young women and girls by the Saddam regime, incidents of honor murders, impunity of honor murders as a result of not vigorously applying the law against such murders, and mutilation as a punishment for "honor" crimes.

The report also mentions abuses of US forces against women detainees in Iraqi Arab prisons. These abuses include sexual torture, a fact which finally came out as a result of General Anthony Taguba's investigation of Abu Ghraib.

Now it appears that an American feminist is conducting research into military prostitution around US bases. According to the information she's pulled together already, the Green Zone is one huge kerxane:

Within the Green Zone, a few brothels have been opened (disguised as a women's shelter, hairdresser, or Chinese restaurant) but are usually closed by authorities after reports about their existence reach the media. The U.S. military claims that it officially forbids its troops to be involved in prostitution. But private contractors brag on sex websites that they have sometimes been able to find Iraqi or foreign women in Baghdad or around U.S. military bases. These highly paid security contractors have much disposable income, and are not held accountable to anyone but their companies.

One contractor employee living in the Green Zone reported in February 2007 that "it took me 4 months to get my connections. We have a PSD [Personal Security Detail] contact who brings us these Iraqi cuties." Western contractors' e-mails also suggest that some Chinese, Filipina, Iranian and Eastern European women may also be prostituted to Americans and other Westerners within Iraq. (Other reports indicate that Chinese women might also be prostituted in Afghanistan, Qatar, and other Muslim countries where it may be difficult for rings to find local women.)

I had previously questioned what impact these vermin called mercenaries would have on the situation. It's well known that these American mercenaries have been involved in sex trafficking in other places where they've operated, such as in Bosnia. In her piece, Debra McNutt clearly indicates that they are engaging in the same kind of trafficking in Iraq.

What's worse for Kurds, however, is that the US military and their dirty mercenaries, intend to turn South Kurdistan into a kerxane:

On leave from Iraq in 2005, Army Reservist Patrick Lackatt said that "For one dollar you can get a prostitute for one hour." But as the war has escalated in Baghdad and the other Arab regions of Iraq, it has become too dangerous for Westerners to move around outside of the military bases and the Green Zone. Contractors are now advising each other to do their "R & R" in the safer northern Kurdish region, or in the bars and hotels of Dubai, the UAE emirate that has become the most open center of prostitution in the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, any prostitution rings in Iraq have to go deeper underground to hide from Iraqi militias.

With that, we come to the crucial question: What is the Kurdistan Regional Government prepared to do to immediately thwart the intentions of these barbarians? Or will it, for the right price, be content to play the role of Uncle Tom when it comes to the warmongering whoremongers of the US military?

If so, I hope YJA-STAR will deploy for operations in South Kurdistan as the only means to maintain the honor of Kurdistan. After all, they don't fight only for themselves.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

"At the time of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001, the United States had publicly acknowledged SOFAs with ninety-three countries, although some SOFAs are so embarrassing to the host nation that they are kept secret, particularly in the Islamic world.3 Thus, the true number is not publicly known."
~ Chalmers Johnson.

The Bases Are Loaded.

The Bases Are Loaded discusses the permanent bases being established in South Kurdistan and Iraq, mentioning that two permanent US bases are being built in South Kurdistan. One of those specifically named is located in Hewlêr.

However, there is no discussion in the video of the immoral and criminal activity that plague local populations that have the misfortune of having a US base in their midst. South Kurdistan needs to ask itself if it is prepared to have American military-sponsored crime inflicted on the people of Kurdistan.

I first learned of this problem through reading Chalmers Johnson's book, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic--a good read that I highly recommend. Recently Johnson spoke about the problem of US imperial bases and their effects on local populations in an interview for his most recent book in the Blowback Trilogy, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic:

In the southernmost prefecture of Japan, Okinawa, site of the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, there’s a small island, smaller than Kauai in the Hawaiian islands, with 1,300,000 Okinawans. There's thirty-seven American military bases there. The revolt against them has been endemic for fifty years. The governor is always saying to the local military commander, “You're living on the side of a volcano that could explode at any time.” It has exploded in the past. What this means is just an endless, nonstop series of sexually violent crimes, drunken brawls, hit-and-run accidents, environmental pollution, noise pollution, helicopters falling out of the air from Futenma Marine Corps Air Base and falling onto the campus of Okinawa International University. One thing after another. Back in 1995, we had one of the most serious incidents, when two Marines and a sailor abducted, beat and raped a twelve-year-old girl. This led to the largest demonstrations against the United States since we signed the security treaty with Japan decades ago. It's this kind of thing.


I first went to Okinawa in 1996. I was invited by then-Governor Ota in the wake of the rape incident. I’ve devoted my life to the study of Japan, but like many Japanese, many Japanese specialists, I had never been in Okinawa. I was shocked by what I saw. It was the British Raj. It was like Soviet troops living in East Germany, more comfortable than they would be back at, say, Oceanside, California, next door to Camp Pendleton. And it was a scandal in every sense.

[ . . . ]

As I began to study the network of bases around the world and the incidents that have gone with them and the military coups that have brought about regime change and governments that we approve of, I began to realize that Okinawa was not unusual; it was, unfortunately, typical.

Typical. The American Friends Service Committee lists ten reasons to get rid of US military bases, with explanations:

1. Bases increase the likelihood of war.

2. Bases provide a launching point for nuclear attack.

3. Bases undermine the sovereignty of nations.

4. Bases hurt democracy and human rights.

5. Often bases are built on seized property.

6. Bases reinforce violent and dehumanizing treatment of women and girls [Note: With the severe problems of patriarchal society widespread throughout Kurdistan, an example of which is a recent KurdishMedia report that every 24 hours a Kurdish woman in South Kurdistan sets herself on fire, US military bases will reinforce the indigenous and endemic repression of Kurdish women. In light of the case of the stoning of Doa Khalil Aswad, American military sexual predation will prove a great setback to efforts at improving the situation of Kurdish women.].

7. Bases condone criminal activities committed by US troops.

8. Bases cause environmental contamination and serious health risks.

9. Bases bring the risk of life-threatening accidents.

10. Military bases are expensive and divert funding from addressing urgent needs at home and abroad.

There is more on the negative effects of US military bases on women and children in East Asia at FPIF. Also mentioned in the FPIF report is a little thing called "Status of Forces Agreement" (SOFA). These are agreements which are written so that US troops who commit crimes are protected and do not have to bear responsibility for their behavior. The other side of this protection is that local populations are left with no protection from American predation.

The nature of the way in which the US military trains its personnel creates and reinforces predation against local populations, according to a retired US marine:

If the military is capable of producing "personalities" that kill babies, rape women, and torture the innocent, then what is responsible for the degradation and dissolution of these military personnel? How and why do U.S. soldiers lose their humanity? A closer examination of military recruit training may shed some light on these questions.

[ . . . ]

. . . [R]eturning troops report that none of their training prepared them for what they experienced in Iraq. "You can train up all you want, but you're not going to be prepared until you get here and mingle with the culture," explained Spc. Travis Gillette, an Army infantryman who served in Iraq.

Gillette's advice reveals the contradiction of U.S. occupation. Indeed, learning about Iraqi culture and its people might, on the one hand, improve relations between U.S. soldiers and the civilian population. Yet on the other, the danger is that, as a result, soldiers may sympathize with the Iraqi people and turn against U.S. war aims and its justifications. In fact, keeping a greater distance between troops and the civilian population is one of the lessons the military learned from the Vietnam War, a war in which large numbers of troops turned against the war and discovered that the real enemy was the military itself, particularly from 1968 to 1973.

NGOs have studied the problem of US imperial bases and support Chalmers Johnson's research and documentation, as in this study from the Asia-Pacific Research Network:

US overseas military bases reflect the need for the US to project visible and psychological presence and commitment to a country or region. Following the logic of neocolonialism, US bases are a stark reminder and real source of control over a nation without necessitating formal political control over its territorial sovereignty. It can be likened to a loaded gun pointed at the government and peoples of its host country. Its mere presence intimidates and gives coercive power for the US to gain concessions from the host and allows it to interfere, in most cases with impunity, in internal affairs, commit crimes and violence on local people, wreak grave social costs and environmental destruction.

[ . . . ]

Through its military bases and access agreements, the US makes its presence felt in an ever widening circle driven by its greed for resources and markets. However, as this circle tries to expand, it encounters resistance as it faces the ire of oppressed people of the world. Nations have also stood firm in their assertion of sovereignty and independence against the onslaught of imperial greed and power. The people under the claws of neo-colonial control are steadfastly fighting for national liberation to break free from the shackles of imperialism.

This is happening in the Philippines, India, Nepal, Turkey, Peru and Colombia, where national liberation movements have arisen and have developed in accordance with the strategic line of protracted people's war. As the crisis of the world capitalist system worsens, these revolutionary wars will intensify and will spread. The massive anti-war wave of opposition against the US shows the anger of the peoples worldwide and their will to fight against imperialism and war. The great wish of the peoples is to live in peace and brotherhood, without the horror of war, without exploiters and oppressors.

There is no reason to believe that American troops will behave any differently toward the Kurdish people. Remember, they attacked Salahaddin University, KDP special forces, PUK pêşmerge, and raided the Iranian consulate in Hewlêr.

Additionally, Amnesty International has documented US efforts to undermine SOFA's through what amounts to a negation of SOFA's in an attempt to thwart the International Criminal Court--Impunity Agreements. Impunity agreements nullify any punishment for American wrongdoing. Such agreements remove the right of the "host" country from deciding which courts will investigate and try Americans for crimes committed in its territory and extradition provisions are renegotiated. Moreover, "the decision to investigate or prosecute is a matter solely within the discretion of the USA and not a matter of law." In other words, the US makes the decision, not the authorities of the victimized population. Certain countries have openly refused to sign Impunity Agreements with the US; among them are Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia. Countries that have ongoing "peace" or "antiterrorist" operations seem to be under the greatest pressure to cave in to the absurd demands of the US over Impunity Agreements, and it should be noted that before Marc Grossman suddenly retired from the State Department, he was one of the bureaucratic heavies issuing threats in order to gain compliance.

But there's another serious problem to consider in relation to US military bases, and that is the problem of US military contractors or mercenaries. It's bad enough that that US troops can not be held accountable for their actions, but there is no oversight whatsoever for US mercenaries, such as those employed by civilian fascists such as Blackwater USA, KBR Halliburton, Bechtel, and Dyncorp, among others. As recently as February 2007, a KBR Halliburton mercenary slashed the thoat of an Iraqi woman at Al-Asad Airbase.

Perhaps one of the most notorious examples of US mercenary crime was the sex slave ring run by Dyncorp in Bosnia, in which local women were buying women as young as 12 (if you can call a 12-year-old a woman) and keeping them as sex slaves. The vermin involved with these crimes have something in common with the vermin in Egypt who purchased Anfal women from the Saddam regime--they were never punished.

Another example, from Iraq, of the violent nature of US mercenaries is carried in a recent issue of the Armed Forces Journal:

As they headed to the Baghdad airport in July, two security guards working for the contract firm Triple Canopy say they were stunned when their supervisor declared that he intended that day to kill somebody.

The supervisor then fired his M4 rifle into the windshield of a parked truck, the two guards claim in court documents. Later in the day the supervisor fired half a dozen handgun rounds into a passing taxi, possibly killing the driver, the two guards allege.

No investigation followed and no disciplinary action was taken against the alleged shooter, who returned to the United States, say the two who have filed a suit in a U.S. court. They're suing, they say, because they were wrongfully fired by Triple Canopy after they reported the incident.

According to the article, the US military is creating laws to deal with their lawless mercenaries but until a long track-record of serious punishments has been firmly established, there's no point in the KRG volunteering Kurds as guinea pigs in what, at this point, is dubious justice. Since the US plans to remain in Iraq and South Kurdistan for the next several decades, Kurds at least must think long and hard about what they are getting into when it comes to having the US military as neighbors.

Remember the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for."


Hevallo has some fantastic photos of all those who turned out for Orhan Doğan's funeral. Plus, be sure to check out a great post on the situation in North Kurdistan at Zanetî. Vahe at Hyelog has an article about a Paşa who may face trial for calling Hrant Dink a "traitor." Apparently, the charges have been brought by Dink's family.

Hehehe . . . I hope they hang the bastard.

KERKUK AND CONVENIENT INSTABILITY

"Some officials believed that the Turkish security remained incapable of eliminating the PKK supporters as long as [the security forces] functioned within legal means. Thus, they arrived at the conclusion that the PKK could have been fought only through extra-legal methods."
~ Hanefi Avci, deputy intelligence department chief of Turkish Security, in testimony before the TBMM.

Bianet reports on this year's Press Freedom Day in Turkey. They have a Press Freedom Day? That's hilarious! I guess, though, that you would expect a fascist state to have something called "Press Freedom Day." Totally Orwellian.

Naturally, Press Freedom Day in Turkey followed the indiscriminate beatings of journalists during the May Day events in Istanbul last week. That'll teach them to go out an attempt to report on stuff that actually happens, instead of sitting around in their offices and rewriting the bullshit the state gives them for publication. Does anyone think that this would give American journalists a clue?

Goran from Zanetî has a great article on Kerkuk which got picked up by ZNet. The article does an excellent job of summing up the situation of Kerkuk, including mentions of arabization, the recent efforts to de-arabize the city, and the influence of foreign provocateurs who have increasingly exerted themselves to make life in the city as unbearable as life in Baghdad:

Until now, violence in Kirkuk has been blamed primarily on Sunni and Shiite insurgents. Several Shiite armed groups such as the Mehdi Army, loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, began moving into the Kirkuk province mid-last year. U.S. officials declared such Shiite armed groups, reportedly backed by Iran, as the deadliest threats to the security in the region. Local residents say their presence is marked by bomb explosions and murders.

However much the threat of these armed groups as well as Iran’s alleged influence in the region, Iraqi officials recently claimed to have found links between the ongoing violence in Kirkuk and other foreign forces. Recently, an Iraqi Kurdish official in Kirkuk, Nejat Hassan, asserted that Iraqi Security Forces obtained enough evidence to prove that Turkey’s Intelligence Agency has been carefully conducting much of the terrorist activity in Kirkuk, targeting both Iraqi government officials as well as civilians.

Goran also notes the unilateral nature of Kurdish attempts to discuss Kerkuk with the Turkish state, with Turkey's rejection-by-silence. Is this a reflection of Turkey's unstated official policy toward the Kurdish people? I think so, especially in light of the Ankara regime's rejection of a democratic solution to the untenable situation of the Kurdish people under Turkish occupation in North Kurdistan, which was offered by PKK last August, as well as the regime's rejection of PKK's fifth unilateral ceasefire from the beginning of last October.

While "[M]any Kurds feel uncomfortable with the Americans’ silent stance on this issue and believe their reasons are in order to avoid embarrassment with their Turkish ally," this may simply be a matter of vastly misplaced politeness (aka diplomacy) on the part of the KRG. The fact is that the US war industry makes a lot of money for their executives and members of their boards of directors, such as Lockheed Martin's Joseph Ralston who, coincidentally or not, is the American "special envoy" to "coordinate" the PKK for the Ankara regime. On behalf of the Washington regime, Ralston has rejected PKK's ceasefire, has completely ignored PKK's democratic solution, and has lied to Congress about the nature of Kurdish refugees from Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. There most recent long-term residence has been the Maxmur refugee camp, just outside and to the west of Hewlêr Governorate.

It's not in the interests of the US to see a stable Turkey in the region, just as it may not be in the interests of the US to see a stable Iraq. As long as the Washington and Ankara regimes collaborate in the maintenance of a low-intensity conflict in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, their Deep Staters will continue to maintain control of the region and its highly coveted energy resources, as well as to turn a few billion bucks through Deep State corporations . . . like Lockheed Martin.

The Washington/Ankara collaboration would appear to be working, given the instability that began with the November, 2005, Semdinli bombing; the provocations that led to the Amed Serhildan; the Amed bombing of September 12 (a significant date since it is the anniversary of the 1980 coup as well as the day of the first arrival in Ankara of the US "special envoy"); the persecution of Turkey's only Kurdish party, DTP; and the poisoning, and recent severe isolation punishment, of the Kurdish people's leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

The instability has also severely affected other ethnic or religious minority groups within Turkey, such as was highlighted with the Ankara regime's murder of Armenian activist and editor, Hrant Dink, and the recent murders of Christians in Trabzon and Malatya.

Then, too, we have the fact of Turkish mercenaries, based in the US, and operating in Kerkuk. Funny thing . . . that mercenary company is run by people who were involved with the 2003 assassination plot of the Kerkuk governor.

It's a small world, isn't it?

While the Washington regime presents a united front when the subject is the genocide of the Kurdish people (or the Armenian people, for that matter), it talks out of both sides of its mouth when it comes to other areas of political instability, thereby helping to maintain instability. For instance, US propagandists from the State Department feign concern for the non-existent democratic process in Turkey while at the same time cultivate the deep and abiding "friendship" of the Deep State, controlled by the Turkish military. Witness the US response to the recent "e-coup" of the Paşas.

Other, non-official propagandists, such as Michael Rubin and the AEI, continue to deny that any US-backed atrocities have been inflicted on the Kurdish people by America's Ankara allies. American lies about the Turkish genocide of Kurds can be found most recently, and in such inocuous pieces of writing as book reviews, like Rubin's latest:

Such balance, however, does not extend to the Turkish Kurds. McKiernan's account oozes with antipathy toward Turkey. He wrongly calls Kurds "second class citizens" in Turkey, ignoring that presidents, foreign ministers, and scores of parliamentarians have been Kurdish. Lack of education and urban-rural divide better explain the social differences in Turkey than ethnicity. Too often McKiernan uncritically accepts the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) narrative, though many Kurds consider it a terrorist group.

Maybe "many Kurds" consider PKK a "terrorist group," but those "many" would not be found in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan; they would be found outside of Turkish-occupied Kurdistan and, therefore, are not familiar with the real terrorist group of The Region--the TSK. It would also be more credible if an "expert" like Rubin would bother to provide statistics to help us define what he considers "many" to mean.

Rubin is clearly also pushing the lie that "presidents, foreign ministers, and scores of parliamentarians" have been Kurdish. Nothing could be further from the truth and the "presidents, foreign ministers, and scores of parliamentarians" would no doubt have Rubin detained and tortured, if not extrajudicially murdered, for suggesting that they were "Kurd," since those "Kurds" had long abandoned and denied any Kurdish roots they may have had. The only Kurdish parliamentarians that ever truly earned the title, were charged, prosecuted, and imprisoned for years for their temerity in having spoken their mother language inside the venerable halls of the Turkish Grand National Assembly. Those parliamentarians were Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak.

There have been no other Kurdish parliamentarians in the history of the TC. None.

The "expert," Rubin, fails to explain how the "[L]ack of education and urban-rural divide" were forced, official policies of the Ankara regime that date back to the very foundation of the regime. It's also interesting to note that Rubin denies the second-class citizen status of the Kurdish people under Turkish occupation, even though this status has been proven and documented time and time again by such PKK-sponsored organizations as IHD, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Kurdish Human Rights Project, among others.

Then again, it is the Deep State which has pushed the lie that human rights organizations are PKK-sponsored, and that is one of the reasons why the Ankara regime began a campaign of hate against a former IHD head, Akin Birdal. Turkish media's collusion in that campaign very nearly cost Birdal his life, when a state assassin pumped six bullets into him while he was in the Istanbul IHD office in 1998. Remember, too, that a similar media hatred campaign was attempted last year against another former IHD head, Eren Keskin.

Too bad Rubin the "expert" is thoroughly unacquainted with the facts of the Kurdish struggle. Of course, the Kurdish struggle simply does not serve the script continually written by the US-Turkey-Israel war triangle of the neocon-Deep State playwrights like Rubin.

For more "analysis" on the Ankara regime's insistence on invasion of South Kurdistan for control of Kerkuk's oil, check out the Turkish propagandist at World Politics Watch. Notice how in the first couple of paragraphs we're supposed to feel sorry for the families of TSK terrorists that are killed by HPG gerîlas, but there's no mention whatsoever for families like the Kaymaz family, whose father and 12-year-old son were gunned down in cold blood by Ankara state terrorists in front of their home in November, 2004. The state murderers were acquitted by the regime last month.

That's business as usual in a state-sponsor of terror like Turkey, and I should be concerned with their dead? BOO-EFFING-HOOOOO.

You should also notice how the propagandist of that piece engages in the usual Turkish BS. Turkey just wants to "move on," maybe even "find closure," but the US won't go take care of PKK for Turkey, like it did with the help of its Israeli friends in Kenya. But that conspiracy didn't end PKK at all, did it? Yet that's what the Ankara regime thought back then.

For the Turkish propagandist, the Kurdish "problem" is all the fault of the Americans. The official policy is to blame everyone else, just like adolescents do. There is no acceptance by the Ankara regime for having pushed the Kurdish people into legitimate armed resistance against 80 years of atrocities and no acceptance of the fact that a military solution will never solve the situation.

Then again, I doubt whether the regime really wants to solve the situation. It would be so much more lucrative to simply invade South Kurdistan in order to control energy resources in Mûsil and Kerkuk.

Remember, it's better to die on your feet than to die on your knees.

SHADOW ARMY

"We're never going to war without the private security industry again in a non-draft environment."
~ former Marine Colonel Jack Holly.

There's a fascinating article at Asia Times on the American shadow army in Iraq--the military contractors, like Blackwater,and how the Democrats are playing along with the Bush administration on the matter. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans, and the Asia Times article is just another piece of evidence to back up my assertion.

Here are some snippets:

The 145,000 active-duty US forces are nearly matched by occupation personnel who currently come from such companies as Blackwater USA and the former Halliburton subsidiary KBR, which enjoy close personal and political ties with the Bush administration. Until Congress reins in these massive corporate forces and the whopping federal funding that goes into their coffers, partially withdrawing US troops may only set the stage for the increased use of private military companies (and their rent-a-guns) which stand to profit from any kind of privatized future "surge" in Iraq.

[ . . . ]

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Henry Waxman estimates that $4 billion in taxpayers' money has so far been spent in Iraq on armed "security" companies such as Blackwater - with tens of billions more going to other war companies such as KBR and Fluor for "logistical" support. Jan Schakowsky of the House Intelligence Committee believes that up to 40 cents of every dollar spent on the occupation has gone to war contractors.

With such massive government payouts, there is little incentive for these companies to minimize their footprint in the region and every incentive to look for more opportunities to profit - especially if, sooner or later, the "official" US presence shrinks, giving the public a sense of withdrawal, of a winding down of the war.

Even if Bush were to sign the legislation the Democrats have passed, their plan "allows the president the leeway to escalate the use of military security contractors directly on the battlefield", Erik Leaver of the Institute for Policy Studies pointed out. It would "allow the president to continue the war using a mercenary army".

[ . . . ]

More significant, there is absolutely no effective system of oversight or accountability governing contractors and their operations, nor is there any effective law - military or civilian - being applied to their activities.

They have not been subjected to military courts-martial (despite a recent congressional attempt to place them under the Uniform Code of Military Justice), nor have they been prosecuted in US civilian courts - and, no matter what their acts in Iraq, they cannot be prosecuted in Iraqi courts.

[ . . . ]

Despite the tens of thousands of contractors passing through Iraq and several well-documented incidents involving alleged contractor abuses, only two individuals have been ever indicted for crimes there. One was charged with stabbing a fellow contractor, while the other pleaded guilty to the possession of child-pornography images on his computer at Abu Ghraib prison. While dozens of American soldiers have been court-martialed - 64 on murder-related charges - not a single armed contractor has been prosecuted for a crime against an Iraqi. In some cases, where contractors were alleged to have been involved in crimes or deadly incidents, their companies whisked them out of Iraq to safety.

[ . . . ]

Consider the case of Blackwater USA. A decade ago, the company barely existed; and yet its "diplomatic security" contracts since mid-2004, with the State Department alone, total more than $750 million.

Today, Blackwater has become nothing short of the Bush administration's well-paid Praetorian Guard. It protects the US ambassador and other senior officials in Iraq as well as visiting congressional delegations; it trains Afghan security forces and was deployed in the oil-rich Caspian Sea region, setting up a "command and control" center just kilometers from the Iranian border.

[ . . . ]

The man behind this empire is Erik Prince, a secretive, conservative Christian, ex-navy special-force multimillionaire who bankrolls Bush and his allies with major campaign contributions. Among Blackwater's senior executives are Cofer Black, former head of counter-terrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency; Robert Richer, former deputy director of operations at the CIA; Joseph Schmitz, former Pentagon inspector general; and an impressive array of other retired military and intelligence officials. Company executives recently announced the creation of a new private intelligence company, "Total Intelligence", to be headed by Black and Richer.

For the rest, including Democratic collusion, see the Asia Times. More on Blackwater. Blackwater in New Orleans. More on Blackwater, Dyncorp, and others from Mother Jones.



More on Blackwater from Youtube:

Imagine if the Turks set up a company like that.

In other news, from IWPR, self-immolation as suicide among women leads to a boom in plastic surgery in South Kurdistan.

I'm disgusted.

CREATING PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY IN KERKUK

"One clear reason for military invasion by Turkey would be their old ambition to re-annex Mosul 'Vilayet' (province) to its territory. They are still thinking in terms of the old Ottoman empire."
~ Ata Qaradakhi.

It appears that Turkey was indeed attempting to assassinate the governor of Kerkuk back in July 2003, from a little item on TNA:

The US may have been too harsh in its response to its ally Turkey in the July 2003 "sack crisis" in Sulaimaniyah, northern Iraq, but it had "good reasons," according to the account of a U.S. official published Friday.

The crisis took place when 11 Turkish Special Forces soldiers were arrested by U.S. troops and sacks were put over their heads.

The Turks were released after two days, but their arrest unleashed a torrent of criticism in a country where the military is a revered institution. Gen. Hilmi Ozkok, Turkey's former chief of staff, said the arrests had "led to the biggest crisis of confidence ever between Turkish and U.S. forces."

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European affairs Matt Bryza, in a interview with Sabah daily, stated that the relationship between Turkey and U.S. continues to go on the right path.

When asked about former State Department official Henry Barkey's statement that the Turkish Special Forces troops detained by the U.S. were plotting to kill the governor of Kirkuk, a city whose status is in dispute, he replied, "He's a smart man. Maybe the U.S. was too harsh in its response to its ally Turkey in the sack crisis, but we had good reasons."

When asked why the 11 Turkish soldiers were treated "like al-Qaeda militants," he said, "As I said, he's a smart man. But we had good reasons. Is there any reason to antagonize one of our most important allies in Iraq, as well as in the world, Turkey?"

He also stressed that the U.S administration would continue to block the so-called Armenian genocide resolution, adding that Washington knows it would damage Turkish- U.S relations.

There were two events in 2003 which involved Turkish state efforts at creating instability in Kerkuk with the first in April 2003. Here's a refresher from TIME:

Even as the U.S. works to stabilize a postwar Iraq, Turkey is setting out to create a footprint of its own in the Kurdish areas of the country. In the days after U.S. forces captured Saddam's powerbase in Tikrit, a dozen Turkish Special Forces troops were dispatched south from Turkey. Their target: the northern oil city of Kirkuk, now controlled by the U.S. 173rd Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade. Using the pretext of accompanying humanitarian aid the elite soldiers passed through the northern city of Arbil on Tuesday. They wore civilian clothes, their vehicles lagging behind a legitimate aid convoy. They'd hoped to pass unnoticed. But at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Kirkuk they ran into trouble. "We were waiting for them," says a U.S. paratroop officer.

The Turkish Special Forces team put up no resistance though a mean arsenal was discovered in their cars, including a variety of AK-47s, M4s, grenades, body armor and night vision goggles. "They did not come here with a pure heart," says U.S. brigade commander Col. Bill Mayville. "Their objective is to create an environment that can be used by Turkey to send a large peacekeeping force into Kirkuk."

The second widely reported incident was in July 2003, from the Christian Science Monitor:

More than a week has passed since the US-led arrest and release of a Turkish special-forces team in northern Iraq. But with no US explanation yet, Ankara's still seething.

[ . . . ]

Washington has so far offered only vague justifications for the July 4 arrests. According to unconfirmed Iraqi Kurdish intelligence claims, the 11 men taken into US custody were part of a plot to assassinate the new Kurdish governor of Kirkuk.

Absolute nonsense, say officials in Ankara. Improbable, says the Kurdish governor himself. While far-fetched, the allegations tie in with one of the more inflammatory aspects of Turkey's foreign policy: its support for pro-Ankara elements among Iraq's Turkish-speaking Turkmen minority.

Turkey long feared war in Iraq could lead to an independent Kurdish state in the north of Iraq, with incalculable effects on its own restive Kurdish minority. For years it supported Baghdad as a guarantee of Iraq's territorial integrity. Faced with growing US determination to end Saddam Hussein's regime, though, it deepened relations with the Iraqi Turkoman Front, who were also raided by the US Friday.

Ankara insists its concern for the Turkmens is no different from its support in the 1980s of Bulgarian Turks oppressed under Communism. Patrick Clawson of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, doesn't buy it. "What did Turkey do for Turkoman affected by Saddam's Arabization campaigns around Kirkuk and Mosul in the '80s and '90s? Zip. This is purely political."

Absolute nonsense? Really? Yet the State Department's Matt Bryza not only refuses to deny the claim in TNA's article, he stresses that one of those who initially made the claim was "a smart man." Why is the US admitting the Turkish assassination attempt now? It most likely has to do with US support for the Kerkuk referendum coming up in December. Additionally, the US is not going to relinquish control of Kerkuk's oil to Turkey when State Department policy denies Kurdish control over Kurdish oil in "undisputed" Kurdish territory.

As Col. Mayville observed in April 2003, Turkey's objective was "to create an environment that can be used by Turkey to send a large peacekeeping force into Kirkuk." That remains Turkey's objective today. It is also the reason that a WINEP--no friend of Kurds--spokesman points to Turkey's total lack of concern for attacks against Turkmen by Saddam's regime. The fact is that for Turkey, the Turkmen card is, in reality, a red herring, as is the PKK card. Turkey's goal is the oil of Kerkuk and Mûsil.

While State Department flunkies like Bryza are content to admit the truth when it serves US interests, the use of political assassination by Turkey as a foreign policy tool with which to violate the "territorial integrity" of its neighbors is not considered objectionable by the US government per se. Nor is it objectionable for the US government that Turkey conducts false flag operations within South Kurdistan and Kerkuk. If such operations were to clash with US interests, surely the US would forbid Turkish mercenaries operating from US territory.

But Turkish mercenaries, former Special Team members (Ozel Timler), are in the process of conducting "security" operations from Silopî in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, a few short yards from the Habur border crossing into South Kurdistan. One of the major shareholders in Black Hawk Security, Inc., is retired Turkish general Koksal Karabay, who happened to be the officer in charge of the Special Team that was "bagged" by US forces on July 4, 2003, according to a report by Yeni Ozgur Politika from July of last year. The former special teams-turned-mercenaries hope to have everything completed at their Silopî base this year, just in time to create trouble in Kerkuk in the months running up to the referendum.

Additionally, Washington-based Black Hawk Security plans to create bases of operations for its mercenaries in Zaxo and Kerkuk, meaning that they have permission to do so from the KRG. Whether the KRG has willingly agreed to this arrangement as part of its efforts to encourage "foreign investment" or whether they have acceded to US demands for a Turkish mercenary presence in South Kurdistan remains to be discovered.

Regardless of the role of the KRG, the presence of Black Hawk Security in the region provides plausible deniability for the Ankara regime "to create an environment that can be used by Turkey to send a large peacekeeping force into Kirkuk" and all of South Kurdistan, effectively recreating the old Ottoman Mosul Vilayet.


Sunday evening reading assignment: There's a fascinating analysis by Chalmers Johnson, a specialist on East Asia, at Harper's. It begins with an abstract:

The United States remains, for the moment, the most powerful nation in history, but it faces a violent contradiction between its long republican tradition and its more recent imperial ambitions.

The fate of previous democratic empires suggests that such a conflict is unsustainable and will be resolved in one of two ways. Rome attempted to keep its empire and lost its democracy. Britain chose to remain democratic and in the process let go its empire. Intentionally or not, the people of the United States already are well embarked upon the course of non-democratic empire.

Several factors, however, indicate that this course will be a brief one, which most likely will end in economic and political collapse.

Military Keynesianism: The imperial project is expensive. The flow of the nation's wealth—from taxpayers and (increasingly) foreign lenders through the government to military contractors and (decreasingly) back to the taxpayers—has created a form of “military Keynesianism,” in which the domestic economy requires sustained military ambition in order to avoid recession or collapse.

The Unitary Presidency: Sustained military ambition is inherently anti-republican, in that it tends to concentrate power in the executive branch. In the United States, President George W. Bush subscribes to an esoteric interpretation of the Constitution called the theory of the unitary executive, which holds, in effect, that the president has the authority to ignore the separation of powers written into the Constitution, creating a feedback loop in which permanent war and the unitary presidency are mutually reinforcing.

Failed Checks on Executive Ambition: The U.S. legislature and judiciary appear to be incapable of restraining the president and therefore restraining imperial ambition. Direct opposition from the people, in the form of democratic action or violent uprising, is unlikely because the television and print media have by and large found it unprofitable to inform the public about the actions of the country's leaders. Nor is it likely that the military will attempt to take over the executive branch by way of a coup.

Bankruptcy and Collapse: Confronted by the limits of its own vast but nonetheless finite financial resources and lacking the political check on spending provided by a functioning democracy, the United States will within a very short time face financial or even political collapse at home and a significantly diminished ability to project force abroad.

For the meat of the article, scroll down to read the Discussion. You might want to keep in mind the news on Lockheed Martin and the rest of the war industry that you've read about here on Rastî, from Sibel Edmonds, and from Richard Cummings.