WELCOMING THE PEACE AND DEMOCRACY GROUP IN SILOPI

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

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























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

The Kurdish people love their guerrillas!

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

In the meantime, stand by . . .

FIREWORKS IN SILOPI

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

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

So far, from Ozgür Gündem:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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







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

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

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

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

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

Stay tuned.

A BOMBING, A DEAD SIKORSKY, AND A PROTEST

"European states that criticize Guantanamo risk credibility by closing their eyes to Ocalan, who is deprived of his legal rights in isolation at Imrali Island."
~ MEP Feleknas Uca.

A suicide bomb targeted KDP and PUK offices in Maxmur on Sunday. This is the second suicide bombing against Southern Kurds in four days. From the AFP, carried on Khaleej Times:

A suicide bomber killed 32 people on Sunday when he ploughed his explosives-laden SUV into local administrative offices in the northern Iraqi town of Mahmur, officials said.

“All the dead are men, but there are women and children among the 115 wounded, and ten of those are grieviously wounded,” Kurdish regional health minister Zirian Abdel Rahman told reporters.

Police said the bomber hit a compound housing Mahmur’s local administration and the offices of two Kurdish political parties.

“We were holding a meeting in my office when there was an explosion outside, which smashed the windows,” said Abdel Rahman Bilaf, the mayor of Makhmur, which lies 300 kilometres (180 miles) north of Baghdad.

There's more there about the absolutely piss-poor security. You would think that if someone's gonna go and defend Baghdad for the largest army in NATO, they'd figure they might get some seriously unwanted attention from the filthy Ansarî. And if you figure that, you should also figure that while your pêşmerge are tied up fighting for NATO's largest army in Baghdad, you might have a problem with security if you're not careful.


But I guess American interests are far more important to certain people than the security of Kurdistan. Oh well, once an Uncle Tom, always an Uncle Tom.

. . . . But try to explain that to the families.

Her bijin to the hevals in HPG for their downing of a Sikorsky over the weekend.

From Strassbourg comes the sight of 70,000 Kurds protesting to demand a medical examination of Ocalan by an independent medical team. Photos from Yeni Özgür Politika (click on "Fotoğraflar İçin Tıklayın"--middle of the page--for more):

JOURNALISTS, DTP, HPG, AND MAXMUR KIDS

"The mission of the Gestapo expanded steadily as, from 1933 onward, “political criminality” was given a much broader definition than ever before and most forms of dissent and criticism were gradually criminalized. The result was that more “laws” or lawlike measures were put on the books than ever."
~ Sheila Fitzpatrick.

Now here's something you'll never read from Michael Totten: the abduction and beating of a Kurdish journalist in Hewler, from RSF:

Reporters Without Borders today joined the Kurdistan Journalists Union in condemning the abduction yesterday of Nabaz Goran in the northern city of Erbil and the beating he received for several hours before being set free. Goran contributes to several media in Iraq’s Kurdish region.

[ . . . ]

A freelance contributor to the Media and Halati newspapers and the kurdistanpost.com website, Goran was kidnapped outside the Hotel Dam Dam in Erbil at about 10 p.m. yesterday. His abductors, five men in military uniforms, drove him out of the city, beat him with clubs and hose-pipes and told him to “hold his tongue” before setting him free a few hours later.

Goran is known for being outspoken in his criticism of the authorities. Two lawsuits were brought against, but were withdrawn after mediation by the Kurdistan Journalists Union.

Photos at the link.

Nabaz Goran's experience is not the only report of intimidation and beating of Kurdish journalists in South Kurdistan. There was another, reported by KurdishAspect, which also took place in Hewlêr . . . And we know who owns Hewlêr, don't we? In the second case, it seems Asayish are targeting Rojhelatî activists as well as journalists.

From whom do the security forces in Hewlêr pick up these tricks, from the Turks, the mullahs, the Americans, or the Israelis? Why isn't everyone howling about this like they did with Kemal Seîd Qadir?

A round-up of news about DTP politicians from last week includes the arrest of Aydin Budak, mayor of Cizîr, for remarks he made during a Newroz speech. He'll be tried in a Turkish kangaroo court for "praising crime and criminals" and for "inciting hatred and emnity amongst the populace." Actually, most of the Turkish population should be arrested on the same charges. Notice, too, that the news at the link mentions another DTP politician, Medeni Kirici, who's been charged with "praising crime and criminals" for referring to Ocalan as "Sayin." Recently Ahmet Turk had been convicted of the same charge and for the same reason. However, last week also saw the exact same charges dropped against Erdogan. The charges were dropped in Erdogan's case because Erdogan is a Turk, while Kurds are found guilty.

See? It really pays to be a Turk in Turkey. You can get away with murder. Literally.

Anyway, Aydin Budak apparently sent greetings to Imrali during his Newroz speech and that appears to be the source of the arrest. Hurriyet reports thousands gathered in protest against the arrest, including Osman Baydemir, Osman Ozcelik, Orhan Dogan, and Selim Sadak.

The 56 DTP mayors in the Roj TV letter trial are being recommended to receive 15 years of imprisonment each. The letter to Danish PM Rasmussen can be read here, along with the names of the signatories, and the mayors' statement to the court can be read here, just so everyone can get an idea of what a bad bunch of dudes and dudettes these mayors are.

A number of DTP members in Dersim, including the party's provincial chief Hidir Aytac were convicted for "supporting a terrorist group." Funny . . . I didn't think they supported the Ankara regime. A number of DTP officials in Ankara have also been arrested for "organizing a demonstration for the PKK." Translation: they organized a Newroz celebration. A similar series of arrests took place in Izmir, but this time the DTP politicians were arrested for supporting Hilmi Aydogdu in his remarks about how the shit will hit the fan in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan if the Ankara regime sends its terrorist army to Kerkuk.

Eurasianet is carrying a decent article on the recent crackdown on DTP politicians as well as speculation on whether or not DTP will run as independents. There's a small discussion of the 10% threshold and the current "Kurds" in parliament:

But critics say that the Kurds currently in parliament are little more than window dressing, unable to promote Kurdish interests once they get to Ankara. "The Kurds want to have a party that will bring their needs to the national agenda," says Dilek Kurban, a researcher with the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, an Istanbul-based think tank. "The current system allows those who get very few votes to go to Ankara and ‘represent’ the Kurds, and that only widens the gulf between Ankara and the Kurds."

Adds Kurban: "It has a cost for Turkey’s democratization and pluralism and it serves to alienate a large segment of the population."

In the meantime, today, the hevals iced five Mehmetciks and one cehş in the Çewlik and Şirnex regions while a couple of Mehmetciks blew themselves up with landmines.

Everyone remembers when Turkey banned Youtube, right? A few days afterwards, the ban was revoked, most likely because the ban caused a global stir and wasn't good for Turkey's image. Meanwhile, working behind the scenes, a Turkish parliamentary commission is planning to block "insulting" websites:

A parliamentary commission approved a proposal Thursday allowing Turkey to block Web sites that are deemed insulting to the founder of modern Turkey, weeks after a Turkish court temporarily barred access to YouTube.

Parliament plans to vote on the proposal, though a date was not announced. The proposal indicates the discomfort that many Turks feel about Western-style freedom of expression, even though Turkey has been implementing widespread reforms in its bid to join the European Union.

On Thursday, lawmakers in the commission also debated whether the proposal should be widened to allow the Turkish Telecommunications Board to block access to any sites that question the principles of the Turkish secular system or the unity of the Turkish state -- a reference to Web sites with information on Kurdish rebels in Turkey.

How very Chinese of the Turkish regime and such a good example for Bush's "Model of Democracy" to follow. And that line referencing "widespread reforms" is pure BS. Good luck on the block, though; there are a lot of ways around that. But the reason the Turkish government is trying to do it quietly now is because it knows that it's fascist methods look bad. After all, image isn't everything; it's the only thing.

To round out your Sunday evening reading, I'd like to point out a blog written by a non-Kurd who's working in South Kurdistan for the time being. The most recent post is on the Maxmur Camp. There are some really nice photos there, too, so take a look. Here's a teaser with caption:

This is the guerilla Turkey is afraid of!

I really like the photo of the Maxmur kids learning Tae Kwon Do, too, but check out Kurdishwaves for all the photos. Count this witness as another one to verify the civilian nature of the camp and the reasons that the refugees fled their homes: Genocide and Turkish state terrorism.

No amount of propaganda from the Washington and Ankara regimes, nor the bold-faced lies of Lockheed Martin's Joseph Ralston, can change those facts.

PLOT AGAINST TURKISH GENERAL STAFF IN UTAH, AND OTHER ITEMS OF NOTE

"The root of the conflict unquestionably lies in Turkey's insistent refusal to give ear to Kurdish demands for equal political, social and cultural representation as well as an end to economic disparity between the Kurdish regions of Turkey and more prosperous areas of western Turkey."
~ Ismet Imset.

Ah, about those British sailors the mullahs are holding . . . I think the UK simply needs to acquiesce in the treatment it's getting from Iran.

Al-Maliki is not cooperating with the two big bullies of the region--Turkey and the US--when it comes to holding a meeting about Iraq in Istanbul. I have to agree with al-Maliki's position, from the Washington Post:

Washington has focused intense pressure on Maliki, who may yet agree to send Zebari to Istanbul rather than see the conference aborted. The reasons for his resistance were explained in these terms by an Iraqi official who requested anonymity in order to speak frankly:

"Why should we go to a meeting to be ganged up on by European and Arab countries that were against the liberation of Iraq to begin with? Why should it be held on the soil of a country that threatens and slights Iraqis instead of helping them?"

Turkey's military stands prepared to invade northern Iraq to destroy Kurdish guerrilla camps or to take control of the disputed city of Kirkuk, if circumstances warrant. Ankara has also pointedly refused to deal with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, an ethnic Kurd who asserts that his home town of Kirkuk is Kurdish, or with the regional Kurdish government of Massoud Barzani. Ankara's non-dialogue policy has led to interruptions of the movement of petroleum supplies across the Turkish border in recent weeks.

Turkey is merely an instigator. Remember, it was Turkey that had sent JITEM into South Kurdistan in 2003, to instigate the Turkmen population of Kerkuk. It appears that a US-based Turkish mercenary company will be taking over in that department so that the Ankara regime can claim plausible deniability in the event of any more "bagging" incidents.

NEWSFLASH: Kurdish politician delivers political speech in Kurdish! How long before he faces charges? Don't hold your breath; it's only Serafettin Elci. They'll never charge him for violating the law.

Let's see . . . who was it last week who was shooting off his big mouth about "financing terrorism?" Oh, yeah, it was Joseph Ralston's bosom buddy, Edip Baser! What exactly did he say?

Underlining that terrorism should not be considered only in terms of armed actions, Baser said that it has also financial and political dimensions. Thus, he said, cooperation with other countries is essential in the fight against terrorism.

"We cannot manage to eliminate financial sources of terrorism such as illicit drug trafficking and human smuggling without cooperating with the other countries since those sources are most present in Western Europe and NATO-allied countries," he said. "We cannot fight terrorism by rendering armed militants ineffective unless we drain financial resources."

Hmm. . . in light of the US State Department's recent report on drug-trafficking, it seems to me that Baser needs to take his own advice:

Turkey is an important regional financial center, particularly for Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as for the Middle East and Eastern Europe. It continues to be a major transit route for Southwest Asian opiates moving to Europe. However, local narcotics trafficking organizations are reportedly responsible for only a small portion of the total funds laundered in Turkey.

[ . . . ]

Money laundering takes place in both banks and non-bank financial institutions. Money laundering methods in Turkey include: the cross-border smuggling of currency; bank transfers into and out of the country; and the purchase of high value items such as real estate, gold, and luxury automobiles. It is believed that Turkish-based traffickers transfer money to pay narcotics suppliers in Pakistan and Afghanistan, reportedly through alternative remittance systems. The funds are transferred to accounts in the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and other Middle Eastern countries. The money is then paid to the Pakistani and Afghan traffickers.

[ . . . ]

With the passage of several new pieces of legislation, the Government of Turkey took positive steps in 2005 to strengthen its anti-money laundering and counterterrorist financing regime. It now faces the challenge of decisively implementing these laws and of securing final passage of the MASAK law that will, among other provisions, specifically criminalize terrorist financing in support of international terrorist groups. Turkey should improve its coordination among the various entities charged with responsibility in its anti-money laundering and counterterrorist financing regime, including the various courts with responsibilities for these issues, in order to increase the number of successful investigations and prosecutions. Turkey should also regulate and investigate alternative remittance networks to thwart their potential misuse by terrorist organizations or their supporters. It should also strengthen its oversight of charities.

I wonder how much OYAK makes off of all that money laundering? Say, what a stroke of luck it is that TSK is getting ready to take over the NATO command in Kabul. They'll be able to use military transports to transfer all those funds around. How convenient!

Shame, shame, Edip Paşa. Seems that you're cut from the same cloth as Ralston. Or at least, Edip Paşa is the same kind of liar as Ralston, again from TNA:

Baser said the closure of the [Maxmur] camp was a long process, stating that it has turned into a PKK camp rather than a refugee camp.

But let's reiterate what the UN says about Maxmur:

Çorabatır explained that a census conducted in the camp revealed that of the 12,000 people living there, 51 percent were women and 49 percent were children. Arguing that the inhabitants of the camp have no connections with the terrorist organization, he said, "The people living in the camp are civilians; they are not terrorists."

Noting that this was the first comprehensive study undertaken by the UN pertaining to the camp, he revealed that despite remarks by the US military to the contrary, no weapons were being kept in the camp and that measures had been taken to this end.

"In all our searches, we found no weapons," said Çorabatır, who maintained that almost all the inhabitants of the camp had gone there from Turkey and that a significant number of them were eager to return.

When he stated that the inhabitants of the camp had no connections with terrorist organizations, the deputies asked him about contradictory statements made by US commanders. In a speech delivered at the Turkish Parliament, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül claimed that a significant portion of the camp had begun to support the PKK due to propaganda disseminated by the group's members.

Of course, Abdullah Gul's claim is ridiculous. The best possible pro-PKK "propaganda" comes directly from Ankara itself, through its policy of genocide and its twenty military "pacification operations" against the Kurdish people. I mean, you can't buy "propaganda" like that. I also like how Baser claims that "Turkey has 'undeniable' information that some Kurdish groups and Kurdish leaders in Iraq are involved in efforts to support the PKK." Baser should be more worried about the fact that 20 million Kurds in Turkey's colony Kurdistan definitely support the PKK.

But it certainly looks like the entire US military is nothing more than a pack of dirty liars. Kinda makes you wonder what else they're lying about.

Yusuf Kanli has a pretty funny opinion piece today about Fethullah Gulen. It's hilarious how he describes Gulen bawling about not being able to return to Turkey--which may be an indication that Gulen is off his meds. What's even more interesting about Kanli's piece is his suspicion that an Islamist "mole" in the Turkish General Staff is leaking worse than a puppy with a small bladder:

Interesting enough, we are learning that despite all the expulsions from the Turkish Armed Forces over the past decades in a bid to prevent infiltration by Islamists into the senior ranks of the military there might still be some loyal deep-throat messengers loyal to political Islam who are e-mailing top secret military documents to Utah, where the Gülen brotherhood is active. Why Utah and to which address in Utah? A military statement on the recent sensitive electronic leakage to Utah unfortunately did not elaborate on such questions except underlining that investigations have shown that a draft prepared to be used in renewal of media accreditation to military events was illegally e-mailed to an address in the United States and was then made available excluding the section on Islamist media from that source to various news people in the country.

Lawyers of the Gülen brotherhood organization immediately issued a statement stressing that Fethullah Gülen was not related at all with any such thing and efforts by some quarters in Turkey to implicate Gülen with the electronic theft of the military document lacked any legal basis and were the product of some ulterior motives and legally constituted denigration.

Who said Gülen was involved in that electronic theft? Gülen is not living in Utah anyhow. Or, did anyone try to implicate the Gülen brotherhood with the so-called memoirs of the former Navy commander, Özden Örnek, which are being distributed electronically from a Utah-registered Web domain? Or, is there a Utah-based campaign to harm the prestige of the Turkish military. If so, of course, the Gülen brotherhood is not involved in any way with such dirty games...

Oddly enough, in a discussion with a friend from Amed yesterday, we came to the same conclusion. The coup plans of the Turkish General Staff was the big news all through the weekend, and some general idea of that scoop can be read at Zaman, or in Turkish at Radikal, if you're so inclined.

Yusuf Kanli opined about this leakage on Saturday, as well. However, if anyone thinks it's time to "re-affirm our commitment to democracy," then they'd better understand that it's long past time to boot out the ruling elites at the Turkish General Staff.

COUNTDOWN TO ANOTHER INEFFECTIVE INVASION?

"For many Turkish intellectuals, freedom of speech has become a struggle in North America as well as in our native country. What is happening to me now could happen to any scholar who dissents from the official state version of history."
~Taner Akcam.

Dogu Ergil has some information on possible upcoming Turkish operations in South Kurdistan, at Zaman:

After a meeting of retired Gen. Joseph Ralston, US special envoy on countering the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) -- a title that the Turkish press has transformed into “special envoy for counterterrorism” -- held on Jan. 29 with Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan regional government, and his vice president, Kosrat Rasul, Turkey has reportedly been given a green light from the US to attack PKK positions on the Kandil Mountain.

The same sources say that the military invasion will start in the beginning of April 2007. This was critical news that both the Turkish establishment and a part of the public have long been anticipating.

Will it bring relief as expected? Or will the operations get rid of the gangrene that is referred to as the “Kurdish problem”? That remains to be seen. However both the Americans and the Turkish establishment must be quite relieved to have convinced the Kurdish leaders of Iraq to give the green light to a Turkish military operation on Kandil, where the PKK contingency camps are and from which it conducts armed forays into Turkish soil.

Getting "rid of the gangrene that is referred to as the 'Kurdish problem'" will only happen when Turkey finally genocides the last Kurd from Turkish-occupied Kurdistan; however he does question the effectiveness of yet another Turkish invasion of South Kurdistan. He is correct that Qandil is far from the border with Turkish-occupied Kurdistan and that it's not likely that the TSK will engage in infantry operations in the mountains against PKK. This leaves only air operations as an option, something that is not likely to have much effect on the gerîlas but will certainly result in casualties in the civilian population, as happened during Turkish bombing of South Kurdistan during the so-called "safe haven" of Operation Northern Watch.

Ergil mentions the cooperation that Barzanî and Talabanî have given to the Ankara regime during its military operations in South Kurdistan against the Kurdish gerîlas. What he does not mention is that the Southern leadership's cooperation with the Ankara regime against Northern Kurds began long before the 1990s or even the founding of the PKK in 1978. That cooperation goes back at least to 1971.

Referencing a survey of the Turkish population, it appears that the majority of over 300,000 respondents do not want a military engagement. Given that the Ankara regime has never been successful in its 20-odd military pacifications of Northern Kurds, and given that military engagements will never solve what is essentially a political problem, it looks very much like the Ankara regime, with US backing, is setting itself up for failure yet again.

Ergil recognizes that "[t]he US infatuation with dealing with terrorism through military means has reinforced the traditional Turkish attitude and allows no other option than organizing cross-border operations as if the root cause of the problem lies in Iraq." The fact that one of Lockheed Martin's directors is the "PKK coordinator" for Turkey and it should be brilliantly clear exactly what it is that fuels the American "infatuation." It is none other than the worship of the Dollar, as discussed by former CIA Istanbul base deputy chief, Philip Giraldi, last week:

Companies that make armaments need war to be profitable. Constant war is even better, producing an unending flow of money. President George W. Bush's 2002 National Security Strategy is best of all – with its embrace of a vaguely defined preemptive war doctrine and the promise of a series of unilateral wars.

[ . . . ]

The military industrial complex also sustains and feeds off the Bush administration's so-called "global war on terror," or GWOT. Most experts on terrorism would agree that the GWOT is largely a fiction created to simplify a multifaceted problem and heighten fear so that the flow of taxpayer money will continue unabated. Fighting terrorism worldwide, even where it does not exist, isn't cheap, particularly as the increasing reliance on contractors is much more expensive per man-hour than using full-time government employees.

Giraldi estimates that the War on Terror, Inc. has cost the American taxpayer approximately $200 billion since 2001, a figure which does not include military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. He figures that if there are 5,000 "terrorists" worldwide, the American taxpayer forks over an amazing $40 million per "terrorist." To reiterate, that figure does not include Iraq and Afghanistan. Giraldi adds the following observation:

No other country attacks terrorism in such a disproportionate fashion, and many of America's allies have successfully combated it using police and intelligence resources. . . . That's using an elephant to squash a fly. Considering that the fly can move a lot faster than the elephant, no victory is likely to happen soon, apart from the odd "Mission Accomplished" banner here and there.

Having lived and worked in Turkey, Giraldi might appreciate the irony of his remarks if they were spoken with Turkey as the subject instead of the US. According to Ergil, some 40,000 Mehmetciks will be involved in TSK operations in South Kurdistan in order to fight less than 4,000 Kurdish gerîlas which Turkey claims are resident in the South. I recommend a good long read of both articles. Giraldi in particular names names of think-tanks, corporations, and individuals associated with this for-profit orgy instigated by the military-industrial complex--along with Eisenhower's prophetic quote from 1961.

Over at ZNet, Taner Akcam has a recent article in which he explains the situation surrounding his detention by Canadian customs officials in February and the harassment he's undergone from Turkish fascists located in the US. He goes into detail about the efforts of three Gray Wolf organizations against him--the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, Tall Armenian Tale, and Turkish Forum--especially regarding their efforts to paint him as a "terrorist" by posting manufactured and photoshopped propaganda against him on sites like Wikipedia. They even tried to pass Taner Akcam off as a PKK gerîla.

But what does anyone expect of the same type of scum who murdered Hrant Dink?

Theoretically, it's always an honor to be passed off as a gerîla, but it's not so bad to be labeled a "terrorist-communist" either, especially when the labeling is done by the likes of the fascists at ATAA, Tall Armenian Tale, and Turkish Forum, but I understand the practical problems that such a label causes Akcam when dealing with Americans--especially the idiots working at American customs. After all, if it's not on American Idol, Americans don't know anything about it.

A last item also from ZNet, comes from Professor Edward Herman. Compare his piece on mass-murderer Richard Holbrooke with something posted recently on Rastî, about Holbrooke's visit to Maxmur. Keep in mind that Lockheed Martin's Joseph Ralston recently lied in his testimony to Congress regarding Kurds in general and Maxmur in particular. We also have Danny Fried's big lies about Maxmur during the recent US/Turkish attacks against Kurds in Europe.

It's clear that the US policy toward the refugees at Maxmur is to adopt the Ankara regime's lies about the camp being inhabited by "terrorists" and never mind the facts of the situation. The intention of the US is to forcibly repatriate the 11,000 refugees to Turkey as "terrorists."

We all know what that means, don't we?

MORE ON RALSTON'S LIES TO CONGRESS

It's pathetic, pathetic, when Turkish NTV speaks the truth, for a change, about a Kurdish refugee camp, while a Lockheed Martin director sits there in front of Congress and lies his ass off about it.

Here's one:

Ralston: Ammunition was found at Mahmour camp in N. Iraq

US and Iraqi troops searched the Mahmour refugee camp in northern Iraq in January.

WASHINGTON - Contradicting earlier statements on a search carried out by US troops in the Mahmour refugee camp in northern Iraq, US Special envoy to combat PKK terrorism Joseph Ralston said that ammunition had been found.

In an exclusive interview with the Associated Press agency, Ralston, a retired US air force general, said that they believed that ammunition could have belonged to the PKK.

Ralston said that the US, Turkey and Iraq were close to reaching an agreement over closing down Mahmour camp, which Ankara has long said has been a base for the PKK.

The retired general added that it was because of America’s pressure that both Iraqi and European officials had taken measures against PKK.

After the troops searched the camp the local Kurdish authorities and United Nations officials declared that no weapons or ammunition had been found.

Here's two:

UNHCR deny arms found in Mahmour Camp

The US Special Envoy to combat terrorism Joseph Ralston said that ammunition was found at Mahmour in northern Iraq, despite previous statements denying that any cache had been uncovered.

ISTANBUL - A spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has denied claims that weapons were found at a refugee camp in northern Iraq that Turkey says houses members of the terrorist group the PKK.

Speaking on television station NTV Friday, UNHCR spokesman for Turkey Metin Corabatir said that a search of the Mahmour Camp last month by US and Iraqi troops had not found any arms or ammunition.

However, some shells without fuses had been found well away from the camp in remote areas.

“It was the refugee children from the camp that showed that location,” Corabatir said.

The observer representing the US at the tripartite meetings held in Geneva to discuss Mahmour had confirmed the civilian nature of the camp, he said.

Corabatir added that they were looking into finding sustainable solution for refugees in order to be able to close down the camp.

And there's more in Turkish for those so inclined.

And a little reminder from IHD's press release on the raid:

As a result of UN s control decreasing and Turkey's permanent allegation that Maxmur Camp is under the control of armed militants; UN High Commissioner for Refugees asked Iraq Authorities to raid in the camp and determine whether there is any armed person/group or not.. Moreover, UNHCR asked for paralyzing armed person/group if there is any. After this demand; Iraq Authorities raided Maxmur Refugee Camp yesterday. America, actually invasion forces also sent a representative, who is Denmark, to this raid. According to the information that we learned raid carried out in a professional manner and officers did not find any weapons.

All of the evidences show that raid was a routine implementation.

Therefore;

1) Broadcasting such an ordinary raid as an operation against terrorism is totally wrong. Actually raids, in such camps, are frequently carried out. Speculating on such persons, who had to leave from their homeland and became refugee violates right news principle and are against refugee law-human rights.

2) Refugee Camp was identified, in much news, as "PKK s Maxmur Camp". Such identification caused, even involuntarily, a misconception about these people, whose numbers are over 10.000 and disadvantaged group. As a result of this misconception; they were considered at least as members of illegal organization and became target in the society.

Spreading "Turkey's permanent allegation" is exactly what Ralston did in Congress last week, all for the sake of the military-industrial complex and the Deep State, of which he is a part.

Remember the ideology:

The idea that Strauss was a great defender of liberal democracy is laughable. I suppose that Strauss’s disciples consider it a noble lie. Yet many in the media have been gullible enough to believe it.

How could an admirer of Plato and Nietzsche be a liberal democrat? The ancient philosophers whom Strauss most cherished believed that the unwashed masses were not fit for either truth or liberty, and that giving them these sublime treasures would be like throwing pearls before swine. In contrast to modern political thinkers, the ancients denied that there is any natural right to liberty. Human beings are born neither free nor equal. The natural human condition, they held, is not one of freedom, but of subordination – and in Strauss’s estimation they were right in thinking so.

If throwing over 10,000 Kurdish refugees, who were driven from their homes and villages by a NATO army, to the (Gray) wolves will secure more Lockheed deals and create a warm, fuzzy feeling between the three key states of the Deep State--the US, Turkey, and Israel--then that's exactly what vermin like Ralston and Wexler are going to do. After all, these "unwashed masses" were born "neither free nor equal" under Turkish occupation.

Pathetic.

LOCKHEED'S JOSEPH RALSTON LIES TO CONGRESS

“Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.”
~ Thomas Jefferson.

Last week, Lockheed Martin's "special envoy" to "coordinate" the PKK for Turkey, Joseph Ralston testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Europe. In his testimony, he lies by selectivity or outright, so let's go through his statement and pick it apart.

Chairman Wexler, Congressman Gallegly, Members of the Sub-Committee, it is an honor to speak to you today about my efforts during the past six months to address the significant threat posed to our long-standing ally Turkey by the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers Party), including its impact on Turkey's relations with Iraq and the potential for Turkish cross-border action. This conflict has endured for more than twenty years and the resulting violence led in the last year alone to the deaths of 600 Turkish citizens. The continued ability of this terrorist group to operate from Iraqi territory is a threat to regional security and an impediment to improvements in the lives of people on both sides of the border.

It's amazing that a relative few thousands of Kurdish gerîlas can pose a "significant threat" to the 800,000-strong TSK, NATO's second largest standing army. It's amazing that Kurdish gerîlas have done so for over twenty years without the 800,000-strong TSK being able to do a damned thing about it, and that's with billions of dollars worth of military toys from the US, including Joseph Ralston's very own Lockheed Martin. After twenty years, the alleged deaths of 600 Turkish citizens averages out to just under 30 people per year. Good US ally Turkey, on the other hand has murdered 40,000 Kurds, ostensibly considered to be "citizens" of Turkey by Turkey, but Ralston does not include them in his body count. If we average out the the number of Kurds murdered by TSK over the same amount of time, we see that almost 2,000 Kurds have been murdered annually by the Turkish state.

Who's the terrorist here?

If PKK poses a "significant" threat to "regional security and [is] an impediment to improvements in the lives of the people on both sides of the border," then why hasn't regional security gone to hell earlier during the past 22 years? During the last unilateral PKK ceasefire, which lasted for six years, what was the Turkish government's "impediment to improvements in the lives of the people" on its side of the border? The sole impediment which caused Turkey to do nothing to repair the damage it caused during 80+ years of occupation is Turkey's racist policies toward the Kurdish people and its attempts at genocide of the Kurdish people. When given the opportunity, Turkey did nothing to improve the lives of its so-called citizens residing in "The Southeast."

It should also be noted that the single most serious threat to regional stability was the invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003 and continued US threats against the Iran. This threat to regional stability was not done to secure a few, limited cultural rights for anyone, nor was it undertaken to spread "democracy"; it was done to secure US interests, i.e. oil.

Is Ralston merely stupid or is he a liar?

Recently, the PKK has sought to hide its terrorist roots by cloaking its political demands in terms of local cultural and linguistic rights.

Wrong. PKK has offered a complete platform to politicize the entire peace process for Kurds in Turkey so that Kurds are able to possess full political rights (which include simple cultural and linguistic rights). All of the points of the platform are completely consistent with EU accession but this process, along with the current ceasefire, were dismissed out of hand by both the Ankara and Washington regimes. Ralston doesn't stop to think that it would seem ridiculous for a relative few thousand gerîlas, coupled with the support of almost 20 million Kurds under Turkish occupation, to continue the fight if the fight were just for a few "local cultural and linguistic rights." There is something much more serious going on here, in order to keep the entire population in a state of resistance to the regime, and that something is called "genocide."

Is Ralston merely stupid or is he a liar?

In 2004 the PKK resumed terrorist attacks against Turkish security forces, innocent civilians and foreign tourists.

Ralston wants us to believe he's unable to tell the difference between PKK operations and other operations, like TAK operations. In reality, Ralston knows the difference very well, but he's spreading the propaganda of his friends in the ruling military oligarchy which, in turn, serves to justify Ralston's tactical fighter aircraft sales to the same buddies.

Is Ralston merely stupid or is he a liar?

Its actions have been criticized by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Criticisms of atrocities committed by the Turkish government fill many more volumes than any of those committed by members of PKK, yet this fact is not brought up by Ralston. Even the relatively useless US State Department human rights report overwhelmingly lists Turkish atrocities by the US and NATO-trained and armed TSK.

Is Ralston merely stupid or is he a liar?

The conflict with the PKK has diverted Turkey's effort to join the EU and has fostered instead a permanent state of alarm throughout the country. Badly needed outside investment cannot be productively used to shore up underdeveloped south-eastern Turkey until the threat of terrorism recedes. Ironically, the continued existence of a terrorist group that cloaks itself in the mantle of Kurdish rights has impeded the progress for which Turkish Kurds aspire through economic development and the cooperation facilitated by EU human rights law.

Turkey began its EU process in the 1950s. PKK didn't begin operations until 1984. What "diverted Turkey's efforts" in the thirty-four years before PKK arrived on the scene? Again we have had a six-year unilateral ceasefire (PKK operations did not resume until 2005), and in that time, Turkey did nothing to repair the damage it inflicted on North Kurdistan even though there was plenty of opportunity to do so, including cultivating "[b]adly needed outside investment." Again, Turkey did nothing. The EU has also had plenty of opportunity to become involved in the Kurdish situation and to use EU human rights law to further concrete steps to Kurdish equality but, like Turkey, it did nothing. The EU has absolutely no intention of furthering Kurdish rights or equality, nor does the EU, Turkey, or the US have any right to force its economic system on the people of Turkish-occupied Kurdistan.

We see how that system is working in South Kurdistan. Privatization and globalization mean exploitation. In South Kurdistan we have seen basic services deteriorate to a neanderthal level for ordinary people, and while the poor get poorer, the rich get richer and foreign investment does nothing but serve the interests of the KDP and PUK. This is an excellent lesson for the people of Turkish-occupied Kurdistan and Osman Baydemir has it right when he says that local resources should be administered locally--not by a centralized fascist regime nor by greedy foreign investors. But how can we expect a member of the board of directors of Lockheed Martin to understand this?

Is Ralston merely stupid or is he a liar?

Several thousand PKK terrorists are based just over the Turkish border inside Iraq. The PKK has used Iraq as a base to pursue operations, train terrorists, and direct attacks against Turkey. Iraqi and U.S. forces have lacked the resources to root out this pocket of terrorist camps despite the continued insistence of Turkish authorities.

Several thousand PKK gerîlas are located inside Turkey itself. Turkey and Ralston say the contrary because it is Turkey's intention to reclaim the Mosul Vilayet. Turkey has sent tens of thousands of troops into South Kurdistan numerous times during the 1990s to "root out this pocket" of gerîla camps but has always failed in its efforts--in spite of US and NATO weaponry and training. Iraqi forces are too incompetent for a real fight and US forces are too lazy to engage in mountain combat. I mean, they'd actually have to get out of their humvees and hump it over those mountains the old-fashioned way if they were ordered to engage Kurdish gerîlas.

On top of that, the product which Ralston sells, the F-16, was used extensively by the Ankara regime to bomb Southern Kurdish villages repeatedly in the 1990s during Operation Northern Watch, an operation which is propagandized as "protection" or providing "safe haven" for the Kurds.

Is Ralston merely stupid or is he a liar?

We have reached a critical point in which the pressure of continued attacks has placed immense public pressure upon the Government of Turkey to take some military action. Ankara understands that military action, even within this small pocket of Iraq, could be potentially destabilizing and counter-productive to our joint goal of achieving a stable and strong Iraqi government.

We have reached a "critical point" because Ralston's buddies in the Deep State have fueled the Turkish nationalist monster through its media campaign, its educational system, and its state institutions--thus proving that Turkey has really changed nothing as far as the Copenhagen Criteria go. Since 1923 there have been three Kurdish uprisings against the fascist Ankara regime and twenty "pacification" efforts against Kurds by the regime. In every one of those efforts, military action has failed. What will be the point of further military action, except to enrich the vermin of the US military-industrial complex--of which Ralston is one--and the business interests of the Paşas? The only solution is a political solution as PKK has already offered.

Anyone who thinks differently is either merely stupid or is a liar.

In August 2006, Secretary Rice asked me to undertake the mission of Special Envoy for Countering the PKK. My appointment followed a period of two weeks in which the Turks seemed poised to cross the Iraq border on a mission to root out PKK fighters and destroy their camps. I was given responsibility for coordinating U.S. engagement with the Government of Turkey and the Government of Iraq to eliminate the terrorist threat of the PKK operating in northern Iraq and across the Turkey-Iraq border.

At the end of August, 2006, to be exact, less than a month after the filing period for the first half of the year ended, during which time Ralston was listed with the Senate as a lobbyist for Lockheed Martin, to sell tactical fighter aircraft:






Of course, if PKK is really a bunch of "terrorists," then why the objection to Turkey participating in the global War on Terror®? If Turkey is such a good ally of the US, why doesn't the US allow it to join the coalition? The alternative is to negotiate a political solution, which has been rejected. So the US is not interested in finding any solution to the so-called terrorist threat. Why? Think: Almighty Dollar.

Turkey is a sovereign state with a responsibility to defend its people. Ultimately, the Turkish government will have to take the steps it thinks are necessary to protect its citizens. Over the past six months we have explored what options are available with the Iraqis and Turks to remove the threat posed by this terrorist organization and restore peace to the border zone. Maintaining a peaceful border between Turkey and Iraq is important to our efforts to continue the reconstruction and development of Iraq. My goal was to come up with a set of actions that the U.S. Government, the Turkish government and the Iraqi government could take to eliminate the PKK threat.

If Turkey has a responsibility to defend its people, then we should define who those people are. Kurds are not Turks, so are they considered Turkey's "people?" If Turkey has a responsibility to defend its citizens, which Turkey claims that Kurds are, then why does Turkey genocide its citizens? What responsibility does Turkey have to protect its citizens, even if they are Kurds? Why does Turkey fail to prosecute security forces that murder, torture, and generally repress its citizens?

Another thing, why is it that the Ralston and the US ignore the very people with whose lives they are meddling--the Kurds of Turkish-occupied Kurdistan themselves? Why are they not included as part of Ralston's shuttle diplomacy? Why has DTP, which is the only legal representation of Kurds under Turkish repression, not been included, but KDP and PUK have? I mean, DTP has never been mentioned in connection with any of this.

Is Ralston merely stupid or is he a liar?

I have made half-dozen trips to Turkey and also met with Turkish officials in Europe and the United States. I met not only with Prime Minister Erdogan, Foreign Minister Gul, and the chief of the Turkish General Staff, but also with the Interior Minister of the Turkish National Police and intelligence organizations. Since last September, I have been to Iraq three times and again had meetings with President Talabani, the Vice President, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, and the Defense Minister, as well as with President Barzani of the Kurdish Regional Government in Erbil.

[ . . . ]

In conjunction with counterparts, General Edip Baser and Iraqi Minister of State for Security al-Waili, we have tried to achieve movement on a series of steps that have to be taken by all three governments to be more effective in countering the PKK.

[ . . . ]

In general, we have successfully increased the amount of communication between the Turks and Iraqis. It is essential to the improvement of the situation that more and better channels of communication can be developed.

See? No DTP mentioned. Why is that? None of the other people involved in this high-level goat-screw have any business speaking for the people of Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. Not Erdogan, not Gul, not Buyukanit. Not any Turkish police types. Not Talabani, not Barzani, not al-Maliki, not Zebari. Not US officials, not EU officials. Only DTP and PKK have any legitimacy to speak for Northern Kurds. Why have they not been consulted?

Is Ralston merely stupid or is he a liar?

Movement toward closure of the Makhmour refuge camp, which had become a refuge for PKK fighters in the safety of northern Iraq. An agreement structuring the voluntary return of Makhmour camp residents to Turkey and on the camp's disposition is being worked out between Turkey, Iraq, and the UNHCR. Practical steps have had to be dealt with. The camp needed to be cleared of any PKK personnel, all the arms needed to be removed from the camp, UNHCR needed to register every person in the camp -- man, woman, and child -- and everyone in the camp needed to be interviewed to determine their intention to return to Turkey or to remain in Iraq. All of this, except the survey of intentions, has been accomplished. We will continue to work with UNHCR, the Turks and the Iraqis on how to close the camp and what sort of assistance will be needed to encourage the residents to either repatriate or resettle.

On March 5, the three parties held their most recent trilateral meeting to discuss the closure of the camp. Although the discussion did not finalize the agreement, they made substantive progress.

The US itself raided Maxmur in January and not a single bullet was found, but here is Liar Ralston in Congress, saying that "[t]he camp needed to be cleared of any PKK personnel" and "all the arms needed to be removed from the camp." But there were no arms. There was no mention of any "PKK personnel." The UN census proved the civilian nature of the camp, in spite of State Department liars claiming the contrary. The former State Department murderer Richard Holbrooke went to Maxmur and still there were no reports of "PKK personnel" or weapons, and State Department liar, Daniel Fried, then repeated Turkey's lies about Maxmur.

Here we finally have an answer to our question of whether Ralston is merely stupid or if he's a liar. He's a liar.

Of course, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Europe probably wants to be lied to when it comes to Turkey. Congressman Robert Wexler founded the Congressional Turkey Caucus, won a "leadership" award from the ATC, all for the sake of Israel. He even participates in the ATC's annual conference. But that may be because he's heavily involved with the ATC, as is Joe Ralston himself.

Yet Wexler recognizes a political solution with Hamas.

What's in Wexler's wallet? Inquiring minds wanna know.

ASSAULT ON KURDS IN EUROPE

"The subsequent court appearance of Ocalan reinforced the image of the totalitarian nature of the trial. Ocalan's testimony was an exact replica of the Turkish regime's virulent propaganda against the Kurdish movement, and the person of Ocalan. His "confession" to being a "terrorist" and "murderer" of the Turkish people, his "admission" to receiving military aid from Turkey's enemies (Greece, Syria, Iraq) was essentially a propaganda exercise orchestrated by the Turkish intelligence agencies. The political purpose of the trial was to defend the Turkish regime's bloody repression of 15 million and to "justify" its denial of elementary cultural and political rights of all minorities."
~ James Petras.

Strasbourg, 10 February 2007 (REUTERS/Vincent Kessler).

From a State Department press release on Friday, 9 February, with Daniel Fried:

Assistant Secretary Fried: [ . . . ]

And yes, of course we discussed the issue of the PKK, a terrorist organization which we believe should be eliminated and the threat to Turkey reduced to zero. In that context I was delighted to learn that European officials, French officials have arrested a large number of PKK operatives. This does, as has been reported, follow some close cooperation between the United States and Turkey. This cooperation is continuing. It will continue, and our cooperation is not limited to Western Europe, let me put it that way.

[ . . . ]

So it was a good visit. We appreciate this dialogue. Our dialogue with Turkey is intense. Under Secretary Burns was recently in Ankara. General Ralston has been traveling to the region. He's our envoy for countering and combating the PKK. Our Economic Partnership Commission is taking place this week in Turkey. Policy planning talks will be held later. Our dialogue with Turkey is very rich and there is a lot to talk about.

Media: Mr. Fried, my name is Hilal from Radikal daily. Actually I'd like to ask a question about combating the PKK in Northern Iraq, but also nowadays in Central Europe, in Belgium, in France there are some operations, and members and leaders of the PKK have been captured through this. Is there any direct link between these operations and that visit, Mr. Gul's visit United States? Just how do you evaluate this issue? How do you see these operations [inaudible]? Thank you.

Assistant Secretary Fried: I doubt that the French police arrested PKK terrorists to help the atmospherics around the visit of the Turkish Foreign Minister in Washington. We appreciate our French friends' efforts, but the timing is clearly a coincidence.

But it is true that the United States and Turkey have been working with our West European friends about the problem of the PKK. And it is true that West European governments understand the nature of the problem, and these arrests have been made. This is good news. These aren't the first arrests; I doubt they will be the last arrests.

But you are also correct when you suggest that the problem of the PKK is obviously not confined to Western Europe. It's also a problem in Northern Iraq. We are cooperating with Turkey to deal with that problem.

Solving it will require cooperation between Turkey and Iraq, both the Iraqi central government and the Iraqi Kurdistan regional government and I think this cooperation is moving forward.

We are working together on projects like the closing of the Makhmour camp which had become, frankly, very heavily infiltrated by the PKK. This process is underway now. There are other things which might be done, but they are of a nature that should not be discussed with the media openly.

[ . . . ]

Media: Zeynep Gurcanli from Vatan Daily Newspapers. You said in your opening remarks that the Western European operation towards PKK was not limited to Western Europe. So can we expect also a new operation in Northern Iraq? And also what is the U.S. government position for a possible cross-border operation, military operation, of Turkey towards PKK in Northern Iraq?

Assistant Secretary Fried: To state the obvious but to start from it, of course there is a problem of the PKK presence in Northern Iraq. Of course this problem has to be dealt with. We are discussing with Turkey and our Iraqi friends this problem. I'm not going to say any more in this channel about it.

I understand in the press there has been speculation about unilateral Turkish cross-border operations. I understand perfectly Turkish frustration with the PKK bases and camps in Northern Iraq. This is understandable. But the responsibility for the outcomes of such an operation is something Turkey needs to think about.

Of course this week's assault against Kurds in Europe has nothing to do with Gul's visit to the US. Nor does it have anything to do with the upcoming anniversary (15 February) of the international community's betrayal of the Kurdish people's suffering under a brutal Turkish occupation as symbolized by the joint US-Turkish-Israeli capture of Ocalan. Instead, the current assault on Kurdish leaders and intellectuals in Europe has everything to do with Apo's application to the European Court of Human Rights for having received a completely unjust trial.



The ECHR first ruled in 2003 that Ocalan received an unjust trial from the Ankara regime with a second and final ruling coming in 2005. Human Rights Watch noted the flagrant violations of the right to a just trial in 1999:

When Ocalan was brought to Turkey after his abduction from Kenya in February, he was held in incommunicado police detention for nine days - far in excess of international standards, and even of the limits imposed by Turkish domestic law. Sugden therefore disagreed with observers from the Council of Europe, who said on June 21 that "the trial . . . has been correct and in accordance with the applicable Turkish law."

Meanwhile, Ocalan has been permitted only limited access to legal counsel. During meetings with his lawyers, which were restricted in frequency and duration, one or more security force members was present and within hearing. During the initial stage of the investigation, lawyers were not permitted to bring notes to interviews with their client.

Sugden noted also that once the process reached the courts, there were other reminders of common State Security Court practice: the judges refused to hear any of the witnesses proposed by the defense, and barred at least one piece of their evidence from being read to the court on the grounds that it was "propaganda".

HRW also has a backgrounder on the nature of the Ankara regime's State Security Courts. The State Security Courts represented a legal system very similar to the one that is now in place in the US by virtue of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.


The events this last week in Europe, with the arrests of ordinary Kurds in France, the detentions of Kurdish political leaders, and the destruction of the Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Center by French state security forces, reaffirms that the international conspiracy to bury the Turkish genocide of the Kurdish people, with the full backing of the United States, is alive and well.

A retrial of Ocalan's case and the wider implications of an international debate over the Ankara regime's butchery of the Kurdish people would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the West--and the US in particular--has benefited financially. The most recent example of financial benefit is alluded to in the State Department's press conference by the mention of Lockheed Martin's "special envoy" for "countering and combatting the PKK," Joseph Ralston. Without so much as taking a breath, Fried then notes that their "Economic Partnership Commission," will be held in the coming week. No doubt the American war industry will take a prominent role in the commission.

The use of silence and the manufacturing of a phony War on Terror to further joint US-Turkish business interests can be seen elsewhere, for instance in Fried's statement that the Washington regime will oppose a congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide. The Turkish invasion of Cyprus and subsequent military occupation of that European country, repeated Turkish invasions of South Kurdistan--thus violating the "Iraqi" territorial integrity for which Abdullah Gul falsely expresses so much concern--the labeling of Kurdish resistance to genocide as "terrorism", the rejection of the fifth PKK unilateral ceasefire by both the Ankara and Washington regimes along with the rejection of of the possibility of a negotiated political settlement for the Kurdish people under Turkish brutality are more subjects which a retrial of Ocalan would inconveniently bring to light.

As a result of a condemnation of the assault on Kurds in Europe and calls for protest against the attacks earlier in the week by Murat Karayilan, a massive protest took place in Strasbourg to show support for Ocalan and to condemn the recent unjust attacks against the Kurdish people by Europe. Other protests have been planned in Belgium, Holland, Germany, France, and Sweden.


In spite of the fact that American raids of the Maxmur Camp reveal not a single bullet, and that a UN census showed the camp to be civilian in nature, the US State Department continues to perpetuate the Turkish lies about the Kurdish refugees:

We are working together on projects like the closing of the Makhmour camp which had become, frankly, very heavily infiltrated by the PKK. This process is underway now.

There are other things which might be done, but they are of a nature that should not be discussed with the media openly.

Certainly, but it's not good for American image--euphemistically referred to generally as "US credibility"--to simply bomb the refugee camp at Maxmur for hours like the US did to a PUK checkpoint yesterday. Massive bombing of Kurdish women and children by the US simply wouldn't look good if such an incident leaked out to the press, but former State Department mass murderer Richard Holbrooke's visit this week to Maxmur indicates that the US is looking for an easier way to rid the world of the Maxmur refugees. Like the case of Ocalan, the stories these Kurds could tell of Turkish atrocities would further tarnish Turkish and US "credibility."

In the meantime, there is a spot of good news in the Kurdish world today: One hero of the Kurdish cause, Dr. Kristiina Koivunen of Finland, has a new blog on the Kurdish situation in English, called Kurdish Question and a permanent link to her blog has been added to Rastî's blog list.

Pîroz be û Serkeftin, Dr. Kristiina!


Note: All photos of the Strasbourg demonstration are from 10 February 2007 by Vincent Kessler/REUTERS. Murat Karayilan photo courtesy of RojTV via TECAK.

MURDER MASTERMIND AT MAXMUR

"But we cannot afford to ignore the features of clan-based cultures, whether in Kosovo or in the Middle East, that make them susceptible to manipulation by unscrupulous forces for nightmarish geopolitical goals."
~ Jared Israel, The Emperor's New Clothes.

There was a small item on TDN, Wednesday, about Maxmur:

Earlier this week Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. assistant secretary of state, visited Mahmour refugee camp in northern Iraq, which Turkey says is a base for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), CNN-Türk television reported yesterday. Holbrooke, who spoke with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey last week, met with Mahmour's local administrator, Abdurrahman Berzenci, and chatted with women living in the camp.

It looks pretty inocuous at first, doesn't it? A second look might even lead people to think it's some good news, especially if we look at Holbrooke's official CV from a clean Wikipedia page. He's been Assistant Secretary of State for two regions of the world, Peace Corps director, brokered the Dayton Accords for Bosnia, is an investment banker, belongs to all the right clubs (Council on Foreign Relations, International Institute for Strategic Studies, National Endowment for Democracy, and more). He's even a board member of Refugees International. More fabulous club memberships are listed at Sourcewatch.

On the other hand, there are a few minor points that Wikipedia left out . . . like East Timor, for example.

Richard Holbrooke and Paul Wolfowitz together facilitated Indonesia's seizure of East Timor back in the 1970s. From Asia Times in 2001:

In an unguarded moment last May, Richard Holbrooke opened a foreign policy speech in Italy with a fawning tribute to his host, Paul Wolfowitz, the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

[ . . . ]

The example he chose to illustrate his point was East Timor, which was invaded and occupied in 1975 by Indonesia with US weapons - a security policy backed and partly shaped by Holbrooke and Wolfowitz. "Paul and I," he said, "have been in frequent touch to make sure that we keep [East Timor] out of the presidential campaign, where it would do no good to American or Indonesian interests."

East Timor is a classic example of the bipartisan nature of US foreign policy during the Cold War - and the secrecy surrounding US military support for authoritarian leaders like president Suharto, who ruled Indonesia from the US-backed coup in 1965 until his downfall in 1998. There is an unbroken link from the Ford-Kissinger years, when the US backed Suharto's invasion of the former Portuguese territory. This continued through the Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton eras, when US policy focused on supporting Suharto's military and burnishing his image to the world.

[ . . . ]

If Holbrooke is to believed, he and Wolfowitz tried to keep the long, sordid history of American involvement with Suharto hidden from the American electorate during the most recent campaign. That in itself is a sad commentary on the mentality of these men and their dislike of open debate about US foreign policy goals.

From 1975 to 1977, the Indonesian government, backed by the US, in the form of people like Holbrooke and Wolfowitz, managed to murder between 50,000 to 80,000 East Timorese--a fact admitted by the Indonesian foreign minister at the time. When questioned about this massacre, Holbrooke responded as follows:

I want to stress I am not remotely interested in getting involved in an argument over the actual number of people killed. People were killed and that always is a tragedy but what is at issue is the actual situation in Timor today . . . [Asked about how many Timorese were killed in the past] . . . we are never going to know anyway.

What's a few tens of thousands dead when Indonesia was so strategically important to the US? What's a few tens of thousands slaughtered when Indonesia was an oil-producer, was non-aligned during the Cold War, and was such a swell consumer of American war industry product? The fact is that the US-backed Indonesian government engaged in genocide against the East Timorese, slaughtering over 200,000 of the people during the occupation, and the American who oversaw and enabled the genocide is now involved with Maxmur.

But our fine, upstanding American finally visited East Timorese refugees in 1999, according to Mother Jones, and this in spite of the fact that Holbrooke was a past master at downplaying the genocide of the East Timorese:

In later testimony defending US policy in East Timor, Holbrooke repeatedly played down the brutality of the Indonesian occupation. In 1979, Indonesia reported that East Timor's population had shrunk by 10 percent because of "civil war and starvation." Analysts with Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International now say the population had shrunk by far more than that, and that the causes were primarily Indonesian military violence against civilians, and starvation caused by the military's use of napalm to deforest the region and poison its farmland. Holbrooke, however, told a Congressional committee that the desperate hunger in East Timor had nothing to do with the Indonesians' invasion, but was the result of years of neglect during Portuguese rule. That the starvation did not reach desperate levels until several years after the Portuguese left the colony evidently did not strike Holbrooke as contradictory.

The irony of Holbrooke enabling yet downplaying genocide, juxtaposed against Holbrooke's visit to East Timorese refugee camps, is heightened by the fact that Holbrooke is himself of German-Jewish descent. And now this murderer is becoming involved with Kurdish refugees from another US-backed terror state? Alarm bells should be sounding.

In Bosnia, Holbrooke again secured US interests at the expense of lives on the ground and with total disregard for the ethnicities involved and with the use of dirty war experts to advise the KLA (More on NATO's Gladio-style use of the KLA here). Bosnia's position of utility as regards US interests was outlined by Zbigniew Brzezinski:

Brzezinski frankly sets the goal for U.S. policy: "to perpetuate America's own dominant position for at least a generation and preferably longer still". This involves creating a "geopolitical framework" around NATO that will initially include Ukraine and exclude Russia. This will establish the geostrategic basis for controlling conflict in what Brzezinski calls "the Eurasian Balkans", the huge area between the Eastern shore of the Black Sea to China, which includes the Caspian Sea and its petroleum resources, a top priority for U.S. foreign policy.

There's much more on US control of oil at the link, including a mention of the US goal of controlling the oil flow to Europe. Another interesting aspect of US policy is the use of "cultural divide" to secure interests:

. . . writer Robert D. Kaplan, who sees a "real battle" that is "drawn along historical-civilizational lines. On the one side are the Turks, their fellow Azeri Turks in Azerbaijan, the Israelis and the Jordanians [...]. On the other side are those who suffered the most historically from Turkish rule: the Syrian and Iraqi Arabs, the Armenians, the Greeks and the Kurds". It is not hard to see whose side the United States must be on in this battle, or which must be the winning side.

Indeed, it's been very clear for a very long time which side the US takes. News that Holbrooke is sniffing around Maxmur means nothing good. Wherever Holbrooke goes, US foreign policy enforcement--with it's attendent mass slaughter--follows.

Ah, well . . . we can always hope that the Iraqi insurgency gets its hands on this murderer, and then we can all watch the video.



NOTE: At one time Holbrooke served on the advisory board of Public Strategies, Inc., the damage control firm that Lockheed Martin hired to read Rastî. Unfortunately, it seems that Public Strategies, Inc. no longer wishes to reveal to the public just who currently sits on their advisory board.