ACQUITTAL, TRIALS, AND COUNTER-INSURGENCY

"The document, which is official US Special Forces policy, directly advocates training paramilitaries, pervasive surveillance, censorship, press control, restrictions on labor unions & political parties, suspending habeas corpus, warrantless searches, detainment without charge, bribery, employing terrorists, false flag operations, concealing human rights abuses from journalists, and extensive use of 'psychological operations' (propaganda) to make these and other "population & resource control" measures palatable."
~ Wikileaks on FM 31-20-3.

Today the court in Amed (Diyarbakır) acquitted the older members of Koma Dengê Zarokên Amedê of "spreading propaganda" for singing "Ey Raqîb" while they were in the US. Younger members of the choir are due to have their day in court on 3 July and the choirmaster is still under investigation. For more, see the story at the IHT.

Bülent Ersoy also went on trial this week for her comments during Turkey's February land invasion of South Kurdistan that she would not send her children into the Turkish army to fight the PKK. A video of Ersoy's remarks can be seen here. At the BBC, Mehmet Ali Birand makes some of his usual stupid comments:

"Most people are fed up of the Kurdish problem, and want a solution. You could hear their voices more three years ago when there was a ceasefire," explains respected newspaper columnist Mehmet Ali Birand.

"But when the PKK started to kill again, the mood changed. People are dying every day. It's a very sensitive issue."

Whose fault is that, Mehmet? If you had taken up the offer of a democratic resolution and the ceasefire from 2006, instead of rejecting them both for the sake of a few Lockheed Martin F-35s, people wouldn't be dying every day and this wouldn't be such a "sensitive" issue. As it is, the Ankara regime is directly responsible for all these deaths--on both sides.

Bianet has a report on the ongoing trial of the Trabzon police and their negligence in the Hrant Dink murder. Surprise, surprise, surprise! The police knew about the planned murder a year ahead of time and did absolutely nothing about it. I wouldn't call that negligence, however; I'd call it a conspiracy.

Before you get the idea that Americans are the most naive people on the planet, let the recent Pew Global Attitudes survey set you straight:

Majorities in 39% of nations polled believe that whoever replaces Bush will change U.S. foreign policy for the better, though in 20 out of 23 nations surveyed, more people have confidence in Sen. Barack Obama than in Sen. John McCain.

Let there be no mistake: There will be no change in US foreign policy anytime in the near future, no matter which nincompoop is elected in November. In the US, politicians do not represent power. They do not have any power. They are a facade.

Wikileaks has also published portions of the infamous US Special Forces Counter-Insurgency Manual (FM 31-20-3) on its website. This army manual is the blueprint for the kinds of atrocities that the US inflicted on Central America and then exported to Turkey. FM 31-20 was one of the US military manuals to be translated into Turkish, adopted by Turkish security forces, and applied against the Kurdish people by the Turkish Special Warfare Department (Özel Harp Dairesi):

Textbooks by American contra-guerrilla experts were translated into Turkish, and these special war methods were thus introduced into Turkey. Some of the textbooks written by American experts are: "U.S. Army FM 31/16" (contra-guerrilla operations), "U.S. Army Special Warfare School" (contra-guerrilla tactics and techniques), "FM 31/20" (special forces operational techniques), "FM 31/21 Special Forces Operations" (ST urban assignments, 31/21 guerrilla warfare and special forces operations ), "FM 31/21 A. Special Forces Operations (U)" (special forces secret operations). (6)

More at Information Clearing House. If this is merely "sensitive" stuff, it's hard to imagine how bad the classified information on counter-insurgency operations is.

Now you know where Turkish death squads got their training.