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.

UPDATE ON TURKISH POLITICS

“The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.”
~ Albert Camus.

Check out these retards as an example of what is passing for politics in Turkey these days:

"Let kids watch the prime minister!":

Regarding MHP chairman Bahçeli, [in recent days] Erdoğan said, "Keep your children away from the TV when Mr. Bahçeli talks." When Bahçeli was reminded of this statement, Bahçeli said, "Apparently he doesn't listen to us very well. There is no need for such polemics. What if I say, "I suggest that children watch Mr. Prime Minister. Let them always watch him. I think they will have as much amusement as if they are watching Walt Disney movies."

Of course, Bahçeli then goes on to engage in polemics.

Forget about Disney, however; Turkish politics more closely resembles the inhabitants of Bikini Bottom from SpongeBob SquarePants:

(Credit: bobiler.org)

Notice the resemblance between Squidward Tentacles and Bahçeli?



































Now we just need the creators of SpongeBob to add a character that looks like Deniz Baykal.

Yes, boys and girls, the inmates really are running the asylum.

That is all.

NOTES FROM KANDIL 2: THIS ISN'T YOUR DAD'S PKK

"An elimination scenario was written before 29 March. It was a scenario based on DTP losing votes . . . But it didn't pan out."
~ Murat Karayılan.

This is a continuation of Hasan Cemal's interview with Murat Karayılan. The first part can be found here.

Karayılan: PKK is not the old PKK any more

Karayılan explains the change in the PKK with the following words: "PKK is at a more reasonable line compared to the past. For example, it [the PKK] used to want an independent Kurdish state. This is in the past now. In other words, PKK is not 'secessionist' any more. We want the Kurds to live freely and in equality within the borders of the Turkish Republic. I would like to state this. This is not a tactic. The process that dropped secessionism, excluding the independent state, started in 1993; 1999 began with İmralı (1999 is the year Öcalan was captured and sentenced to life time imprisonment, HC). The paradigm has changed."

Qandil Mountain, North Iraq [South Kurdistan]

During my four-hour-long meeting with the PKK's number one man, Murat Karayılan, in a short two-room village house made of mud-bricks on the skirts of Mount Kandil, I tried to keep one topic the subject of conversation constantly:

PKK laying down arms...

PKK coming down from the mountains...

At some point Karayılan said this: "Look, we didn't go to the mountains because we've lost our mind. Like so many others say, we didn't go to the mountains for picnic either."

When the PKK's coming down from the mountains comes up, Karayılan smiles sarcastically. At the same time, the expression on his face says it's not so easy and there are other things to be done before it comes to that phase...

When I pushed it, he said this:

"The saying, "PKK should lay down arms," is an empty one, it's shooting into the air. Where shall PKK leave its arms? How? To whom? What are the grounds? It's meaningless to say leave down the arms. First let's sit down and talk."

"We are at a more reasonable line"

According to Murat Karayılan it's impossible to get to anywhere by calling the PKK "a terrorist organization". He says that the PKK at the same time represents the Kurds' aspirations and for that reason has their support.

And he always adds this:

"PKK is not the old PKK any more"

When asked what the change is, in summary, he gives this answer:

"PKK is at a more reasonable line compared to the past. For example, it [the PKK] used to want an independent Kurdish state. This is in the past now. In other words, PKK is not 'secessionist' any more. We want the Kurds to live freely and in equality within the borders of the Turkish Republic. I would like to state this. This is not a tactic. The process that dropped secessionism, excluding the independent state, started in 1993; 1999 began with İmralı (1999 is the year Öcalan was captured and sentenced to life time imprisonment, HC). The paradigm has changed."

"How did it change?"

"Look, now we say 'Democratic Autonomous Kurdistan'. What we mean by autonomy is not federation. It's not redrawing of borders. It's a solution that preserves the unity of the state. The Local Administrations Law can change, the local administrations will be made stronger."

"We caused some complications too"

Murat Karayılan again stressed a point which was in yesterday's article:

"First the weapons must be silenced!"

"Then?"

"Then it will be turn for rights associated with the Kurdish identity (He refers to constitutional changes--HC) and the 'societal reconciliation project' which some people interpret as amnesty. This is a two sided subject. On one side there have been armed rebellions . . . On the other side denial policies have been followed . . . These have done damage . . . There are over 17 thousand murders with unknown perpetrators that have been committed against us, Kurdish people . . . Yes, there have been some complications from our side too. That's why we are talking about this societal reconciliation project. This something that is mutual, reciprocal. This project is to mutually forgive one another. It is to reach reconciliation on a new constitution that reflects voluntary unity."

Murat Karayılan adds this:

"All we want is for Kurds to live their culture freely."

"Kurdish conference can prepare the environment for solution"

I notice something. While I have been talking with Murat Karayılan in a short village house on the skirts of Mount Qandil, two members of the PKK's Leadership Council (made up of five people), Bozan Tekin and Sozdar Avesta, didn't say anything. I bring up the subject of PKK laying down arms and coming down from the mountains again. This time within the context of Kurdish conference. In summary, I say this:

"A Kurdish conference for all Kurds, living in every country [Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey], is going to be held and a call is going to be issued to the PKK to lay down arms; the scenario will be fixed such that PKK is going to enter the phase of laying down arms. Such an expectation was created. But then the conference was postponed to Autumn. Did you or PKK cause this?"

Murat Karayılan agrees that expectations regarding the Kurdish conference were created. On this subject he laughs at the role Kurdish leader and Iraq's President Jalal Talabani played and takes a sarcastic tone. But at the same time, while stating he takes the Kurdish conference seriously and summarizes the subject: "The conference was originally our idea. But the last undertaking was not ours. If correctly approached, this conference can create an environment for solution. However, this is a reality: from such a conference will not mean 'PKK should lay down arms!'".

"Özal would worry about the Kurdish Question"

There is a question on PKK's number one, Karayılan:

Are we going to return back to the first half on 1990s?

Especially to 1994 . . .

The period during which the fire in The Southeast [North Kurdistan] flared... Karayılan asks:

"Will the government forward everything to the military again, like it did in early 1990s?"

Karayılan is looking for an answer to this question.

In summary, he said this:

"Özal died in 1993 and the opportunity for peace was missed. Özal was leader who was able to see the Kurdish Question and who worked seriously to solve it. Özal died in 1993 and 1994 was horrible (like Öcalan, Karayılan too places Turgut Özal at a very positive place in regard with Kurdish Question--HC). Is an attack reminiscent of 1994 on the way again? We are feeling some things but we are not sure. Will Erdoğan's government forward the issue to the military and cause a blood bath? What do you think?"

"So the military too can wait . . . "

Murat Karayılan is trying to read into the period after 29 March [local elections]. He says that a scenario was written for elections such that DTP would lose votes and Tayyip Erdoğan was so engaged in this, and trusted himself very much, but at the end was disappointed because DTP increased its votes and municipalities in the local elections.

He points to military's role in this scenario indirectly and says:

"An elimination scenario was written before 29 March. It was a scenario based on DTP losing votes . . . But it didn't pan out. We lived the calmest winter of last 25 years. The military waited until 29 March. So the military, too, can wait (he said this sentence with a bit of sarcasm--HC). Why didn't the military attack us during the election period? But we were hopeful from this despite all . . . Some indications of solution appeared. We thought this could be a new phase in which the military takes part, too. But no. The day after the elections, on 30 March, the military started even though it wasn't on a large scale . . . On 14 April, this time the start of targeting DTP was given. But the election results had given us hope in the name of peace and democracy.

"Where is the Prime Minister Erdoğan of 2005?"

Karayılan, during our four hours long conversation a few times talked about Prime Minister Erdoğan. He mentioned the speech Erdoğan made in Diyarbakir in August of 2005. In that speech Erdoğan said "The Kurdish issue is our issue; the state has made mistakes in this matter; these can be corrected".

PKK's number one mentioned a few times that today nothing was left of Erdoğan's speech and raised the following point:

Political power vacuum . . .

Karayılan said this:

"I am not able to be optimistic. At the top there is no political willpower about the Kurdish Question. The absence of will power is a very serious problem. Today, even generals started saying different things. But where is the political will power? Where is the Prime Minister who said those words in 2005? Where is the Erdoğan who prepared a Kurdish report in 1994 when he was İstanbul's mayor and handed to his party leader even if it was not his job to do that?

"Armed struggle is now in the line of legitimate self-defense"

Karayılan comes back to "PKK is not the old PKK" point once more. He tries to explain the PKK has changed. He says they are open to the media and says "let them come and learn about us". He states that their method of struggle are starting to change.

In summary, he says this:

"We are not the PKK of 10 years ago. We don't do the armed struggle with classical means any more, either. We work in the line of legitimate self-defense. We are putting emphasis on mass activities, civilian disobedience, and political work. But meanwhile, what are you going to do with 6-7 thousand armed people? They are, in a sense, a guarantee for the gains, for legitimate defence . . . We don't want people to die. The last four years we are in a limited war. It's not like 1993, 1994. In the rural areas, if you are being attacked, you will defend yourself."

"The explosion at university prep school too was one that happened out of control"

Then he adds this:

"In the new phase, after 29 March elections, a new war is imposed . . . We don't even want to think of this. In case of such an imposition, it will exceed the one in the first half of 1990s, it will be more dire, for both sides. We don't want this. But we are ready for this too. Unwanted results may come out. We don't do things out of control. Military actions that hurt innocent people, civilians, and that are not in legitimate self-defense enter the class of terror."

In this regard, Karayılan talks about the horrible explosion that happened in front of a university prep school, the terror action in Diyarbakır and says: "It is very wrong. We didn't approve it either. It happened out of our control."

To be continued.

DEMOCRACY DOES NOT WORK

"I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man's problem just to avoid violence."
~ Malcolm X.

Last week we were told by the propaganda organs of the Ankara regime that the operations conducted against DTP were not really conducted against DTP but against KCK. DTP maintained that the state terror operations were directed against them and the reason for the operations was DTP's success during the 29 March elections.

Now, it appears that the truth is beginning to surface. Here's something from the hevals at KurdishInfo (http://www.kurdish-info.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=12996):

Unlike the fabrications seen in the Turkish media, the DTP members are charged with the party's campaign being illegal. The court is claiming that DTP's Democratic, Ecologically Sensitive, and Gender Equality Based Local Administrations Project and DTP's Local Administrations Office have been accused of being illegal and DTP members were questioned on them.

[ . . . ]

The DTP Projects are reason for the operation

Election campaign programmes prepared by DTP was treated as if they were illegal and the part members faced questions such as "why did you do this program?". DTP's Democratic, Ecologically Sensitive, and Gender Equality Based Local Administrations Project was treated as an illegal action and the phone conversations among party members regarding this project were presented as evidence of crime (DTP's project appeared in the media many times before). Talking about who should appear on Roj TV was presented as a crime as well.

[ . . . ]

Since the operation is classified the defence attorneys cannot get any information on the charges or evidence to be presented at the court. Nobody knows when this open ended investigation will end. Meanwhile the politicians are in prison.

For more on DTP's Democratic Autonomy Project, see here, here, and here.

DTP's bylaws are also being treated as criminal (http://www.kurdish-info.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=12998):

Prosecutors named DTP's organizational model as KCK's Turkey structure and included it in the list of crimes. However, DTP has prepared a project titled Democratic Autonomy Creation Project and had it approved at its congress much later than 8 November 2007. This model was handled as "Creation of Democratic Autonomy". In this project, it's proposed that Turkey should be split into 25 executive regions such that every region is to have its own council/senate to handle each region's education, health, social security services, agriculture, cultural services, telecommunications, etc issues. The project's organization was formulated as "The councils shall be called 'regional councils' and the participants shall be called 'regional representatives'. The council elects the chair and the members of the executive board. The chair and executive board members are responsible from execution of council's decisions. This structure doesn't imply federalism or ethnicity-based autonomy, but it's a new democratic executive support structure to bind central administration to the city-level administrations. Every region is to be called with its proper name or by the name of the largest city within the administrative borders of the region."

Despite the secrecy mandate put by the court, some newspapers have been claiming that DTP candidates have been identified by the PKK. However, DTP formed a 27 person Candidate Identification Committee six month before the March 29 elections. People forming this committee included old DEP parliamentarians, DTP administrators, representatives from NGOs, and Women and Youth Assembly members. The committee conducted a meeting during its administration, means of identifying candidates, and candidate identification criteria were decided. In order to comply with the decisions made by committee and fairness to everyone, in every city, town, belde, and metropolis, independent election platforms were formed. These platforms were formed by representatives from NGOs, DTP party members, and individuals who have contributed to democratic struggle in Turkey. Every candidate has come before these platforms. The platforms elected 3 names among these candidates and notified these names to the Candidate Identification Committee and DTP Central Management. DTP Central Management Council and the Candidate Identification Committee, among those 3 names, have picked the candidate with most votes (with one or two exceptions). DTP had identified its candidates for parliamentarian elections using the same procedure.

I mentioned above that the Ankara regime's propaganda organs had stated that the operations were not against DTP, but against KCK. It was Zaman that first came out with that lie, and both of the articles quoted above name Zaman and the Fethullahçı as the force behind the operation. Not surprisingly, MİT has been assisting (http://www.kurdish-info.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=12997):

Operation against DTP was decided at an Officer's Club

Firat News Agency (ANF), claimed that the operation against DTP was decided by the Turkish Secret Service (MIT). On April 12, a team of 7 MIT members went to Diyarbakır with 12 folders in their possession.

The MIT members met 5 prosecutors at Diyarbakir Army Officer's Club. 3 of the MIT members left Diyarbakır on a plane, on April 14, the day operations against DTP began.

The remaining 4 MIT members have directed the DTP members interrogations but didn't directly participate in the interrogations.

The articles may also be found at Özgür Gündem:

"DTP'nin faaliyetleri 'yasadışı' ilan edildi"

"İşte 'suç' sayılan DTP tüzüğü"

"Operasyona Ordu Evi'nde karar verildi iddiası"

Maybe someone can explain to me exactly what the point of democracy is, or where it has ever existed because, at this moment, I see democracy only as a propaganda tactic designed to reinforce repression and genocide.

Make sure to stop by Hevallo's place to read his report on Ahmet Türk's current visit to the UK and view some photos. Here's a sample:

“Turkey is now at a point where it has retreated farther into its own shell in comparison to the past,” Türk stated, refuting comments made by European politicians that the country now has a stronger democracy.

Türk’s remarks came on Sunday during a speech he delivered at the Kurdish Community Center in London.

Türk slammed the recent police operations against dozens of individuals suspected of ties with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which resulted in the arrest of several DTP members.

Officials said the raids and arrests were the culmination of a yearlong investigation into the PKK’s “urban extensions,” but the pro-Kurdish party said the police crackdown was the government’s revenge against the DTP because it defeated the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in the predominantly Kurdish southeastern cities in last month’s local elections.

“A public cannot live peacefully with another public unless it is set free. ... We are evaluating the issue in terms of the brotherhood of nations rather than of ethnic nationalism,” Türk stated.

The DTP leader also complained about discrimination against his party’s deputies in Parliament. “We have been struggling to solve our problems through democratic means since we entered Parliament, but the other parties represented in Parliament turn a blind eye to our existence,” he said.

See? What did I say about democracy?

Check Gordon Taylor's new post at The Pasha and The Gypsy on "PKK confessor" Abdülkadır Aygan. It may very well be, as Gordon suggests, that Aygan lives now only to bear witness but I consider him a typical "confessor". He joined PKK before PKK existed and then developed cold feet because he claimed he was tired of "executions" within PKK and attacks on villages. But then he goes to work for JİTEM throwing people into acid wells. How is that for consistency? Oh, yeah, he also spent some time in prison doing a little creative writing for the paşas, just like Şemdin Sakık.


At Zerkesorg, there's an opinion about passive resistance and its relation to so-called democracy:

Let's now bring the recent "operations" of the AKPasha Inc against Democratic Society Party (DTP) to put things in perspective a little better. Turkey says "lay down the guns, come down from the mountains, and be a part of the democratic political process". So, you will detain over 240 people because they work at or belong to a legitimate party which kicked your as* in the elections? You will then put them up in jail and call that a democracy? That's AKPasha Inc's current Political Process for you. The detained and arrested people are politicians, lawyers, and alike who didn't touch a gun. God forbid if these people even had a toy water gun in their possession or be part of any corruption (AKPasha Inc, hint hint), I am sure the magazinews channels would be running stories 24/7. Does this revenge-for-losing-elections-in-Kurdistan campaign presented by AKPasha Inc give you an idea of what they would do to PKK guerrillas if they laid their arms and came down to cities without democratization of the fascist system?

For more on the utter futility of passive resistance, let me recommend "Arms and the Movement" for your perusal. Among the conclusions there:

The Madrid bombings do not present an example for action, but rather, an important paradox: Do people who stick to nonviolent tactics that have not proved effective in ending the war against Iraq really care more for human life than the Madrid terrorists? From India to Birmingham, nonviolence has failed to sufficiently empower its practitioners, whereas the use of a diversity of tactics got results. Put simply, if a movement is not a threat, it cannot change a system that is based on centralized coercion and violence.

Time and again, people struggling not for some token reform but for complete liberation -- the reclamation of control over our own lives and the power to negotiate our own relationships with the people and the world around us -- will find that nonviolence does not work, that we face a self-perpetuating power structure that is immune to appeals to conscience and strong enough to plow over the disobedient and uncooperative.

Amen, brother.


Oh. We haven't heard much from that son-of-a-bitch Murderer Erdoğan lately, have we? Apparently some jackass somewhere decided that Murderer Erdoğan deserved a "tolerance" prize--be careful not to barf on your keyboard--and some German politicians are stunned by the suggestion. Stunned politicians belong to the German CDU, CSU, Greens, and SPD are still trying to recover from the shock. The best remark came from the CSU general secretary Alexander Dobrindt, who said that Erdoğan deserved an intolerance prize instead.

LIES AND LOBBYISTS

"If you can't drink a lobbyist's whiskey, take his money, sleep with his women and still vote against him in the morning, you don't belong in politics."
~ Unknown.

A friend in Amed (Diyarbakır) sent a link from Yüksekova Haber which says that Katil Erdoğan is planning a trip to Amed on 21 February in support of the AKP mayoral candidate Kutbettin Arzu. According to Yüksekova Haber, Katil Erdoğan may reveal a "new incentive package" for the region.

Everyone take a trip in the time machine with me back to almost one year ago when Katil Erdoğan was talking the same BS in the NYTimes:

Turkey’s government is planning a broad series of investments worth as much as $12 billion in the country’s largely Kurdish southeast, in a new economic effort intended to create jobs and draw young men away from militancy, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

The program is intended to drain support for the militant Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, by improving the lives of Turkey’s impoverished Kurdish minority, Mr. Erdogan said in an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday.

[ . . . ]

Mr. Erdogan is still identifying funds for the economic effort, which was started years ago by a previous administration but languished. The state will invest between $11 billion and $12 billion over five years to build two large dams and a system of water canals, complete paved roads and remove land mines from the fields along the Syrian border, he said.

Plans for the project will be completed within two months, he said, at which point construction on the two dams will begin. He said he had dedicated one of his deputy prime ministers to visit cities across the largely Kurdish southeast to work on it.

“Everything we can see in the western part of the country we can see in the east,” he said.

Yeah, right. Tell me another one.

As I mentioned at the time, not even the extremely pro-status quo, pro-terrorist Jamestown Foundation was fooled by Katil Erdoğan's hot air:

It is unclear whether, in his interview with the New York Times, Erdogan was being disingenuous in presenting the promised $12 billion as a new initiative or whether the reporters were unaware of the project’s background and thus assumed it was a new initiative. In fact, the dams, water canals, and roads form part of what is known as the Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP), which was first formulated in the 1970s and began to be implemented in the early 1980s.

[ . . . ]

One only has to fly over the region to see the effect of GAP on agriculture in the Tigris and Euphrates basins, transforming large tracts of what was previously semi-arid land into cultivated fields. In areas such as the Harran plain, annual yields of cotton, wheat, barley, and lentils have tripled. However, GAP has had a greater impact on agricultural productivity than on employment. Even though it has undoubtedly created jobs in local service industries, GAP’s overall impact on employment in southeast Turkey has been minor.

As well as being the poorest region in Turkey, the southeast also has the highest rate of population increase. Even in some of the richest areas in the GAP region, the pace of job creation has lagged behind the growth in available workforce. In most of the cities of southeast Turkey the unemployment rate is double or triple the 9.9% average in the country as a whole. Among young people in the cities of southeastern Turkey, unemployment often reaches 50-60%. There is no reason to suppose that, even if they can be completed, the Ilisu and Silvan dams and their associated irrigation systems will have a major impact on employment in the region.

[ . . . ]

Many Kurds already resent not only the displacements resulting from GAP, but also what they regard as the resulting destruction of their heritage through the filling of the dams, which are also used to produce electricity for the rest of the country.

It is also difficult to see how the completion of a project that was originally formulated in the 1970s will be interpreted as demonstrating the AKP’s commitment to the region. Perhaps more significant, although it is impossible to be sure of the precise impact of the two-thirds of GAP that has been completed to date on recruitment to the PKK, what is certain is that it has not prevented it. Whatever else the PKK and other militant organizations in southeast Turkey – which is also the main recruiting ground for violent Islamist groups – may be short of, it is not recruits.

We didn't buy it then; we don't buy it now. If Katil Erdoğan unveils a "new incentive package" in Amed on the weekend, it will be the same, old, warmed-over crap.

In other news, it looks like the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) has had complaints filed against it by some ethics "watchdog" in DC:

Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate urging an investigation into whether the Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region (ANCA-WR) and the ANCA Endowment Fund violated their status as charitable organizations, the Foreign Agents Registration Act and the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

Both ANCA-WR and the ANCA Endowment Fund, which share offices and a common website, have participated in political campaigns in violation of federal tax law, which specifically bars groups organized under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code from participating in political campaigns. Nevertheless, on October 24, 2008, ANCA announced its endorsements of 15 candidates for the United States Senate and 211 candidates for the United States House of Representatives and published these endorsements on its shared website with ANCA-WR: www.anca.org. ANCA also endorsed the Obama-Biden ticket for the presidency.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) requires agents of foreign political parties to register with the Department of Justice, periodically report and describe their activities aimed at influencing policies of the United States and to disclose the dissemination of information, including testimony before Congress.

Just a few short weeks ago, Turkish parliamentarians scrambled in the wake of Katil Erdoğan's Davos temper tantrum in order to contain the fallout with Jewish lobby groups . . . and the Armenians:

The Ruling Justice and Development Party's, or AKP’s, Cüneyt Yüksel and Suat Kınıklıoğlu, and the Nationalist Movement Party's, or MHP, Mithat Melen, were in the United States between Jan. 29 and Feb. 6 to lobby against any genocide resolutions.

Following their talks with U.S. officials, as well as a roundtable meeting with representatives from 10 Jewish organizations, the AKP deputies drafted a report emphasizing the "Jewish lobby-Armenian alliance" and submitted it to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The report included a host of other topics relating to Turkey, ranging from Turkish-Armenian relations to the Israeli offensive in Gaza and the Davos summit, as well as Turkey's bid to join the European Union, and further reaching topics such as terrorism and international security.

The deputies warned that the heated panel debate with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Davos, which ended when Erdoğan walked off stage after being interrupted by the moderator, drew the Jewish lobby in the United States closer to Armenian lobby groups.

[ . . . ]

The deputies highlighted a campaign prepared to be launched by four congressmen in the U.S. House of Representative in support of the Armenian thesis and warned, "Armenians believe an opportunity to pass the draft resolution has emerged after Davos."

The report called for lobbying activities and encouraged deputies to visit Washington more frequently.

The four congressmen are named elsewhere:

In a message to fellow members of Congress, Reps. Adam Schiff (D.-Calif.), George Radanovich (R.-Calif.), Frank Pallone (D.-N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R.-Ill.) are urging them "to re-affirm the U.S. record on the Armenian Genocide by cosponsoring a bipartisan resolution" on the subject, according to a February 10 electronic letter made available to the Armenian Reporter.

Not to worry, though; an agreement appears to have been reached between the Turks and the American pro-Israel lobby:

Last week, two members of the Turkish parliament from the ruling party, Suat Kiniklioglu and Cuneyt Yuskel, were in the United States to lobby against the resolution. According to the Jamestown Foundation's translation, the two, having met U.S. officials and Jewish-American leaders, told Zaman newspaper that the "pro-Israel lobby will stay neutral if a genocide resolution is brought to the Congress; in case a resolution passed, Turkey should not hold Israel responsible as such a policy would make the Congress upset; and in order to prevent such genocide resolution, Turkey should open its Armenian border."

So, is the news today about the ANCA complaints a coincidence or a conspiracy? Remember, the lobbying "problem" wasn't a problem when Lockheed Martin lobbyist--registered with the Senate under the Lobbying Disclosure Act--Joseph Ralston was appointed as "special envoy to coordinate the PKK for Turkey".

CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH

"British and American aircraft "protecting" the Kurds did nothing to prevent the invasion; indeed, most patrols were suspended to allow the Turks to get on with the killing. Inside Turkey, the Ankara regime has destroyed 3,000 Kurdish villages, displaced more than three million people and killed tens of thousands."
~ John Pilger.

Does it look familiar?







It should, you've seen something similar before:







Don't forget this, either:

Evidence relating to Saddam Hussein's alleged use of poison gas against Kurdish civilians was given to his genocide trial in secret on Thursday, so as not to embarrass Turkey.

After seeing a string of memos issued by Saddam's chief of staff in 1988 ordering "special ammunition" attacks, the court cut off its microphones while studying documents relating to Iraq's northern neighbour.

"We will now cut the microphones because this concerns Iraqi-Turkish relations," said chief prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon, who then presented various documents while the sound in the reporters' box was cut off.

No details were given of the evidence presented in this part of the trial, nor was it explained how it touched on Turkey.

Saddam and six co-defendants are accused of killing 182 000 Kurds between 1987 and 1988, when government troops allegedly suppressed a Kurdish uprising by using artillery, air strikes, death camps and poison gas attacks.

Bottom line: Erdoğan and Saddam were cut from the same cloth.

THE FOOLISHNESS OF DISARMAMENT

"The CIA continued to submit intelligence from the Iranian group about alleged Iranian nuclear weapons-related work to the IAEA over the next five years, without identifying the source."
~ Gareth Porter, Asia Times.

Another interesting item from last week, which you can listen to at PRI's The World is that the EU removed the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK or PMOI) from its "terror" List. This follows news from December 2008 that Baghdad wants to expel the MEK from its territory:

Iraqi officials say they intend to expel members of an Iranian exile group living in a camp north of Baghdad that is protected by the U.S. military. The expulsion, which the Shiite-led government has long sought, is expected to become feasible once the U.N. mandate that regulates the presence of U.S. troops -- and which gave the Iranian opposition group protected status -- expires at the end of the year.

Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie on Saturday traveled to the camp with several other government officials to deliver the message to members of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group that was closely aligned with deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein but has been under U.S. military protection since shortly after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The government informed the group that it would soon assume responsibility for security at Camp Ashraf and that residents would be repatriated unless they find a third country willing to take them. The U.S. military currently protects Camp Ashraf, which is 40 miles north of Baghdad.

"Staying in Iraq is not an option for them," the government said in a statement issued Sunday. The Iranian government has long called for the group's expulsion.

[ . . . ]

The statement also said the group is barred from participating in political activities and ordered it to cease media campaigns.

Al-Maliki reiterated the message on New Year's Day:

During his speech on New Year's Day to celebrate the official transfer of Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone to Iraqi control, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared Jan. 1 the "day of sovereignty" and congratulated his compatriots for having waited so long. He also warned that an Iranian resistance group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), would no longer be able to have a base on Iraqi territory.

[ . . . ]

. . . when the U.S. military formally transferred control of Camp Ashraf back to the Iraqi government on Jan. 1, the MEK's fate suddenly became an issue. The group is a source of contention for Iran and the U.S., Iraq's two biggest allies, who are increasingly vying for influence as Baghdad's post–Saddam Hussein Shi'ite government asserts its independence. All three countries label the MEK a terrorist organization. Iran wants the group handed over for prosecution. But the U.S. has pledged to ensure the group's rights under international law.

The MEK was sporadically active until 2003, including helping Saddam crush the 1991 Kurdish serhildan, when the US disarmed the group in Iraq and took over their protection. According to the radio broadcast report at The World, the MEK has renounced violence and it sounds as though MEK is willing to disband as long as its members are not sent back to Iran. Of course, if no one will give the MEK some kind of sanctuary, it may return to its arms.

That begs the question: What's the point of disarming and renouncing violence if you aren't taken off The List? The MEK have enjoyed the favor of the American neoconservatives for some time, including Daniel Pipes, former Colorado congresscritter Tom Tancredo, the Prince of Darkness himself, Richard Perle, and Larry Franklin, who was convicted by a US court for passing classified information to the Israelis. The MEK has also been a source of intel about Iran's nuclear capabilities, but there are suspicions that the intel the MEK was pushing came from MOSSAD, from Asia Times:

The George W Bush administration has long pushed the "laptop documents" - 1,000 pages of technical documents supposedly from a stolen Iranian laptop - as hard evidence of Iranian intentions to build a nuclear weapon. Now charges based on those documents pose the only remaining obstacles to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declaring that Iran has resolved all unanswered questions about its nuclear program.

But those documents have also been regarded with great suspicion by US and foreign analysts. German officials identified the source of the laptop documents in November 2004 as the Mujahideen e-Khalq (MEK), which along with its political arm, the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organization.

There are some indications, moreover, that the MEK obtained the documents not from an Iranian source but from Israel's Mossad.

So, you disarm, you renounce violence, you start doing the dirty work of the real terrorists, and you're still on The List? Maybe you even pull some bombing operations inside Iran for the real terrorists, and you're still on The List?

We know that the CIA was making regular visits to Qendîl in 2003 through early 2004. We know that shortly after indications of CIA visits ceased, PWD appeared and we know what happened to them. Other groups from East Kurdistan are also in the South but have not been active for a while and certainly won't be active while they are controlled.

It's obvious that PKK refused whatever it was that the CIA tried repeatedly to offer back in 2003 because the US and Israel have been active in intel-gathering against PKK for both Turkey and Iran--and Seymour Hersh can put that in his pipe and smoke it.

There is absolutely no good reason for disarming, no matter who says it. As the case of the MEK proves, collaborators never win.

Also last week, Katil Erdoğan called on Obama to redefine terrorism in the Middle East. Be careful what you wish for.

Finally, I'm not the only one who thinks Katil Erdoğan is a hypocrite:

For Erdogan had told Peres that, “When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill,” which is true, but how many of those supporters outside the airport are aware that the Turkish premier also knows very well how to kill. On 17th January this year Hurriyet, the popular daily newspaper in Turkey, reported that in 2008 the Turkish military had killed 696 “outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party, or PKK militants” in 2008. That’s just over half the number of people Israel killed in its ostensible war on Hamas, but only a moral retard will hold up such figures as a testament to Turkish humanity.

[ . . . ]

The parallels between the national narratives of Israel and Turkey are striking, the former founded in 1948, the latter in 1923. In Turkey’s case, the Palestinians are the Kurds, Hamas are the PKK, and south-east Turkey is the West Bank. Maybe this is why Turkey and Israel have had such a strong bond through the second half of the twentieth century, traditionally their governments have sympathized with each other as they carry out massive atrocities as centurions of the US empire in the Middle East. So while Erdogan was right to take on criminals like Shimon Peres maybe he should take a quick look in the mirror and stop his own illegal incursions into sovereign countries to kill “militants” and civilians alike.

Touché.

ERDOĞAN AT DAVOS: POT CALLS KETTLE BLACK

"The events are under control... Security forces will intervene with every possible means indiscriminately, including against women and children."
~ R. Tayyip Erdoğan during the Amed Serhildan.

The big show yesterday was at the international meeting of all the world's leading terrorists at Davos, Switzerland:

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan stormed out of an angry debate on the Gaza war with Israel's President Shimon Peres at the Davos forum on Thursday.

[ . . . ]

Erdogan criticised the audience for applauding Peress emotional defense of Israel's war in Gaza, before the moderator, insisted that the debate had gone overtime.

Erdogan said Israel had carried out "barbarian" actions in Gaza. "I find it very sad that people applaud what you have said because you know how to kill people," shouted Erdogan before he left. There was more applause when he left the stage.

"I do not think I will be coming back to Davos after this because you do not let me speak," Erdogan shouted before marching off the stage in front of the attendance and the audience.

But this isn't the first time Katil Erdoğan has behaved like a jackass in public or overseas. He did the same in Brussels recently, over Cyprus:

In a speech organized by the think tank group called "Europe's Friends", the argument between Erdoğan and Matsakis, who is a parliamentarian in South Cypress and had stolen Turkey's flag at the Green Line in November, 2005. While Erdoğan was talking, Matsakis happened to shake his head and Erdoğan became furious and said, "You shake your head, you shake your head. There is a word in Turkish which will fit perfectly in this situation, but it's not all right to say it here."

In that case, Erdoğan was referring to a crude idiom in Turkish. Of course, this statement comes from a guy who, as a friend said, "speaks Turkish like Bush speaks English."


A Turkish writer at Forbes also noted that Katil Erdoğan's behavior is nothing new:

Those who watched the Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan storm out of a Davos panel on Thursday after a loud exchange with Israeli President Shimon Peres may have witnessed one of the biggest diplomatic brawls of their lifetime.

One Turkish diplomat said, "Not since Nikita Khrushchev's banging of his shoe at the United Nations [1960] have I seen anything like this on the world stage," referring to the Soviet leader's outrage during a U.N. discussion.

But for us Turks, watching Erdogan "lose it" at the World Economic Forum's meeting in Davos, Switzerland, was nothing new. It was, rather, an Erdogan classic--charismatic yet boorish; ardent but intimidating.

Today the psychological analysis was in at Hürriyet:

Psychology Professor Acar Baltaş said there was a thin line between Erdoğan’s gestures of self-control and aggression. Erdoğan’s anger developed spontaneously, crossing this thin line, he said, adding that Erdoğan could have demonstrated his reactions in a more appropriate way and within a frame of courtesy.

"Erdoğan couldn’t overcome his anger. He believes in what he said, hitting his left hand on his heart. He made gestures and pointed fingers, which can be acceptable. But rushing off the stage by saying what he had in his mind has no use for a prime minister of a country. What is important is not to be right, but to maintain the right position," he said.

"He can’t bear any criticism. He charged Peres, the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize winner, for being a murderer and criticized the audience. He likewise shouts at the media here, in his own country, and has control over almost all processes. But he spins out of control once he can’t control a situation, like in Davos."

[ . . . ]

Psychiatrist Özlem Mestçioğlu, meanwhile, said Erdoğan’s reactions were harsh and what he demonstrated at the end was a sign of desperation.

"He can’t control his feelings. His departure, which attracted criticism in the Western media for childishness, is actually a sign of helplessness. He left because he thought otherwise it might lead to a worse situation. In personal relations, there can be such words but on a political stage, you can’t do that as a prime minister," he said.

While Abdullah Gül was foreign minister, he was able to control Katil Erdoğan's outbursts to an extent, by pinching or kicking his leg under the table as a reminder for Erdoğan to control himself. Unfortunately for Katil Erdoğan, Gül wasn't sitting next to him at Davos and there was no table to hide the reminders.

In one account, Katil Erdoğan indicated his anger was directed at Katil Peres and the moderator, the WaPo's David Ignatius. In another, he says he was angry with the moderator but not with Peres, the Israeli people, or the Jewish people. In addition, he claims that he believes anti-Semitism is a crime against humanity. Too bad his words in recent weeks have had the opposite effect in Turkey, a country whose best-seller a couple of years ago was Mein Kampf. Check this from a recent edition of Radikal:

Signs read: "It is free for dogs to enter" and "Jews and Armenians cannot enter through this door".

Here's one of Katil Erdoğan's quotes, again from the Forbes piece:

Erdogan said, red-faced and turning angrily to Peres, "When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill. I know well how you hit and kill children on beaches."

But Erdoğan seriously lacks the same heartfelt compassion for Kurdish children in his own country, as he proved during the Amed Serhildan almost three years ago, according to his own words:

"The events are under control... Security forces will intervene with every possible means indiscriminately, including against women and children."

At the moment, there are a number of children who've been in prison in Amed (Diyarbakır) for a year:

MP [Malik Ecder] Özdemir [CHP] summarised the conditions of the children in prison thus:

“There are 20 children staying in a cell made for 5-6 people. They have been separated from their families and their education has been interrupted. They have been taken to court 2 to 3 times, their statements have been taken, their identities were verified, and then they were sent back to prison. As this trial is taking so long, it is difficult for these children to believe in justice.”

The MP demanded an immediate end to the prosecution of the children:

“Their psychological condition is precarious; they seem remorseful. They said, ‘We only wanted to take our friend’s body; we did not know this would be punished as severely.’”

There are other Kurdish children in adult prisons throughout Turkey:

Currently dozens of children in Diyarbakır, Adana and other provinces are being tried not in children’s courts but in Special Authority Heavy Penal Courts. They stand accused of membership in an terrorist organisation after taking part in protests against alleged maltreatment of Abdullah Öcalan in prison, or protests at the visit of Prime Minister Erdoğan to the city.

Following a change in the Anti-Terrorism Law in 2006, 15- to 18-year-olds can now be tried in such courts.

Recently, two children in Adana were sentenced to 21 years imprisonment after taking part in pro-Kurdish Newroz events in Gaziantep.

In addition, the case of a 15-year-old boy who was run over by a tank of the security forces last year in Cizre is not being prosecuted, but forty of the boy's friends, who attended his funeral, were put on trial. In another case, Turkey has been found guilty of violating a child's rights by the ECHR.

Some of us also remember the case of Ahmet and Uğur Kaymaz, who were murdered by Katil Erdoğan's security forces almost five years ago. The state terrorists who killed them were acquitted at trial.

Nor can we forget the treatment AKP's police thugs handed out to Kurdish children during Newroz last year, nor it's treatment of Kurdish women during the same holiday.

So, for Katil Erdoğan to tell Katil Peres that he "know[s] very well how to kill" and then to refer to children, is a serious case of the pot calling the kettle black.

The truth of the matter is that this little Davos stunt was nothing more than an AKP campaign tactic.

After watching the reruns of video footage on Turkish TV, particularly on Haber 24, it was clear that after Katil Erdoğan read a statement to reporters from prepared index cards that he was holding in his hands. In other words, the outburst was planned. Secondly, thousands welcomed Katil Erdoğan when he arrived in Istanbul after the incident. Thirdly, Katil Erdoğan was again pimping his wife as part of this campaign stunt, who also made remarks to reporters at Davos. A view of a video of her remarks indicated no index cards but she did manage to start blubbering again as she did a few weeks ago.

Now, bear in mind that this is the same bitch who's never spent so much as five minutes to try to squeeze out a single tear for dead Kurds . . . the majority of whom are Muslim.

Repeat after me: "This was an AKP campaign stunt."

For the cost of his campaign, it looks like Erdoğan will suffer a setback in becoming a regional big-shot, something he's been working at for a few years now, from TIME:

But the outburst may have pulled the plug on Ankara's efforts to position itself as a mediator between Israel and the Arab world. Since last May, Turkey has hosted five rounds of Israeli-Syrian peace talks — currently suspended as Israel prepares for a general election — and recently acted as a mediator between the Palestinian Hamas leadership and Egyptian officials seeking a cease-fire in Gaza.

"The most important quality of a mediator is to be able to maintain an equal distance to all parties involved," says Cuneyt Ulsever, a columnist for Turkish newspaper Hurriyet. "Erdogan's inability to control his anger is a problem. I think even Erdogan realizes that he overstepped the mark. After this outburst, it will take six months to a year for him to regain credibility as a mediator [between Israel and the Arab world]."

In addition:

Erdogan may have responded with a view to boosting his domestic political position ahead of Turkey's local elections, coming up in March. Even though polls show his Justice and Development Party (AKP), in power since 2002, comfortably ahead, the Prime Minister needs to expand his support base. "The stakes are high for him," says Ulsever. "Erdogan is afraid that if the AKP gets below 47%, people will see it as the beginning of the end."

Deutsche Welle came to a similar conclusion:

Recep Tayyip Erdogan's performance at the World Economic Forum in Davos has destroyed any hopes that had been pinned on him to act a mediator in the Middle East conflict.

[ . . . ]

But his verbal attacks against Peres and the moderator as well as his announcement to skip Davos next year show that Erdogan can't be taken seriously as a Mideast mediator anymore.

[ . . . ]

Still, Erdogan should have shown more diplomatic tact. He's the leader of a large country which is an important player regarding regional peace. Erdogan is not going to earn respect or prizes as a peacemaker and mediator on the world stage if he acts like a center-forward from a Istanbul district football team -- which he once was.

Erdogan's attempts to reiterate his friendship with Israel and the Jewish people after the spat can no longer limit the damage done to his image and to Turkey's.

Late today, Obama's new Mideast envoy removed Ankara from his itinerary.

In spite of everything, there will be no damage to the Turkish-Israeli relationship, as Hürriyet noted yesterday and the paşas confirmed today. After all, Turkey still needs Israel's help in repressing the Kurdish people, just as it needed Israel to capture Öcalan for it.

If Katil Erdoğan were serious about his concern for Palestinians, why has there been no end to the relationship, particularly the military relationship, between Turkey and Israel?

JUDGING THE HYPOCRITES

"Surely the hypocrites strive to deceive Allah, and He shall requite their deceit to them, and when they stand up to prayer they stand up sluggishly; they do it only to be seen of men and do not remember Allah save a little."
~ Quran, The Women 4.142.

Here's something you won't see in the corporate lapdog media--Israeli intelligence has been targeting Israelis protesting against the Gaza attacks:

Transcript here.

Remember this? With that in mind, here's something else you're not going to see much of in the corporate lapdog media, from Reuters via Cryptogon:

The U.S. is seeking to hire a merchant ship to deliver hundreds of tonnes of arms to Israel from Greece later this month, tender documents seen by Reuters show.

The U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command (MSC) said the ship was to carry 325 standard 20-foot containers of what is listed as "ammunition" on two separate journeys from the Greek port of Astakos to the Israeli port of Ashdod in mid-to-late January.

A "hazardous material" designation on the manifest mentions explosive substances and detonators, but no other details were given.

"Shipping 3,000-odd tonnes of ammunition in one go is a lot," one broker said, on condition of anonymity.

"This (kind of request) is pretty rare and we haven't seen much of it quoted in the market over the years," he added.

The U.S. Defense Department, contacted by Reuters on Friday in Washington, had no immediate comment.

The MSC transports armour and military supplies for the U.S. armed forces aboard its own fleet, but regularly hires merchant ships if logistics so require.

The request for the ship was made on Dec. 31, with the first leg of the charter to arrive no later than January 25 and the second at the end of the month.

The tender for the vessel follows the hiring of a commercial ship to carry a much larger consignment of ordnance in December from the United States to Israel ahead of air strikes in the Gaza Strip.

A German shipping firm which won that tender confirmed the order when contacted by Reuters but declined to comment further.

And here's something you're never going to see--Emine Erdoğan crying her eyes out for Kurdish repression like she did this weekend for Palestinian repression:


Now this bitch is an ethnic Arab from Siirt, so she knows exactly what the repression is in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan and what kind of atrocities are committed, but I guess she's been taking crocodile-tear crying lessons from Gülen. Speaking of Gülen, Aland Mizell asks how history is going to judge Turkey:

“History will be the judge of Israel,” Prime Minister Erdogan said in a damning speech over the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip while addressing his Justice and Development Party’s (AK) parliamentary group. I wonder how history will judge Turkey. When the Turkish government denied the Kurdish people the most basic right, freedom to speak, when Turkish airplanes pounded bombs onto the mountains killing many innocent Kurdish children; when Erdogan refused to talk to the Democratic Society Party’s (DTP) democratically elected parliamentarians, but he agreed to meet with the Hamas leader in spite of Hamas being on the terrorist list; what will history say? The DTP is also democratically elected by the Kurdish people unlike the Hamas, that has determined to wipe Turkey off of the map and to condemn Israel for not wanting to talk to Hamas. Also, the Hamas does not want to negotiate with Israel because they see negotiation as a sign of weakness, much like the Turkish military does not want to talk to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) because they see bargaining as a sign of weakness.


[ . . . ]

We ask how history will judge Turkey because Turkey killed Ahmet Kaymaz and his twelve-year-old son, Ugur, calling him a terrorist when Ugur was only helping his dad work. But most importantly, Turkey hides, denies, or distorts the historical facts regarding the case. Is this an apparent crime itself when they conceal the truth? The first law of historical writing is telling the truth. When will this administration admit the truth? Not such a long time ago the Turkish government called Kurds “Mountain Turks.” Will they ever apologize for what they did to the Kurds and to the Armenians? Prime Minister Erdogan and Mr. Fethullah Gülen, his mentor, may think their sin may be forgotten; they may believe that they do not need to teach their students the details of history because of their shameful atrocities, but they should know that what is more shameful is not to admit their guilt and to cause others to be ignorant about it.

[ . . . ]

How will history judge Turkey? Still the Kurdish people live in an open-air prison because every step a traveler takes in the Kurdish region of the country he encounters a military checkpoint. Prime Minister Erdogan and Mr. Gülen have conveniently forgotten that Israel tells Hamas either to stop killing innocent Israelis, or we will come after you to make you stop. If Palestinian lives have value, and they do, then Kurdish and Israeli lives are also worthy to live; they are also human beings; they also have feelings. Can Erdogan and Mr. Gülen not see? How many times has the PKK asked for the destruction of the Turkish people? Never has this been its objective. Instead, what the PKK is asking for is justice and equal treatment for all Kurdish people. What Israel is doing in Gaza, Turkey has been doing for many years in Southeastern Turkey and in Northern Kurdistan.

And I'm going to leave it at that because I could go on and on and on about the Ankara regime's hypocrisy towards the repression it implements against the Kurdish people. Let's make no mistake: No matter what kind of show the AKP or their wives put on about their huge concern for atrocities and human rights abuses in Gaza, they're not going to end the relationships that makes them complicit in Gaza atrocities or Kurdistani atrocities.

After all, the MIC is making money hand-over-fist as the recent Turkish-Israeli military hardware deals and the Reuters article linked above prove.

TÜRK CALLS OUT ERDOĞAN ON HYPOCRISY

"The events are under control... Security forces will intervene with every possible means indiscriminately, including against women and children."
~ R. Tayyip Erdoğan during the Amed Serhildan.

Oh, yeah, what Türk said:

Türk: AKP is implementing Israeli policies in the Kurdish question

The co-chair of DTP Ahmet Türk called the government "First you stop the internal clashes. Supposedly you spend energy for an Israeli-Palestinian peace. All right, then, what are you doing for your domestic peace? Outside you will make a stand favoring Palestine, however internally you will not implement a policy different than Israel implements."

DTP co-chair Ahmet Türk made an evaluation about Israel's Gaza attack, the political issues in 2008, the expectation and hopes for 2009, the Kurdish broadcast in TRT, the TESEV report, and the economic crisis in DTP's [parliamentary] group meeting. Wishing 2009 to be a year of peace for both Turkey and the world's people, Türk gave his condolences to those seven youths' families who were poisoned by natural gas in Ankara on the New Year. Mentioning that 2008 was a year in which important incidents occurred within the world and the Middle East, Türk said a wind of change has started through the whole world however the bloody attack Israel conducted against Gaza in the last days of the year collapsed as a shadow on hopes for peace. Türk said, "With this attack, which aimed at civilians and did not differentiate between women or children, the cruel face of war is once more revealed. This is a massacre. Israel committed a crime against humanity and continues to do so."

Turkey was aware of the murder

Saying that this pessimistic scene that indicated the reality that was revealed, Türk continued, "Unless the problems are solved through dialog and peaceful means, the tension between people will continue and this will crack the door for the new war plans of the dominant powers. For this reason for the people of the Middle East it is an unavoidable historical duty to stand against this blind war with a peaceful struggle. The only option that will disable wars as a fate is a united peaceful struggle of the people, and it should be.

"Turkey, which instead of solving its domestic problems through peaceful means and implements policies that cause domestic clashes, must derive lessons from the ongoing incidents in the Middle East. Let's not forget: Regional peace is only possible by domestic peace. There is no credibility of the prime minister's Middle Eastern peace tours, who does not see this reality and leaves his domestic peace aside. Aren't they going to tell you, 'First organize your own house, then come and tell us about regional peace!'? Nevertheless, the prime minister, who sees Israel's attack as "disrespect" to Turkey and referring to the plight of Palestinian children [and speaking to Israel] says 'sooner or later you'll get yours,' is not credible nor sincere. You have to explain to the public what you have spoken about with Olmert in Ankara and what kind of deals you have prior to Israel's Gaza attack. It is the public's right to know what is going on behind closed doors. Were you aware of these attacks Mr. Prime Minister? Why don't you explain this?"

Remembering Erbakan, who in the past criticized Israel with the most severe words, Türk said, "However, Erbakan himself signed the strategic cooperation agreement with Israel. Today you are keeping this tradition and cooperation persistently. The countries that were aware of the attack historically have as much responsibility as Israel for the ongoing massacre in Palestine. You cannot hide these realities."

Are Israeli pilots trained in Turkey?

In his speech, touching on the claims that the Israeli pilots who bombed Palestine are trained in Konya, DTP co-chair Türk said: "This is a very serious claim and the government must make a statement to the public. Without eliminating these realities, there is no credibility in condemning Israel. If you are sincere, cancel the military tenders you have with Israel, suspend your relations. However, you do not have that courage nor power because you are connected [to Israel] by the umbilical cord."

Remembering the defense minister's trip to Israel for an agreement to purchase unmanned aircraft, Türk said, "There is no secret agreement or alliance that you have not used under the name of finishing the Kurdish question with military means. It is claimed that the financial dimension of military cooperation with Israel is around $1.8 billion. The Turkish public must see ongoing events and meet the real face of AKP. Don't be decieved by the prime minister's attitude as an apostle of peace. All these things are just words. On the one hand you will conduct aerial and land operations against a neighboring country. On the other hand you will say 'Israel must stop its operations against Gaza, a ceasefire must immediately be called.' You cannot deceive anybody with these fake policies and fake mediations."

But the hypocrite Kerdoğan runs all over the world mediating for world peace while refusing to accept PKK's ceasefire from two-and-a-half years ago. The hypocrite Kerdoğan cries crocodile tears for dead Palestinian civilians, including women and children, while he was the one who ordered Turkish security forces to shoot Kurdish women and children during the Amed Serhildan almost three years ago. And Kerdoğan now claims that Israel is using the Gaza attacks in order to win votes for the upcoming Israeli elections, while it may be, in fact, that Kerdoğan is running all over the Middle East in order to gain votes in his upcoming election because it isn't at all a sure thing that he'll get the support in The Southeast that he thinks is his due:

Although the AKP has made inroads in the southeast by promising increased rights for the Kurds while playing up its Islamic credentials, recent missteps made by Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have also given the DTP an opening.

In a November speech he made in the southeastern city of Hakkari, Mr. Erdogan told the audience: "We have said, 'One nation, one flag, one motherland, and one state.' Those who oppose this should leave." Erdogan's words, which echoed the rhetoric long used by Turkish nationalists, were met with fierce criticism in the southeast.

[ . . . ]

But Bakir Karadeniz, a member of the retired imams group, says his religious beliefs compel him to vote against the ruling party in the upcoming local elections.

"The AKP are not good Muslims, and they are not good democrats. They are using religion, and they are lying to us," he says. "The question is not if the DTP is socialist. The most important thing is to support our rights."

In addition to Kerdoğan's "Love it or leave it" speech, let's not forget all the human rights abuses the AKP government inflicted on the Kurdish people last year. Let's not forget the invasion of South Kurdistan which every group in parliament voted for, with the exception of DTP. Let's not forget AKP's implementation of a new OHAL in The Southeast. Let's not forget Şemdinli or Ahmet and Uğur Kaymaz. Let's not forget the use of chemical weapons against HPG or the use of cluster bombs in South Kurdistan--all under AKP's watch. And just as Israel was behind HAMAS' founding, so too the US has been behind the AKP and that George Bush chose Kerdoğan to be Turkey's prime minister.

Umm, yeah, what was it Atatürk said . . . "Peace at home; peace in the world"? But I guess Kerdoğan's been too busy memorizing Islamist poetry to pay any attention to peace at home or peace in the world.

TURKEY, ISRAEL, HYPOCRISY

"Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing."
~ Edmund Burke.

Debkafile doesn't have a whole lot of credibility as far as I'm concerned but this is interesting because it's so much in character for Katil Erdoğan:

Monday, Jan. 5, Erdogan outdid himself in vituperation when he accused Israel of "perpetrating inhuman actions which would bring it to self-destruction. Allah will sooner or later punish those who transgress the rights of innocents," he said.

It's so much in character for Katil Erdoğan because it reaches the stratosphere as far as hypocrisy goes, even though Israel apologized for having embarrassed its stalwart ally. I doubt very much, though, that Erdoğan will "freeze the long-standing military ties between the US's foremost defense allies in the Middle East" because there's simply too much at stake. Too much money, that is. It was only one short month ago that Turkey took possession of it's new, highly-coveted Israeli military hardware, the Heron:

December 27, 2008: Israel Aircraft Industries has recently delivered Turkey the first two Heron UAVs, part of a package worth $183 million signed between Turkey and Israel in 2005. The aircraft are deployed at the Batman military base in Southeast Turkey. Israel is expected to deliver the remaining 8 Herons in the upcoming months. The package includes 10 IAI Heron UAVs, operated by ground control systems developed by Elbit Systems.

Turkey steps up reconnaissance operations of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles monitoring suspected Kurdish resistance in Southeastern Turkey and Northeast Iraq

Another Heron delivered to Turkey earlier this year was crashed in July 2008 while on a mission over Southeastern Turkey. Israel provided turkey with a surplus Searcher type UAV to augment its operations, but this UAV has also been lost. Turkey has also leased UAV services of three Aerostar tactical UAVs built by Aeronautics defense Systems, to augment its reconnaissance activities monitoring PKK activities in Southeastern Turkey and Kurdistan.

Not that it looks like the paşas know how to operate the new Herons as well as they know how to operate a golf ball and I guess that's why they've had Israelis operating the Herons for them--a piece of intel that even appeared in Haaretz.

Of course, it's not enough just to have unmanned aerial vehicles but now the paşas want armed unmanned aerial vehicles. Zaman reports that the paşas may spurn the American-made Predator in favor of the Israeli-made Harpy:

In a related development, Today's Zaman learned that Turkey may have now shifted its interest from US-made Predator UAVs, which can be configured into armed UAVs, to Israeli-made armed Harpy2 UAVs.

"Turkey needs at least one armed UAV," said a local industry source.

Despite an earlier acknowledgement by a Turkish commander that Ankara plans to buy a General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Predator UAV, the SSM is understood to have been delaying its official proposal to the US company for the purchase of a Predator, said the same source.

Turkish Land Forces Commander Gen. Isik Kosaner acknowledged at a press conference on Oct. 27 that Turkey plans to buy a US-made UAV, noting that one Predator UAV is currently at the disposal of the Turkish military and has been gathering intelligence on the activities of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), mostly in northern Iraq.

If purchased, the US has pledged to supply Turkey with the system within 18 months.

However, Turkey shifted its focus to the Israeli Harpy after Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül was introduced an armed UAV during his visit to Israel in late October. That development may have influenced Turkey to go to Israel for the purchase of an armed UAV, said a Turkish defense industry source.

Does anyone really believe Katil Erdoğan is going to say "No" to the paşas? Does anyone really believe the paşas are only going to use armed drones on "military" targets? Sure, just like the US only uses drones on "military" targets? Think again.

Turkey is still trying to bring the Gaza situation to the UN Security Council:

In a swift reaction to Israel’s ground incursion into Gaza, the Turkish capital has harshly condemned Israel’s move, which it said was “unacceptable,” while calling on the UN Security Council to take immediate steps to bring the situation under control.

What's so funny about this is that it was in 2006, shortly after Israel's failed "incursion" into Lebanon, that Turkey became hot to follow the Israeli example in order to invade South Kurdistan--in another failed "incursion", I might add. From AsiaTimes:

This vividly reminds one of a similar blunder in the summer of 2006, when US officials backed Israel's cross-border incursions into southern Lebanon with the stated aim of "neutralizing" a terrorist organization (Hezbollah) and destroying its "organizational infrastructure".

The vocabulary used in both occasions, and the reactions solicited from Washington, are so strikingly similar that, inevitably, they invite comparisons between Israel's ultimately futile misadventure in Lebanon and Turkey's operation that is already a week long. Despite the US's prodding to "keep it short", it may end up approximating Israel's 33-day campaign against Hezbollah. This is particularly so since the Turkish army has to endure harsh winter conditions in addition to a resilient foe of about 3,000 or so PKK fighters.

In both cases, Israeli and Turkish leaders have tried to elicit world sympathy by stressing their "rightful cause", and in the expressions of "understanding" by both the US and the European Union seen at the beginning of both conflicts, one can detect the undercurrents of a failed Western policy that simply does not learn from history.

There are important differences between the two cases, but the similarities are unmistakable. This is particularly so in the area of asymmetrical warfare and the not-so-declared motives of the invading armies, ie, in Lebanon for Israel to fight a proxy war with Iran and in Iraq for Turkey to undermine the Kurdish path toward greater autonomy and, perhaps, eventual independence.

Zaman is also crying over its claim that Israel has been using cluster bombs in Gaza. It didn't do that when Turkey carpeted civilian areas in South Kurdistan with cluster bombs in October 2007.

Besides, even as far back as nine years ago, it was widely recognized that there was more than just a military relationship between Israel and Turkey, that there were economic ties like free trade zones, tourist resorts populated by Israeli visitors (and benefiting TSK), water agreements, and, perhaps most importantly, support for Turkey from the Israel lobby in the US. All of this in spite of the Israeli-Turkish relationship as a destabilizing factor in the Middle East.

I'm also completely amazed that global corporate media lapdogs have failed, in recent days, to point out the US role in maintaining destabilization, something David Rose of Vanity Fair pointed out last April. The only recent article on that can be found at Alternet.

No, I don't believe that Turkey is going to freeze its relationship with Israel, militarily or otherwise, no matter what Debkafile says. Even Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek will back me over Katil Erdoğan over that:

Turkish government spokesman and Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek signaled during a news conference on Monday that Ankara was not considering retaliation against Israel through suspending the countries' military relationship or canceling a recent project agreement signed with Israel.

Çiçek's statement came in response to a reporter's question about whether Ankara would cancel the recent arms deal with Israel -- a reflection of heightened expectations among the Turkish public that Turkey should cancel or suspend military cooperation with Israel as a means of deterring Israel from attacking Gaza.

The "recent arms deal with Israel" referred to here is the $141 million contract awarded to Israeli Aerospace Industries (the same people that brought you the Heron) for "comprehensive intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance applications" for the Turkish air force. These systems will help Turkey to continue its bombing of North and South Kurdistan. Further cooperation will ensure that Turkey benefits from the military lessons learned by the IDF in the current Gaza campaign.

After all, money, influence, and power speak a helluva lot louder than Kerdoğan.