FRIDAY NOTES

"One joy shatters a hundred griefs."
~ Chinese proverb.

Let me catch up with some things that I have wanted to post here this week but have not had the chance to do.

Firstly, thanks very much to the heval who pointed out to me that there is a series of twenty-one videos of the Peace and Democracy Groups in Diyarbakır on Youtube which were taken from Roj TV. When you watch these videos you will notice the celebratory mood of the people, something that has received intense criticism in Turkish media.

With that in mind, one should ask why these people are celebrating. Is it because this is a victory for PKK? In a way it is, but that's not the primary motivation for the celebration. Do the people celebrate because they are finally reunited with guerrilla family members that they never thought they'd see again? For some of these people, that is certainly the reason. They are seeing fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, and uncles that they never dreamed they'd see again. Every guerrilla goes to the mountains with the realization that they will not be coming back. Either they will die in the mountains or they will live out the rest of their lives there.

But the reunification of eight guerrillas with their families does not explain why ten thousand people descended on Silopi in joy, or why one hundred thousand showed up to greet the peace groups in Diyarbakır. So this cannot be the primary motivation for celebration either.

The primary motivation for the rejoicing we have witnessed in the last few days is that all of these people believe they can see the faint light that heralds the end of the long, dark tunnel of war. If there are tears being shed during these celebrations, they are not the tears of victory; they are tears of joy at the prospect of peace.

This is something that is not even remotely fathomed in Western Turkey because the people there--with rare exception--have no idea what has happened in The Southeast for the last twenty-five years. They have no inkling of the level of destruction that has taken place, whether that destruction has been physical or psychological. They have no idea of the level of poverty that still exists. They have no idea of the numbers of the missing, or the tortured, or the displaced. They have no idea . . .

Anyway . . . enough of that for now because I hate crying.

Next, Military.com ran a feature earlier this week on Sibel Edmonds and her claims of espionage at the Department of Defense. What's unique about this piece is that the author managed to get statements from some of the worst vermin that Sibel has named. Here's something from the Prince of Darkness himself:

“This woman is a nutcase. Certifiable,” [Neocon extraordinaire Richard] Perle said. “She makes wild accusations. She was fired from her job, and has been on a vendetta against … imagined demons ever since.”

There's also something from the guy General Tommy Franks called "the dumbest fucking guy on the planet":

[Doug] Feith, in an email to Military.com, said: “What I’ve read on the Internet about Ms. Edmonds’s claims about me is wildly false and bizarre.”

The only one who couldn't--or wouldn't--speak for himself was Mr. Susurluk, Marc Grossman:

Robert S. Tyrer, co-president of The Cohen Group, a Washington lobbying firm where Grossman is now a vice chairman, told Military.com in an email that Edmonds’ allegations against the former ambassador “are completely untrue and ludicrous.”

Okay. If these three little roaches think that Sibel Edmonds' claims are "completely untrue", "wildly false and bizarre", or that she "makes wild accusations", why don't they bring suit for defamation? Why don't they bring suit against all the publications who've printed Sibel's story or against those media that have interviewed her for television or radio? And that seems to be the general argument in the comments to The Brad Blog's report on Military.com's piece.

I'll tell you why these freaks don't bring suit against Sibel and that's because they know that they don't dare take this issue to court and let all the treasonous shit they've done in their lives be exposed to the light of day. If that ever happened, they ought to rightly find themselves dangling from a traitor's noose.

Thirdly, Luke Rosiak, who's been documenting the Turkish lobby for the Sunlight Foundation, notes that Robert Wexler (D-FL) has suddenly decided to abandon his seat in Congress to take a job at a little-known pro-Israeli think-tank. What's interesting about Rosiak's piece is that he discusses the sad state of Wexler's financial affairs. What links Wexler to the Turkish lobby is the fact that he was a founder and co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on US-Turkish Relations. One year from now we should definitely expect to see Wexler take a nice job working for the Government of Turkey as a lobbyist and--POOF!!--watch his financial woes disappear forever!

"Happy days are here again . . .

Finally, from a friend in Diyarbakir, the DTP's Union of Southeast Anatolian Municipalities has produced a tourist book for North Kurdistan which you can view at their website. If you click on the main photos for each city, you will be able to download a .pdf file which contains lots of photos of the cities and their surrounding areas as well as the history and culture of each region. The books are available in both Turkish and English and if you're going to the region, you should definitely read through the available files. I mean, there are tons more information about The Southeast in this book than in any generic travel book of Turkey that I've seen.

I have also posted a link to the book in the right margin under "Kurdish Cities".

WHO IS SUPPORTING THE PKK'S PEACE GROUPS?

“The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.”
~ George Bernard Shaw.

The Federation of [Turkish] Martyrs' Families isn't happy that there may be a political solution to the Kurdish situation:

[President of the Federation of Martyrs' Families Hamit] Köse compared the reception of the PKK envoys to a funeral that made the martyrs turn in their graves. He said they were received with open arms, “without regretting the terror and the murders.”

Ayşe Çelik, the mother of a martyr, questioned the fairness of the amnesty. “Bring back our children like you are bringing them [PKK members] back from the mountains,” she said. “You can’t, because our children are buried in the ground.”

Aside from the fact that these ghouls would prefer to see more people on both sides die, let's consider a few things here. What is their real beef?

A conservative number of dead from the Dirty War in The Southeast is 40,000. Let's go along with the claim that 6,000 of those dead were TSK and, for the sake of argument, let's say that those 6,000 were all ethnic Turks--although we know they all weren't. That means that 34,000 of the dead in our conservative estimate were Kurds.

Again, let's review the math: 6,000 TSK "are buried in the ground", to quote Ayşe Çelik and 34,000 Kurds "are buried in the ground".

Who has suffered more?

Maybe the Federation of Martyrs' Families is upset about the forcible displacement of Turkish citizens? How many Turkish citizens were forcibly displaced by TSK in Western Turkey? None. How many Turkish citizens were forcibly displace by TSK in The Southeast? At least 2,000,000.

Who has suffered more?

On the other hand, it could be that the Federation of Martyrs' Families has a problem with economic disparities? Western Turkey has an unemployment rate of 25 - 30%. What's the rate in The Southeast? Sixty to seventy percent.

Who is suffering more? Who longs for peace more?

Of course, it's only fair to mention that not all martyrs' families associations are opposed to the idea of the Kurdish initiative or the PKK's peace groups sent from Kandil, Maxmur, or the one that will soon arrive from Europe.

The comparison here of the reactions of these organizations to the events of the last few days seems to be consistent with the initial reactions of the population. On the day the peace groups arrived from Kandil and Maxmur, Turkish TV news channels sought the reaction of the "man" on the street. It appeared that about half were supportive of the arrival of the peace groups while the other half opposed. I have seen no numbers on the matter so, at this point, these are my observations of what has gone on in Turkish media.

It would also appear that those who are braying the most against the arrival of the peace groups are the two "opposition" party jackasses--Baykal and Bahçeli.

What may be more significant, however, are two other things I've noticed about Turkish media in this last week:

1. At this point, the paşas have been absolutely silent on the matter. There has not even been so much as a hint of an e-coup; there have been no mysterious postings of opposition statements on the website of the Turkish general staff.

2. According to Milliyet, Emre Taner's position as the head of MİT has been extended again, this time until May 2010.

For those having difficulty reading between the lines, here's something from June 2009:

Avni Özgürel of daily Radikal writes that Gül's announcement is based on a report by Emre Taner, the Director of the Turkish Intelligence Service (MIT), which proposes an administrative reform for partial devolution of power to the regional/local authorities, finding an appropriate way of accommodating the guerrillas coming down from the mountains, a formula for the PKK leadership's accommodation and an amendment in the conditions of imprisonment of Abdullah Öcalan. This proposal, Özgürel asserts, has been agreed upon in principle by all the participants of the National Security Council (MGK), including, most remarkably, the military's high command.

If this attempt at a solution actually goes through this time, given the silence of the paşas and the extension of Taner's tenure as MİT chief, the jackasses are screwed. But, seeing is believing, as they say, so let us see what will happen.

WELCOMING THE PEACE AND DEMOCRACY GROUP IN SILOPI

"Some of us, on the other hand, opted to take active part in the Kurdish Freedom Struggle and remained in the mountains for years under immensely difficult conditions in order to protect an honourable identity. This was in the face of an otherwise unsolvable Kurdish question, with inequalities in the living conditions of Kurds and injustices lived by the Kurds. This became our struggle for our existence - for a democratic, equal and freedom-based solution."
~ Letter of the Peace and Democracy Group from Maxmur and Kandil.

Here are some more photos from Silopi showing the welcome that the Kurdish people give their returning sons and daughters:























Additional photos can be found at http://www.firatnews.com/gallery/index.php?rupel=galeri&gid=2035

The Kurdish people love their guerrillas!

Hevallo has posted the letter that the Peace and Democracy Group has brought for the Turkish government, so go take a look at that.

In the meantime, stand by . . .

FIREWORKS IN SILOPI

"If the government takes one step, PKK will take ten steps."
~ Ahmet Türk.

There were fireworks in Silopi on Monday night as thousands of people crowded around the Habur border crossing to stand watch over the processing of the Kandil and Maxmur peace delegations sent to Turkey by the PKK. The eight members of the Kandil delegation are guerrillas. They are: Hamiyet Dinçer of Başkale, Elif Uludağ of Pazarcık/Maraş, Hüseyin İpek of Ömerli/Mardin, M. Şerif Gençdağ of Siverek, Mustafa Ayhan, Vilayet Yakut of Diyarbakır, Lütfü Taş of Kığı/Bingöl, and Gülbahar Çiçekçi of Kığı /Bingöl.

So far, from Ozgür Gündem:

The Processing of the Peace Groups Are Being Done at the Border Garrison

The processing of 34 members of the Peace and Democracy Groups who came to the Habur border by [order of] the Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan is being done in the garrison at the border. After crossing into Turkey, they have been taken to the Habur Border Jandarma Garrison. While they are being processed, they are expected to give statements to prosecutors.

Just now, 24 Haber reported that 29 of the 34 members of the Maxmur and Kandil groups have been cleared to leave freely and we are awaiting a judgement on the remaining 5 members. Four prosecutors and one judge were sent to the Habur Border Jandarma Garrison to clear the members of the groups to enter Turkey and thirty-four lawyers arrived to represent the groups' members.

Earlier, on a replay of CNN Türk's Beş N Bir K, Cuneyt Özdemir read the nine demands of PKK and his guest commented favorably on them. Özdemir then remarked that it was amazing that these people had just arrived from the mountains and that, if everything went smoothly, tomorrow they'd present their demands in the TBMM. Özdemir's guest--whose name I never got due to a frantic surfing through channels--replied that if the guerrillas go to the TBMM tomorrow to present their nine points, it means that PKK is serious about a democratic solution and an end to the conflict.

At this moment, the morning talking heads on Turkish media are reading the newspapers . . .

Here's a rough breakdown of PKK's demands:

1. Öcalan's road map for the peaceful and democratic solution of the Kurdish Question must be given to the addressees.

2. Ending the military and political operations and opening up a peaceful, democratic, and political solution to the Kurdish question.

3. As a part of Turkey's democratic nation, living under free and equal conditions on the basis of our Kurdish people's identity, assured by the constitution.

4. Using our Kurdish mother tongue everywhere and freely; Improving it and living our geography, culture, and historical values in our mother tongue.

5. Naming, educating, and raising our children in Kurdish.

6. As Kurdish people, living our culture, art, and literature freely, improving them and protecting them.

7. Improving our democratic social organization with our identity, doing politics and expressing ourselves freely.

8. Living in Kurdistan's villages, towns, and cities away from the pressures of village guards, police, and "Special Teams"; Living there with sufficient possibilities {i.e. infrastructure] and in security.

9. Having a new civil democratic constitution for the democratization of Turkey.

Below are some photos of the Kandil group, from http://www.firatnews.com/gallery/index.php?rupel=galeri&gid=2026







Now ask yourselves: Do you see Hamas taking steps like this, or Al-Qaeda, or the Taliban? Did you see the LTTE take steps like this? And then you should ask yourselves: Who, then, are the "terrorists"?

Make no mistake: This has nothing to do with Article 221 of the Turkish Penal Code--the Repentance Law. There is no one here who will claim the Repentance Law because there's nothing to repent. In fact, these guerrillas have rejected Article 221 for themselves.

Nor let anyone make the mistake of assuming that the Kandil Peace and Democracy Group has made this trip from a position of weakness. Some 400 new guerrillas have joined PKK in the last three months. There is no weakness of arms or of morale here.

It's time for the Ankara regime to shit or get off the pot on doing its part to create a just and honorable solution to this 25-year-old conflict.

At this moment, CNN Türk is reporting that five members of the Kandil group may be arrested and they are trying to decide if the judge at the Habur Border Jandarma Garrison can make any decision on those arrests or if these five guerrillas will have to be taken to Diyarbakır.

Stay tuned.

SCARY, VERY SCARY

"This is the century of fear."
~ Albert Camus.

No, this story did not come from The Onion. I have no idea what those Nobel people were thinking, but it must have been the same thing they were thinking when they gave the same prize to Henry Kissinger.

Unfortunately, this news didn't come from The Onion either:

Mary Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney and the sister of go-to Obama critic Liz Cheney, is leaving the political consulting firm Navigators Global to start her own consulting company, and multiple sources familiar with her plans say she will not be going it alone.

"She told me she is going to be starting a firm with her dad and sister," said one friend of Mary's, with whom she has shared her plans.

[ . . . ]

"Mary is starting an independent strategic consulting firm," [American Enterprise Institute and Cheney family spokeswoman Lucy] Tutwiler confirmed.

[ . . . ]

Mary Cheney's colleagues did have some things to add. "She has told people within the firm that she wants to do something with her father," said a source within Navigators Global. "It's going to be a firm like Kissinger Associates."

If that news doesn't scare the crap out of you then I don't know what will.

WHO SPEAKS FOR ISLAM IN THE US?

“You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers, until the conditions are ripe."
~ Fethullah Gülen.

I came across something interesting the other day that I first noticed in an unusual place, the details of which are another story. However, there is a new book published called Who Speaks for Islam? It's the published results of a poll conducted by the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. The woman in charge of that center is Dalia Mogahed who was mentioned in Sunday Zaman as the Obama's appointee to the White House Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Mogahed was quoted in Zaman as saying:

. . . [T]he Gülen movement, a faith-based social movement named after Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, is a model and inspiration for all those working for the good of the society.

The guy who writes the book with her is John Esposito. He edited a book with Hakan Yavuz on the "Gülen Movement". Hakan Yavuz is running the Armenian Genocide denial program at the University of Utah, which Luke Ryland noted back in May. The Middle East Center at U of U, under which Yavuz's Armenian Genocide denial project falls, is also involving itself in the Kurdish issue through its PhD program (See page 5), notably mentioning one of their candidates as Emrullah Uslu, who claims to be a "terrorism expert" in the Turkish press, but that may be because he's police. Uslu publishes articles at a wide variety of websites, including the pro-terrorist Jamestown Foundation and Taraf.

Yavuz is also connected to the wider Turkish lobby system in the US, which continues to spread big bucks around--especially if the big bucks are meant to fuel Armenian Genocide denial. At this Turkish Cultural Foundation (TCF) page, under the grantee listings for 2007, there are two grants to the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) listed, one for $150,000 and another for $750,000. These were passed to Hakan Yavuz's Armenian Genocide denial program at the U of U. That's a grand total of $900,000, almost $1 million. Here's a CV for Yavuz. Under "Grants" about midway down, we see that the TCA handed over the $900,000 in 2009. Here's a mailing list page from the U of U political science faculty notifying everyone that the grant was approved for Yavuz:

Second, Hakan Yavuz has just been notified that his proposal titled "Memory, Migration and Trauma" was awarded $900,000 from the Turkish Cultural Foundation to advance Turkish Studies at the University of Utah. This award is through the Middle East Center and College of Humanities and will provide funds to support scholarship, conferences, graduate students, and community outreach related to the topic of the shaping of Turkish identity in the Republic of Turkey.

The Turkish Studies Project at the U of U doesn't want you to know that its funding originally came from the TCF, though; it issued a retraction of the fact here. Isn't that strange, especially when it was listed so prominently on Hakan Yavuz's own CV and announced through email to the political science faculty at the U of U?

It might be worth remembering that Utah and the Fethullahçı were linked to "electronic leakage" in a campaign to "harm the prestige" of the TSK. Now with the information about the $900,000 grant from the TCF to the TCA to the U of U, we can see that these Turkish groups have a network of their own in the US and the usual principle of Islamist v Secularist don't totally apply.

There's another tidbit to this story: Who was it that was among those luminaries who wrote reference letters for Fethullah Gülen when he was asking for a green card? John Esposito.

There we have Daria Mogahed and John Esposito neatly wrapped in the Fethullahçı web and, by now, most of you are probably wondering if I'm ever going to make a point. I am.

Daria Mogahed is making some tours of World Affairs Councils in the US to speak about Who Speaks for Islam? and not only in San Francisco, but in Montana and Florida.

So who's going to speak for Islam in the US? Fethullah Gülen.

TURKISH TERRORISTS MURDER KURDISH GIRL IN LICE

"Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism."
~ Noam Chomsky.

WHAT COUNTRY IS THIS?

"The Turks were very supportive, but wanted a three-part division of Iraq to include their own occupation of the Kurdish region."
~ Sibel Edmonds.

Does anyone recognize this country:



I didn't think so. That's the map that was included in an educational CD in the Istanbul province as part of the Istanbul Parent Education Project. The CD, with a booklet, has been distributed to schools in Istanbul.

More at Hürriyet:

The aim is to educate parents on various issues, ranging from first aid to how to deal with children, prior to the start of the school term.

"Various issues" obviously also includes the occupation of South Kurdistan.

Do you think they sent courtesy copies to Barzani, Talabani and al-Maliki? Or maybe that part in the VERY Southeast of Turkey is just TSK's new buffer zone.

THE STATE OF INJUSTICE

"A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts."
~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

Picture this: A seventeen-year-old guy picks up his seventeen-year-old girlfriend after school and takes her to his family's large home. The guy kills the girl, decapitates her with a saw and chops up her body, stuffs the body parts into a suitcase and guitar case, gets a driver to take him to a dumpster on the other side of town and disposes of the body.

The guy's father is picked up by the police on charges of abetting the crime and the mother flees the country.

Six months after the murder, the guy turns himself in to the police.

What do you think should happen to a guy like this? Would it make any difference if you knew that the murderer was a member of one of the richest families in the country?

If this story plays out in Turkey, which it did, the murderer will be charged in juvenile court instead of being tried as an adult--because he's only seventeen.

More on the murder at Zaman and another at Bianet. Note that the first of those articles claims the father of the murdered girl is quoted as thanking the police and government for helping to capture the murderer. However, that's not at all the same guy who was on NTV on the day of the surrender, yelling to know what kind of deal had been made between the government and the very rich kid's family.

On the other hand, if you're a ten-year-old kid growing up in another part of the country, in a family that was probably forcibly displaced from their home back in the 1990s, and you're a Kurd, you're going to get very different treatment from the state:

In Adana alone, some 155 children are facing trial, 67 have been convicted and five have begun to serve their sentences, says Ethem Acikalin, head of the local branch of Turkey’s Human Rights Association. All were charged under article 220/6 of the penal code, which criminalises “acting on behalf of a terrorist organisation”. The cases are tried in adult courts.

Or then there was Cizre:

If Turkish prosecutors have their way, Yilmaz, a soft-spoken 16-year-old with a teenager’s pimply face, could spend up to seven years in jail for having joined a demonstration early last year in the town of Cizre, in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast.

Yilmaz (the name has been changed to protect his identity) has already spent 13 months in jail awaiting trial, although he was recently let out on bail. Although he joined a demonstration that took place after the funeral of a young boy who had been run over by a police armored vehicle during an earlier protest, prosecutors say the event was organized by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and are charging the boy with supporting a terrorist organization.

"In each appearance in court, we were telling the prosecutors that we are children, that they should let us go back to our lives," says Yilmaz.

Yilmaz is one of hundreds of minors, some as young as 13, who have been arrested and jailed in Turkey over the last few years under strict new anti-terrorism laws that allow for juveniles to be tried as adults. Some have even been accused of "committing crimes in the name of a terrorist organization" for participating in demonstrations that prosecutors charge have been organized the PKK.

If you're the police and you torture a Kurdish kid in broad daylight, in front of media cameras, then have no fear! Your case will be dropped.

Then there are the activities of the ironically-named "Children's Day" in Hakkari.

Or, as happened several days ago, if you're a fourteen-year-old Kurdish girl gathering feed for her sheep, you can just be blown to bits by TSK mortar fire. At least Ceylan's mother was able to pick up the pieces of her daughter that were left so that they could be buried. The cover-up is already ongoing because no prosecutor arrived at the scene of the crime and he cites "security zone" (i.e. OHAL) as the reason for helping TSK to cover up its murder of this Kurdish child.

So much for the "Kurdish initiative". Hevals, you are needed!

FORMER FBI AGENT CONFIRMS INVESTIGATION ON MARC GROSSMAN

"I do not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this."
~ Marc Grossman, former US Ambassador to Turkey.

Those Rastî readers familiar with everything written here on The Cohen Group back in late 2006 when the Ralston conflict of interest was going on, will remember Marc Grossman.

Grossman was the US ambassador to Turkey from 1994 to 1997 and was pulled from that position before the end of his tour because he was involved with the Susurluk scandal as mentioned in yesterday's post.

Today another round of artillery was fired in Grossman's direction, from Sibel Edmonds and a friend:

"I read the recent cover story by The American Conservative magazine. I applaud their courage in publishing this significant interview. I am fully aware of the FBI's decade-long investigation of the High-level State Department Official named in this article [Marc Grossman], which ultimately was buried and covered up. It is long past time to investigate this case and bring about accountability..."

There's more on that at The Brad Blog.

I don't know about you, but all this knowledge about Grossman, especially the Susurluk connection, really fills this description, from The Cohen Group website, with an enormous amount of irony:

Ambassador Grossman was U.S. Ambassador to Turkey 1994-1997. In Turkey, he promoted security cooperation, human rights and democracy and a vibrant U.S.-Turkish economic relationship. Ambassador Grossman had previously served as the embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission from 1989 to 1992.

He promoted human rights and democracy?? In a pig's eye.

There is a funny side to this if you know where to look. In Grossman's bio it says, "Ambassador Grossman had previously served as the embassy's Deputy Chief of Mission from 1989 to 1992." Joseph C. Wilson was one of Grossman's buddies at the State Department and served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy, Baghdad, from 1988 to 1992--under US Ambassador April Glaspie. Both Grossman and Wilson served in comparable positions in two countries that border each other, during the same time frame. Their diplomatic paths had to have crossed during that time.

The funny part is that Wilson's wife is Valerie Plame, whose company, Brewster Jennings & Associates, was outed by Grossman to the Turks long before the news was ever splashed across headlines in the US. In other words, Grossman outed his pal's wife as CIA. For more on that, don't miss the interview with Phil Giraldi and Joe Lauria.

As The Brad Blog points out from The Times article--to which Joe Lauria contributed--on the sale of nuclear secrets, when contacted about the information that Sibel provided, this is what Grossman had to say:

“If you are calling me to say somebody said that I took money, that’s outrageous . . . I do not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this.”

Doesn't he sound like Dennis Hastert? Like Jan Schakowsky??

And nobody's really brought up Grossman's connection to the most powerful "cemaat holding" in Turkey, which is able to compete with Sabancı and Koç . . . namely, Ihlas Holding.

I think it's time for heads to roll.

UPDATES AND THINGS TO WATCH

"The speaker does not have any connections to American Turkish interests."
~ Spokesman for Dennis Hastert, while Hastert served as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Let me list a few updates on the interview in American Conservative magazine with Sibel Edmonds:

1. Congressional Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) responds to Sibel's statements that she, Schakowsky, was trapped in a Turkish espionage honeypot operation. Additional update here.

Now when you read what Schakowsky's spokesman says in reply, bear in mind what Dennis Hastert's spokesman said in response to the 2005 Vanity Fair article on Sibel:

"This is all nonsense. It's not being reported by the mainstream press because there's no factual evidence. The reporter does not have a transcript of any wiretapped conversations that we know of and, even if we did, it's preposterous. The speaker does not have any connections to American Turkish interests."

Hastert joined Dickstein Shapiro in 2008, where he was going to provide "strategy advice" to D & S clients, among which is BOTAŞ. For more, see Luke Ryland's post on the matter. Hastert now works on a $35,000 per month contract through D & S for the TC.

2. Sibel's letter to the Congresswoman, in pursuit of the facts.

3. Connecting the Deep State's trail in the US, from Susurluk and Chicago to Ergenekon.

4. Be prepared for additional information on the role of former US ambassador to Turkey and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (that would be the number 3 position in the US State Department), Marc Grossman, in connection with Sibel's story. As Sibel stated in the AmCon interview:

Grossman became a person of interest early on in the investigative file while he was the U.S. ambassador to Turkey [1994-97], when he became personally involved with operatives both from the Turkish government and from suspected criminal groups. He also had suspicious contact with a number of official and non-official Israelis. Grossman was removed from Turkey short of tour during a scandal referred to as “Susurluk” by the media. It involved a number of high-level criminals as well as senior army and intelligence officers with whom he had been in contact.

Grossman was pulled from Turkey "short of tour" because he was involved with Susurluk. The military representative in Grossman's embassy in Ankara was Douglas Dickerson, who worked as Grossman's weapons procurement guy. Kurds should know exactly what that means: early to mid-1990s, American weapons procurement for Turkey, slaughter of Kurds, Dirty War, extrajudicial murder, forced displacement, destruction of villages, torture, etc.

In 2005, Grossman abruptly and quietly left the number 3 position at State. Why?

5. The Schmidt v. Krikorian hearing with the Ohio Elections Commission is due to resume this week on 1 October and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we will witness a spectacular fireworks display.

BARGAINING OVER THE OCCUPATION OF SOUTH KURDISTAN

“In this, our age of infamy
Man's choice is but to be
A tyrant, traitor, prisoner:
No other choice has he.”
~ Aleksandr Pushkin.

There was something very interesting in Phil Giraldi's interview with Sibel Edmonds regarding South Kurdistan. Here is Sibel speaking, with my emphasis:

The monitoring of the Turks [by the FBI] picked up contacts with Feith, Wolfowitz, and Perle in the summer of 2001, four months before 9/11. They were discussing with the Turkish ambassador in Washington an arrangement whereby the U.S. would invade Iraq and divide the country. The UK would take the south, the rest would go to the U.S. They were negotiating what Turkey required in exchange for allowing an attack from Turkish soil. The Turks were very supportive, but wanted a three-part division of Iraq to include their own occupation of the Kurdish region. The three Defense Department officials said that would be more than they could agree to, but they continued daily communications to the ambassador and his defense attaché in an attempt to convince them to help.

Meanwhile Scowcroft, who was also the chairman of the American Turkish Council, Baker, Richard Armitage, and Grossman began negotiating separately for a possible Turkish protectorate. Nothing was decided, and then 9/11 took place.

Scowcroft was all for invading Iraq in 2001 and even wrote a paper for the Pentagon explaining why the Turkish northern front would be essential. I know Scowcroft came off as a hero to some for saying he was against the war, but he was very much for it until his client’s conditions were not met by the Bush administration.

What is happening here is that the neo-conservatives were discussing a Turkish occupation of South Kurdistan but it looks like they weren't able to swing the deal in the end. Brent Scowcroft, as the chairman of the American Turkish Council, was definitely working for Turkish interests during the period Sibel is talking about.

But when Turkey didn't get what it saw as it's portion of Iraq--the Kurdish region--Scowcroft opposed the war because his client opposed it.

Now, picture this: If there had been an American deployment from Turkey into the north of Iraq, the Americans would have kept moving toward the south while Turkish forces could have just walked in behind the Americans and parked themselves permanently in the autonomous Kurdish region.

Does that sound far-fetched? Read Sibel's words again. Sibel's words also tell me that the TBMM voted against a US deployment from Turkey and denied an American northern front not because it opposed the invasion or occupation or even the carving-up of Iraq, but the TBMM opposed an American deployment from Turkish soil because it was not going to be allowed to occupy South Kurdistan.

If Turkey had, in fact, ended up as occupiers of South Kurdistan, would it then consider Kerkuk to be a part of South Kurdistan? Would it then insist that Kerkuk be added to the Kurdish region?

Sibel also mentions that some of the individuals that the FBI knew to be spying for the Turks and the Israelis were working at the RAND Corporation, too. That brings up something else that was in the news recently:

“Under pressure from the military and nationalists, the government of Prime Minister Erdoğan might launch a large-scale, cross-border incursion into northern Iraq designed not only to weaken the PKK, the Kurdish insurgent group that has attacked Turkish forces, but also to hold and occupy KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) territory to put pressure on the KRG government to crack down on the PKK or to forestall a KRG annexation of Kirkuk.”

It may very well be that the occupation of South Kurdistan is still on the Turkish table but my money says that if such an invasion takes place, Turkey will insist upon the annexation of Kerkuk. After all, there are millions of brother Turkmen there to bring into Ağabey's ever-loving arms.

THE INTERVIEW IS AVAILABLE

"The original targets were intelligence officers under diplomatic cover in the Turkish Embassy and the Israeli Embassy. It was those contacts that led to the American Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations and then to AIPAC fronting for the Israelis. It moved forward from there."
~ Sibel Edmonds.

The Phil Giraldi interview with Sibel Edmonds is online:

Sibel Edmonds has a story to tell. She went to work as a Turkish and Farsi translator for the FBI five days after 9/11. Part of her job was to translate and transcribe recordings of conversations between suspected Turkish intelligence agents and their American contacts. She was fired from the FBI in April 2002 after she raised concerns that one of the translators in her section was a member of a Turkish organization that was under investigation for bribing senior government officials and members of Congress, drug trafficking, illegal weapons sales, money laundering, and nuclear proliferation. She appealed her termination, but was more alarmed that no effort was being made to address the corruption that she had been monitoring.

A Department of Justice inspector general’s report called Edmonds’s allegations “credible,” “serious,” and “warrant[ing] a thorough and careful review by the FBI.” Ranking Senate Judiciary Committee members Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have backed her publicly. “60 Minutes” launched an investigation of her claims and found them believable. No one has ever disproved any of Edmonds’s revelations, which she says can be verified by FBI investigative files.

John Ashcroft’s Justice Department confirmed Edmonds’s veracity in a backhanded way by twice invoking the dubious State Secrets Privilege so she could not tell what she knows. The ACLU has called her “the most gagged person in the history of the United States of America.”

But on Aug. 8, she was finally able to testify under oath in a court case filed in Ohio and agreed to an interview with The American Conservative based on that testimony. What follows is her own account of what some consider the most incredible tale of corruption and influence peddling in recent times. As Sibel herself puts it, “If this were written up as a novel, no one would believe it.”

Read the entire interview at The American Conservative.

UPDATE: Sibel has a link to an interview with Philip Giraldi, who conducted the American Conservative interview, and Joe Lauria. This interview deals with the credibility question that certain factions have brought up with regard to Sibel's story. I don't have a problem with Sibel's credibility because I know how things work in Turkey and Sibel's story fits the pattern of behavior. In addition, Sibel's story has been out in the public realm for some time and those who have been named as evildoers by her in the past--like Dennis Hastert and Marc Grossman--have not brought any libel or other charges against her for the issues she's brought up. And the reason for that is that they don't dare.

FROM SEATTLE TO KURDISTAN

"I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."
~ Stephen Jay Gould.

Most Rastî readers are familiar with Gordon Taylor, who writes the blog The Pasha and the Gypsy.

Now Gordon has been featured in The Seattle Times:

Back when I rode the bus to work every day, what got to me — what began to drive me a little crazy — was the repetition.

I knew every stop. Every light. All the rhythms of the traffic and the passengers, which seemed to bog us in delays at the same junctions every day.

I would wonder: How does the driver stand it?

I never asked. I should have, because now I know the driver might have said something like: "You think about something else. Like Kurdistan."

Gordon Taylor, 66, has been driving a Metro bus for 29 years.

[ . . . ]

Not many of his riders know it, but Taylor often wanders off to Kurdistan, a remote region in northern Iraq and southern Turkey, even as he is merging his 60-footer articulated bus onto the freeway.

He's not a professional historian. But from the seat of that bus he just published an article about mid-1800s missionaries in the twice-yearly Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies.

"I'm the only one in there who isn't a Ph.D.," he laughs.

He also wrote a 354-page historical biography, called "Fever & Thirst: An American Doctor Among the Tribes of Kurdistan, 1835-1844."

Now out in paperback, it turns out the book — which "nobody bought," Taylor sighs — attracted the attention of one of the senior advisers to the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. transitional government after the invasion of Iraq.

For more on "The First American to Fail in Iraq", check Gordon's piece over at the History News Network.

Now, what I like best about The Seattle Times piece on Gordon Taylor is that it proves you don't have to be a professorial wind-bag to write good history. And you probably don't have to be a professorial wind-bag to write well on other subjects, either.

Go, Gordon; you go, boyfriend!

THE GREAT MAN OF ARMENIA

“We do not believe in benevolent friends, the inevitable triumph of justice, or covertly and cleverly manipulating the superpowers. If we are to achieve national self-determination, then we ourselves, the Armenian people, will have to fight for it. We believe in the power of organized masses and in the capacity of our people to determine their own future. We believe in revolution.”
~ Monte Melkonian.

There was a man that most Kurds don't know but probably should. His name was Monte Melkonian. He was born in California in the latter half of the 1950s to Armenian-American parents and was educated at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1978, he left the US for Iran where he taught English and joined with others to overthrow the Shah. In August 1979, Monte heard rumors of a Kurdish rebellion in East Kurdistan:

Since leaving Berkeley, Monte had tried to surmount his distrust towards Kurds. He had read somewhere that the Kurds who had taken part in the genocide were from clans led by men who owed their allegiance not to their own people, but to Turkish leaders in Istanbul. After betraying their Armenian cousins, these leaders betrayed their own brothers and sisters by siding with the Turkish army that massacred and deported Kurds in the 1920s and 1930s. Since then, even Kurds from the offending clans had come to view Armenians as fellow victims of their mutual Turkish enemy.

If the rumors of the Kurdish rebellion turned out to be true, exhilarating questions would follow: had the Kurds in Iran succeeded in establishing their own government? And if so, what were the chances that their insurrection would spill over the border to the 12 million Kurds on the Turkish side? And if those prospects were good, could Armenian recruits form their own group and join the insurrection?

It was time to visit Kurdistan. (My Brother's Road, p. 59)

Monte left for East (Iranian) Kurdistan with a group of Armenian friends, all of whom sought to fight alongside the Kurds:

After four or five days at Haftvan, it was time to continue the journey south to Mahabad. The entourage announced their arrival to rebel leader Ghani Booloorian, who had recently emerged from twenty-eight years in one of the Shah's dungeons. They also introduced themselves to Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, the highest-ranking leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party in Iran. With some 15,000 men in arms and eleven tanks, the KDP was the most powerful organization in Iranian Kurdistan. Ghassemlou's tie and suit jacket did not impress Monte, though, nor did his claim that Kurds were "true Europeans" surrounded by Asiatics. It was the long-lost European story again--the same old story he had heard from Armenians and Lebanese Maronites. Vahig told Ghassemlou that he and his friends wanted to go to the front, but when he mentioned that one of his friends was from the United States, the Kurdish leader's smile disappeared and he snapped, "We don't need any more fighters at the front."

Monte and his entourage enjoyed a better reception from Komala, an organization dedicated to autonomy in Iranian Kurdistan. The leader of Komala, a fifty-seven-year-old Sunni religious scholar named Sheikh Ezzedin Hosseini, invited the youths to sit with him on the floor around a tray of tea. The sheikh spoke in sincere generalities about Armenian-Kurdish relations and offered to provide arms and training to his Armenian brothers, if they so wished. Monte took an instant liking to the sheikh, with his white turban, horn-rimmed glasses, green robe, and graying beard. For years after meeting him, Monte would greet comrades with a temmenah, touching fingers of the right hand to the forehead and then placing the open hand on the heart. (My Brother's Road, pp. 60 - 61)

In 1978, Monte went to Beirut. By 1980, he had joined ASALA and received military training from the Palestinians. But Armenians and Palestinians weren't the only groups to receive military training in Lebanon in the early 1980s; the PKK was also part of Monte's Lebanese milieu. Monte trained with the PKK and here's what he had to say about them:

At night, the Kurds actually dreamt about their suffering motherland, and as soon as they awoke they charged off to the drill ground. They dug foxholes with gusto and shouted Thaura! Thaura! "Revolution!" during assault practice, instead of the usual Allahu Akbar! "God is Great!" When they picked the odd quince, they left coins for the farmer at the foot of the tree, and when a Druze farmer came to harvest olives at a nearby orchard they climbed the trees with buckets to help. Once, when the Kurd Suleiman broke a banana in half and absent-mindedly landed Comrade Hassan the smaller of the two pieces, his PKK comrade Terjuman demanded a round of criticism and self-criticism. Suleiman came clean with a self-criticism and a solemn oath never again to engage in such unseemly behavior.

After their initial amusement wore off, the scruffy, swearing, cigarette-smoking Arabs and Armenians at the camp began to feel self-conscious in the presence of the abstemious Kurds, with their internationalist songs, their allusions to German classical philosophy, and their constant focus on revolution. But Monte loved these goings-on. "These guys are like gold!" he effused.

Their enthusiasm was contagious. One by one, the smokers started tossing aside their cigarette rations after returning from the morning jog. All the comrades grimly huddled around the radio for news about the September 12, 1980 military coup in Turkey. Arab recruits volunteered to shoot Turkish diplomats. Before long, they were all stomping shoulder to shoulder under the sun, shouting in Arabic, Kurdish, and Armenian: "Return to the homeland!" "Struggle until victory!" and "We are fedayees!"

At Yanta [Lebanon], Monte felt that expansive feeling that comes with living and fighting together for a common purpose. It was a feeling for which the word "solidarity" is entirely too tepid. The simplest activities--squatting around a tray of lentils; tearing bread and handing it out; donating blood; passing the overcoat at the change of the guard--each of these gestures formed part of a daily liturgy that had nothing to do with egoism or altruism. Quite apart from the question of whether their goals were realizable, the new comrades had moved, if only for a few days or weeks, beyond the plodding mediocrity of shopkeepers and the crushing cynicism of Beirut. This was the way a revolutionary movement--a struggle, as Monte would say--was supposed to feel. (My Brother's Road, pp. 85 - 87)

There are those who claim that Monte was a "terrorist", but "terrorism" is not so simple and it's a term that's generally used by those who seek to enforce a self-beneficial status quo, as we have all seen so clearly in the last eight years. Reality is always different, as Monte himself wrote in 1988:

"Exploitation and oppression are in themselves forms of violence, and to defend myself and others I will leave all my options open, including violent options. This is natural, and the way things go. I don't care whether someone has been born into a position of oppression or if he has "worked" his way there. If he oppresses, he oppresses. If he refuses to correct his behavior the easy way, then we'll just have to do things the hard way. It's as simple as that."

Monte was no "terrorist"; he was a lover and defender of justice. So much so, in fact, that he came to the point of criticizing ASALA and urging a surprising option:

In a series of prison essays, Melkonian cited failings of the Armenian Secret Army and called on Armenian revolutionaries to join Kurdish and Turkish rebels to establish a guerrilla force in eastern Turkey.

"Pens are pens and guns are guns," he wrote. "Right now we have a greater need for guns than pens."

My Brother's Road, written by Monte's brother, Markar Melkonian, is not the only book available about Monte Melkonian. The Right to Struggle: Selected Writings of Monte Melkonian on the Armenian National Question are Monte's own words on the issue, and should provide the reader with plenty of meat to enjoy a discussion on the right to struggle with the great man himself. In fact, this would be the only opportunity to discuss anything with Monte; sadly, he died in 1993 while defending the Armenian people of Nagorno-Karabakh.

There is much more information available online about Monte Melkonian than there was when I first learned of him. He has a Wikipedia page and there is information about him at the Monte Melkonian Fund, including a photo gallery and a page of quotes. Go, now, and learn.

May our old friend rest in peace.

NEWSFLASH: SIBEL'S STORY FEATURED IN AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE

Check your news stands and bookstores next week for this:




See Sibel's place for information about accessing the article online.

According to Brad Friedman at The Brad Blog, the interview will be some 4,000 words, which means it will be a good-sized interview for a magazine.

The print version will be out next week and there is supposed to be an online version available sometime after that. However, if you want to do your part to encourage the media to cover stories like Sibel's, then I'd advise you to purchase a print copy in order to "reward" the magazine for its work in presenting this story.

For those outside of the US, when an online link is available, I will provide it.

OUR GUERRILLA SEHIDS 2009, PART 2

"Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow."
~ Dorothy Thompson.

These and more photos at http://www.hpg-online.net/Photo/

FOLLOWING THE BLOOD MONEY TRAIL

"And, yes, I refer to it as blood money because where I come from, when you take money to deny the killing of innocent women and children, that is blood money."
~ David Krikorian.

Luke Rosiak at The Sunlight Foundation has more information on the Turkish lobby in the US and it's relationship to US defense contractors. Rosiak focuses on someone who's been highlighted here at Rastî--Yalçın Ayaslı of Hittite Microwave:

Turkey’s efforts have now been augmented by a domestic effort launched by a Turkish-American entrepreneur. Yalcin Ayasli founded Hittite Microwave in 1985 as a one-man company with a grant from the U.S. Air Force, and built the electronics company into a firm worth $1.2 billion, with half of its products sold overseas, according to a company presentation. The company had $180 million in revenue in 2008, according to SEC filings.

Since 2004, Hittite Microwave has received roughly $30 million in contracts directly from the government—mostly to sponsor research and development—and has also done business with Lockheed Martin and other prime contractors, many of whom use Hittite electronics in their jets and other equipment, sold to both the U.S. military and Turkey.

In 2007, Ayasli transferred $30 million in stock to fund a new endeavor, the nonprofit Turkish Coalition of America. The organization is headquartered in a Washington suite that has also been listed as the address for the Turkish Coalition USA PAC, the lobbying firm of Lydia Borland (who has represented the Turkish government), and the law firm of Bruce Fein and Associates (Fein comprises half of the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund).

The family of Hittite founder Ayaslin contributed nearly half a million dollars to federal politics in 2007-2008, donating near the maximum amount to the House campaign committees for both parties, but largely neglecting the Senate.

Read the rest and make sure to check out the great mind map Rosiak created to illustrate the connections of this web. Toward the end of the piece, Rosiak highlights the role of major US corporations that have lobbied Congress for their own interests in Turkey.

David Krikorian was completely on target when he labeled lobby money as "blood money", with that blood first being Armenian and then being Kurdish, and that's something that Sibel Edmonds confirmed on the day of her deposition.

This time, there's no need for me to ask what Sibel would think because she's got her own opinion of Rosiak's piece up at her place, 123 Real Change.

For more on Ayaslı, Hittite Microwave, and Schmidt v. Krikorian, see these:

Turkish Espionage Operations Target Congress

Who Is Paying the Piper?

OUR GUERRILLA SEHIDS 2009, PART 1

"None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free."
~ Pearl S. Buck.