US EMBASSY ANKARA CABLEGATE DOCUMENTS

"This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community."
~ Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

You can read or search the Wikileaks secret US embassy cables at this site. If you'd like to cut to the chase for the moment, you can browse all the cables from the US Embassy in Ankara here.

I haven't made a thorough search of the site yet, but did check out the Ankara cables first. At this point there doesn't seem to be anything shocking in the revelations . . . at least, if you know the real situation in Turkey, there's nothing really shocking, nothing to justify old woman Clinton's hysterics.

Germany's Spiegel Online has an interesting take on the Ankara Embassy cables, though:

The leaked diplomatic cables reveal that US diplomats are skeptical about Turkey's dependability as a partner. The leadership in Ankara is depicted as divided and permeated by Islamists.

SHOCK!! He,he, just kidding. Spiegel Online continues:

The US diplomats' verdict on the NATO partner with the second biggest army in the alliance is devastating. The Turkish leadership is depicted as divided, and Erdogan's advisers, as well as Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, are portrayed as having little understanding of politics beyond Ankara.

The Americans are also worried about Davutoglu's alleged neo-Ottoman visions. US diplomats quote one high-ranking government adviser as saying that Davutoglu would use his Islamist influence on Erdogan, describing him as "exceptionally dangerous." According to the US document, another adviser to the ruling AKP party remarked, probably ironically, that Turkey wanted "to take back Andalusia and avenge the defeat at the siege of Vienna in 1683."

The US diplomats write that many leading figures in the AKP were members of a Muslim fraternity and that Erdogan had appointed Islamist bankers to influential positions. He gets his information almost exclusively from newspapers with close links to Islamists, they reported. The prime minister, the cables continue, has surrounded himself with an "iron ring of sycophantic (but contemptuous) advisors" and presents himself as the "Tribune of Anatolia."

"Sycophantic" advisors?! Personally, I prefer to call them "toadies" but sycophantic advisors will work.

Frankly, yes, the AKP is far more dangerous than the paşas. On the other hand, who's in charge of the "Muslim fraternity" quoted in the cables, according to Spiegel Online? Where is this leader living? Why, in the US itself and he's got his own green card. You'd think after all the problems the US has had with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, they'd give up on aiding and abetting Islamists. But now they're whining about the problems their Turkish Islamists are causing them.

BOOO-HOOO-HOOOOOOOO!!

According to the Cablegate site, 278 of the 251,287 cables have been released so far. It's definitely worth watching what's next.

It'll also be worth watching to see if Katil Erdoğan is going to prosecute the US for its criticism of him, like what happened to some students in Istanbul recently or to Hürriyet . . . or to another journalist . . . or to Musa Kart . . . or to Michael Dickinson, et cetera, ad nauseum.

Best in Show ~ Michael Dickinson

Tribune of Anatolia, indeed. What a weenie.

REVENGE TAKEN ON HAKKARI

"You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security."
~ Vincenzo Vinciguerra.

The Kurdish patriots of Hakkari are now being made to pay for their boycott of the phony AKP constitutional referendum with their lives.

Earlier today a dolmuş was blown up by contra-guerrillas in Hakkari province near the village of Geçitli. Ten civilians are dead as a result. This is no different than the Güçlükonak massacre, which was the work of the Turkish military or, more recently, the massacre in Beytüşşebap, Beşağaç, in which 12 people, including village guards, were killed.


Villagers apparently rushed to the scene of the blast and fought the TSK in order to preserve evidence that was left behind. Shades of Şemdinli! You remember the Şemdinli bombing, in which the citizens of the town chased down and captured the TSK perpetrators and found loads of evidence in the perpetrators' JITEM-registered vehicle.

According to KCK, from Hürriyet:

“This is a counter-action against the people of Hakkari who joined the boycotting of the referendum on Sept. 12,” KCK officials were quoted as saying on Fırat’s website. The officials were also quoted as saying that they would not carry out any attacks until Sept. 20, the end of the cease-fire announced earlier by the PKK.

More from PKK, from Fırat News (http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=1035):

PKK said the guerilla forces are committed to the unilateral ceasefire, declared on 13 August.

Kurdish boycott campaign against the constitutional referendum was most effective in Hakkari, only 7 percent of the registered voters casted their ballots.

PKK statement said in Peyanus village only 5 voters casted their ballots while 99 percent of the voters supported BDP's boycott campaign and labelled the attack "a response to Peyanus's attitude in the referendum."

"The attack in Hakkari is an attack to all the Kurds" PKK said.

PKK also warned AKP government saying "The people of Hakkari is not alone".

PKK declared the victims as "martyrs of democracy" and paid condolences to the relatives and Kurdish people.

Furthermore, Selahattin Demirtaş had this to say, again from the Hürriyet link:

Later Thursday, BDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş condemned the attack in Hakkari, calling it “inhumane” and saying he believed it was carried out not by the PKK but by the “deep state,” a term used to describe an alleged criminal network within the Turkish state.

The BDP chief said he and other party officials had traveled to Ankara from Diyarbakır to participate in a secret meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek on Thursday but the meeting was canceled after the blast, CNNTürk reported him as saying at a press conference.

Demirtaş was also reported as saying the cancellation implied that the government saw the BDP as responsible for the blast.

It may appear to Selahattin Arkadaş that AKP blames BDP for the massacre but the cancellation of negotiations with BDP by AKP clearly indicates something else for me. For me, it indicates that the AKP and The Murderer Erdoğan are behind this contra-guerrilla operation. AKP needed an excuse to not speak to Kurds so it cooked up another massacre, in the finest tradition of the Ankara regime. The AKP ordered this massacre; TSK happily obliged.




Among the evidence left behind at the scene of the massacre were two military bags with two unexploded anti-tank mines, flares, bayonet, hand grenade, and a Hakkari mountain commando brigade bag containing canned tuna, chocolate, soda, cheese, and bread.

Now this is very, very sloppy. What professional soldier or contra-guerrilla would leave behind such a mess after completing a showy false flag operation? Such a slob should properly be shot. But, of course, this is very interesting in what it tells me and what it should tell others. It tells me that a professional did not do this job. It tells me that TSK ordered korucular, or village guards--non-professionals, in other words--to do this job. Hell, TSK remembers Şemdinli very well. AKP remembers Şemdinli very well, too.

Ah, well . . . 20 September is only a few days away. I can hardly wait!

STUPID AMERICAN TOURISTS AND FILTHY PASDARS

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
~ Albert Einstein.

One of the crazy Americans who went hiking without a guide last July in South Kurdistan has been released by the Teheran regime:

A jubilant American Sarah Shourd reunited with her mother in Muscat, Oman, on Tuesday after Iranian authorities released her from a Tehran prison where she had been held for 14 months.

[ . . . ]

Shourd thanked Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, Iran's supreme leader, and "everyone who has been a part of making this moment happen for me and for my family."

Shourd, 32, left behind fellow Americans Shane Bauer, 28, who is her fiance, and their friend, Josh Fattal, 28.

The three Americans were detained after they allegedly strayed across an unmarked border into Iran while hiking in Iraq's Kurdistan region. Iran accused the three of spying, a charge the United States and the hikers have denied.

Apparently, the three--who were supposedly journalists--were seized by pasdars as they were hiking in the Khormal region of South Kurdistan near the village of Zalem, according to an article in The Nation dated July of this year.

Aside from the fact that the filthy pasdars, like the filthy TSK, do not respect borders, why were these three hiking around without a guide of some sort? Their behavior was incredibly stupid. Filthy pasdars aside, the region is peppered with numerous land mines. See a map, here.

Really, incredibly stupid.

But we haven't heard too much complaining about how filthy pasdars routinely cross the border to commit all kinds of crimes (see The Nation article), have we? That's fine with me. Since I don't hear anyone bitch when filthy pasdars cross the border to murder, rape, kidnap and bomb Kurds, then I don't want to hear bitching about them kidnapping three Americans.

THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE COUP, THE REFERENDUM, AND IRONY

"Top Turkish political figures, including former President Kenan Evren, were among the 49,446,369 voters country-wide who went to the polls Sunday to cast their votes in the constitutional referendum. . . . Former President Evren, voting at the Ankara Highways Guesthouse, declined to release a statement."
~ Hürriyet.

The results of the referendum are in, for the most part, and show no big surprises. However, we should extend a big shout out to the bad boys and girls of Hakkari who managed to give both fingers to the fascist AKP by having the lowest turnout rate of all--7% of registered voters!!

Secim.haberler.com shows that a whopping 9% of voters turned out for the AKP constitutional referendum in Hakkari. If you scroll down the page to see Hakkari's results for the March, 2009, local elections, you'll see that 80% of voters voted for DTP (now BDP), so the Hakkari region has become strongly politicized for BDP and against the ruling regime in Ankara. To see that only 7 to 9% of voters in Hakkari bothered to turn out for this utterly worthless referendum should come as no surprise to anyone.

For more regional details of the vote, check this page.

Here's the best photo from the vote, taken, naturally, in Hakkari:




This referendum reached a level of irony only possible in Turkey. Throughout the summer, Katil Erdoğan travelled around Turke, bawling his eyes out about all the victims of the 12 September coup, marketing Kurdish heroes like Musa Anter and Ahmet Kaya to get out the vote in favor of the AKP's carefully selected changes to the paşas' 1982 constitution. This would be the same Katil Erdoğan who's been the süt kardeş of every chief of Turkish general staff since Özkök at the very least. From the time of the Şemdinli bombing, Katil Erdoğan "massaged" Büyükanıt. During the Amed Serhildan, The Murderer gave explicit permission for the same paşas to do what they do best--murder Kurds. No doubt, The Murderer is now also süt kardeş to Işık Koşaner.

Yet, all this summer, this sorry-assed excuse for a prime minister has attempted to play the role of savior of the people. Whoever was convinced of the veracity of The Murderer's act is a flaming idiot.

Another level of irony is that AKP's constitutional changes do absolutely nothing to address the myriad problems of the paşas' constitution. Everyone is still a Turk in Turkey. The legal system still exists to protect the state from the people. The facade of secularism is still maintained.

The fact of the matter is that, even while the memory of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the 12 September coup were invoked, the intention of Katil Erdoğan and his evil AKP minions was merely to gain total control of the constitutional court. Don't believe me? Read it (in .pdf) for yourselves, boys and girls, from the AKP's own website.

Then there is the irony that the referendum vote was held on the anniversary of the 12 September coup. Honestly, you can't plan this kind of coincidence . . . Unless you happen to be Katil Erdoğan.

The final irony was never mentioned. I never heard it once all summer, not from any AKP apparatchik and not through all of The Murderer's crocodile tears. The final irony is that Fethullah Gülen was a huge supporter of Kenan Evren, the CIA's "boy". Let's recall exactly who Evren served:

The U.S. support of this coup was acknowledged by the CIA Ankara station chief Paul Henze. After the government was overthrown, Henze cabled Washington, saying, "our boys [in Ankara] did it." This has created the impression that the USA stood behind the coup. Henze denied this during a June 2003 interview on CNN Türk's Manşet, but two days later [Mehmet Ali] Birand presented an interview with Henze recorded in 1997 in which he basically confirmed Mehmet Ali Birand's story. The US State Department itself announced the coup during the night between 11 and 12 September: the military had phoned the US embassy in Ankara to alert them of the coup an hour in advance.

Two years later, there was another constitutional referendum in Turkey, creating yet another level of irony:

After the coup, in 1982, Kenan Evren was elected the President of Republic of Turkey on November 7 with the 90% approval of the new constitution that was submitted to a controversial referendum, replacing the older constitution which, according to him, had liberties "luxurious" for Turkey.

Nowadays, of course, Evren's biggest supporter has a US green card, accompanied by references from former CIA spooks--George Fidas and Graham Fuller. The irony never ends.

So, what now? The Murderer claims that AKP will write a new constitution after 2012. If so, it's time for BDP to get to work. They should pull out the 1921 constitution, dust it off, update it where necessary, and have it ready to present as an option for a totally new constitution. It's time to reclaim some of those "luxurious" liberties from the shit-eating paşas.

KAYSERI COMMANDO GARRISON DESTROYED BY PKK!

Who am I, you ask?
The Kurd of Kurdistan,
a lively volcano,
fire and dynamite
in the face of enemy.
When furious,
I shake the mountains,
the sparks of my anger
are death to my foes.
~ Cigerxwîn, "Kîme Ez".

Oh, SWEET!!

A brigade of Kayseri commandos has been destroyed early this morning Kurdistan time by the beloved freedom fighters of the People's Defense Force (HPG)!

U-LULULULULULULULULU!!!!

Before we get to the announcement, let's review the role of Kayseri commandos in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan [emphasis in the original]:

The decision to ‘train’ alongside Turkey’s mountain commandos in 1997, we should note, was also made two years after Human Rights Watch had publicly disclosed that “two special Commando Brigades, Bolu and Kayseri, [we]re heavily involved in counterinsurgency operations. Unlike the regular Turkish Army forces, the Bolu and Kayseri [mountain commando] units [we]re more highly trained and [we]re expected to engage in closer contact with PKK fighters and with civilians suspected of supporting the guerrillas. [Witness] B.G. told Human Rights Watch that during his April 1994-May 1995 stint in the southeast, he learned that the Bolu and Kayseri were considered by soldiers and civilians alike to be far more abusive of the civilian population than the regular Army. ‘Nasty behavior toward the population [wa]s encouraged in the Bolu and Kayseri brigades’, he explained, ‘while the Piyade (infantry) Commando tend[ed] to be kinder. The commanders want[ed] there to be a kind of good guy - bad guy situation, which they then use[d] to threaten the locals. They sa[id] be good or we’ll send the Bolu after you!’ Bolu and Kayseri Commandos were prevalent throughout the 1994 Tunceli [Dersim] campaign, during which tens of villages were destroyed. Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they were able to identify Bolu and Kayseri soldiers, and reported that they were involved in numerous violations of the laws of war, including village destructions, indiscriminate fire, and kidnapping civilians who were then forced into serving as porters during Army patrols … The Bolu and Kayseri Commandos”, furthermore, “appear to have incorporated a significant number of U.S.-designed M-16 assault rifles and M-203 grenade launchers into their regular arsenal … According to Reuters, 5,000 Bolu and Kayseri commandos joined 35,000 other forces in the Tunceli campaign [See ‘Turkish Army Torches 17 Villages, Residents Say,’ Reuters, October 5, 1994]”.

Now that we know these bastards have received what they have so richly deserved, on to the news report, from ANF:

Garrison Destroyed in Çukurca!

It has been announced that HPG guerrillas, who conducted an operation against a mobile military garrison in Çukurca, destroyed the entire garrison and killed 30 soldiers. It was also reported that the guerrillas confiscated a number of weapons and munitions.

The clashes started between 0100 and 0200 hours. The mobile garrison that was targeted by the guerrillas was located 30 km from Çukurca district in Hantepe, between Bilican and Talise villages and the military unit was the Kayseri Commando Military Brigade Command.

30 Soldiers Killed

According to HPG sources, in the operation against the Bilican mobile garrison the entire garrison was destroyed. In the operation, in which 30 soldiers were killed, many weapons like artillery and artillery shells were destroyed.

Weapons Confiscated

While the TSK came to pick up their wounded soldiers with helicopters they too encountered guerrilla intervention and it was reported that the helicopters were fired at [by the guerrillas]. HPG sources also indicated that the helicopters were forced to retreat.

In addition, during the guerrilla operation, the guerrillas went into the military units and confiscated many weapons and munitions.

Clashes Continue

Clashes in the region, in the Uzundere area are still ongoing under the control of the guerrillas. Details of the clashes are expected from HPG soon.

One would presume that these Kayseri commando-types are the same types that would fill the ranks of a so-called professional army within TSK, which would be posted to Turkish-occupied Kurdistan to fight our guerrillas.

Sweet!!

Bijî Gerîla!


Çok Yaşa Gerilla!


Çok Yaşa Önder Apo!

TURKISH ARMY CONTINUES TO MUTILATE CORPSES

"We are deeply rooted in the mountains and hearts of the people of Kurdistan. We are able to live another 50 years like this."
~ Murat Karayılan.

I remember that last spring and summer two Turkish journalists pushed for a dialog on the Kurdish situation. Hasan Cemal wrote a series of articles from Kandil which were published in Milliyet. Later, both Hasan Cemal and Cengiz Çandar hosted a discussion live on Turkish TV from Diyarbakır, in which they spoke to Kurdish leaders and--surprisingly--actually seemed to listen. Until I find out otherwise, at this point I have to give them credit for trying to open a public dialog on the situation.

Of course, at the time, DTP members were being rounded up by the AKP government for two simple reasons: 1. They were Kurds; 2. The DTP had badly beaten the AKP in the March 2009 local elections . . . in spite of all the bribes AKP had dispensed to villagers in the preceeding months and in spite of Katil Erdoğan's hypocritical show at Davos.

Now Cengiz Çandar has called out Beşir Atalay, the Interior Minister (the ministry responsible for Turkey's domestic "security" affairs), on this whole "democratic initiative" farce, stating correctly that "[t]he democratic initiative is not going anywhere." I would add the fact that the "democratic initiative" was stillborn.


Çandar describes the signs of the times:

First of all, the military concentration continues at the Şemdinli border line. The Kurdish administration in Iraq is pressurized. Fighter jets bomb northern Iraq. In the presence of the United States and Arbil, efforts are being made for the handing over of 248 outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, militants over to Turkey. The pre-1990 conditions settle in the Southeast again. We are going back to a state in which people are fed up with check points and barricades.

If these are called “efforts,” there were more of them in the 1980s and the 1990s. The point we have reached is crystal-clear.

Yes, indeed, I agree. The point that we are at is excruciatingly crystalline.

And then Çandar quotes a recent editorial by Radikal's Oral Çalışlar:

“Here is a letter for you: ‘I am sending photos and information. They belong to guerillas who died in the clashes that took place in Şemdinli. They were handed over to the Şemdinli Municipality as they were. People are washing the bodies in the river.’ I couldn’t look at the photos, burned young bodies in pieces… the Günlük daily has been publishing the photos for a few days. In another letter, an article published in Günlük daily was sent. It is on the same topic. ‘…The images the cameraman recorded are detailed. The cameramen who recorded every single detail of the corpses of the guerillas will leave their mark in the history. That’s for sure. Or rather, the cameramen record acts of violence the state is involved in against Kurds, Kurdish bodies, corpses in the 21st century… I cannot look at the photos. My eyes are shut. Yes, we are at the end… where humanity ends. In the 21st century such acts are flat violence. Their goal is to destroy the willpower of the Kurdish people, scare away Kurdish women and the Kurdish youth.’ For days, funeral ceremonies are being held for the PKK members in Hakkâri, Şemdinli, Diyarbakır, Van and in many other southeastern cities. Groups to pick up the bodies are waving placards writing ‘Welcome our martyrs’ on them. The corpses are not being returned to the families. They are buried at the scenes of encounters. For this reasons, demonstrations are held, people fight against police officers. The PKK members who are killed in the regions mostly driven by a political trend advocating the Kurdish identity are welcomed not as ‘terrorists’ but as ‘martyrs.’ They are treated like martyrs. This is the latest picture in the Southeast… In other words, a completely different psychology and public opinion is settling in the region…”

Indeed.

The daily Günlük has a photo of one of our guerrillas who's body was mutilated and had something to say about the situation:

HPG member Özgür Dağhan's family was shocked when they went to the morgue to identify their son, who was killed in a clash in Gümüşhane. Özgür Dağhan's head had been completely deformed. The things remaining from his head were some hair and his teeth.

[ . . . ]

The family saw that inhumane act not only against their son but in two more HPG members' bodies. There weren't any deformations on the other parts of Dağhan's body, which indicates he was caught alive and was tortured after he was killed.

The article goes on to say that the bodies of Hamit Ulaş and Bayram Dün, HPG fighters who were killed in Karadeniz and Diyarbakır Silvan on 23 June, had also been tortured. Their heads were also smashed and the bodies tortured.

At Dağhan's funeral, which saw a turnout of thousands of mourners, BDP Diyarbakır Provincial Chairman Nijad Yaruk asked, "What kind of fire is that in your heart to make you attack the bodies of dead people?"


In addition to these recent mutilations, Selahattin Demirtaş also forwarded information to Katil Erdoğan on the TSK's mutilation of Rojhelati guerrilla, Abbas Emani, from Zaman:

BDP leader Nurettin Demirtaş [sic. Note: It's not Nurettin Demirtaş but Selahattın Demirtaş who is the BDP co-chair referred to here--Mizgîn] earlier this week sent a CD to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan filled with images of Özgür Dağhan, who was recently killed in Gümüşhane, and Abbas Emani, an Iranian militant who was allegedly killed when he was captured in Batman five years ago. According to the BDP’s claims, PKK member Emani was captured by the Special Forces. He was interrogated and then executed near a vehicle parked in front of a gendarmerie post. Later, his body was dragged to the site of a clash between the military and PKK terrorists, where it was mutilated by Turkish soldiers.

Demirtaş also enclosed a note to the prime minister that said: “These incidents [corpse defilement] are common, to our knowledge. Are you thinking of apologizing to the people and the families and punishing those responsible?” He said many witnesses in the area had confirmed the truth of these acts of disrespect for the dead.

I might add that I personally know people who can confirm similar behavior from the 1990s. There's more at Zaman from Mehmet Dağhan, the father of Şehîd Özgür Dağhan, via Taraf:

The Taraf daily spoke to Mehmet Dağhan, father of Özgür Dağhan, who said: “When my son was killed I went to Trabzon to identify him. They showed me about 10 pictures. There was blood on his face in the picture, his hair had been neatly combed and he was vaguely smiling. I said it was my son. Then I went to the Council of Forensic Medicine’s (ATK) morgue to identify the corpse. They brought my son’s body. His skull had been smashed and burnt. His body was completely black. I said I was not able to identify him. I talked to the prosecutor who was following up on the autopsy. He was about the same age as my son, and he was very nice to me. He was very respectful. He showed me pictures. There was not a blemish on his body in those pictures. He was dead, but his body was intact. It is natural for him to die in a clash. But later, I don’t know if they charred his body with gasoline, chemicals or some kind of acid. You wouldn’t even do this to an animal.”

Of course, none of this is new behavior on the part of NATO's second largest army, nor of Turkish state officials charged with the remains of guerrillas. As Heval Selahattin said, "These incidents [corpse defilement] are common, to our knowledge." Earlier photos of atrocities carried out against guerrilla corpses were posted on Rastî in March 2008 and in August of the same year, I posted information that appeared in the daily Taraf on the same subject:

Terrifying confession of a sergeant


"They threw a PKK member from a helicopter . . . A police special operations member raped the dead body of a female PKK member . . ." Former sergeant Çakan wrote this, including the name, date, and place, in his book; however, he was the one prosecuted.

Former Sergeant Kasım Çakan assembled information in his book on murders he witnessed which were committed by unknown perpetrators while he was on duty in The Southeast. Demanding that Çakan's book be accepted as an informant's document, Çakan's publisher, Mehdi Tanrıkulu, made a criminal complaint against the soldiers and police named in the document.

Being a Soldier While a Sergeant

Kasım Çakan, who used to work in the East and Southeast as a sergeant, compiled information about incidents that happened to him just after he was discharged from the army, in a book called Being a Soldier While a Sergeant. While Cakan wanted the incidents mentioned in his book to be considered as an informant documentation, Istanbul's chief prosecutor charged Çakan and his publisher with the charge of "making terror propaganda" [Article 7/2 of the new and improved Anti-Terror Law]. The trial of Çakan and Tevn Publications owner, Mehdi Tanrıkulu, is still ongoing.

A criminal complaint

Publisher Mehdi Tanrıkulu made a complaint to the Istanbul chief prosecutor's office based on the writing in the book. Tanrıkulu did so with the rationale that starting an investigation about such incidents would reveal several murders by unknown perpetrators.

More on that is available here. Other photos documenting TSK atrocities can be found at this page at Yeni Özgür Politika. Atrocities committed by TSK have also been disclosed by TSK conscripts in Nadire Mater's book, Voices from the Front (Turkish title: Mehmedin Kitabı).

While Katil Erdoğan was, no doubt, crying his eyes out in Bosnia and Herzegovina over the victims of the Srebrenica massacre:

I remember all the martyrs of Srebrenica with great respect and hope that they are all in heaven, Erdogan said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that the massacre of 1995 in Srebrenica dealt a heavy blow to human dignity.

[ . . . ]

The victims of the Srebrenica massacre lost lives for their homeland, honor and humanity. They were massacred in a bloody, ruthless, lawless, and wild war, Erdogan stressed.

[ . . . ]

Erdogan referred to the International Court of Justice in The Hague which ruled that what took place in Srebrenica was a genocide.

Now, this is the same son-of-a-bitch who has never bothered to shed a tear for Kurds but, in fact, was the one to authorize the murder of Kurdish women, children and elderly during the Amed Serhildan in 2006. This is the same son-of-a-bitch who refuses to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. This is the same son-of-a-bitch who replied to Heval Selahattin's letter and CD thusly:

"They have sent me a letter on [BDP] letterhead with a CD attached, stating that the situation of these corpses was a crime against humanity and asking what are we going to do about this. Is it left to you, BDP, to advocate for an organization that has been declared a terrorist organization by a majority of the world's countries? . . . Where are we going to put the armless, legless veterans in GATA [Gülhane Askeri Tıp Akademisi--TSK's hospital in Ankara] then?"

So this murdering son-of-a-bitch continues to ignore the incidents which are endemic to NATO's second largest army. He lies about PKK being a "terrorist" organization according to "a majority of the world's countries"--only state-sponsors of terror like the United States and Turkey and their little f***ing lapdogs in the EU think that PKK is a "terrorist" organization and these bottom-feeders are hardly "a majority of the world's countries". And then this son-of-a-bitch, Recep Tayyip Katil Erdoğan goes on to deflect any accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity by referring to some "armless, legless veterans in GATA". Oh, and I can guarantee you that the sons of Katil Erdoğan are never going to be found among those GATA unfortunates, nor will they ever be quoted in any future Mehmedin Kitabı, and you, dear reader, can easily guess the reason why.


Here's how Heval Selahattin responded to the Murderer's idiotic statement:

"This is an unfortunate statement. If a PM is thinking this way then he has lost his legitimacy. It is a confession that he is not the PM of a certain part of the country. . . . We do not distinguish the dead bodies, the pain. There is not your pain or my pain. There is our pain. Guerrillas are also the sons and daughters of this country. They are all our people. The parents of guerrillas are also citizens of this country. But if a PM is doing this then he will pass into history as the PM defending brutal treatment on dead bodies."

Well, all I can say is that Heval Selahattin is a much better man than I. As far as I'm concerned, what this comrade said.

THE NEXT GENERATION TO BE BORN IN PRISON

"Diyarbakır Prison is not only the wildest chapter of the Kurdish issue, but it is also the wildest face of Sept. 12. It is certain that the horrible incidents encouraged people to join the armed fight. The fury among Kurdish people due to Diyarbakır Prison has long remained one of the most important resources for the PKK."
~ Mithat Sancar, Professor, Ankara University.

While most people will protest Israeli treatment of Palestinian children, including R. Katil Tayyip Erdoğan. In fact, this great and noble defender of children's rights had this to say last year:

I saw with my own eyes young Palestinian children being killed in Gaza.

Yet there has been little or no discussion of Katil Erdoğan's own treatment of Kurdish children--who also happen to be citizens of Turkey--in Western media. Here's something to help make up for the corporate media lap dogs' cover up of the Turkish state's official policy of Kurdish child abuse:

In April of last year--just days before Katil Erdoğan spoke about the killing of Palestinian children at Oxford, as mentioned above--these evil, stone-throwing, juvenile threats to the indivisibility and territorial integrity of the great and democratic Türkiye Cumhuriyeti were visited by a human rights delegation at their new home in the Diyarbakır E-Type prison. Here's what was noticed, among other things:

"Because the children are washing their clothes by hand, they are not clean. The beds are old, dirty and contain several bacteria. The tables are not hygienically clean, and because the children wash their dishes in an unhygienic environment (on the bathroom floor), this brings serious health problems."

There is no prison doctor. According to the manager, a doctor comes once a week, and an ambulance is called for emergencies. In general, children are transferred to hospital "if the gendarmerie is not busy on that day."

The delegation noted that one child had had a detached finger stitched back on, but that the stitches had not been removed for three months. Another child had cuts on his head and hands. He said that they had been stitched six days earlier, but that the wounds had not been bandaged since his detention.

Does this surprise you? It shouldn't. Diyarbakır's prisons have always been notorious and these days it ranks as one of the ten most notorious in the world. This is where the Turkish state puts Kurdish children after charging them with political "crimes".

Fast forward one year later and how do we find these young Kurds? Unsurprisingly, again, as follows:

Juveniles detained in the Diyarbakır E Type Prison who protested against the fact that their sick fellow inmates were not taken to the hospital were all punished for their protest by the prison management. The young prisoners are convicted and imprisoned in the scope of the controversial Anti-Terror Law (TMK).

Özgeder, the Association for Solidarity with Young People Deprived of Freedom, sent a letter to the Directorate for Prisons and Detention Houses within the Ministry of Justice to make an inquiry about the children that participated in the protest action.

No reply for torture inquiry

The letter said, "We were informed that the children were punished heavily and that officials applied physical violence from time to time. We also learnt that they were sent to neighbouring provinces". Özgeder requested according information.

The Directorate for Prisons and Detention Houses did not respond to the allegations of "torture" in their written reply. The juveniles who had joined the protest were called "criminals". The letter furthermore put forward that they damaged public property.

By protesting prison conditions, these young Kurds are following in the footsteps of Mazlum Doğan, Kemal Pir, M. Hayri Durmuş, and many others who died in Diyarbakır Military Prison in protest of the treatment in the prison and its conditions. For this reason, it has been said that Diyarbakır Military Prison is the birthplace of the PKK.

The Turkish state and the international community had better pay attention and act on behalf of the young Kurds now serving sentences as political prisoners in Diyarbakır and elsewhere in Turkey. Otherwise, this new generation may soon pick up their own matches.

PKK AND THE SCOTUS

"Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised."
~ Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

On June 21 the SCOTUS [Supreme Court of the US] determined that providing "training, expert advice or assistance" to teach the PKK how to file human rights complaints or to engage in peace negotiations is the same thing as providing material support to a "terrorist" organization. From The Washington Post, amazingly:

WHICH OF the following is illegal under the law that bars providing "material support" to terrorists?:

1. Giving money to a terrorist organization.

2. Providing explosives training to terrorists.

3. Urging a terrorist group to put down its arms in favor of using lawful, peaceful means to achieve political goals.

After Monday's Supreme Court ruling in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project the answer is: all three.

The material support law prohibits U.S. citizens from providing "services," "personnel" or "training, expert advice or assistance" to U.S.-designated terrorist groups. It has long been understood that funding and providing weapons training were off limits. What was less clear was how far the law could reach to punish activities with no link to terrorism.

The court's answer: Very far. In our opinion, it is the court that went too far.

From Foreign Policy:

And although it seems like attempts to convince terrorist groups to use non-lethal methods to pursue their political agenda would be a no-brainer, the US Supreme Court concluded otherwise. How could this be? According to the Supreme Court, an FTO such as the PKK could misuse such training to feign an interest in peace while in the meantime it builds up its strength as it awaits a more opportune time to resume terrorism. In addition, it could use its newly-gained knowledge of international law to subvert the legal system by manipulating it to prevent successful campaigns against terrorism. Finally, when an FTO such as the PKK learns skills such as peaceful political advocacy and the norms of international law and international humanitarian and human rights law, there is the substantial risk that it will obtain greater legitimacy, thereby making it harder to defeat them.

The Atlantic continues:

. . . But as Justice Breyer suggested in dissent, it makes no sense: Independent speech about a designated group may legitimize the group as much (or more) than advice to the group on conflict resolution. Breyer was equally dismissive of the assertion that such advice enables terrorism by "freeing up" the group's resources: "The Government has provided us with no empirical information that might convincingly support this claim." Nor did it make a factual showing that the speech proposed by the plaintiffs in HLP would confer any particular "legitimacy" on a designated group.

One of the original court documents in the challenge to the Patriot Act can be found here, and the document contains the argument of the plaintiffs in the case, including that of Judge Ralph Fertig. Here's a sample:

Since 1991 the HLP [Humanitarian Law Project] and Judge Fertig have devoted substantial time and resources advocating on behalf of the Kurds living in Turkey and working with and providing training, expert advice and other forms of support to the PKK. Judge Fertig and other individuals associated with the HLP have conducted fact-finding investigations on the Kurds in Turkey and have published reports and articles presenting their findings, which are supportive of the PKK and the struggle for Kurdish liberation. They assert that the Turkish government has committed extensive human rights violations against the Kurds, including the summary execution of more than 18,000 Kurds, the widespread use of arbitrary detentions and torture against persons who speak out for equal rights for Kurds or are suspected of sympathizing with those who do, and the wholesale destruction of some 2,4000 Kurdish villages. Applying international law principles, they have concluded that the PKK is a party to an armed conflict governed by Geneva Conventions and Protocols and, therefore, is not a terrorist organization under international law.

There's much more in the court document that outlines some of the work of the HLP and Judge Fertig on behalf of the Kurdish people. Take a look so that you can get a better idea of what it is to be a "terrorist" in the mind of the United States in general and of the fascist Black Robes of the SCOTUS in particular.

At the same time that the fascist Black Robes of the SCOTUS determined that helping the PKK negotiate peace was an act of terrorism, news reports were discussing the fact that the US military and its civilian contractors were handing out beaucoup bucks to warlords and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It's apparent from Le Monde Diplomatique that not only do US military officers like to flash the cash in the Taliban's direction, but NATO commanders are somewhat taken with the Taliban personally:

Sadly for the US, almost everyone supports the Taliban rebels. Even Nato commanders. A senior officer said: “If I was a young man, I’d be fighting with the Taliban.”

The same article says that, until recently anyway, the entire goal of the US military in Afghanistan was not even to defeat the Taliban:

For Nato soldiers, the fight is confusing. General Stanley McChrystal – their commander until President Barack Obama accepted his forced resignation last month, the result of his candour – told the troops that, in the counter-insurgency campaign, their primary goal is not to kill or even defeat the Taliban but rather to secure the population. The enemy is not even the Taliban, said Major-General Nick Carter, the British general in charge of the Kandahar campaign, but rather a “malign influence”, a code for corrupt government.

In light of a recent House subcommittee investigation into the matter, the Pentagon is taking the allegations "seriously". The entire congressional report can be found here and a larger news report on the investigation can be found at The Nation.

It makes one wonder whether or not such fine, upstanding Americans as US military officers and "free-market" contractors should, perhaps, be the first to be charged with offering material support to terrorists under the SCOTUS ruling. Alas, it's not to be for the simple reason that the Taliban is not listed as an FTO on the State Department's infamous List.

Now why is that?

On the one hand you have the PKK, an organization that has never targeted Americans or even talked about targeting Americans--unlike the MEK, pet organization of so many Republican congressmen--and on the other hand you have the Taliban, which manages to blow up or otherwise kill Americans every few days. Or at least every week. So why is the PKK on the List and the Taliban is not? It all sounds so very arbitrary to me.

Of course, the reason the Taliban has so far avoided being listed is because it was the guest of the Americans back in the 1990s:

Late in 1996, however, the Bridas Corp. of Argentina finally signed contracts with the Taliban and with Gen. Dostum of the Northern Alliance to build the pipeline.

One American company in particular, Unocal, found that intolerable and fought back vigorously, hiring a number of consultants in addition to Kissinger: Hamid Karzai, Richard Armitage, and Zalmay Khalilzad. (Armitage and Khalilzad would join the George W. Bush administration in 2001.)

Unocal wooed Taliban officials at its headquarters in Texas and in Washington, D.C., seeking to have the Bridas contract voided, but the Taliban refused. Finally, in February of 1998, John J. Maresca, a Unocal vice president, asked in a congressional hearing to have the Taliban replaced by a more stable regime.

The Clinton administration, having recently refused the PNAC request to invade Iraq, was not any more interested in a military overthrow of the Taliban. President Clinton did, however, shoot a few cruise missiles into Afghanistan, after the al Qaeda attacks on the U.S. embassies in Africa. And he issued an executive order forbidding further trade transactions with the Taliban.

Maresca was thus twice disappointed: The Taliban would not be replaced very soon, and Unocal would have to cease its pleadings with the regime.

Unocal's prospects rocketed when George W. Bush entered the White House, and the Project for the New American Century ideology of global dominance took hold.

The Bush administration itself took up active negotiations with the Taliban in January of 2001, seeking secure access to the Caspian Basin for American companies. The Enron Corp. also was eyeing a pipeline to feed its proposed power plant in India.) The administration offered a package of foreign aid as an inducement, and the parties met in Washington, Berlin and Islamabad. The Bridas contract might still be voided.

But the Taliban would not yield.

It would appear that the Americans are holding out to continue pipeline negotiations with the Taliban, and are, therefore, not "Listing" the group.

If so it means that former HPG Commander Comrade Bahoz Erdal's repeated comments about the targeting of oil and gas pipelines takes on a much greater sense of urgency. Since the Taliban refusal to go along with American oil companies and its continued targeting of US military personnel have kept it off the List, maybe the same tactics could benefit HPG and the PKK and, finally, force Turkey and the US to negotiate for a peaceful settlement of the Kurdish situation.

THE FALCONS OF KURDISTAN

"Don't worry. Such things happen. We are doing all that we can."
~ General Gürbüz Kaya, TSK.

The falcons of Kurdistan are tearing the flesh of the wolves of the Turkish Republic.

On its website, Teyrêbazên Azadîya Kurdistan (TAK) has claimed responsibility for yesterday's bombing of a military bus in Istanbul. TAK states that the bombing was in retaliation for "an unjust war in Kurdistan" and it also warns TSK about using civilians as shields and warns all civilians to stay away from military areas and vehicles for their own security. It would appear that TAK's intention is to continue its attacks. There's a little more on TAK's statement at Bianet.

The Independent remarks that this bombing marks the end of HPG's ceasefire. However, the end of the ceasefire occurred on 1 June and HPG has no relationship to TAK. If urban operations continue, it may be possible that TAK will operate in some coordinated manner with HPG since TAK has always remained open to such a possibility. At this point, of course, it's too early to tell.

Still, it would be a good idea to avoid Turkey as a travel destination this year.

HPG's policy of active defense has resulted in numerous TSK deaths in the last few weeks. The responsibility for these deaths lies with TSK as the natural result of its recent heavy operations in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. Heavy TSK losses are also a result of a combination of hubris and incompetence in the Turkish officer corps--a fact that Turkish families are suddenly recognizing.

Not that this would be the first instance of such hubris and incompetence. Remember the Dağlıca (Oremar) commander, Onur Dirik? Well, so does Zaman:

Dağlıca Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Onur Dirik had left his battalion at the time of the attack to attend a wedding. His pictures, dancing at the wedding at the time of the attack, were published in national newspapers.

Now the families are blaming the deaths of their beloved this last weekend on the paşa in charge of the garrison in Şemdinli, General Gürbüz Kaya. It would appear that not only is this particular paşa filled with hubris and incompetence, but he's a big, fat liar, too:

Kaya was previously in the press for his remarks in a recorded phone conversation last year after it became evident that mines that killed seven soldiers in an explosion two years ago had been planted by the Turkish military rather than the PKK. The tragic background of the incident was revealed by Van prosecutors who launched an investigation into the mine explosion after a telephone conversation between Brig. Gen. Zeki Es and Maj. Gen. Kaya indicating that the mines were planted by the people who were responsible for the soldiers' security came to light. In the recording, Kaya -- speaking about the blast that killed seven soldiers -- can be heard telling Es: “Don't worry. Such things happen. We are doing all that we can.”

OOPS!!

But, then, we know for a fact that Turkish officers don't give a shit. Remember this, from last year:

Four soldiers were killed in the eastern province of Elazığ on Aug. 17 after a lieutenant gave one of the privates a hand grenade whose pin he had pulled out to punish him for sleeping during his night watch, the Taraf daily claimed yesterday.

The testimony of members of the army obtained by the daily reveal that the four soldiers died when an activated grenade given to them by Lt. Mehmet Tümer exploded. According to the records, Tümer wanted to punish Pvt. İbrahim Öztürk for falling asleep during his night watch. It had previously been claimed that the soldiers were killed when a hand grenade carried by one of the soldiers exploded accidentally as they were patrolling the rural area against the prospect of a terrorist attack by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Four other soldiers were injured in the blast. However, soldiers' testimonies point to a totally different cause behind the deaths.

So, this criminally feckless attitude is rife among the officer corps of NATO's second largest army. How appropriate for such a pack of hyenas. Bengi Yıldız is right: "Don't send your children to military service".

On a related matter, Israeli UAV technicians and instructors were recalled to Israel in the first half of June, after the Mavi Marmara incident. CNN reported this:

After the May 31 [Mavi Marmara] incident, Turkey's prime minister ominously warned "nothing would ever be the same again," between the two once-close Middle Eastern allies. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has demanded that Israel apologize for what he has repeatedly labeled an act of "state terrorism" and "piracy" in the eastern Mediterranean.

Turkey withdrew its ambassador from Tel Aviv, Israel, in protest and cancelled joint military exercises with Israel. But Ankara has been careful not to sever ties with the Israeli defense industry.

Further down in that article, İlker Paşa had this to say:

When asked on Monday whether Israeli technicians and engineers had to cut short training on the new drones due to the recent rift in relations, Basbug insisted Turkish operators were adequately prepared to pilot the Herons.

"Now our own personnel, our air force, is using the Heron systems that we bought," Basbug said. "They got the training, it is over. We are capable, we have started using them."

But I think İlker Paşa prevaricates; yesterday, Zaman reported that a Turkish military delegation arrived in Israel on Tuesday to complete some testing on the Heron systems. They'll be there for two weeks.

So much for all of Katil Erdoğan's anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian solidarity shit.

In conclusion, let me express my best wishes to our dear Kurdish falcons and let's all lift a glass to happy hunting!

15 ŞUBAT

"In the category of small nations without any rights, it is best not to be Kurdish. It is better to be an ethnic Albanian or a Palestinian.... Because they do not fit with the interests of any superpower...and because they happen to be under Turkey's rule, a U.S. ally and NATO member, the Kurds will not have their Madrid conference or their Dayton agreement or Rambouillet talks.... While everyone has been recalling that Ocalan's organization is a terrorist organization, everyone has been forgetting that the Kurdish people of Turkey are the victims of state terrorism...called ethnic cleansing. The same thing that has the United States and Europe up in arms when it is done in the Balkans, leaves them cold when it is done in Turkey."
~ Le Monde, 18 February 1999.

Eleven years ago today Turkey thought its Kurdish problem was solved. It wasn't. Cengiz Çandar, writing in Radikal, doesn't think Turkey's Kurdish problem is solved either:

Oppression and Disappointment in the Southeast


If you make your way to the Southeast often--and not only talk to officials but also particularly have a relationship with the street--if you open up your heart and listen to the region's people, there is a result that you can easily arrive at: the ruling party's regional parliamentarians are not representing the region in Ankara but are representing Ankara and their party in the region.

I've stated this on every occasion when I met with important people in the state and in the government. The AK Party's Southeastern parliamentarians are not representing their regions; they do not convey the pulse of the Southeast to Ankara. Whenever they go to their election districts, they represent Ankara and their party.

Therefore, PM Erdogan's statement, "There are 75 Kurdish parliamentarians in my party," or the AK Party's receiving the greatest amount of votes in the region doesn't mean anything.

Have you ever heard these 75 "Kurdish" parliamentarians open their mouths to say anything about the Kurdish question? Have you ever heard them mention the unbearable oppression in the region in Ankara in front of the public?

A couple of days ago, Diyarbakır's Special Heavy Penalty Court convicted a fifteen-year-old girl called Berivan for "throwing stones at police" in addition to "cheering party slogans" during the events that took place on 9 October in Batman. She was convicted to 13.5 years at the first hearing. Yes, at the very first hearing.

Since she was a minor, the court showed mercy and reduced its punishment to seven years and nine months! At the event [during the protest in Batman], Berivan's face was covered with a scarf but police were determined that the girl with the scarf was Berivan. That girl with the scarf may very well be Berivan; but while there is more solid and concrete evidence for the generals who gathered to overthrow the government, which is a crime against the state, and while they've been released pending trial, have you ever seen any Southeastern AKP parliamentarian object to Berivan's conviction of 13.5 years for stoning police and cheering party slogans?

Do you know that there are over 1,000 children in prison in the Southeast?

In a condition where belief in justice is damaged so deeply, can we talk about the "Democratic Initiative" or the "National Unity and Brotherhood Project"?

In the Southeast there is no justice but oppression!

The other day, one of the members of AKP's executive council told me that in the council meeting PM Erdoğan was informed that people in the Southeast are very happy and very excited about the ongoing events [the "democratic" initiative]. Based on the PM's sources, everything is going well in the Southeast. Whereas the contrary is the case and the "political decision maker" [Erdoğan--i.e. Turkey's "decider guy"] is being deceived or prefers being deceived. Again, another piece of information I received from a similar source: AK Party's executive council is expecting very important incidents about Kandil around Newroz. If there are AKP members that believe this, I'm curious about what planet they're living on. Newroz is only one and a half months away; is there any indicator that thousands of armed people from Kandil will come and surrender?

Well, is there any little indication of a general amnesty to come out for the ones at Kandil? There are only two possibilities left so far. 1) America and Iraqi Kurds will have a joint military operation and finish PKK's military existence--for those who believe this, they are living in a dream. 2) The ones at Kandil disappear unexpectedly.

There are no such situations and there isn't the slightest sign that these will happen.

Meaning, within one and a half months, related to Kandil, it is impossible for any incident to happen, for PKK to disarm. A "climate" for such a thing has been removed in Turkey anyway. In the region [Southeast], in addition to 1,000 children, more than 1,000 people in political groups, including elected mayors, have been arrested.

The PKK members who came from Kandil three months ago are free; mayors have been handcuffed and arrested for having connections with PKK.

There are two ways to make the armed cadres give up on armed struggle:

1. Regarding Kurdish identity, you have to take such unilateral democratic steps that will remove the armed group's masses of supportö and the support will completely be removed. There won't be support of the masses for armed forces.

2. Open up ways for armed groups to become involved with peaceful [without arms] politics.

Until now, regarding the first, there are positive but insufficient steps. Regarding the second, just the contrary is being done. Elected people, who are involved with peaceful politics, are jailed. It is a politics of "to the ones in the cities calling 'go to the mountains'; meanwhile, to the ones in the mountains, 'stay there'" is being made.

The "negative atmosphere" and the "disappointment" in the region were reflected to Ankara as "information to the state in the governors' meeting". The governors in the East and Southeast told Interior Minister Beşir Atalay that, "initially, the democratic initiative raised expectation and excitement to their peaks in the region. Citizens became very hopeful. When the package ["democratic" initiative's packages] was presented, a serious disappointment took place. The citizens are expecting more concrete steps."

They are right.

For months, we have been saying and writing this. I forgot exactly how many articles I wrote specifically about this issue and specifically in this way. The governors who work in the region mentioned that our people's expectation became lively in March of last year due to Abdullah Gül's statement of "soon there will be good things on the Kurdish question" and with the initiative, their expectation is at its peak.

President Gül said those words to three journalists--of whom I was one--in the plane on the way to Tehran. Since that day, I am among those who've been keeping an eye on the pulse of the region. I spent a remarkable amount of the summer months in the Mardin, Van, Doğubeyazıt, and Kızıltepe regions. On 1 August [2009], I was among the attendees for the Kurdish Workshop. One month later, in September, I traveled 1,000 kilometers between Diyarbakır and Şemdinli.

Today's atmosphere is 180 degrees different from the atmosphere of those days.

It is as much a deep disappointment and negative atmosphere [now] as it was equally positive in those days.

How in the world will "national unity and brotherhood " come about without including our Kurdish citizens who live in the Southeast, who want to join with great enthusiasm and an expectation of an optimistic future?

How will a "national unity and brotherhood" will come about from a region where 1,000 children are currently living lives of misery in prisons?

The Interior Ministry said "İnşallah, soon good things are going to happen" to the governors and wanted them to wait for a while. I wish this problem could be solved with "İnşallahs" and empty promises. This is not a kind of problem that can be solved with "İnşallahs" and "Maşallahs".

And god forbid the potential of the disappointment is so great as to overwhelm the struggle against the junta members in Ankara and Istanbul, and to overwhelm Turkey's successful foreign politics that present Turkey as a "rising regional power".

PM Erdoğan needs to open up his eyes to the ongoing things in the Southeast and, without any delay, he must change track.

Çandar's piece reminds me of something else from history, something that happened four years ago tomorrow--the visit of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Ankara. Let's recall what was said at the time:

Although they feared that too open an endorsement of Hamas's victory would antagonise both Israel and the international community, Turkish Foreign Ministry officials were privately discussing intensifying behind-the-scenes contacts with Hamas in preparation for more contacts in Palestine. But they advised the Turkish government that it should delay any public contacts with Hamas until it had formed a government. In this way they could argue that they were meeting not with representatives of a group which is included on both the US's and the EU's list of terrorist organisations but with representatives of the democratically elected Palestinian government.

What was said by the AKP government in defense of the Hamas visit?

The Turkish government justified its decision to invite Meshaal, who is based in Damascus, by arguing that Hamas had won free and fair elections in the Palestinian territories. The Turks stressed the importance of having a dialogue with Hamas in order to moderate its position.

The AKP government has not changed its position on this subject as Katil Erdoğan was on Turkish media last week crying for Palestinians again. It should be noted, however, that Katil Erdoğan has yet to shed any tears for the Kurds of Turkey. What's more is that Katil Erdoğan's government continues to carry out mass arrests of Kurdish politicians who were, in fact, members of a legal and peaceful political party in Turkey and who had been overwhelmingly elected to their positions by the people of their constituencies during last year's 29 March elections. While I'm at it, let me reiterate that neither DTP nor BDP have been listed on anyone's "Terrorist" List . . . except perhaps for some super secret List which may have been filed in Gladio's Kozmik Odası.

Since the ruling party has completely ruled out any possibility of a political solution for the Kurdish people, there is only one approach left.

EREN KESKIN TO SPEAK IN MINNEAPOLIS

"I believe that the ideology of the perpatrators of the Armenian Genocide, the Committee of Union and Progress, and its special organization Teskilat-i Mahsusa, are the “founding ideology” of the Turkish Republic."
~ Eren Keskin.

For those of you in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, there will be a free conference on the Armenian Genocide this Friday, 5 February 2010, at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. It will run all day, from 0900 in the morning until 1700 in the evening.

There's more information at The Armenian Reporter.

Among the speakers will be Eren Keskin, who I have written about previously and it would be a great treat to be able to hear her speak.

Word is also that the Turkish embassy and the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund (TALDF) will have representatives present at the conference. Rastî readers will remember that the TALDF represented Jean Schmidt in the Krikorian case, for which Sibel Edmonds was deposed last summer.

If you can go, please go and show your support for a legitimate and open discussion of the Armenian Genocide, to support the Armenian community in the face of the Turkish government and its lobbyist watchdogs, and to hear Eren Keskin. Then let me know how everything went by posting something in comments.


UPDATE: Unfortunately, due to visa issues, Comrade Eren will be unable to attend the conference at the University of St. Thomas in person but she will participate by video link. If you're wondering what Comrade Eren will have to say, please check out her current column at The Armenian Weekly:

Yes, in Turkey, all together, the genocide committed against the Armenian nation has been “swept under the carpet.”

Everybody has a share in that. And everybody is guilty.

Those who don’t explicitly say “genocide,” those who are still ambivalent, who remain silent, who are afraid, I want to remind you of the words of Dr. Nazim in a secret meeting of the CUP in the beginning of 1915: “…Armenians are like a deadly wound. This wound is first thought to be harmless. But if it is not treated by a doctor in time, it definitely kills. We must act immediately. If we act as in 1909, it will do more harm than good. It will awaken the other groups we have decided to eliminate, the Arabs and the Kurds, and the danger will become threefold…”

Apparently the TALDF has exchanged "words" with the law school and were rebuffed by the school (Bravo for UST!), so now TALDF claims that it will bring protestors. If you're in the area and you have a Kurdish flag (or a picture of Önder Apo), take it along and wave it at the TALDF.

SERKEFTIN!

NEWS FOR FRIDAY

"Actually, Cemil Çiçek's approach, in a way, is Turkey's century-long general approach. The hysterical, assimilationist, exclusionist, vengeful, denialist policy reveals itself through Cemil Çiçek."
~ Mehmet Nuri Güneş, DTP mayor of Iğdır.

Last week the Vineyard Saker interviewed Zerkes from Zerkesorg. It's an excellent and extensive interview discussing the current situation in Turkey, the Turkish Deep State, and potential Kurdish alliances in the region, so go on over to The Vineyard of the Saker and enjoy.


This week the third installation of an examination of the career of the new American Turkish Council chairman Richard Armitage is up at Sibel Edmonds' place. You can also find Part 1 and Part 2 on Armitage if you missed them.





Down in Tucson, Arizona there's been a bit of a dust-up over a Gülen school. You might want to notice the final comment of the Turkish principal:

"I'm hoping that they know that these are defamatory allegations which may put them in trouble later on. These are excelling schools. ... I hope they are aware of what they're doing."

Cue threatening music . . .

Turkish is taught in the school and students are encouraged to participate in Gülen's Turkish Olympiads. The Turkish Olympiads are sponsored by local Turkish organizations around the world and news about these Olympiads regularly appear on Fethullah Gülen's official website.

The interesting thing about this, especially in the US, is that the Bush administration created the National Security Language Initiative in 2006. Turkish is included as a language that is "fundamental to the economic competitiveness and security interests of the Nation."

Now, that begs the question: What kind of translators are former Gülen students going to be? Are they going to be like Sibel Edmonds? Or are they going to be like Melek Can Dickerson? Does anyone think, if these students have a Gulen-inspired view of Turkey--a Turkish nationalist view of Turkey--that they are going to translate things in a way that is favorable to Turkey? Doesn't that undermine the whole idea of a "National Security Language Initiative"?

Finally, last week the DTP/BDP mayor of Iğdır, Mehmet Nuri Güneş, was among those detained in the continuing terror actions against the Kurdish people in Turkey. Many here will remember an interview with Comrade Mehmet from ANF last year. This was after deputy prime minister Cemil "Chicken Little" Çiçek almost had a stroke because the DTP (read: the KURDS) had taken over Iğdır. The problem being, of course, that Iğdır borders Armenia and you know how Kurds might just let the Armenians in the back door so that they would be able to SEPARATE--OMG! OMG! OMG!--Turkey.

According to Roj TV, Comrade Mehmet's detention officially became an arrest last weekend.