DISCLOSING WAR CRIMES IN AFGHANISTAN

"Here in Afghanistan, we have a mafia running the system."
~ Malalai Joya, Afghani MP.

I guess no one expects that there are brave women in Afghanistan, but here's something I've had bookmarked for a few weeks--bookmarked because I don't think Malalai Joya is the bravest woman in Afghanistan but because I think she's the bravest person in Afghanistan. Why? Because of the truth she speaks, as in this recent interview published in Counterpunch:

Well, this is a parliament in which 80 per cent of the members are warlords or drug lords. They either snatched their places in parliament at gun point or bought these seats off with US dollars. In some cases, both guns and dollars played a role. Even Human Rights Watch has accused some leading members of this parliament of war crimes. But this parliament, in a unique move, granted warlords an amnesty against crimes committed during the war. Even Mulla Umar can benefit after this amnesty.

Karzai, who was voted in as a lesser evil, has been co-operating with these criminals all the time. Hence, no wonder if he is unpopular today. But he is sustained in the presidential palace by USA and all the warlords co-operate with the USA.

[ . . . ]

Corruption and drug trafficking have become a big issues. In my view, security is the biggest issue. After that it is corruption. The so-called international community which in fact is US government and its allies, has sent a lot of money. This amount was enough to build two instead of one Afghanistan. But even Karzai himself confesses that the money has ended up in the pockets of ministers, bureaucrats and member parliaments. On the other hand, one hears about a mother in Heart (sic) selling her daughter for ten dollars. And not merely the brother of Karzai is a drug lord, foreign troops have been allegedly involved.

[ . . . ]

For instance, Russian state TV has hinted at US troops involvement in drug trafficking. That was reported in the press here. But this is like an open secret. Karzai in one of his speeches last year said that it was not only Afghans who are involved in drug trafficking. He hinted at foreign connections. Though he did not name any country or troops but people in Afghanistan understood what he meant. Now Afghan drugs are finding their way to New York and European capitals. Hence, no wonder today Afghanistan is producing 90 per cent of world opium. This is taking its toll on women. Now we hear about ‘opium brides’. When harvests fail, peasants are not able to pay back loans to drug lords; they ‘marry’ their daughters off to warlords instead.

It goes without saying that Joya's life has been even less easy under this patriarchal regime since she spoke out in the Loya Jirga against the warlords, but she does appear to have the support of the ordinary people.

Although I don't have any sympathy for the Taleban, yet there has been too much silence on the situation in Afghanistan which I suspect is contrived in order to cover up atrocities by NATO forces and Afghan government troops. Recently there was another report about an aerial massacre of almost one hundred Afghans, most of them children. An Afghan investigation into the killings has been substantiated by another from the UN. Meanwhile, the Pentagon continues to lie about the savage attack while mainstream American media has lent its usual assistance in official efforts to cover up the magnitude of the killing. The NATO commander in Afghanistan is now calling for a "joint inquiry" into the killings, which will probably result in an amazing piece of creative writing.

I guess this is why there is only a two-page note that serves as the status of forces agreement between the US and Afghanistan.

With that in mind, here's a documentary on a massacre of thousands of Afghans and non-Afghans, presumably Taleban, who surrendered to US and Afghan forces in 2001. Notice how the Prince of Darkness attempts to justify war crimes in a very Kissingerian way; but instead of speaking of missionary work, he prefers to make a reference to Mother Theresa.

Needless to say, the documentary has never been aired in the US. Run time 50 minutes.

Full screen version available here.

ACQUITTAL, TRIALS, AND COUNTER-INSURGENCY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now you know where Turkish death squads got their training.

THE PROPAGANDA MODEL WORKS FOR KURDISTAN

"And I cannot find words to describe the heroism of the millions of Kurds living in the dungeon in the Southeast, after having suffered some of the worst atrocities of the 1990s thanks to the enormous arms flow provided by the Clinton administration and the discipline of the educated classes, who hailed the atrocious international terrorism as a model of 'counterterrorism'."
~ Noam Chomsky.

The "worthy" and "unworthy" victims of the Propaganda Model proposed by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman reinforces the "good" Kurd-"bad" Kurd dichotomy of Kevin McKiernan. The news here is that the dichotomy is alive and well in the US media today, according to Anthony DiMaggio at Counterpunch:

American media reports have at times acknowledged Turkish human rights abuses. However, Turkish repression is never framed as terrorism. In addition, Turkish repression of Kurds is presented as a relatively minor setback in the grand scheme of U.S. and European relations with Turkey, as opposed to Saddam Hussein's repression of Iraqi Kurds, which is consistently presented as a major human rights tragedy.

[ . . . ]

Efforts to distinguish between worthy victims (Iraqi Kurds) and unworthy ones (Turkish Kurds) have been somewhat altered, however, in recent years. By 2007, attacks on Iraqi Kurds had also become acceptable in the U.S. media, so long as the aggressor was the Turkish government, rather than Saddam Hussein. The U.S. granted tactical and diplomatic support to the government of Turkey as it bombed various Kurdish areas in northern Iraq, allegedly aimed at PKK rebel targets. Despite reports of civilian deaths, American editorials lent moral support to the Turkish government. The editors at the New York Times postured that "Turkey's anger is understandable. Guerillas from the PKK have been striking from bases in Iraqi Kurdistan with growing impunity and effect. The death toll for Turkish military forces is mounting."

Editors at the New York Times placed responsibility for the violence primarily upon the shoulders of the Kurds, rather than Turkish leaders, as they argued that "The Kurds will find it much easier to prosper if they can live in peace with Turkey." How such cooperation is possible in light of Turkey's systematic human rights violations was not addressed. The paper's editors also portrayed the U.S. as an honest broker between the two sides, rather than a consistent supporter of Turkish repression of the Kurds: "Washington must now try to walk both sides back from this brink. It then should make a serious and sustained effort to broker a long-overdue political agreement between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan." The editors at the Washington Post also presented the conflict through a pro-Turkish lens. Significant attention was directed to pragmatic assessments of the effectiveness of a Turkish political victory over Kurdish rebels: "The reality is that the PKK threat cannot be quickly eliminated by military means. Neutralizing it will require closer cooperation between Turkish and Iraqi Kurdish authorities, more effective Turkish military operations inside Turkey, and more political reforms in both countries."

This case study is instructive in one important respect: it suggests that American media attention to the repression and terror of foreign countries is not driven by legitimate humanitarian concerns, but by the strength of the alliance between the U.S. and the country in question.

Chomsky and Herman's work, Manufacturing Consent, provides a powerful tool--the Propaganda Model--for reading news, whether in the US or in Turkey. In fact, the Turkish government found the book so dangerous that it brought charges of "insulting Turkishness" and "inciting ethnic hostilities and hatred among the population" against Aram Publishing House for translating the book into Turkish.


I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you want to understand how the media works, you need to read Manufacturing Consent.

Rastî readers will remember Gordon Taylor who's written about the PKK at Progressive Historians. He's got something up at History News Network on Turkey's $20 million sheep-killing fiasco.

Hevallo liked last week's video of HPG air defense units that he went out and found another video, from RojTV, which he's posted, and he refers to the Paşas' current propaganda campaign as "Turkish army psycho lies. . . " I don't know, do you think that's enough to qualify him for charges under Article 301 for "insulting Turkishness?"

Martin Zehr responds to neocon Michael Rubin's latest trash piece in the NYTimes:

Mr. Rubin suggests: “U.S. officials should threaten isolation and a cessation of all financial assistance until Mr. Barzani ceases his safe haven.” Mr. Rubin might pay more attention to the U.S. military aid to Turkey, as a source of the problem. “As a member of NATO and Washington’s ally in the war on terrorism, Turkey is the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, behind Israel and Egypt. Between 1994 and 2004, it received well over $1.3 billion in FMF and another $21.4 million in IMET.[224] Congress granted another $33 million in FMF and $4 million in IMET in 2005. The President’s request for 2006 is more modest-- $25 million in FMF and $3 million in IMET.”

Suggesting as he does that there is an implicit alliance between President Barzani and the PKK in Iraq Mr. Rubin establishes a weak case. He states: “During its Oct. 21 attack on Turkish troops, PKK tactics mirrored those taught by U.S. Special Forces to Mr. Barzani's peshmerga fighters, suggesting its complicity in training terrorists.” Taken on its face, it presents little documentation in making in its case. But considering the ramifications of such statements, it presents Turkey with a virtual blank check in regards to attacks on the government of the KRG and the territory of the Kurdish Autonomous Region.

Rubin's claim that PKK received US Special Forces training through KDP peşmêrge overlooks the fact that PKK is a highly experienced guerrilla force and that it spent the years of the 1999-2005 ceasefire fruitfully, by implementing changes in HPG's tactics, and training to achieve that end:

The HPG officials said that the TAF has been unsuccessful in its operations and that the HPG’s new way of actions on the basis of small groups of guerrillas with active and high action capacity led to TAF’s classical operation tactic to be in vain.

HPG officials said that as a result of this new way of action, TAF (Turkish Army Forces) had difficulties in “imposing clashes on the guerrilla under its initiative” and that the TAF military troops have become an open target for the guerrilla teams who have spread well into the territory.

[ . . . ]

HPG officials said that this was “a reflection of the strategic changes made” and that the military strategy changed accordingly”. They underlined that “actions undertaken were no longer to establish free areas” but “to force the other side to a resolution”.

They also added that guerrilla losses, as a result, decreased in comparison with past years, but the TAF’s losses increased due to a change in guerrilla movement.

Note that this evaluation is dated May 2005. I guess Rubin can't swallow the fact that PKK has not been trained by anyone but PKK, while the TSK--particularly the Special Teams--were trained by US special operations forces. See Martin Zehr's figures on IMET aid to Turkey, as mentioned in his article and linked above. Remember, IMET is conducted by US special operations types, which have a history of spreading severe human rights abuses wherever they go. See something from US Senator Leahy on that.

More on the fallout from the joint US-Turkish air strikes against Kurdish civilians:

Since Turkish warplanes turned her village home into a heap of rubble last week, mother of eight Aziya Rasheed says she has lost all hope for the future.

Air strikes on mountain villages around the town of Sankasar in northern Iraq on Dec. 16 destroyed much of Rasheed's modest home as the family slept, injuring her 16-year-old daughter so severely that she had to have her leg amputated above the knee.

"We lost everything, even my daughter's leg. Isn't this terrorism from Turkey?" she said angrily.

[ . . . ]

Shlier Khudhur, a 30-year-old woman now living with her brother, sobs as she recalls the night she lost her home.

"I was wounded when the house fell on top of us during the air strikes. We have lost everything we ever owned," she said.

"I wish I had died rather than live through this."

Don't forget, Kurdistan: Erdoğan and Büyükanıt are your brothers in religion. Long live the ummah that has always defended the Kurdish people! Not.

US SPECIAL FORCES TO FIGHT KURDS

"The real terrorist threats are George W. Bush and his band of brown-shirted thugs."
~ Sandra Bernhard.

The US wants a piece of what the TSK has been getting from PKK for the last two decades. According to the WaPo, the US is going to assist the fascist Ankara regime with boots on the ground:

While detailed operational plans are necessarily concealed, the broad outlines have been presented to select members of Congress as required by law. U.S. Special Forces are to work with the Turkish army to suppress the Kurds' guerrilla campaign. The Bush administration is trying to prevent another front from opening in Iraq, which would have disastrous consequences. But this gamble risks major exposure and failure.

Oh, yeah. Failure, as in big time failure. Does the US think Iraq is a quagmire? Guess what the Kurdish mountains have been for the Turks since 1984? Quagmire. Failure. Flag-draped coffins.

Apparently this clandestine operation was briefed in secret to Congress last week by former ambassador to the Ankara regime, Eric Edelman. Edelman now serves in Paul Wolfowitz's old job--Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Another former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy--Douglas Feith--was described by General Tommy Franks as "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth." We can now characterize Edelman as the second fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth.

Edelman, a Foreign Service officer who once was U.S. ambassador to Turkey, revealed to lawmakers plans for a covert operation of U.S. Special Forces to help the Turks neutralize the PKK. They would behead the guerrilla organization by helping Turkey get rid of PKK leaders that they have targeted for years.

It's a rather Freudian description there--about beheading--because that's exactly how US special operations types taught the Turks to handle their Kurdish "problem":

Culemêrg (Hakkari) district, April 1995.

More photos and context here.

As Congressman Bob Filner stated in Congress in 1997:

Today Turkish special Comandos actually collect rewards for the severed heads of Kurdish guerrillas and others, casually referring to their victims as Armenians, leaving no doubt as to what is in store for the Kurds and their national aspirations.

Turkish commandos collect rewards for severed Kurdish heads because the US military taught them to do it. Where do you think Islamic extremists learned it? The US trained and supported them in Afghanistan and from there, the training spread. Who, then, are the real terrorists?

More on beheading as the American way of covert warfare:

What were these incredible capabilities of the Turkish commandos sharpened as they were by the members of the SEAL teams that according to the Washington Post may still be training these Turkish soldiers? A while back, the European newspaper, ran some of their photographed work in its front page, with a warning: pictures that will shock the world. Members of the same Turkish Mountain Commandos had posed for camera with the decapitated heads of the Kurdish guerrillas they had hunted in their war against the Kurds.

More from the second fucking stupidest man on the face of the earth:

Edelman's listeners were stunned. Wasn't this risky? He responded that he was sure of success, adding that the U.S. role could be concealed and always would be denied. Even if all this is true, some of the briefed lawmakers left wondering whether this was a wise policy for handling the beleaguered Kurds, who had been betrayed so often by the U.S. government in years past.

Is this the fruit of Deep State planning at the Hudson Institute?

If anything happens to "PKK leaders," we will all know who did it. End the cooperation.