TURKEY: HITLER JUSTIFIED

"Many of us believe that wrongs aren't wrong if it's done by nice people like ourselves."
~ Author Unknown.

Mmm hmmm . . . AKP parliamentary deputies are "outraged" and "horrified" about Israel's ongoing bombing of Gaza. Speaker of the TBMM, Köksal Toptan said:

"I should also state that we have been horrified to hear statements that these kinds of attacks will continue. That's why attacks should be immediately halted, and the entire world, particularly the UN Security Council, should find a clear and quick path toward making this happen."

Oh, yeah, well naturally he'd say that since Turkey is a temporary member of the UN National Security Council.

AKP and MHP parliamentarians are also withdrawing from the TBMM's Turkish-Israeli friendship group because they are suddenly concerned about shaking "bloody hands". That's a good one. Even richer is Erdoğan's concern that Israeli actions constitute a "crime against humanity"--this from the same son of a bitch who gave the green light for TSK to shoot Kurdish women and children indiscriminately during the Amed Serhildan, claimed that assimilation was a "crime against humanity" during a visit to Germany, and did absolutely nothing while his security forces beat Kurdish women and children during Newroz earlier this year.

In an opinion piece titled, "The aircraft that bomb Gaza train in Konya" Nuh Gönültaş at Bugün, reports that the Turkish public is saying Hitler was justified . At the end of the piece, Gönültaş asks:

"What does it mean for Turkey to make [military] deals with Israel and then oppose Israel for the things it's doing to Palestinians?"

Oooohh . . . Gönültaş hits the bullseye. The Israeli air force has been training at Konya since 2001, but the Turkish-Israeli military alliance goes back to the mid-1990s when the Clean Break Strategy was first proposed to the Netanyahu government by the American neocons. By 1996, the first cooperative military moves were made between Israel and Turkey:

The first agreement on military cooperation was signed, amid the utmost secrecy, on 23 February, 1996, in Tel Aviv by Deputy Chief of the General Staff Çevik Bir and the leadership of the Israeli Defense Ministry. For the first time in the history of relations between the two countries, it provided for interaction of their armed forces in implementing military training programs; joint land, naval, and air maneuvers; creation of a joint group on military-strategic studies; training flights by Turkish aircraft in the Israeli air space and Israeli aircraft in the Turkish air space; briefing of Turkish pilots; and intelligence sharing, especially in combating terrorism (in particular, joint monitoring on the borders with Syria, Iran, and Iraq). Furthermore, Israel pledged to help Turkey in modernizing and beefing up its borders with these three countries to protect it against Kurdish insurgents.

Robert Fisk has more:

Professor Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Centre for strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, first revealed the extent of Turkish-Israeli co-operation in a remarkable - but largely unpublicised - lecture at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington five months ago. He spoke only vaguely of the joint listening posts on the Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian borders but described them as "an important facet of our intelligence gathering capability". There was also, Professor Inbar added, "co-operation on terror".

The alliance was a Turkish idea, initiated in 1997 when the Turkish air force commander arrived without warning to see the Israeli ambassador in Ankara with the words - according to Professor Inbar - "we want to invite the Israeli chief of the air force to come to Turkey to visit". It wasn't all plain sailing. When the Turkish navy paid its first official visit to the Israeli port of Haifa last year, the Israelis had not bothered to send a naval representative to meet it; and Turkish officers were astounded when the Israeli harbourmaster refused to let their ships into port unless they agreed to pay harbour dues.

But Israeli planes are now training in Turkey, using Turkish bombing ranges, just as Turkish pilots are now flying in the skies over Israel. The Americans chair a regular meeting of Turkish and Israeli intelligence officers in Tel Aviv and on at least one occasion last year a Jordanian officer was also present. If Jordan's new King Abdullah was to upgrade this relationship, it would further isolate Syria. Mr Netanyahu's government has long believed - wrongly - that President Assad can be blackmailed into making peace without handing back the occupied Golan Heights if Syria was sufficiently intimidated.

And he goes on to explain more about the realities of the Israeli-Turkish relationship:

Back in 1982, Turkey condemned Israel's invasion of Lebanon as aggression until Israel furnished Turkey with intelligence files on the Armenian ASALA extremist group. Much to Turkey's delight, Mr Ocalan's PKK are always referred to by the Israelis as "terrorists"; Israel has expressed sympathy for Iraqi Kurds - but never for the millions of Kurds who live under Turkish military oppression. Israel supports only a limited form of autonomy for the Kurds of Iraq; which is not surprising since that is precisely the limited freedoms it wishes to give the Palestinians.

Now it's ironic that Erdoğan's government, which plays the Eternal Victim so well in order to drum up international support for it's severe repression of Kurds via the Big Lie which labels the Kurds of Turkish-occupied Kurdistan and their only defenders, the PKK, as "terrorists" because Erdoğan's government paid host to HAMAS' leadership in Ankara in early 2006. It's ironic because HAMAS is clearly a member of that exclusive club known as The List. Yes, it's ironic because it's the same List that Turkey always refers to in its 30-year-long losing war against Kurdish freedom fighters.

Well, it's either irony or hypocrisy and I guess it doesn't matter too much that HAMAS was elected by the Palestinians because we all know that democracy itself is merely a media event. A fantasy. Another Big Lie.

Of course, Turkish concern for Gaza is, like most things in Turkey: a show. Money is going to continue to pass under the table. Turkey and Israel will continue their joint military training and cooperation because they are integral components of the US military-industrial-congressional complex. So there's nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along.

Meanwhile, the Turkish air force continues to bomb civilian areas of South Kurdistan, thus creating the de facto buffer zone for which both the paşas and the AKP so desperately lust--and screw Iraqi territorial sovereignty.

SENATE TO HOLD CONFIRMATION HEARINGS FOR NEW US AMBASSADOR TO TURKEY

"It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power."
~ David Brin.

It looks like there will be Senate confirmation hearings next Wednesday (24 September) for the next US ambassador to Turkey, James F. Jeffrey, from ANCA:

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) has called on members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to closely scrutinize ten serious shortcomings in the Administration’s handling of the U.S. - Turkey relationship, during the September 24th confirmation hearing for James Jeffrey to serve as the next U.S. Ambassador to Turkey.

In letters to panel Chairman Joe Biden (D-DE) and other key Committee members, ANCA Chairman Ken Hachikian outlined the Administration’s failings, and encouraged strict scrutiny of the nominee in order to “ensure accountability for past errors, as well as to apply the lessons learned from these setbacks in charting a more productive and principled course for U.S.-Turkey relations.”

Who is James F. Jeffrey? You can get the official rundown of his career from the State Department:

James F. Jeffrey assumed the position of Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs on August 21, 2006.

Ambassador Jeffrey, in collaboration with the Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, will lead the Bureau's Iran Policy Team and coordinate Bureau public diplomacy and internal management, serving as Acting Assistant Secretary when the Assistant Secretary is traveling.

A career member of the U.S. Foreign Service, James Jeffrey served as He served as Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State for Iraq from August 2005 to August 2006. Amb. Jeffrey served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad from June 2004 to March 2005. From March to June 2005 Ambassador Jeffrey was U.S. Charge d'affairs to Iraq. He served as Ambassador to Albania from 2002-2004. Previously he was Deputy Chief of Mission in Turkey and Kuwait. Other assignments have included Deputy Special Representative for Bosnian Implementation, postings in the Department's European and Near Eastern Bureaus, and overseas service in Turkey, Bulgaria, Germany and Tunisia.

But what about his real career? For starters, Jeffrey is involved with the administration's efforts to manufacture consent for a war with Iran, from the Boston Globe:

The existence of ISOG (Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group) reflects an intensification of the Bush administration's planning on Iran. Syria, which has linked itself to Iran through military pacts, is a lesser focus for the group. Its workings have been so secretive that several officials in the State Department's Near Eastern Affairs bureau said they were unaware it existed.

[ . . . ]

ISOG was modeled after the Iraq Policy and Operations Group, set up in 2004 to shepherd information and coordinate US action in Iraq. ISOG has raised eyebrows within the State Department for hiring BearingPoint -- the same Washington-based private contracting firm used by the Iraq group -- to handle its administrative work, rather than State Department employees.

[ . . . ]

ISOG is led by a steering committee with two leading hawks on Middle East policy as chairmen: James F. Jeffrey, prinicipal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, who once headed Iraq policy, and Elliott Abrams, deputy national security adviser for "Global Democracy Strategy." Michael Doran, a Middle East specialist at the White House, steps in when Abrams is away. Elizabeth Cheney, the vice president's daughter, who was the former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, served as cochairwoman before she took a maternity leave earlier this year.

Okay, right there we have Jeffrey linked with the Bush administration's efforts for regime change in Iraq, which were based on lies ranging from accusations that Saddam was behind the 9/11 attacks to the WMD lies and the Niger yellow cake forgeries.

We also have Jeffrey linked to BearingPoint which has some very shady history. From Sourcewatch:

* In July of 2003, BearingPoint was awarded a contract by USAID worth $79.5 million to facilitate Iraq's economic recovery with a two-year option worth a total of $240,162,688.[2][3] Responsibilities in this contract include:

1. Creating Iraq's budget

2. Writing business law

3. Setting up tax collection

4. Laying out trade and customs rules

5. Privatize state-owned enterprises by auctioning them off or issuing Iraqis shares in the enterprises.

6. Reopen banks and jump-start the private sector by making small loans of $100 to $10,000.

7. Wean Iraqis from the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program, the main source of food for 60% of the population.

8. Issue a new currency and set exchange rates. [4]


* In January 2003 BearingPoint won a $3.95 million contract financed by the World Bank to aid the Afghanistan government upgrade its accounting system.[5]

* In March of 2003, USAID awarded BearingPoint a $39.9 million contract to help rebuild the economy in Afghanistan.

[6] In November 2005, USAID awarded another contract, this three years and worth $45 million. [7] The overall worth of contracts in Afghanistan could be worth as much as $350 million. [8]

BearingPoint has also been involved in the drafting of the Iraq Oil Law for the benefit of Big Oil:

BearingPoint, a Virginia based contractor is being paid $240m for its work in Iraq, winning an initial contract from the US Agency for International Development (USAid) within weeks of the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. A BearingPoint employee, based in the US embassy in Baghdad, was hired to advise the Iraqi Ministry of Oil on drawing up a new hydrocarbon law.

BearingPoint employees gave $117,000 to the 2000 and 2004 Bush election campaigns, more than any other Iraq contractor.

The process of drafting the oil law has been particularly troubling. The timeline of which entities have seen the draft when suggests that Iraqi interests are not being considered first and foremost:

* Draft shown to US government and major oil companies – July 06

* Draft shown to the International Monetary Fund September 06

* Draft shown to Iraqi Parliament: February 07

The Iraq National Oil Company would have exclusive control of just 17 of Iraq’s 80 known oil fields, leaving two-thirds of known — and all of its as yet undiscovered — reserves open to foreign control.

Not surprisingly, the Iraqi Oil Workers' Union and the Electrical Utility Workers' Union opposed the law and protested BearingPoint's involvement in the drafting of it. Antonia Juhasz also mentioned BearingPoint's role in the drafting of the Iraq oil law at the time of the Baker-Hamilton report:

WHILE THE Bush administration, the media and nearly all the Democrats still refuse to explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever-pragmatic members of the Iraq Study Group share no such reticence.

Page 1, Chapter 1 of the Iraq Study Group report lays out Iraq's importance to its region, the U.S. and the world with this reminder: "It has the world's second-largest known oil reserves." The group then proceeds to give very specific and radical recommendations as to what the United States should do to secure those reserves. If the proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will be commercialized and opened to foreign firms.

[ . . . ]

For any degree of oil privatization to take place, and for it to apply to all the country's oil fields, Iraq has to amend its constitution and pass a new national oil law. The constitution is ambiguous as to whether control over future revenues from as-yet-undeveloped oil fields should be shared among its provinces or held and distributed by the central government.

This is a crucial issue, with trillions of dollars at stake, because only 17 of Iraq's 80 known oil fields have been developed. Recommendation No. 26 of the Iraq Study Group calls for a review of the constitution to be "pursued on an urgent basis." Recommendation No. 28 calls for putting control of Iraq's oil revenues in the hands of the central government. Recommendation No. 63 also calls on the U.S. government to "provide technical assistance to the Iraqi government to prepare a draft oil law."

This last step is already underway. The Bush administration hired the consultancy firm BearingPoint more than a year ago to advise the Iraqi Oil Ministry on drafting and passing a new national oil law.

Plans for this new law were first made public at a news conference in late 2004 in Washington. Flanked by State Department officials, Iraqi Finance Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi (who is now vice president) explained how this law would open Iraq's oil industry to private foreign investment. This, in turn, would be "very promising to the American investors and to American enterprise, certainly to oil companies." The law would implement production-sharing agreements.

As for BearingPoint's Afghanistan contracts:

USAID’s own March 13, 2007 announcement of the five year $218.6 million contract that will run through January 2012 states that it is for the purpose of: strengthening “the performance of ministries, businesses, non-governmental organizations, universities and local governments; establish(ing) permanent, sustainable capacity in the public, private and high education sectors; and build(ing) the skills of key personnel in the Afghan public and private sectors, through scholarship.”

For a company that is still correcting, according to the Washington Business Journal, its financial reports for accounting errors, whose revenues rose by 10 percent to $2.65 billion in 2006 over the previous year, a contract worth even $218.6 million must seem like a drop in the bucket. Still it adds up for a company which reaches out at every opportunity to take advantage of swelling its bottom line from US government outsourcing as a result of the downsizing of the US Foreign and Civil Service after the Cold War. It doesn’t hurt in filling the company’s coffers that BearingPoint,Inc. is close to the current administration and contributes to the Republican Party particularly in election years.

It's quite obvious that BearingPoint has not accomplished anything in Afghanistan for which it was paid. And what about those "accounting errors"? Would that be "accounting errors" like those of Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrel Lynch, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and, perhaps soon to be Washington Mutual and Wachovia? Behold the American way of doing business! Behold the failure of capitalism!

Jeffrey's other interesting link from the Boston Globe article is his close association with Mr. Iran-Contra himself, Elliot Abrams. Abrams' big deal is the promotion of "freedom" and "democracy" abroad, particularly in the Middle East. Of course, "freedom" and "democracy" only apply to American ruling elites. From Sourcewatch:

Hours before Bush's second inauguration in January 2005, the White House announced that Abrams would serve as Bush's deputy assistant and as the deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy under NSC Adviser Stephen Hadley, who had been Condoleezza Rice's deputy at the NSC when she was adviser. In his announcement of Abrams's new position, Hadley called Abrams one of the administration's strongest and most consistent advocates of American strength and the expansion of freedom worldwide.

Abrams is a key proponent of the "freedom and democracy" policy that Bush highlighted during his 2005 State of the Union Address, and has been an important figure in dealings with Israel. Prior to Rice's first trip to Israel as secretary of state, Abrams met with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's top adviser, Dov Weisglass, to establish the parameters of the Rice-Sharon meetings.

[ . . . ]

While Bush's supporters are generally pleased with the administration's strong backing of Israel, many criticize the State Department and Rice. Leading the attack has been Perle, who along with Feith, a former Pentagon undersecretary for policy, has worked with Abrams since the mid-1970s, when both worked for [Senator Henry "Scoop", D-WA] Jackson. In a Washington Post op-ed that coalesced conservative forces against Rice, Perle wrote that, having moved from the NSC to State, Rice is "now in the midst of—and increasingly represents—a diplomatic establishment that is driven to accommodate its allies even when (or, it seems, especially when) such allies counsel the appeasement of our adversaries" (June 25, 2006).

There we have James F. Jeffrey not far removed at all from the Prince of Darkness and "the stupidest fucking guy on the face of the earth", both of whom are tightly linked to the American Turkish Council (ATC). In turn, the ATC is so tightly linked to AIPAC that it's been referred to as the "mini-AIPAC".

The other person of interest who was involved with Jeffrey's ISOG was Dick Cheney's daughter, Elizabeth. Even now that she's out of public service, she's still doing a lot of footwork for ISOG, from the WaPo:

. . . judging from her remarks at AIPAC, Liz is one Cheney unhappy with key elements of U.S. Mideast policy, from Lebanon and the peace process to how the White House dealt with elections in the Palestinian territories. She was also critical of Israel's performance in the 2006 war in Lebanon, citing "Israel's inability, unwillingness to do what was necessary . . . to fundamentally deal a blow to Hezbollah."

"I think that getting back to a situation where our enemies in the region understand that America will stand up for its friends, that America will stand up for its principles and that we have red lines is critically important," Cheney told the friendly audience at AIPAC. "When those red lines aren't there, when our enemies like Iran and Syria begin to believe that they can act with impunity, you see situations like you have got in Lebanon today -- where Hezbollah now has a veto over that government, where Hezbollah will be able, I fear, to significantly continue its efforts to rearm in southern Lebanon, continue to threaten Israel and allow Iran a real chokehold on the region."

The big problem with Liz Cheney's AIPAC comments is that the US has no friends and fewer principles.

We'll be watching the news for more on Jeffrey and his confirmation hearings, both of which have been flying under the radar of official American state propaganda organs (i.e. the media). That fact alone makes me suspect that Jeffrey's appointment is something the regime doesn't want anyone to pay attention to.

Given the methods of the Washington regime, especially as regards the Middle East, "freedom", and "democracy", we should be prepared to expect the worst out of this appointment.

LOCKHEED MARTIN IN BUSINESS WITH BAGHDAD

"Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do."
~ Aldous Huxley.

My good friend, Anonymous, dropped off a couple of URLs in the comments to the last post. The first is from Reuters:

The Iraqi government has asked for information about buying 36 F-16 fighter aircraft built by Lockheed Martin Corp, the U.S. Defense Department said on Friday.

The request, received Aug. 27, is being reviewed "in the normal course of business" as part of the U.S. government-to-government arms sale process, said Air Force Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman.

Updated F-16s are among the world's most advanced multirole fighters and a powerful symbol of military ties to the United States.

Iraq's interest in the fighter jet, reported first by The Wall Street Journal, could spark concerns among neighbors worried about advanced arms in the hands of a country still facing major internal challenges.

[ . . . ]

Flush with billions of dollars from oil sales, Iraq is emerging as the biggest client for a wide range of U.S. weapons -- a shot in the arm for defense contractors such as Lockheed, Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp, General Dynamics Corp and Raytheon Co.

Among other systems, Iraq is seeking more than 400 armored vehicles plus six C-130 transport planes built by Lockheed, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier.

On July 30, the Pentagon notified Congress that Iraq also was seeking to buy 24 Textron Inc Bell Armed 407 or 24 Boeing AH-6 helicopters along with 565 120mm mortars, 665 81mm mortars, 200 AGM-114M Hellfire missiles and other arms that could be worth $2.4 billion.

More, from the WSJ:

There are potential pitfalls both for Iraq and U.S. officials in the move. A steady cadre of well-trained Iraqi pilots will need time to learn the planes' tactics and weapons, and ground crews will have to maintain them to high standards to avoid performance or safety problems. The U.S. currently uses a wide variety of planes for air support in Iraq, so it's unclear how big a role Iraqi F-16s could play.

The U.S. has previously seen weapons meant for fragile allies end up in unfriendly hands, as with Iran in 1979. The U.S. will have to consider how advanced F-16s and their weapons, such as satellite-guided bombs, should be.

The F-16 purchase must be reviewed by the Pentagon, Congress and the State Department. The F-16s would allow the Iraqis to carry out their own airstrikes on insurgent positions, something they currently need the U.S. to do for them. That shortcoming was a serious problem during the initial days of the Iraqi army's Basra assault in March, which didn't break in the Iraqis' favor until British and American warplanes bombed the positions of the Mahdi Army, Iraq's largest Shiite militia, throughout the city.

Air power is becomingly increasingly important in Iraq, where the amount of ordnance dropped by U.S. planes has jumped in recent months as U.S. and Iraqi forces press to eradicate the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq and other militant groups. Though the F-16 is a fighter designed to shoot down enemy aircraft, it can carry precision-guided bombs and missiles that can be used to support ground forces. The plane also is armed with a cannon that can be used for close air-support missions.

[ . . . ]

The F-16 would represent a significant upgrade for the Iraqi military, and -- depending on how the planes were outfitted with radar and other electronic systems -- could give it some of the most advanced fighter aircraft in the region. The planes can be equipped advanced missiles and bombs, and would give Iraq a more potent air force than it had under Saddam Hussein, when the Iraqi air force mainly consisted of Russian and French fighters.

With a fleet of U.S.-made fighters, Iraq would be able to better match up against neighbors like Iran, which relies on Russian and Iranian-made fighters and aging American jets. U.S. analysts cautioned, however, that Iraq would still have one of the weaker air forces in the region.

This is the same excuse used by the US to arm Saddam and encourage him in his war against Iran, with catastrophic consequences for the Kurdish people.

More, from the Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, whose congressional district includes the Lockheed Martin plant, said the request signals the Iraqi government’s intent to take responsibility for its own security to hasten the timetable for phasing out the U.S. military presence.

"We keep saying that the Iraqis have to take care of their own security," Granger said. "If the request is approved, then it would help move them toward providing their own security."

Granger, who has made three trips to Iraq, said its air force "is very, very weak" because of lack of resources. But with Iraq’s expanding oil wealth, the government is increasingly capable of buying Western military technology and has made plans to purchase U.S. helicopters, tanks, armored vehicles and other weapon systems.

Under dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq once had a formidable air force composed largely of Soviet aircraft. But the force was largely demolished in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and offered no resistance to U.S. air power during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

So what should all this tell Kurds? It says: You're screwed! Again! Second URL from Anonymous, from the AFP:

The speaker of northern Iraq's regional parliament warned Baghdad on Monday about the purchase of high-tech US military hardware, amid concerns the weapons could be used against them.

"The Kurds demand guarantees from the countries selling weapons to Iraq that they will not be used against our people and other Iraqis," said Adnan al-Mufti in a speech to MPs in the regional capital of Arbil.

[ . . . ]

"We want the Iraqi government to be strong and able to defend the sovereignty of the country but our concern is related to the crisis that has happened in Khanaqin," Mufti said.

He was referring to tension that flared last month between Baghdad and Kurdish leaders when Iraqi forces ordered Kurdish political parties to vacate their offices in Khanaqin, a district in the central province of Diyala.

Khanaqin, which includes a string of villages and some of Iraq's oil reserves, is home to about 175,000 people, most of them Kurdish Shiites.

During the Arabisation policies of former dictator Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, a large number of Kurdish Shiites were displaced by force from Khanaqin. Villages came under fierce Iraqi air strikes.

Guarantees? Adnan al-Mufti wants guarantees? Is this guy for real?

Forget about seeking phony guarantees from backstabbers like the US or Baghdad and get ready for more airstrikes like those at Xanaqîn . . . or maybe like those at Helebçe. In those days, the US knew very well what Saddam's regime was up to, what it was using advanced weapons systems for, and it did nothing. Has everyone already forgotten that "covert action should not be confused with missionary work"?

The KRG and the two ruling families of South Kurdistan aren't concerned when Turkey uses the very same type of aircraft to bomb its regions, which it has done since December. They weren't concerned when Turkey dropped cluster bombs in the same regions last summer. Nor were they concerned when Lockheed Martin lobbyist, Joseph Ralston, was appointed "PKK coordinator" for Turkey.

No, the KRG and the two ruling families have forgotten all about covert action and missionary work. Is it hubris that convinces one to trust the one who's betrayed you so many times in the past?

It wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that The Cohen Group is coordinating Baghdad's efforts to buy all that sophisticated ordnance, especially the F16s. The Cohen Group was working on arming the region at the beginning of this year:

When Congress gets back to business in the new year, one of its priorities will be consideration of the Bush administration’s request for a massive arms sale - in the neighborhood of $20 billion - to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states.

Israel and Egypt also stand to gain billions more in U.S. weapons as part of the package Congress will review.

The proposed deal is controversial because of the Saudi component. Given the Saudi government’s questionable record on fighting terrorism and curtailing terrorism financing, its funding of extremist wahabbist mosques, its supply of foreign fighters into Iraq and a judicial system that recently ordered 200 lashes for a rape victim, some in Congress don’t believe the kingdom should be rewarded with top-of-the-line American weaponry.

[ . . . ]

One of the of the big names supporting the deal is William Cohen, the former senator and defense secretary under President Bill Clinton and regular commentator on CNN.

Cohen has opined on the cable network that the arms deal is good for the U.S. and good for Saudi Arabia.

“The issue really is, are we going to help them modernize their forces so they can be a force to contend with an expansionist Iran, with Iran trying to spread its Shia and revolutionary zeal,” Cohen said last summer when the administration first proposed the sale.



“I think it’s an important idea,” Cohen said on CNN. The Persian Gulf countries “are worried about Iran. In order to help them prepare for their defense capabilities, we should be the country supplying it, so it will be interoperable with our own forces.



“They can buy it from us, they can buy it from the French, the British, the Russians, the Chinese or other country, potentially,” said Cohen. “So the real issue is, are we going continue to solidify our own influence or have it undermined by other countries quite willing to move in and take over the position that we had to date.”



While Cohen cloaked the sale in terms of what is best for American interests, he left out that the weapons sale is good business for him personally.


As chief of the Cohen Group, a lobbying and consulting firm based in the nation’s capital, Cohen represents some of the country’s largest weapons manufacturers, companies that stand to benefit from the weapons sale.

Including, of course, Lockheed Martin, as well as a bunch of other corporate murderers. But the point around which Katil Cohen was talking was the Almighty Dollar. With the American economy already in the toilet, you'd be an idiot to think that Congress will not approve the sale of fighter aircraft and all the rest to Baghdad.

All that talk about being careful or having concerns or taking the sale seriously is propaganda.

And where's that so-called Kurdish president of Iraq in all this, or his son, the so-called lobbyist for Southern Kurdish interests in DC? How much of this deal is going to end up in their bank accounts?

For more than five years now, the Barzanîs and Talabanîs have been busy with a bunch of bullshit construction projects in South Kurdistan, consisting mostly of hotels, resorts, and shopping malls. They've wasted precious time and money on these fantasies, when they should have been arming themselves with more than small arms and peşmêrge. Instead of counting profits, they should have been looking to the future and investing in pilot training and air defense systems, among other things.

We also know for a fact that the US, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey have passed around US and Israeli-acquired intelligence that fueled recent attacks against the Kurdish Freedom Movement. They'll all cooperate with the same intel-sharing against Southern Kurdish peşmêrge, too.

Now what to do? Stop all cooperation. Look to the East. Look to the North. Send the best and brightest--not Barzanîs and Talabanîs--to Russia and China to be trained as pilots and in air defense systems. Then buy the weapons systems necessary to defend Kurdistan. Because, as always, the US is going to look right at you and say nothing when Baghdad bombs you with American weapons.

ISRAELIS OPERATING UAV'S AGAINST PKK

"In the past months, Israel and the United States have been working together in support of PKK and its Iranian offshoot PEJAK, I was told by a government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon."
~ Seymour Hersh.

I wonder how Hersh is going to explain this: Israeli Haaretz does not deny claims made in TDN that Israelis are operating the UAV's that are providing reconnaissance information to Turkey on the movement of Kurdistan's freedom fighters. In fact, Haaretz seems to confirm the claims of Israeli support to Turkey against the gerîlas who fight for the Kurdish people:

Meanwhile, crews from Israel Aerospace Industries, operating unmanned aerial vehicles, are participating in Turkish military operations against PKK militants in northern Iraq, according to Turkish reports to be published today in the Turkish Daily News.

Ten days ago, the Turkish television station Star reported that IAI Heron UAVs are being used in the offensive against the Kurds.

The same report stated that Turkey's Chief of Staff, General Yasar Buyukanit, had observed the UAVs' operations in real time, in the operations room of the Batman air force base near the border with Iraq. The intelligence relayed by the UAVs was used by the Turkish Air Force in targeting the Kurdish militants.

Contrary to Hersh's claim (read: LIE) of Israeli support for PKK, here we have an Israeli daily not only confirming the opposite, but also confirming the continuing cooperation within the US-Turkey-Israel Axis of Evil. The Americans, on the other hand, are operating U2 reconnaissance aircraft against the Kurdish Freedom Movement.

Meanwhile, the US embassy in Ankara denied, on Tuesday, that the Turks have conducted any more bombing operations in Kurdistan even as Abdullah Gül bends over to publicly lick the boots of his American masters in profuse gratitude.

Murat Karayılan is right. This is pitiful, pathetic, and contemptible . . . but oh-so typical.

The only common sense about the situation of the Kurdish people under Turkish brutality is coming from Canada:

If the Turkish authorities want a long-term solution to Kurdish discontent, they will require concrete steps to respect the right of Kurds to their own cultural traditions and identity and initiatives to greatly improve the overall socio-economic situation in predominantly Kurdish provinces.

This can be accomplished only by a dialogue of goodwill and mutual respect that includes the reconciliation of Kurdish militants, not by military force.

Poor guy! He must not own any shares of stock in the military-industrial complex.

Russia's Regnum News generally does a great job of analyzing situations involving Turkey. In May 2006, Regnum analyzed the build-up of Turkish troops along the Iraqi border during Condoleezza "Chevron" Rice's April visit. Now Regnum does it again, this time analyzing the Turkish fabrication of Armenian ties to the PKK as a prelude to Turkish-Azeri aggression against Armenia. First you'll find a short history of Turkish lies regarding the so-called ties between Armenia and PKK from 1993, when the lies first appeared, until the most recent lies, which surfaced again last month. Here's a snippet:

The latest insinuations coincided almost to the date with the intensification of Baku’s war rhetoric and particularly with the statement made by the Azeri Defence Minister Safar Abiyev that “as long as the Azeri territories remain occupied by Armenia, the probability of war is almost 100 percent.” Mr Abiyev’s statement was made on November 27 at the closing press conference of the Meeting of the CIS Defence Ministers Council in Astana. On November 30, with a direct reference to the Turkish intelligence, the Turkish pro-government newspaper “Zaman” disseminated misinformation about talks between Armenia and the PKK and alleged about the installation of bases for Kurds in NKR, in the towns of Shushi, Lachin and Fizuli. (14) This bait was immediately caught and circulated by the American United Press International. (15) On December 10, Araz Azimov, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani President’s Special Representative on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, stated about “readiness of Baku to launch anti-terrorist operations against the PKK’s military detachments stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh.” (16) It is exactly the coordination of activities between Baku and Ankara with respect to the timing and target of information attack that should be cause for concern. All these could be a prelude to not so virtual attacks.

By the way, don't forget to go over to Kurdistan Observer and read Dr. Sabah Salih's "New Year's Message to Turkey". Talk about eloquence fired by righteous anger:

We can draw two conclusions from your treatment of the Kurds: one is that you have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to democracy; and two, it is obvious to us that your nationalism has been the incubator of your Kurdish problem. You have given the Kurds no choice but to fight back--and, unless you start treating them decently, fighting back they will.

Going on a bombing spree against Kurdish villages may satisfy your appetite for bloodletting; unleashing hate on Kurdistan may even make you feel better. But this will only confirm what the Kurds have been saying all along about you: that the solution to the Kurdish problem lies not really with the Kurds but with you; continue with your racist mindset and the problem will become bigger and bigger. It has already engulfed one generation of Kurds and Turks alike. Do you really want another generation of your people to be consumed by this conflict, day in and day out asking what W. H. Auden aptly asked decades ago: “What do you think about . . . this country of ours where nobody is well?”

And another thing: You want to join Europe? Beyond the obvious, have you asked yourself what Europe means? Europe is first and foremost a state of mind: the product of two hundred years of fighting against and rejecting and ridiculing the very nationalism that still defines your way of thinking. You ask the Kurds who have taken up arms against you to “repent” and surrender. But isn’t repentance, with its roots in religious orthodoxy and bigotry, the very opposite of what the European consciousness has been all about? For to repent is not just a matter of admitting guilt; it is also committing oneself to a type of thinking that belongs in dictatorships and theocracies, not democracies.

OUCH!

What have I been saying here about the cooperation between the Turkish Islamists and the Paşas? They cooperate together against the Kurdish people, meaning that there is no difference between them. They made a deal with each other before the July elections: Gül as president in exchange for a free hand for military operations. What have I said about "repentence" laws? Now Bianet's Ertugrul Kürkcü basically admits the same:

Kürkcü criticised this "old-fashioned pedagogy" which treated individuals like children who had made mistakes.He said that recent political developments encouraged such an attitude. It is being assumed that the lack of support for the PKK from the USA and the KDP, as well as wide-spread military attacks on PKK camps will frighten the PKK. Once things start to unravel, so the theory goes, they will surrender without caring about being treated like children. "The remaining hard core will then be destroyed, isolated in the mountains and fed to the wolves and birds. This is being assumed."

Asked about the relations between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the army, Kürkcü said: "I do not believe that either the AKP or the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) are trying to solve the Kurdish question. Because if they have enough information and intelligence [...], they know that the Kurdish question cannot be solved within the borders of just one country. If we are talking about a real solution, this would mean that the Kurds would take their own destinies into their own hands in all the countries they are ruled by; since this ideal situation does not exist, there is currently no possibility of a solution."

Much more at Bianet.

For some refreshing thoughts about Kurdish-Arab relations in Iraq, check out an article by a Lebanese intellectual, translated at MarxistFromLebanon. Although I don't agree with the ideas on Kerkuk, at least the discussion is elegant enough to rise far above the usual garbage found in Western propaganda. For example:

Most of the available evidence indicates that the Kurdish population's shift towards secession started during the latter period of the Baath regime, and most significantly, since the so-called Anfal campaign of 1988-89. During that campaign, the Kurdish regions were subjected to wholesale massacres, ethnic cleansing, destruction of hundreds of villages, forced Arabization, and forced migration of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of their inhabitants. In other words, the movement favoring Kurdish secession grew in reaction to the extreme national-chauvinist and tyrannical policies pursued by the central government in dealing with the Kurdish question.

It is worth adding that the Kurdish movement towards secession was further nurtured during the years of self-rule in the 1990's and later, when the Kurdish regions in northern Iraq were outside Baghdad's control and largely isolated from the southern Arab-majority regions that remained under Baath rule.

[ . . . ]

As I am talking about secession, I should point out that I fully support the Kurdish people's right to national self-determination, including its right to secede completely and form a separate state. But my support of this right is not neutral, and I find no contradiction in being partial to another alternative: As an Arab citizen, I am also in favor of Iraq's Kurds ultimately choosing to remain within the Arab world, as an affirmation that this Arab world can be open to ethnic, regional and religious communities -- in all their diversities and multiplicities -- in a context of coexistence and cooperation that are enriching to all.

As I said, I don't agree with the comments later in the article on Kerkuk, but at least here's one Arab who supports Kurdish rights and admits that federation in Iraq faces serious problems. The thing is definitely worth a read.

STATE SECRETS PRIVILEGE BE DAMNED!

"I'm a US citizen, I did not commit any crime, and they issued all these gag orders and they said I don't have my First Amendment right, I don't have my Fourth Amendment right, Fifth Amendment right. They had the Federal court here in DC going along with it... I went to Congress, they didn't do anything. I went to the Mainstream Media, they couldn't care less, really. Sure, it was a 'sensational' story - a whistleblower was fired and gagged, but nobody within the Mainstream Media ever asked 'Why the State Secrets Privilege? You know, she was a language specialist, it's not as if she was an undercover agent, or an informant... Why would they go to such an length to gag her?'"
~ Sibel Edmonds.

It looks like Sibel Edmonds is ready to go public with everything she knows and State Secrets Privilege be damned!

Luke Ryland has a thread up on the matter at Daily Kos. It would be excellent for Kurds in the US to go to that thread and post their support for Sibel because a full public disclosure of her information will significantly tear open the vortex of evil that is the Deep State.

From Luke's post there's a link of tidbits from The BRAD BLOG on the information Sibel is prepared to expose, including:

9/11 Related:

* Information omitted and covered-up regarding documented and confirmed case of a long-term FBI Informant & Asset who provided the FBI with specific information and warnings in April & June 2001 regarding 9/11 terrorist attacks.

* Information omitted & covered up regarding documented information in the procession of the FBI in July 2001 regarding blue prints and building composite information of Sky Scrapers being sent to certain groups in the Middle East by certain Middle-Eastern suspects in the State of Nevada.

* Information omitted & covered up regarding arrangements made between the State Department and certain countries to deport certain Middle-Eastern and Central Asian detainees from jails in New Jersey & New York off the record and without having them interrogated in November 2001. (Documents related to these suspects were forged at the FBI).

* Information omitted & covered up regarding nuclear related information illegally obtained by certain foreign entities and US persons (government officials) from several US labs being sold to a certain Middle-Eastern group in the United States in 1998-2000. The operation involved individuals with Diplomatic cover, foreign Ph.D. students, and US employees.

* Information omitted & covered up regarding money laundering & narcotics operations, some of which involved entities from the Middle East and the Balkans, in several US cities.

* Information omitted & covered up regarding certain Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI)-related activities linked to the 9/11 attacks between August & October 2001.

* Certain terrorist related Counterintelligence/FISA information & investigations were prevented from being transferred to counterterrorism & criminal division by the Department of State and the Pentagon; "preserving sensitive diplomatic relations" and "protecting certain US foreign business relations (mainly involving weapons procurement)" were cited as reasons.

* Intentional mistranslation & blocking of foreign language intelligence of FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations.

Penetration of FBI, Department of State and Department of Defense:

* Melek Can Dickerson: FBI; formerly employed by the American Turkish Council (ATC) and American Turkish Association (ATA).

* Major Douglas Dickerson: Air Force, DIA; formerly worked with the American Turkish Council (ATC), had on going relationship with International Advisors Inc (IAI) principles who worked as lobbying arms for certain foreign nations and foreign non-state entities (some of whom were engaged in illegal activities in the United States and against US interests and national Security.)

* Cases reported by John M. Cole, Veteran FBI Counterintelligence Operations Manager, to the DOJ-IG & Congress involving Hadiya Roberts (ISI-Pakistan), and several other individuals.

* Documented cases under FBI counterintelligence surveillance between 1997 and 2002, involving US government officials from the Department of State, DOD, and certain elected officials who were recipients of regular payments made by state and non-state foreign entities, some involved in criminal operations against US interests & national security. These cases were prevented from being transferred to actionable criminal and/or counterterrorism divisions/investigations.

* A reported case of penetration of FBI New York Field Office by an Iranian rouge agent.

Corruption & illegal activities involving US persons:

* Illegal payments to several elected officials in Congress; on going (1997-2002).

* Joint illegal activities between certain foreign agents (state & non-state) and US lobbying firms, government officials (Pentagon and the Department of State) and several elected officials. These activities include obtaining and passing highly classified and sensitive DOD documents & bribery and/or coercion of US individuals.

* Nuclear black market related activities carried out by certain foreign groups/lobbying firms/businesses/individuals & US persons (former & current US government employees and officials).

FBI: incompetence: (Refer to DOJ-IG report confirming all & more)

* Hiring unqualified translators based on nepotism & cronyism, some of these translators did not even pass elementary English proficiency tests; some were granted Top Secret Clearance despite their highly questionable background.

* Language specialists charging the United States government for hours not worked and/or services not rendered (Fraudulent invoices, etc.)

* ...much more; please refer to the DOJ-IG Report.

You GO, Sibel!

THE DEEP STATE'S CANDIDATE

"We should work more to both protect the Kurds and make sure they will not provide shelter to terrorists in their territory."
~ Hillary Clinton.

A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for the war industry, according to Britain's Independent. The military-industrial complex (MIC) realizes that the Republicans stand a proverbial snowball's chance of winning the White House in the next election, so the employees of the MIC have chosen Hillary with their campaign bucks:

Mrs Clinton's wooing of the defence industry is all the more remarkable given the frosty relations between Bill Clinton and the military during his presidency [Bullshit--Mizgîn]. An analysis of campaign contributions shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over with future defence contracts.

Employees of the top five US arms manufacturers – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon – gave Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to the Republicans. "The contributions clearly suggest the arms industry has reached the conclusion that Democratic prospects for 2008 are very good indeed," said Thomas Edsall, an academic at Columbia University in New York.

In spite of what the article says about Bill Clinton's relationship with the military itself--certainly not as cozy a relationship as he had with any number of women--Bill Clinton was the MIC's dream come true. From Multinational Monitor, 1995:

Arms industry lobbyists say they are delighted with the Clinton administration’s record. “Clinton has been very helpful through [Commerce Secretary] Ron Brown,” says Ana Stout, executive vice president of the American League for Export Assistance, Inc., an industry association that promotes unimpeded defense sales to U.S. “friends and allies.”

“We’re quite satisfied with what we see the thrust of the policy to be,” adds Joel Johnson, vice president for international affairs at the Aerospace Industries Association. “It’s 180 degrees different from Carter. They won’t throw up obstacles to every arms sale to every country. The Clinton people are very supportive of specific sales. They are more dynamic than any administration we’ve seen.”

Under the sidebar:

A fellow NATO ally, the United States is Turkey’s closest military partner. Between 1987 and 1991, 77 percent of all arms deliveries to Turkey came from the United States, according to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

For fiscal years 1986-1995, Congress has appropriated $5.1 billion in military aid for Turkey, making it the third-largest recipient after Israel and Egypt. In terms of commercial sales, Turkey is the fifth-largest consumer of U.S. arms after Saudi Arabia, Japan, Taiwan and Egypt. Turkey bought $9.4 billion in U.S. arms during fiscal years 1984-1993. In 1994 alone, Turkey’s counterinsurgency campaign cost an estimated $6.5 billion.

The Clinton administration helped Turkey acquire more cluster bombs, which were used on the Kurdish people:

Human Rights Watch’s Arms Project revealed in December 1994 that the U.S. government is weighing a Turkish request to buy almost 500 U.S.-made CBU-87 Combined Effects Munitions (CEMs), or cluster bombs.

[ . . . ]

One type of bomb the Turkish air force dropped on Zaleh in January of 1994 was the U.S.-made, Vietnam-era Mk20 Rockeye cluster bomb. This is the only cluster bomb now thought to be in the Turkish arsenal. “Turkey already has [cluster bombs] in its inventory,” says an arms lobbyist, who asks not to be identified. “Human rights shouldn’t be involved. What does [blocking new cluster bombs exports] accomplish?”

We know that Turkey is using cluster bombs against the civilian population in South Kurdistan yet again.

And there's more on Bill Clinton's illegal arms transfers to Turkey, from Human Rights Watch and at the Federation of American Scientists.

Let us also remember that our friends at The Cohen Group all worked for the Clinton administration, with William Cohen as Defense Secretary, Marc Grossman in a number of State Department jobs including ambassador to Turkey, and Joseph Ralston as military head of NATO.

Deep State Hillary will not be any better than her husband when it comes to the situation in North Kurdistan? The situation there is a return to the Dirty War, complete with the state's black operations, a new OHAL, and greater efforts at enforcing a media blackout on the area.

In fact, she may be worse; females are always the more deadly of the species.

THE MANUFACTURED LIE

"Every truth must be accompanied by some corresponding act."
~ George MacDonald.

There's a must-read at AlterNet and here's a teaser:

The terrorist violence of Sept. 11, 2001, provided a spectacular opportunity. In the cacophony of outrage and confusion, the administration could conceal its intentions, disguise the true nature of its premeditated wars, and launch them. The opportunity was exploited in a heartbeat.

Within hours of the attacks, President Bush declared the United States "… would take the fight directly to the terrorists," and "… he announced to the world the United States would make no distinction between the terrorists and the states that harbor them." Thus the "War on Terror" was born.

The fraudulence of the "War on Terror," however, is clearly revealed in the pattern of subsequent facts:

* In Afghanistan the state was overthrown instead of apprehending the terrorist. Offers by the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden were ignored, and he remains at large to this day.

* In Iraq, when the United States invaded, there were no al Qaeda terrorists at all.

* Both states have been supplied with puppet governments, and both are dotted with permanent U.S. military bases in strategic proximity to their hydrocarbon assets.

* The U.S. embassy nearing completion in Baghdad is comprised of 21 multistory buildings on 104 acres of land. It will house 5,500 diplomats, staff and families. It is ten times larger than any other U.S. embassy in the world, but we have yet to be told why.

* A 2006 National Intelligence Estimate shows the war in Iraq has exacerbated, not diminished, the threat of terrorism since 9/11. If the "War on Terror" is not a deception, it is a disastrously counterproductive failure.

* Today two American and two British oil companies are poised to claim immense profits from 81 percent of Iraq's undeveloped crude oil reserves. They cannot proceed, however, until the Iraqi Parliament enacts a statute known as the "hydrocarbon framework law."

* The features of postwar oil policy so heavily favoring the oil companies were crafted by the Bush administration State Department in 2002, a year before the invasion.

* Drafting of the law itself was begun during Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, with the invited participation of a number of major oil companies. The law was written in English and translated into Arabic only when it was due for Iraqi approval.

* President Bush made passage of the hydrocarbon law a mandatory "benchmark" when he announced the troop surge in January of 2007.

When it took office, the Bush administration brushed aside warnings about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Their anxiety to attack both Afghanistan and Iraq was based on other factors.

The planning for the Iraq war began in 1992. Who were the planners? They have names that should ring familiar: Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Zalmay Khalilzad, among others.

How closely was the Bush administration allied with Big Oil? When did this cabal finally materialize and begin to scrutinize "detailed maps detailed maps of the Iraqi oil fields, pipelines, tanker terminals, refineries and the undeveloped oil exploration blocks"?

Why was Afghanistan a "strategically valuable location" for energy resources? Which oil company tried to massage the Taliban and which prominent Afghanis were consultants for the company?

Take a look at the last message the US State Department gave the Taliban over the question of pipelines and note the date:

At the final meeting with the Taliban, on Aug. 2, 2001, State Department negotiator Christine Rocca, clarified the options: "Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs." With the futility of negotiations apparent, "President Bush promptly informed Pakistan and India the U.S. would launch a military mission into Afghanistan before the end of October."

This was five weeks before the events of 9/11.

Lest anyone think that Big Oil is the only industry to benefit from the Big Lie, I have two words for you: Lockheed Martin. The neoconservatives who've pimped the ideas of global dominance, preemptive war, and the glorious spread of democracy are all linked to Lockheed Martin or the rest of the military-industrial complex.

Go and read "The Mega-Lie Called the 'War on Terror': A Masterpiece of Propaganda".

It may be that Big Oil and all of those who manufactured the Big Lie will be screwed in the end. Why did Talabanî go to China in June? Because Iraq will revive Saddam's old oil contracts with China.

A CALL FOR GENERAL STRIKE

"Show me the country that has no strikes and I'll show you the country in which there is no liberty."
~ Samuel Gompers.

A brilliant suggestion from Garret Keizer at Harper's:

Specific suggestion: General strike.


1. Of all the various depredations of the Bush regime, none has been so thorough as its plundering of hope. Iraq will recover sooner. What was supposed to have been the crux of our foreign policy—a shock-and-awe tutorial on the utter futility of any opposition to the whims of American power—has achieved its greatest and perhaps its only lasting success in the American soul. You will want to cite the exceptions, the lunch-hour protests against the war, the dinner-party ejaculations of dissent, though you might also want to ask what substantive difference they bear to grousing about the weather or even to raging against the dying of the light—that is, to any ritualized complaint against forces universally acknowledged as unalterable. Bush is no longer the name of a president so much as the abbreviation of a proverb, something between Murphy’s Law and tomorrow’s fatal inducement to drink and be merry today.

If someone were to suggest, for example, that we begin a general strike on Election Day, November 6, 2007, for the sole purpose of removing this regime from power, how readily and with what well-practiced assurance would you find yourself producing the words “It won’t do any good”? Plausible and even courageous in the mouth of a patient who knows he’s going to die, the sentiment fits equally well in the heart of a citizenry that believes it is already dead.

2. Any strike, whether it happens in a factory, a nation, or a marriage, amounts to a reaffirmation of consent. The strikers remind their overlords—and, equally important, themselves—that the seemingly perpetual machinery of daily life has an off switch as well as an on. Camus said that the one serious question of philosophy is whether or not to commit suicide; the one serious question of political philosophy is whether or not to get out of bed. Silly as it may have seemed at the time, John and Yoko’s famous stunt was based on a profound observation. Instant karma is not so instant—we ratify it day by day.

The stream of commuters heading into the city, the caravan of tractor-trailers pulling out of the rest stop into the dawn’s early light, speak a deep-throated Yes to the sum total of what’s going on in our collective life. The poet Richard Wilbur writes of the “ripped mouse” that “cries Concordance” in the talons of the owl; we too cry our daily assent in the grip of the prevailing order— except in those notable instances when, like a donkey or a Buddha, we refuse to budge.

The question we need to ask ourselves at this moment is what further provocations we require to justify digging in our heels. To put the question more pointedly: Are we willing to wait until the next presidential election, or for some interim congressional conversion experience, knowing that if we do wait, hundreds of our sons and daughters will be needlessly destroyed? Another poet, César Vallejo, framed the question like this:

A man shivers with cold, coughs, spits up blood.
Will it ever be fitting to allude to my inner soul? . . .
A cripple sleeps with one foot on his shoulder.
Shall I later on talk about Picasso, of all people?

A young man goes to Walter Reed without a face. Shall I make an appointment with my barber? A female prisoner is sodomized at Abu Ghraib. Shall I send a check to the Clinton campaign?

3. You will recall that a major theme of the Bush Administration’s response to September 11 was that life should go on as usual. We should keep saying that broad consensual Yes as loudly as we dared. We could best express our patriotism by hitting the malls, by booking a flight to Disney World. At the time, the advice seemed prudent enough: avoid hysteria; defy the intimidations of murderers and fanatics.

In hindsight it’s hard not to see the roots of our predicament in the readiness with which we took that advice to heart. We did exactly as we were told, with a net result that is less an implicit defiance of terrorism than a tacit amen to the “war on terror,” including the war in Iraq. Granted, many of us have come to find both those wars unacceptable. But do we find them intolerable? Can you sleep? Yes, doctor, I can sleep. Can you work? Yes, doctor, I can work. Do you get out to the movies, enjoy a good restaurant? Actually, I have a reservation for tonight. Then I’d say you were doing okay, wouldn’t you? I’d say you were tolerating the treatment fairly well.

It is one thing to endure abuses and to carry on in spite of them. It is quite another thing to carry on to the point of abetting the abuse. We need to move the discussion of our nation’s health to the emergency room. We need to tell the doctors of the body politic that the treatment isn’t working—and that until it changes radically for the better, neither are we.

4. No one person, least of all a freelance writer, has the prerogative to call or set the date for a general strike. What do you guys do for a strike, sit on your overdue library books? Still, what day more fitting for a strike than the first Tuesday of November, the Feast of the Hanging Chads? What other day on the national calendar cries so loudly for rededication?

The only date that comes close is September 11. You have to do a bit of soul-searching to see it, but one result of the Bush presidency has been a loss of connection to those who perished that day. Unless they were members of our families, unless we were involved in their rescue, do we think of them? It’s too easy to say that time eases the grief—there’s more to it than that, more even than the natural tendency to shy away from brooding on disasters that might happen again. We avoid thinking of the September 11 victims because to think of them we have to think also of what we have allowed to happen in their names. Or, if we object openly to what has happened, we have to parry the insinuation that we’re unmoved by their loss.

It is time for us to make a public profession of faith that the people who went to work that morning, who caught the cabs and rode the elevators and later jumped to their deaths, were not on the whole people who would sanction extraordinary rendition, preemptive war, and the suspension of habeas corpus; that in their heels and suits they were at least as decent as any sneaker-shod person standing vigil outside a post office with a stop the war sign. That the government workers who died in the Pentagon were not by some strange congenital fluke more obtuse than the high-ranking officers who thought the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea from the get-go. That the passengers who rushed the hijackers on Flight 93 were not repeating the mantra “It won’t do any good” while scratching their heads and their asses in a happy-hour funk.

An Election Day general strike would set our remembrance of those people free from the sarcophagi of rhetoric and rationalization. It would be the political equivalent of raising them from the dead. It would be a clear if sadly delayed message of solidarity to those voters in Ohio and Florida who were pretty much told they could drop dead.

5. But how would it work? A curious question to ask given that not working is most of what it would entail. Not working until the president and the shadow president resigned or were impeached. Never mind what happens next. Rather, let our mandarins ask how this came to happen in the first place. Let them ask in shock and awe.

People who could not, for whatever reason, cease work could at least curtail consumption. In fact, that might prove the more effective action of the two. They could vacate the shopping malls. They could cancel their flights. With the aid of their Higher Power, they could turn off their cell phones. They could unplug their TVs.

The most successful general strike imaginable would require extraordinary measures simply to announce its success. It would require sound trucks going up and down the streets, Rupert Murdoch reduced to croaking through a bullhorn. Bonfires blazing on the hills. Bells tolling till they cracked. (Don’t we have one of those on display somewhere?)

Ironically, the segment of the population most unable to participate would be the troops stationed in the Middle East. Striking in their circumstances would amount to suicide. That distinction alone ought to suffice as a reason to strike, as a reminder of the unconscionable underside of our “normal” existence. We get on with our lives, they get on with their deaths.

As for how the strike would be publicized and organized, these would depend on the willingness to strike itself. The greater the willingness, the fewer the logistical requirements. How many Americans does it take to change a lightbulb? How many Web postings, how many emblazoned bedsheets hung from the upper-story windows? Think of it this way: How many hours does it take to learn the results of last night’s American Idol, even when you don’t want to know?

In 1943 the Danes managed to save 7,200 of their 7,800 Jewish neighbors from the Gestapo. They had no blogs, no television, no text messaging—and very little time to prepare. They passed their apartment keys to the hunted on the streets. They formed convoys to the coast. An ambulance driver set out with a phone book, stopping at any address with a Jewish-sounding name. No GPS for directions. No excuse not to try.

But what if it failed? What if the general strike proved to be anything but general? I thought Bush was supposed to be the one afraid of science. Hypothesis, experiment, analysis, conclusion—are they his hobgoblins or ours? What do we have to fear, except additional evidence that George W. Bush is exactly what he appears to be: the president few of us like and most of us deserve. But science dares to test the obvious. So let us dare.

6. We could hardly be accused of innovation. General strikes have a long and venerable history. They’re as retro as the Bill of Rights. There was one in Great Britain in 1926, in France in 1968, in Ukraine in 2004, in Guinea just this year. Finns do it, Nepalis do it, even people without email do it . . .

But we don’t have to do it, you will say, because “we have a process.” Have or had, the verb remains tentative. In regard to verbs, Dick Cheney showed his superlative talent for le mot juste when in the halls of the U.S. Congress he told Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy to go fuck himself. He has since told congressional investigators to do the same thing. There’s your process. Dick Cheney could lie every day of his life for all the years of Methuselah, and for the sake of that one remark history would still need to remember him as an honest man. In the next world, Diogenes will kneel down before him. In this world, though, and in spite of the invitation tendered to me through my senator, I choose to remain on my feet.

“United we stand,” isn’t that how it goes? But we are not united, not by a long shot. At this juncture we may be able to unite only in what we will not stand for. The justification of torture, the violation of our privacy, the betrayal of our intelligence operatives, the bankrupting of our commonwealth, the besmirching of our country’s name, the feckless response to natural disaster, the dictatorial inflation of executive power, the senseless butchery of our youth—if these do not constitute a common ground for intolerance, what does?

People were indignant at the findings of the 9/11 Commission—it seems there were compelling reasons to believe an attack was imminent!—yet for the attack on our Constitution we have evidence even more compelling. How can we criticize an administration for failing to act in the face of a probable threat given our own refusal to act in the face of a threat already fulfilled? As long as we’re willing to go on with our business, Bush and Cheney will feel free to go on with their coup. As long as we’re willing to continue fucking ourselves, why should they have any scruples about telling us to smile during the act?

Between undertaking the strike and achieving its objective, the latter requires the greater courage. It requires courage simply to admit that this is so. For too many of us, Bush has become a secret craving, an addiction. We loathe Bush the way that Peter Pan loathed Captain Hook; he’s a villain, to be sure, but he’s half the fun of living in Never-Never Land. He has provided us with an inexhaustible supply of editorial copy, partisan rectitude, and every sort of lame excuse for not engaging the system he represents. In that sense, asking “What if the strike were to fail?” is not even honest. On some level we would want it to fail.

Certainly this would be true of those who’ve declared themselves as presidential candidates and for whom the Bush legacy represents an unprecedented windfall of political capital. One need only speak a coherent sentence—one need only breathe from a differently shaped smirk—to seem like a savior. Ding-dong, the Witch is dead. Already I can see the winged monkeys who signed off on the Patriot Act and the Iraq invasion jumping up and down for joy. Already I can hear the nauseating gush: “Such a welcome relief after Bush!” Relief, yes. But relief is not hope.

How much better if we could say to our next administration: Don’t talk about Bush. We dealt with Bush. We dealt with Bush and in so doing we demonstrated our ability to deal with you. You have a mandate more rigorous than looking good beside Bush. You need a program more ambitious than “uniting the country.” We are united—at least we were, if only for a while, if only in our disgust. If only I believed all this would happen.

I wrote this appeal during the days leading up to the Fourth of July. I wrote it because for the past six and a half years I have heard the people I love best—family members, friends, former students and parishioners—saying, “I’m sick over what’s happening to our country, but I just don’t know what to do.” Might I be pardoned if, fearing civil disorder less than I fear civil despair, I said, “Well, we could do this.” It has been done before and we could do this. And I do believe we could. If anyone has a better idea, I’m keen to hear it. Only don’t tell me what some presidential hopeful ought to do someday. Tell me what the people who have nearly lost their hope can do right now.

If there were a general strike throughout the country, it would put the fear not only in the willing tools (i.e. your congressmen) in DC but also in their corporate masters. Think about it: protests don't work, but shut off the spigots so that those US dollars (now at parity with the Canadian dollar, by the way) can't find their way into the deep pockets of the corporate types, and you will have them by the family jewels.

Those who think such an action would be futile were best described by Nâzım Hikmet:

THE STRANGEST CREATURE ON EARTH

You're like a scorpion, my brother,
you live in cowardly darkness like a scorpion.
You're like a sparrow, my brother,
always in a sparrow's flutter.
You're like a clam, my brother,
closed like a clam, content,
And you're frightening, my brother, like the mouth of an extinct volcano.

Not one,
Not five-
unfortunately, you number millions.
You're like a sheep, my brother:
When the cloaked drover raises his stick,
you quickly join the flock
and run, almost proudly, to the slaughterhouse.
I mean you're strangest creature on earth-
even stranger than the fish
that couldn't see the ocean for the water.
And the oppression in this world
is thanks to you.
And if we're hungry, tired, covered with blood,
and still being crushed like grapes for our wine,
the fault is yours-
I can hardly bring myself to say it,
but most of the fault, my dear brother, is yours.


DÜNYANIN EN TUHAF MAHLUKU . . .

Akrep gibisin kardeşim,
korkak bir karanlık içindesin akrep gibi.
Serçe gibisin kardeşim,
serçenin telaşı içindesin.
Midye gibisin kardeşim,
midye gibi kapalı, rahat.
Ve sönmüş bir yanardağ ağzı gibi korkunçsun, kardeşim.
Bir değil,
beş değil,
yüz milyonlarlasın maalesef.
Koyun gibisin kardeşim,
gocuklu celep kaldırınca sopasını
sürüye katılıverirsin hemen
ve âdeta mağrur, koşarsın salhaneye.
Dünyanın en tuhaf mahlukusun yani,
hani şu derya içre olup
deryayı bilmiyen balıktan da tuhaf.
Ve bu dünyada, bu zulüm
senin sayende.
Ve açsak, yorgunsak, alkan içindeysek eğer
ve hâlâ şarabımızı vermek için üzüm gibi eziliyorsak
kabahat senin,
— demeğe de dilim varmıyor ama —
kabahatın çoğu senin, canım kardeşim!


Nâzım Hikmet - 1947

If the shoe fits . . .

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.

MILITARY KEYNESIANISM AND MILITARY RAPES--AMERICAN STYLE

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
~ President Dwight D. Eisenhower, January, 1961.

It seems like more people are taking notice of military spending by the US government lately and the lucrative permanent state of war known as the War on Terror, Inc. that's enriching the elites and screwing everyone else. There's a discussion of this subject in an interview with Anthony Gregory at Stress (Runtime: 40 minutes) and there's a discussion of how ridiculous the War on Terror, Inc. really is, at the same blog, in an interview with John Mueller, a political science professor from Ohio State University (Runtime: just shy of an hour).

Stress was also the blog that did the great interview with Richard Cummings on his great Lockheed article back in January.

Warning: Those interviews contain a heavy does of history, which is good for you anyway so just suck it up and listen.

Additionally, in browsing the news this morning, I came across this little gem from Counterpunch. How's military spending these days? Take a look:

The Pentagon budget for the current fiscal year (2007) is about $456 billion. President Bush's proposed increase of 10% for next year will raise this figure to over half a trillion dollars, that is, $501.6 billion for fiscal year 2008. A proposed supplemental appropriation to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq "brings proposed military spending for FY 2008 to $647.2 billion, the highest level of military spending since the end of World War II-higher than Vietnam, higher than Korea, higher than the peak of the Reagan buildup."[1]

[ . . . ]

Although the official military budget already eats up the lion's share of the public money (crowding out vital domestic needs), it nonetheless grossly understates the true magnitude of military spending. The real national defense budget, according to Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute, is nearly twice as much as the official budget. The reason for this understatement is that the official Department of Defense budget excludes not only the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also a number of other major cost items.[3]

[ . . . ]

After adding these camouflaged and misplaced expenses to the official Department of Defense budget, Higgs concludes: "I propose that in considering future defense budgetary costs, a well-founded rule of thumb is to take the Pentagon's (always well publicized) basic budget total and double it. You may overstate the truth, but if so, you'll not do so by much."[4]

Who benefits, you ask? All our old favorites:

Giant arms manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman have been the main beneficiaries of the Pentagon's spending bonanza. This is clearly reflected in the continuing rise of the value of their shares in the stock market: "Shares of U.S. defense companies, which have nearly trebled since the beginning of the occupation of Iraq, show no signs of slowing down. . . . The feeling that makers of ships, planes and weapons are just getting into their stride has driven shares of leading Pentagon contractors Lockheed Martin Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp., and General Dynamics Corp. to all-time highs."[6]

Who bears the brunt of all this--besides the overseas victims of the War on Terror, Inc., that is? The ordinary people in the US, that's who, and the author of the piece, Ismail Hossein-Zadeh, makes the case that the elites of the Military-Industrial Complex are redistributing the wealth by taking it away from the ordinary people and putting it in their own pockets. Read the article for the details on that.

These ideas are not entirely new. Some were warning of these things back in 2001 but, then, they were Marxists so why bother to pay attention?

Now, if you listen to the Anthony Gregory interview in particular (Don't be such a gundî; Listen to it!), you'll get an idea of how this particular system works. The thing is, this system has a name: military Keynesianism. I don't see any "Neutrality Disputed" signs over at Wikipedia, so let's go with their definition:

Military Keynesianism is a government economic policy in which the government devotes large amounts of spending to the military in an effort to increase economic growth. This is a specific variation on Keynesian economics, developed by English economist John Maynard Keynes. Instances commonly supplied as examples of such policies are Germany in the 1930s and the United States in the 1980s, although whether these assessments are accurate is the subject of vigorous debate.

Germany in the 1930s? How appropriate.

Not only does military Keynesianism characterize the policies of Nazi Germany and the US under the Reagan years, but it's continued into the new century, as Chalmers Johnson has made the argument this year for policies of military Keynesianism as characterized by the current US administration. Of course, one could argue that the current administration is merely a continuation of the Reagan administration as it was passed on by the Clinton administration (Remember all the weapons that Clinton's gang sold to Turkey during the Dirty War?)

Think about it: Is this what you want for the future of Kurdistan, because we know that unending low-intensity conflict is what THEY plan for Kurdistan? If not, maybe you should read that Marxist article from 2001 again, focusing on what a proper response to the MIC elites should be.

There was something else I noticed while reading the Hossein-Zadeh article at Counterpunch, and this is something that I haven't really seen in the mainstream US media: Ralph Nader asking the question, "Where are the cries of outrage over military rapes?" This news started to leak a little bit last year, when a US Army female colonel mentioned it at some commission in New York, but the news sure as hell didn't take off. You would think the fact that American female soldiers are being raped by their comrades-at-arms would be a subject for intense public debate, if not scrutiny. But no. The media elites would rather distract everyone with Anna Nicole "Call Girl" Smith's death and the huge mystery of whom the father of her baby might be, or with Britney "The Freak" Spears shaving her head, or, as Ralph Nader points out, with the Don "Nappy-Headed Ho" Imus sacking.

Why is that?

Well, for one thing, the media only reports on what it really cares about, and it really only cares about other media or Hollywood types--the kind all the scumbag talking heads hang out with. For another thing, it just doesn't fit the wholesome, egalitarian, democratic, OFFICIAL bullshit that the MIC elites want the ordinary people to believe.

Some journalists and researchers have done their homework on the fact that US soldiers rape their own, at places like Truthout, AlterNet, Salon, or MediaWatch.

There's nothing, however, from the mainstream US media or others on the reactionary right. If Americans can do that to their own, and the American military and elite establishment can guarantee that the news isn't discussed by the public, then what do you think these same predators do to ordinary, foreign women?

And the last question you should ask yourself is this: Do you want these same predators "protecting" Kurdistan? Think long and hard about your answer to that, hevals, because if the US covers up what it does to its own, what do you think it will do when it brings this behavior to Kurdistan? They don't give a damn about you.

And you might want to bear in mind the military Keynesian aspects of that so-called protection as well.

Hey, do you think if the US coughed up those Iranians it kidnapped in Hewlêr that Iran might cough up the American ex-FBI guy that went missing from Kish Island?