THE TURKISH LOBBY, THE NEOCONS, AND THE CRUSADE TO FREE THE ERGENEKON TERRORISTS

"The enlargement of the Ergenekon investigation will improve the standards of our democracy. Not only the Ergenekon on the western side of the Euphrates River, but also the one on the eastern side should be investigated, and a real 'clean hands' operation should be started."
~ Ahmet Türk.

A very interesting video was brought to my attention by a reader in the comments section here.

Let's take a look:

Wayne Madsen makes some interesting speculations about Katil Erdoğan's visit to Washington last week, which ended up with the resignation of Turkey's ambassador to the US, Nabi Şensoy.

Madsen speculates that Obama spoke to Katil Erdoğan about the Ergenekon prosecutions with the intent of dropping them and freeing the Ergenekon terrorists. He points out that the paşas would like to see an end to the prosecutions. We know that the Ergenekon terrorists were actually sponsored by the US as part of the CIA's Gladio stay-behind program and that the charges they face today are minor in comparison to the terror they carried out against the Kurdish people in The Southeast--for which they are not being prosecuted.

Madsen mentions that Turkish lobby organizations in the US, like the American Turkish Council (ATC), have been trying to influence the US government into pressuring the AKP to drop the Ergenekon issue. Although I have not seen evidence of the ATC's overt involvement in this particular aspect of influence peddling, there is a Turkish organization that has been working on exactly this matter and it has a relationship with the ATC. That organization is the ARI Foundation.

As was brought up in comments in a post on Sibel Edmonds' website, the ARI Foundation hosted a seminar last month for the US Congress in which the members of the foundation urged Congress to "intervene urgently to stop the trial . . . " From VoltaireNet:

. . . [O]n 18 November 2009 a seminar was held at the U.S. Congress to deny the existence of Ergenekon, putting it down as a myth invented by the Erdogan Government to discredit Army Chief of Staff, General Mehmet Yaşar Büyükanıt, and the U.S.-friendly officers in his entourage, in the hope of imposing an Islamic state.

The participants stressed that the United States should intervene urgently to stop the trial, but should not do so openly since it would feed into the "conspiracy theories" purporting that NATO has set up a "Deep State" in Turkey which has manipulated or attempted to manipulate public institutions for decades.

The seminar was organised by the ARI Foundation, a low-profile think-tank bent on promoting relations between Washington and Ankara. Actually, ARI is a front for the Atlanticist-Israeli lobby. In accordance with Robert Strausz-Hupé’s policies, ARI is promoting a Tel-Aviv-Ankara axis under NATO auspices for the control of the Middle East.

The piece mentions the ARI Foundation's connections to the Israeli lobby, especially the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). WINEP was founded by former US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, who started his "public service" career as a research director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC. Indyk also served as a founding director for WINEP.

Yurter Özcan, the president of the ARI Foundation, works with Turk neocon Soner Çağaptay, who is the director of WINEP's Turkish "Research" Program.

The first of ARI Foundation's symposia was presented in 2002 and featured Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum. Other contributors to their symposia include AIPAC spy Steve Rosen, who now works with Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum.

Former Florida congressman Robert Wexler has also been involved with the ARI Foundation. Wexler is a co-founder of the Caucus on US-Turkish Relations who recently resigned his congressional seat to take a temporary job with a minor pro-Israeli think tank while he waits out the one-year ban that former congressmen must wait before taking up lucrative lobbying jobs. My money says that, as soon as Wexler passes the one-year mark, he'll slide right into a nice, cushy, lobbying job for the Turkish government.

Also involved with the ARI Foundation is Zeyno Baran, an Ergenekon defender at the very neoconservative Hudson Institute.

For tax purposes, the ARI Foundation lists Gunay Evinch (Günay Övunç) as it's contact person. Övunç is, of course, the current president of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA). The ARI Foundation has conducted anti-Armenian Genocide propaganda in conjunction with the ATAA, and you had better believe that if an organization or person is anti-Armenian Genocide, they're anti-Kurd as well.

Furthermore, those who've been moaning the most about the suffering paşas, current and retired, are the Israelis and neoconservatives. Here's a sample from a recent column in the Jerusalem Post:

TURKEY'S BREAK with the West; its decisive rupture with Israel and its opposition to the US in Iraq and Iran was predictable. Militant Islam of the AKP variety has been enjoying growing popularity and support throughout Turkey for many years. The endemic corruption of Turkey's traditional secular leaders increased the Islamists' popularity. Given this domestic Turkish reality, it is possible that Erdogan and his fellow Islamists' rise to power was simply a matter of time.

But even if the AKP's rise to power was eminently predictable, its ability to consolidate its control over just about every organ of governance in Turkey as well as what was once a thriving free press [Haha, good one! -- Mizgîn], and change completely Turkey's strategic posture in just seven years was far from inevitable. For these accomplishments the AKP owes a debt of gratitude to both the Bush and Obama administrations, as well as to the EU.

The Bush administration ignored the warnings of secular Turkish leaders in the country's media, military and diplomatic corps that Erdogan was a wolf in sheep's clothing. Rather than pay attention to his past attempts to undermine Turkey's secular, pro-Western character and treat him with a modicum of suspicion, after the AKP electoral victory in 2002 the Bush administration upheld the AKP and Erdogan as paragons of Islamist moderation and proof positive that the US and the West have no problem with political Islam.

[ . . . ]

In Turkey itself, the administration's enthusiastic embrace of the AKP meant that Erdogan encountered no Western opposition to his moves to end press freedom in Turkey; purge the Turkish military of its secular leaders and end its constitutional mandate to preserve Turkey's secular character [Turkey is not secular; read the constitution -- Mizgîn]; intimidate and disenfranchise secular business leaders and diplomats; and stack the Turkish courts with Islamists. That is, in the name of its support for its water-downed definition of democracy, the US facilitated Erdogan's subversion of all the Turkish institutions that enabled liberal norms to be maintained and kept Turkey in the Western alliance.

So, yeah, we all know that Turkey was an absolute paradise while under absolute paşa rule, but if the JPost writer wants to blame the Bush administration, she'd damn well better blame her neoconservative colleagues. Here's a blast from the past (circa 2004) from the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, published by Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum:

While Erdogan and other AKP leaders unabashedly affirm their private religious convictions, they advocate secularism in the conventional Western sense of the term. "Before anything else, I'm a Muslim . . . I have a responsibility to God, who created me, and I try to fulfill that responsibility, but I try now very much to keep this away from my political life, to keep it private," Erdogan told the New York Times last year. "A political party cannot have a religion, only individuals can . . . religion is so supreme that it cannot be [politically] exploited or taken advantage of," he explained.[5]

[ . . .]

Ironically, the old line Kemalists, who for 80 years preached about the need to modernize and Westernize Turkey, have in many ways become the reactionaries in Turkey, while the "Islamists" have taken the lead in promoting Western-style reforms. In spite of the dismal electoral fortunes of nationalist political parties in 2002, the Kemalist elite continues to dominate not only Turkey's military, but also its civilian bureaucracy, judiciary, and media. The so-called "deep state" in Turkey has resisted many of the changes introduced by the AKP.

[ . . . ]

Turkey, a country of about 70 million Muslims, most of whom are religious, is ruled today by a conservative party with an Islamic pedigree and a humane, tolerant, and democratic track record. Can we generalize from the AKP's experience? Not without some care. Turkey is quite different from the rest of the Middle East, whether Arab or Persian. What works in Ankara will not necessarily work in Tehran, Damascus or Baghdad. Nonetheless, there are definitely lessons to be learned.

Read the whole thing because it contains an accurate description of how the Bush administration pushed aside long-time American allies in Turkey . . . you know, the paşas, in favor of Islamists. Then think about how the US has always chosen Islamist regimes over secular ones. Do the terms "Afghan mujahedin" or "Taliban" ring any bells? In 2004, it would appear that everything was sweetness and light, with the pro-Israeli neoconservatives praising AKP and Katil Erdoğan to the heavens. What a difference a few years makes among fascists! But for the pro-paşa, pro-Israeli neoconservative opinion on Ergenekon, check the AEI's Michael Rubin or the Middle East Forum or the columnist section of the Jerusalem Post, and all those who cooked up the Clean Break.

In any event, we can see that Madsen is totally correct when he emphasizes the links between the Turkish and Israeli lobbies, and it's extremely unfortunate that more people in media aren't talking about the fact.

Did Obama actually talk to Katil Erdoğan about releasing the Ergenekon terrorists? I doubt it. Obama and Erdoğan certainly had more pressing matters to talk about, like coordinating NATO's heroin industry in Afghanistan in order to keep Goldman Sachs alfoat. The US has backed the AKP and Fethullahçı from AKP's initial rise to power and Gülen's movement provides some inside access to The Grand Chessboard of Central Asia. Certainly Gülen was deeply involved with the Ergenekon terrorists but it no longer serves his purposes to have anything to do with them nor does he have any need to try to save them from prosecution. Besides, Gülen is a valuable asset to the US right these days.

Gülen's disciples have followed his command to "work patiently and to creep silently into the institutions in order to seize power in the state". The paşas no longer force out Islamists from the TSK's officer corps. Fethullahçı moles inside the Turkish general staff leaked the information about the coup attempts metnioned by Madsen. Gülen's star slowly rises while that of the paşas slowly sets, and who is hosting Gülen? Who is protecting him? Who was it that approved Katil Erdoğan as the leader of Turkey while Erdoğan was banned from holding political office?

Let the CIA worry when Tansu Çiller is arrested.

STRATEGY OF TENSION IN ISTANBUL

"I was quite surprised to learn that by far the most extensive and destructive stay-behind operations were those carried out in Turkey under the code name Counter-Guerrilla."
~ Tim Howells, "How Our Governments Use Terrorism To Control Us".

There was a minor incident in Istanbul today when three armed gunmen attacked the police at the entrance to the American consulate compound. The NYTimes is as good a rag as any to give you the basic rundown. The media lapdogs are dutifully echoing the straw man of the US embassy in Ankara, Ross "If I Only Had A Brain" Wilson, in blaming this little shoot-out on Al-Qaeda.

However, an item from the AP tells me that something else entirely is going on and it doesn't have too much to do with Al-Q:

NTV television and Dogan news agency identified the attackers as Erkan Kargin, 26, and Raif Topcil, 20, from the southeastern city of Bitlis and Bulent Cinar, 23, from the eastern city of Igdir. Police would not confirm their identities, but Interior Minister Besir Atalay said two of the assailants had criminal records.

Why, oh why do I smell Turkish Hezbollah? Could it be because the gunmen were recruited from The Southeast, where the AKP has been attempting to resurrect the Turkish Hezbollah? Turkish media is proposing that the gunmen were members of the IBDA-C (İslami Büyükdoğu Akıncılar Cephesi; Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front) and I wasted too much time reading various articles with headlines that were too promising compared to what information was actually delivered. Basically, there are suggestions of a similar ideology between IBDA-C and Al-Q but nothing that substantially, well, substantiates a deeper relationship that would justify equating IBDA-C with Al-Q. It does, however, make great propaganda copy for the lapdog media.

There has also been linkage in Turkish media with IBDA-C and the series of bombings in Istanbul in 2003 which included attacks on the British consulate in Istanbul, the HSBC bank, and two synagogues. Here's something on that, from the BBC:

In 2003, the group claimed responsibility for devastating bombings of the British consulate in Istanbul, the local headquarters of the HSBC bank and two synagogues, which together which left 58 dead, including British Consul General Roger Short.

Although last year saw the jailing of 48 people for their roles in the bombings - seven of them for life - their connection with IBDA-C is still unclear.

Turkish officials have always maintained that the bombings were the work of a separate group with direct links to al-Qaeda, known as the "Warriors for Islam" and that IBDA-C lacked the organisational ability to launch such a complex operation.

If the perpetrators of the latest attack are found to be members of IBDA-C and the reports of their recent return from Afghanistan prove to be true, the Turkish police may be forced to rethink their opinion of the group.

But, Turkish Hezbollah was more widely recognized as having carried out those bombings.

It's also widely recognized that the Ankara regime created Turkish Hezbollah.

As the Ankara regime tried to use Turkish Hezbollah to attempt to crush the PKK and then forgot about it until a shoot-out in Istanbul in 2000, so now it seems to have forgotten about its creation again until the shoot-out today. Could it be that the Ankara regime took a page out of the CIA's playbook, thinking it would be a very easy thing to control its creature, Turkish Hezbollah, even as the CIA thought it would be a very easy thing to control its own creature, Al-Q?

It's also widely recognized that other Islamist groups use Turkey, particularly Istanbul, as a staging ground, in cahoots with the Gray Wolves, and that these groups move freely across the borders. Other groups, such as Nizam-i Alem are involved with the Ergenekon gang.

Now ask yourself: Why was the attack carried out the way it was? Why go up to the entrance to the consulate compound and try to blast your way in with guns? The area around the consulate is wooded; it would be easy to use an RPG to blast it under cover. Why do it the stupid way instead? I suspect this attack is yet another act in the show known as the Strategy of Tension, as the Deep State reorganizes itself according to agreements reached between the AKP and the TSK.

Fırat News is awaiting a statement from HPG about the seizure of three German climbers. Of one thing, we can be guaranteed: These Germans will receive much better treatment from HPG than Kurds receive from German authorities. Remember the PKK way In the meantime, Hevallo opines.

Also check out Gordon Taylor's recent post--which I've been meaning to mention for a few days now--on the spread of HPG's areas of operation.

1 MAY 2008

"The finger of the counter-guerrillas was in the May 1 incidents."
~ Bülent Ecevit

May Day 2008 in Istanbul:
























Why are May Day celebrations the only celebrations that are forbidden in Taksim Square? Because of the Taksim Square Massacre--perpetrated by the state, naturally. From WSWS:

The Revolutionary Confederation of Labor Unions (DISK) organized a May Day demonstration in Taksim Square in Istanbul. Demonstrators filled the square, and the crowds flowed into the surrounding area. In Besiktas, hundreds of thousands of people had gathered in the early morning hours to march to the rally. By the time DISK General Chairman Kemal Turkler delivered his his May Day speech, all the roads leading into the area were still full of people marching. It was nearly 7 p.m. before the last contingents were able to reach the Taksim area.

The DISK general chairman was about to finish his speech when three gunshots sounded. First there was stillness, and then a deadly pandemonium broke out. The crowd of 500,000 dispersed in panic.

People who had been lying in ambush inside buildings in the vicinity of the meeting area, in the Intercontinental Hotel (now The Marmara Istanbul) and in the Water Authority building, rained bullets down on the crowd with automatic weapons. As the firing spread, armored personnel carriers went into action. Noise bombs and the firing of the automatic weapons suddenly turned the meeting area into a battlefield. Thousands of people lay down where they were, while others running to escape were shoved into corners and crushed by the armored vehicles.

[ . . . ]

While some characterized the incident as a provocation of the Nationalist Front [the right-wing government coalition] carried out under the management of the CIA, a portion of the police and bourgeois press advanced the idea that the firing was started by extreme leftists.

However, evidence presented in court opened the curtain of reality, even if only a crack. Police charged 98 people arrested at random with responsibility for the massacre. None of them were involved, and all were acquitted. While the judge called upon the authorities to renew the investigation and prosecute those genuinely responsible, successive military-dominated regimes suppressed the case.

During the trial, Oleyis [the hotel workers union] Branch Chairman Ali Kocaman had the information which he had received from hotel personnel placed in the minutes: “Three days earlier, the third, fourth and fifth floors of the Intercontinental Hotel were emptied and no one was allowed on the floors, which were under police control. Americans had come and stayed on the floors which the personnel were not allowed to enter. After the incident, these people checked out of the hotel.”

[ . . . ]

On May 7, 1977, Bulent Ecevit, later to become prime minister, attracted little attention with his statement at an Izmir meeting, “The finger of the counter-guerrillas was in the May 1 incidents.”

According to Article 102 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), the case expired due to the statute of limitations after 20 years had elapsed. And according to lawyer Rasim Oz, who witnessed the bloody May Day of 1977, “The case was deliberately brought to a point where it would be closed due to the statute of limitations.”

At least the state, including the Islamist AKP government, is consistent.

TURKISH INVASION, TERROR, AND OCCUPATION OF SOUTH KURDISTAN

"Indeed, it is more than a bit ironic that the major recurring threat to society and political stability in Turkey over the past 60 years, the "Deep State," was actually enabled by the country's Western allies, and first of all, America."
~ Chris Deliso.

Check out Gordon Taylor's recent post at Progressive Historians:

For a lot of very young kids in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, today really is Spain 1937. On Friday, 22 February, the Turkish Army began yet another ground operation into lands which its enemy, the PKK, refers to as the Medya Defense Zones; i.e., those steep and remote regions which adjoin the extreme southeast border between Turkey and Iraq. Fighting is reportedly intense, and the conditions, in freezing snow-covered mountains, as bad as anything that can be imagined. So far the Turks claim 79 "terrorists" killed, while the PKK says they have lost 2. The PKK claims some 22 Turkish soldiers have died, and they report the downing of a Cobra helicopter near the River Zab. (If true, the latter would definitely be a coup. And it is not, it should be noted, the first time that the PKK has taken out a helicopter.) First touted as a "major" incursion, it now appears that only a limited number of elite mountain troops, equipped with snow camouflage and winter uniforms, are taking part. These are undoubtedly picked men, all volunteers and probably all career soldiers--not draftees like the eight unfortunate young men who were captured by the PKK in October and ended up being imprisoned by their own army after they were repatriated.

[ . . . ]

Meanwhile the Bush administration, going on in its dazed, robotic way,continues to incorporate the PKK, a tiny group which has never attacked Americans, into its Global War On Terror. Both the EU and the United States, it should be noted, officially regard the PKK as a "terrorist" organization. Since the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visited Washington in November 2007, the U.S. also officially regards the PKK as a "common enemy".

[ . . . ]

Satellite maps tonight (1:20 AM, 2/24) show a large weather system that has come off the Mediterranean, now covers northern Syria, and soon will be in Iraq. Forecasts for Mosul call for rain, and rain in Mosul means snow in Kurdistan. Meanwhile, the Kurds of southeast Turkey, having held mass demonstrations repeatedly in the past three months, are planning another for Diyarbakir on Monday, February 25. It should be a big one.

Let's hope so.

Make sure you also check out Hevallo's recent posts on HPG's call for serhildan and his photos and video of today's protest in Amed (Diyarbakır).

Yeni Özgür Politika has a roundup of war news, all in Turkish. However, scroll down for Rastî weekend posts for most of that information.

Included is a body count which shows 22 Turkish soldiers killed on the first day of the war and 42 more killed in the last two days for a total of 64 Turkish soldiers killed total. Among the dead are included one major, a first lieutenant, a master sergeant, and a "skilled" sergeant. Names of the dead have also been released and are included in the YÖP article.

In another YÖP article, HPG Headquarters Commander Bahoz Erdal says the body count for the five days of the war is at least 81.

HPG reports three guerrilla şehîds.

Land Forces Commander İlker Başbuğ met with American military officials and peşmêrge commanders in Silopi on Sunday. As noted in the YÖP article (and in weekend comments), a convoy of some 70 American military vehicles, including M1 Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and armored Humvees left Musel for Duhok.

The WaPo has an article on the situation for civilians in the area of South Kurdistan near the border. In spite of quoting ridiculous Turkish general staff numbers--and you do know who to believe now, don't you?--it's clear in the article that the deployment of tanks in the area is meant simply to terrorize the civilian population:

"Whenever the children hear the military operations, they feel frightened," said school headmaster Aoni Mashaghti. "Most of the women came to school to take their kids out. Whenever they hear any sound of bombardment, the school becomes empty."

Hawzan Hussein, who lives in a community of about 160 families, said people are worried because some of the Turkish targets are so close to their homes.

The explosions "have become a daily scene that frightened me with the possibility of hitting our house any time," the 25-year-old said.

Associated Press Television News footage from the border area showed Turkish tanks dug into barren hillsides, with armored vehicles taking positions in towns.

Yeah, barren hillsides and occupation of towns. You're sure to find oodles of guerrillas in those places. The firing of tanks and artillery in this area, as well as Turkish military occupation of Southern Kurdish towns, has no other purpose but terror, which is exactly what we should expect since the world's greatest terrorist states are coordinating and conducting this war.

For more on civilians caught in the areas of Turkish aggression, check Goran's new article at MideastYouth:

Turning eyes to Turkey, one will be disturbed to say the least at the various issues at hand with regards to Turkey’s long history of human rights abuses and oppressive policies. The Kurds in Turkey have been the primary victims of these policies who have suffered everything from harsh assimilation campaigns, displacements and various forms of ethnic cleansing. During the 1990s alone, nearly 4000 Kurdish villages in Turkey were completely destroyed leaving the people homeless and forced to move to large cities where they rarely were able to adapt to the new life. Results of these internal displacements can be seen with a simple visit to the impoverished Kurdish southeast where unemployment rates reach unbelievable highs of 60 - 70%. In addition to economical as well as other problems (cited by human rights organizations) such as torture, unexplained disappearances, black operations in which innocents are killed and even the banning of the Kurdish language in Turkey and lack of cultural rights, the Kurds have also been limited a political voice. Many Kurdish politicians have been imprisoned sometimes for decades for simply speaking out for Kurdish rights. Resulting factor in all this: Many have turned to an arms struggle, which has haunted the country for over two decades.

[ . . . ]

First and foremost, although the Turkish military claims to have inflicted damage on rebel camps, no claims could be confirmed. Instead, footage and reports of the area are showing that the only damage being done is to the civilian villages in the region. (See a video reporting on the region at Real News.) Contrary to the Turkish claims, the Iraqi Kurdish leadership has said it believes Turkey’s expansion of the war into northern Iraq is not against the PKK Kurdish rebels, but instead against all Kurds as demonstrated by the attacks on the villages, and in particular, the Iraqi Kurds’ own political gains and autonomy in the region.

Of course, those conducting state terror against the Kurdish people, and their lapdogs in official media, have never made reference to the PKK's ceasefire and offer of a peaceful, democratic solution--and one that is in accord with Europe's EU requirements for Turkey's accession--both of which were offered in 2006.

If you possibly can, take some time to listen to a recent interview with Chris Deliso and Daniel Ellsberg by Scott Horton from the Stress blog.

In Part 1, Scott interviews Chris on the situation in the Balkans and promotes Chris' recent book, The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West. Rastî readers may remember that Chris wrote an excellent article about the Ralston conflict of interest. What you may not know is that Chris took a bit of a break to write the Ralston article while rushing to get his Balkan Caliphate manuscript to the publisher.

Let me also take a moment to point out that the whole Yugoslav war was overseen by none other that The Cohen Group: William Cohen was the Secretary of Defense at the time; Marc Grossman was the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs; and Joseph Ralston was the Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.

As the only English-language journalist living in Macedonia, Chris has first-hand knowledge of everything that's going on there. In the interview, among other things, Chris talks about the nature of the UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, saying that the missions are a very lucrative business and that in the 10 years that the UN has had a mission in Kosovo, the roads are still unpaved or filled with potholes. According to Chris, "Kosovo is a corporation; it's not a country and it's a very corrupt one."

Well, what do you expect when The Cohen Group's involved?

In the second part of the interview, Daniel Ellsberg--who's been speaking out on behalf of Sibel Edmonds--joins the interview and the discussion of Kosovo and the Balkans delves into its connections with the Turkish Deep State and the Deep State's heroin industry. Ellsberg argues the case for Turkey having a nuclear weapons program. He talks more about Sibel's case, too.

Interesting stuff and highly recommended. The Part 1 mp3 can be downloaded here (runtime: 28.20). Part 2 of the interview can be found here (runtime: 49:08).

There is also a webpage for Part 1 and Part 2.

APPEARANCES

"In Spain, the 28 murders committed by the GAL have become a matter of concern at the highest government level, whereas in Turkey, which likes to present itself as a law-abiding state and which is seeking admission to the European Union, not one single perpetrator of more than 4,500 unsolved murders carried out since 1991 - the so-called ’faili mesul cinayetleri’- has thus far been arrested. In my country, the murderers are on the streets and the intellectuals are behind bars."
~ Akın Birdal.

With the recent Ergenekon arrests, one should bear in mind that things are not always what they appear to be in Turkey. As one anonymous commenter remarked [emphasis Mizgîn's]:

Ergenekon was a part of the Turkish deep state. The Turkish state didn´t make a move against the deep state, there motive was against this fraction that operate independent. This was a clear message from the Turkish deep state. This was only matter of time. Our freedom movement PKK told the media many times in the past of the fractions inside the Turkish deep state. This is evidence!

As I mentioned, "we should not expect too much from this so-called 'operation'". It's very likely that Veli Küçük's Ergenekon gang will take the fall for purposes unclear at this moment. Remember, nature abhors a vacuum even in connection with the Deep State and their Islamist brothers. Let no one mistake the Ergenekon arrests for an exercise in the practice of democracy on the part of the AKP government, a government that is carefully controlled by the real rulers of the Ankara regime--the Paşas.

Reality is explained well by a heval at Kleine Kurdistan-Kolumne:

But appearances can be vastly misleading. Members of paramilitary terror gangs are arrested and released often. Most of those now arrested already appeared in the 1996 Susurluk scandal, and remained unmolested. Especially Veli Küçük, the imagined mighty founder of JITEM, the worst state-terrorism group of the'90s, enjoyed a hitherto unprecedented immunity. It remains to be seen whether that immunity for the obvious sponsors of the "Ergenekon" and likely perpetrators of the murder of Hrant Dink, now gets more than just a few scratches himself.

The "deep state" is unfortunately more than just a gang of 30 ultra-nationalists. It is based on a broad ideological consensus against Kurds, Christians and Left, and its ramifications extend far into bureaucracy, security apparatus and politics. To render the deep state unworkable requires a little more than a few media arrests. As long as Erdogan rides on the wave of nationalism, the shock of his police against a few excesses, especially anti-government, remains implausible.

Vahe Balabanian at Hyelog carries a portion of an article from Sabah which mentions some of the assassinations ordered by Küçük. In another article from Sabah, Abdullah Gül is quoted as saying "There will be no unresolved murders," except in The Southeast, naturally.

Meanwhile, Zaman outlines some of the charges against the Ergenekon gang:

Evidence so far also suggests that 700 kilograms of explosives found loaded on a van in İstanbul belonged to this gang. An attack against the Association for the Union of Patriotic Forces (VKGB), also a murky group with shadowy affiliations, in Diyarbakır was actually staged by the VKGB itself, according the investigation. The attack had then been blamed on the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) organization.

Ah, yes, false flag operations . . . the hallmark of Gladio. It's odd, isn't it, that with all the talk of the alleged "War on Terror," that guys like those in the Ergenekon gang are never referred to as terrorists?

Now why is that?

TURKEY, DEMOCRACY, GAMBLING

"If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time."
~ Chinese Proverb.

What are all those Turkish troops doing as they are deployed to the border with South Kurdistan?

Source: Özgür Gündem; Caption: "Soldiers, at ease! We're going to vote now!"

Maybe they're getting ready to register to vote in "The Southeast." As Özgür Gündem reports, a TSK major collected some 400 ID cards from Turkish troops of the Bolu commandos, showed up at the Sırnak city muhtar's door and demanded that the troops be registered in Şırnak to vote. There's one minor problem with this scenario, however, and that is that it is illegal for Turkish soldiers to vote. The Şırnak muhtar had the good sense to refuse the major, but unfortunately, the TSK has been screwing around with voter registration all over "The Southeast," so that at this point 13,000 Mehmetçiks are registered to vote there.

Besides in Şırnak city, attempts to register Mehmetçiks have taken place in Uludere and Beytüşşebap, Hakkari Çukurca, and Yüksekova. The Turkish Higher Election Board (YSK) forbids voting by soldiers.

Undoubtedly this is an attempt by the TSK to disqualify whole lists of voters from "The Southeast," a scheme which is matched by the civilian politicians in Ankara who have changed the way in which votes for independent candidates are cast. Previously, independent candidates had separate paper ballots, but the AKP/CHP alliance has pushed for independent candidates to be listed with all other candidates, making it difficult for illiterate voters to select the names of independents from long lists of candidates. With the highest illiteracy rate in "The Southeast," the measure was purposely aimed at Kurdish voters and DTP.

Paşa Edip Başer was removed by AKP as the Turkish "special envoy" to coordinate the PKK after an argument with Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül. Well, okay, they're not saying it was because of the argument because they're pretending to be civilized, but we all know better. Add to that the little stunt the Paşas pulled with Gül's presidential vote in the TBMM, and the removal of Başer and his replacement by AKP's Rafet Akgünay becomes an obvious tit=for-tat political move by AKP. This doesn't change any attitudes or approaches to the Kurdish issue, PKK, or Lockheed Martin's cynical and dirty business deals. It's strictly a matter of domestic Turkish politics.

On that note, don't hold your breath that the US will replace it's very cynical appointment of Lockheed Martin director, Joseph Ralston, as it's "special envoy" to "coordinate" the PKK for Turkey. After all, the Americans want to sell more weapons systems, this time upgrading Turkish Patriot missile systems (manufactured by Lockheed Martin) as part of their latest advertising gimmick that would create a "missile defense shield" in the region. Lockheed has even thrown in a little technology transfer to sweeten the deal.

In other news, there was a bomb blast at an Ankara shopping mall today and, naturally, the blame is laid at the door of PKK, as if PKK were the only organization on the planet that uses plastic explosives or as if bombings in Turkey were the solely in the domain of PKK. I guess these jackass journalists can't remember as far back as Şemdinli.

Even Yaşar Paşa had something to say about the matter, from the AP as carried on IHT:

"Who feeds terrorist groups? Who's behind them? That's what we need to look at," said Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the military. He did not rule out further attacks, saying: "They could carry out such things in major cities."

Who feeds terrorist groups? That's a very pertinent question, especially given the prevalence of Gladio forces that have traditionally operated in Turkey. Of course, Yaşar Paşa is the one to know about these things because he's in charge of them. He knows from experience that those involved in black operations are "good boys."

Perhaps the biggest line of bullshit in that IHT article is found at the end, when reference is made of the Amed bombing last September 12 (the anniversary of the 1980 coup and the first visit of the Lockheed Martin's "PKK coordinator" to Turkey):

In September, suspected Kurdish rebels set off a bomb at a bus stop in Turkey's largest majority Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, killing 10 people.

Everyone knows that the ultra-nationalist TİT (Türk İntikam Tugayı) immediately claimed responsibility for the Amed bombing, and TİT has long been associated with the Deep State (read: Turkish military). For more on the Amed bombing and the infor that TİT posted on a website before it was pulled down by perpetrators unknown, see this page. also check out DozaMe, which captured the information from TİT's website for posterity.

IHT continues:

A month earlier, a hard-line Kurdish militant group claimed responsibility for a bus bombing in the Mediterranean resort of Marmaris that injured 20 people, including 10 Britons.

The "hardline" group in question was Teyrebazên Azadiya Kurdistan (TAK). As mentioned in the comments of the previous post:

...and by the why, they talk about PKK for the entire article to confuse the reader and to make them think this was the work of the PKK

with media like this, what's the point in being good little boys and girls?

Actually, there is no point in being good little boys and girls, because being good little boys and girls never got anyone anywhere, as was described by Peter Gelderloos in the recent edition of Utne magazine. Instead, as Gelderloos contends, nonviolent movements do nothing more than serve the state. So it has been with the Kurdish movement in Turkey and that is why groups like TAK have sprung up. It is also why whatever miniscule concessions have been made to the Kurdish people in Turkey are strictly the fruits of the blood of PKK's şehids.

Democracy is like gambling in Vegas; the house (or in political terms, the state) always enjoys the advantage. It is a game in which ordinary people lose.

For TAK, it's long past quitting time. It needs to be so for everyone else as well.

LESSONS FROM HISTORY

"Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results."
~ Machiavelli.

From the What-Goes-Around-Comes-Around Department, courtesy of the NYTimes:

An antitank grenade was fired into the heavily fortified American Embassy here on Friday just before dawn. The building was empty, but the attack nonetheless underscored deep anti-American sentiment here and revived fears of a new round of homegrown terror.

[ . . . ]

Panayiotis Stathis, a spokesman for the Public Order Ministry, said, “This was a violent act aimed to provoke Greek public opinion and disturb relations with the United States.”

As Mr. Stathis spoke to reporters Friday evening outside the embassy, a demonstrator waved a sign that underscored Greece’s often uneasy relations with the United States on issues from the war in Iraq and the longstanding tensions between Greece and Turkey to the American-supported military dictatorship that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. “The C.I.A. was behind this,” the sign read.

Greek officials said a phone call placed anonymously to a private security company used by the embassy stated that the attack had been carried out by Revolutionary Struggle, a Marxist group with strong anti-American sentiments.

Awww . . . ain't that too bad? All they needed to complete the scene was a few helicopters filled with pêşmerge to drop down onto the building, arrest anyone inside, and secret them away to an undisclosed Kurdish prison. By the way, not only did the US support the Greek military dictatorship, it supported (and continues to support) the Turkish military dictatorship.

It looks like the people of Athens had the same kind of wake-up call that the people of Hewlêr had the other day:

Tassoula Foumeli, a retired seamstress, said she had been in bed when the blast shattered the windows in her ground-floor bedroom.

“The explosion was so loud I couldn’t even hear the smashing of the windows,” she said. “I’m nervous and I’m mad.”

Mad, she and other residents said, partly at the anti-American demonstrators who have rallied, at times violently, for years in front of the embassy. But she said some of her anger was at American policies that she said provoked demonstrators and angered many ordinary citizens.

Compare with the American raid in Hewlêr:

Startled Irbil [Hewlêr] residents said they saw U.S. troops drop from helicopters onto the Iranian Consulate in the center of town about 4 a.m.

The firefight that ensued on a residential street jolted residents in a city largely spared from the daily bloodshed of Baghdad, about 220 miles to the south.

Hogher Mahmoud, 30, who runs a dairy shop in Irbil [Hewlêr], woke to the sound of aircraft and gunfire.

"We were shocked this morning," Mahmoud said. "It has been awhile since we heard shooting and violence in our streets."

Yeah, it has been quite a while, bira, since May 4, 2005.

Meanwhile, back in Athens:

Mr. Stathis, the Public Order Ministry spokesman, said the grenade used in the attack was of Russian design, a model manufactured in several Eastern European counties. He said Greek and American officials were collecting evidence from the debris left by the explosion, from surrounding buildings and from security cameras posted around the embassy.

Hold it right there and think about this: Greece was also involved with the Gladio program since 1952. The British laid the groundwork for the Americans to take over by instigating the Greek Civil War in 1944. Apparently, the British violently objected to the objections of the pro-Communist National Liberation Front (EAM) to British interference in Greek domestic affairs, never mind that the EAM had been the resistance force that drove out the Nazi occupiers during the war. A British and Greek right-wing massacre of EAM demonstrators in 1944 was never investigated.

The IHT is running an article with some backgrond on the accused perpetrators. Notice the last line of the article:

"How is such an attack on the American embassy possible, when the site is the No. 1 target in the country?" said Alekos Papadopoulos, Socialist spokesman for public order. "This points problems with the police's capabilities."

Not only might it be a problem with police capabilities, it might also be a false flag operation in the finest tradition of Gladio. It might be a good idea for Papadopoulos to order an investigation of the police and all other unsavory characters . . . like all the "former" members of Operation Sheepskin.


There's more from the NYTimes on the standoff in Ainkawa between pêşmerge and American forces who were not authorized to be in South Kurdistan:

The standoff began around 11 a.m. in Einkawa, a pleasant and predominantly Christian suburb of Erbil where many Western officials live and keep offices. Possibly angered by the earlier raid, the Kurdish forces refused to let several American Humvees through a checkpoint.

“It was the Americans’ fault,” said a Kurdish guard from the checkpoint, who refused to give his name. “We asked them to stop but they did not stop. That is why we pointed our guns at each other.”

The standoff, while tense, was carefully controlled by the Kurds. The American who witnessed it said that as the lines of traffic lengthened on the blocked road, the Kurds began waving cars through and they drove directly past the stopped Humvees.

Now, if they're talking about the same checkpoint that I'm thinking of, there are American special operations types housed just a short walk away. . . and everybody knows it. Also, check something from page 1 of that article:

The American military said that it had been “conducting routine security operations in Erbil [Hewlêr] Jan. 11 and detained six individuals suspected of being closely tied to activities targeting Iraqi and coalition forces. One individual was released and five remain in custody.”

That is pure bullshit because no one but Kurds conduct "routine security operations" in Hewlêr or in any other part of South Kurdistan. Additionally, this was no routine security operation; it more closely resembles a terrorist operation. I'm willing to bet these particular terrorists came straight from Baghdad, just like they did when they recklessly bombed Salahaddin University, located in the center of the city.

According to Hewlêr residents, the Iranian consulate processed paperwork for those who needed to go to Iran, most likely to Iranian-occupied Kurdistan--work typical of a consular office.

More on the standoff and the status of the consular office, from The Mercury News:

Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari, however, told McClatchy Newspapers that the Iranian office had operated in Irbil for more than 10 years and the Iranians were in Iraq legally. "This is very, very embarrassing," he said. "The Iraqi government was aware of who was in that office."

Later Thursday, U.S. forces staged a second raid, attempting to enter Irbil airport and abduct a group of unidentified individuals, he said.

Members of a Kurdish paramilitary force known as peshmerga confronted the Americans when they refused to identify themselves, and a gun battle was narrowly averted "at the 11th hour," said Zebari.

He said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told him that the first raid was aimed at people who were trying to harm U.S. troops. Khalilzad said he was unaware of the operation at the airport.

Mmm, yeah . . . No wonder Iraq is a bloody mess since Khalilzad doesn't know what in the hell is going on. And how exactly were the consular workers "trying to harm US troops," by slapping Post-It notes on their backs that read, "Kick Me"?

More at that link, too, on the grilling of Condoleeza Rice at the Senate yesterday:

Biden, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, pressed Rice on whether operations against alleged Iranian and Syrian support networks would include cross-border strikes against "persons . . . or governments."

"Obviously the president isn't going to rule anything out to protect our troops, but the plan is to take down these networks in Iraq," she replied.

She sidestepped a question about whether Bush could mount cross-border operations without Congress' approval.

"I believe . . . he does need congressional authority to do that," replied Biden.

Biden later wrote to Bush asking him to state whether he believed he had the constitutional authority to order cross-border strikes without congressional authorization.

Rice's answers also failed to satisfy Hagel, an Army veteran of the Vietnam war, who said that former President Nixon "lied" in denying that he had ordered U.S. forces to invade Cambodia in 1970.

"No one in our government can sit here today and tell Americans that we won't engage the Iranians and the Syrians cross-border," said Hagel. "When you set in motion the kind of policy that the president is talking about here, it's very, very dangerous."

Ooooh . . . You know it's gotta be bad when a Vietnam vet goes all historical on you, and here's another one to remember from that war: the Degar people of Vietnam, referred to by the French colonialists as "Montagnards," from Wikipedia:

The Degar have a long history of tensions with the Vietnamese majority that is analogous to the tensions between American Indians and the population of European descent in the United States (or that between Aborigines and whites in Australia). While the Vietnamese are themselves heterogeneous, they generally share a common language and culture and have developed and maintained the dominant social institutions of Vietnam. The Degar do not share that heritage nor do they have access to the country’s dominant institutions. There have been conflicts between the two groups over many issues, including land ownership, language and cultural preservation, access to education and resources, and political representation.

[ . . . ]

The 1960s saw contact between the Degar and another group of outsiders, the U.S. military, as American involvement in the Vietnam War escalated and the Central Highlands emerged as a strategically important area, in large part because it included the Ho Chi Minh trail, the North Vietnamese supply line for Viet Cong forces in the south. The U.S. military, particularly the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, developed base camps in the area and recruited the Degar, roughly 40,000 of whom fought alongside American soldiers and became a major part of the U.S. military effort in the Highlands. The Degar’s legendary bravery and loyalty earned them the respect and friendship of the U.S. Special Forces as well as sympathy for the Degar struggle for independence.

[ . . . ]

. . . the Vietnamese government has steadily displaced thousands of villagers from Vietnam's central highlands, in order to use the fertile land for coffee plantations.

In spite of "respect," "friendship," and "sympathy," the Americans eventually abandoned the Degar, and that's a history lesson Kurdistan needs to take to heart.