TWO-TIMING TURKEY

Two-time:
TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: two-·timed, two-·tim·ing, two-·times
Slang 1. To be unfaithful to (a spouse or lover). 2. To deceive;
double-cross.
OTHER FORMS: two-timer —NOUN

~ American Heritage Dictionary.

Found something interesting today while slumming around in Technorati. I'm going to post the relevant part of it here in its entirety, thanks to the Anti-Mullah blog. This analysis is from the Global Information System/Defense and Foreign Affairs, published by the International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA), dated August 7, 2006:

Turkey, Installing New Chief of General Staff, Escalates Plans for Operations in Iraqi Kurdistan, and in the Ægean, and Retains Key Links with Iran

Exclusive. Analysis. From GIS Stations in South-East Europe, Ankara, and Mosul.

The Turkish Armed Forces are positioning themselves to ensure that, in the event that the Iran-Israel conflict strengthens the position of Iran, then Iran does not use its position to move quickly through Iranian Kurdistan to control the oilfields of Iraqi Kurdistan. Although the Turkish ground force presence in northern Iraqi Kurdistan is not highly visible at present, Turkish Special Forces units are working within the area arming and supporting Turcomen Iraqis in preparation for what they believe could be imminent Iranian attempts to destabilize and control the region. The Turkish Army and the Turkish Jandarma (paramilitary police) have some 260,000 to 265,000 forces already stationed in south-eastern Turkey, ready to move in strength into Kurdistan if necessary. Since March 2006, the Turkish Army has conducted 53 operations into Iraqi Kurdistan, ostensibly against bases and assets of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan), but in reality much of the activity has been to build a network of capabilities based on the Turcomen of the region. Significantly, one of the Turkish operations against the PKK was conducted with Iranian forces, and the Iranians have themselves conducted eight operations against the PKK since March 2006.

The PKK responded with 69 operations against Turkish targets, and during the ongoing operations from March 2006 until the end of July 2006, the Turkish forces suffered 165 casualties, including 144 soldiers, seven junior Army officers, and a lieutenant-colonel. As well, 36 Iranian troops were killed during the period, and 43 PKK combatants were known casualties.

It was reported by highly-reliable first-hand sources that Turkish forces, using chemical weapons, killed 14 Kurds on March 25, 2006. Documentary evidence has been seen by GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs on issues relating to Turkish manufacture of chemical and biological weapons, as well as a 1986 written order by a Turkish general authorizing use of chemical weapons against Kurds.

Also, according to highly-reliable sources, the operational command center for the Turkish forces to invade into southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) was constructed in the mountainous area of Gabar, in Simak region. The rapid construction has meant that two company commands have been stationed in military containers. Turkish Gen. Ergun Saigun has frequently visited the camp and he is the Chief of Staff of the operation, which was, until the end of July 2006, directly under Commanding General YaNar Büyükanit, the Commander of the Turkish Land Forces.

The decision for the foundation of this command was taken on February 25, 2006, during a meeting of the Turkish National Security Council.

It is understood that the Turkish invasion plan for Iraqi Kurdistan involves 80,000 troops entering from four different points on the Iraq-Turkey border. Apart from the routine Turkish Special Forces penetration of the area, Turkey maintains UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) reconnaissance of the area.

As of early August 2006, it was understood that Turkey and Iran have planned combined operations against the PKK, despite the fact that both states have mutually competitive — although undiscussed — grand strategic objectives for the area. It is understood that the main target of the proposed new combined Iranian-Turkish operation would be the PKK base on Mount Kadil. The Iranian branch of the PKK, PEJAK, is based on Mt. Kadil. [Significantly, despite some key strategic differences at a formal level, some elements of the Turkish Government have cooperated with Iran on matters relating to the creation and sustenance of the Turkish (Sunni) branch of HizbAllah, largely because the Turkish General Staff reportedly wanted to use Turkish HizbAllah against the PKK.]

The Turkish forces were given authorization during the last few days of July 2006 from all key elements of the Turkish Government process to proceed with the invasion.

Significantly, on July 31, 2006, Gen. Büyükanit was named Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, replacing Gen. Hilmi Özkök, whose retirement had been anticipated, although not this suddenly. The move was made, presumably, at this time to ensure that the command structure would be in place before Turkey embarked on a major strategic operation. There was little or no fanfare for Gen. Özkök on his departure, which was regarded as significant.

Clearly, the switch of the most senior commanders was done in an unusual manner, although Gen. Büyükanit — who is known as a tough commander and a committed anti-Kurd — was clearly prepared for the assignment. Sources told GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs that the most likely timeframe for the invasion was September 10-15, 2006, although it is conceivable that the currently-escalating Iran-Israel conflict could, should it escalate as it possibly might to strategic weapons, could either hasten or delay the Turkish plans for Iraqi Kurdistan.

In any event, PKK forces are reportedly well aware of the pace of Turkish invasion planning and report themselves to be ready for the confrontation. Turkish sources have indicated that they do not believe that Iran would escalate to full nuclear confrontation with Israel before the end of 2006, but that before that time Israel would be expected, because of the escalation of attacks on Israel, to strike against Syrian targets.

There is some suggestion that the whole period of conflict in the region — not just the ongoing war in Iraq and the Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan, but also the Iranian-sponsored conflict against Israel — would provide extensive cover and rationale for Turkey to widen its military operations to consolidate its position in Cyprus and certainly to attempt to create a de facto end to Greek control of much of the Ægean Sea. Some Greek sources anticipate Turkish military confrontations with Hellenic forces in the Ægean to resume toward the end of October and/or early November 2006.

Essentially, some observers believe that, after delivering a punishing intervention against the PKK in northern Iraq (Kurdistan) — while commensurately building up Turcoman strength and influence — Turkey will demand from the US and EU concessions in the Ægean as part of the price for withdrawal from Kurdistan. The Greek Government essentially believes that the US could, and would, pressure Turkey to abandon its plans to invade Iraqi Kurdistan, given the importance of the area to the US, especially at the current state of the overall conflict in Iraq. Moreover, the PKK itself has been helpful to the US in the context of operations against both Iran and Syria.

But several sources have indicated that if the US was successful in forcing Ankara to abandon a major invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan, then Turkey would still take advantage of US (and other) preoccupations with the regional conflicts to escalate its position against Greece in the Ægean. This would almost certainly also come within the context of the rejection of Turkey’s progress in entering the European Union (EU), either provoking rejection or responding to it.

Whatever the trigger, the Turkish General Staff appears to believe that the end game with regard to the EU negotiations process is at hand, and with it an end to the need for constraint on the question of territorial claims in the Ægean and with regard to Cyprus.

Pretty nifty, eh? Most of this information is very familiar to those who follow the flow of information out of Turkey, the situation in South Kurdistan, and that of our brave boys and girls at Qandîl and elsewhere. We knew there had been quite a number of HPG operations against the occupying force in North Kurdistan. We knew there were between 250,000 to 300,000 Mehmetciks in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan along the border with South Kurdistan. We knew Buyukanit Pasha made a quick ascension to the throne.

We knew that the occupying Turkish forces were using chemical weapons against the gerîlas, something that DTP had demanded inquiries into, something that şehîd families had also demanded inquiries into. This analysis from GIS/D&FA only mentions the use of chemical weapons against the Muş şehîds at the end of March, 2006. These were the killings that eventually led to the largest serhildan in Amed and other cities in fifteen years, a serhildan that also enjoyed wide, popular support. The use of chemical weapons by the Ankara regime was a key point fueling the anger of the people.

However, there were rumors before the Amed Serhildan, of the use of chemical weapons by the Ankara regime against the Dargeçit şehîds at the end of February, 2006. In April, photos were made available on DozaMe of the bodies of HPG killed by the Turkish security forces in August, 2003. The suspicion is that their deaths were caused by chemical weapons.

Murat Karayilan made a statement shortly after the Dargeçit clashes, calling for an investigation into the possible use of chemical weapons by the Ankara regime. As a signatory to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, Turkey's sincerity in abiding by the Convention is questionable, given that the rumors persist. It's significant, therefore that GIS/D&FA mentions "highly-reliable first-hand sources [indicate] that Turkish forces, [are] using chemical weapons." It's also significant that GIS/D&FA states that there exists "a 1986 written order by a Turkish general authorizing use of chemical weapons against Kurds."

By the way, GIS/D&FA reports are not available to "non-governmental subscribers". In other words, only governments can subscribe and access the information. This information is not likely to be propaganda manufactured to sway the masses.

Naturally, the Ankara regime maintains itself in a position of plausible deniability. This was confirmed for us by the regime's recent decision to perform autopsies of gerîlas in the field only, and forbid the return of the gerîlas' bodies to their families for burial--a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights as reported by Bianet earlier this year. More on that from an earlier Rastî post, including a link there to DozaMe's write up on the same subject. By hiding all forensic evidence, Turkey covers up its own atrocities against the Kurdish people, while maintaining the appearance of compliance to the Convention prohibiting chemical weapons. For Turkey, appearance isn't everything, it's the only thing.

Since Turkey has been working more closely with Iran against the Kurdish people in recent months, I have suspected that they are going to play appearances for the Americans in any move against the evil mullah regime. That the GIS/D&FA analysis appears on a blog about regime change in Iran fuels my suspicions even more. Turkey, the Two-Timing Turncoat, is fixing to gum up the works again, and in a big way. Exactly what kind of aid did the Turkish Red Crescent take to Lebanon and Syria? Was it similar to the aid Turkey sent to their Turkmen brothers in Kerkuk, in April, 2003? How many rockets and missiles from Iran were in that aid? Is Turkey playing go-between for Hezbollah and Iran, as this article suggests, with an AKP MP cheerily chatting it up with Hezbollah? Hezbollah, like HAMAS, is widely regarded as a terrorist organization by the US and EU.

Maybe Turkey has gone even farther than this, much farther than serving as a covert shipping organization for Iran:

Turkish sources have indicated that they do not believe that Iran would escalate to full nuclear confrontation with Israel before the end of 2006. . .

This means that Turkish sources believe Iran already has, or is on the very brink of possessing, nuclear warheads . . . before the end of 2006, vastly sooner than the "experts" concede. How much has Turkey contributed to that acceleration?

SOONER THAN WE THINK?

"Men are such dupes by choice, that he who would impose upon others never need be at a loss to find ready victims."
~ Honore de Balzac

Vladimir wants my opinion on an article about the Mohajedin-e Khalq (MEK). Basically, I think he wants to pick my brain, but since I've mentioned the subject before and since it's regionally appropriate, here goes.

The item in question is found at Global Politician and is a plea to take MEK off The List®, something which certain circles in Washington have been itching to do for a few years now. The way the plea is made is in reference to another article that had run in the Wall Street Journal back in May (the online version is subscriber only). That WSJ article was full of "important errors and oversights," according to Professor Daniel M. Zucker, the author of our current apologia pro MEK, errors and oversights which the good professor will correct for us.

Unfortunately, the professor's "clarification" begins with a little obfuscation and prevarication that goes like this:

In truth, it is not easy to get to the core of the story about the Mojahedin-e Khalq or MEK as it is generally known in western media. The reason for this difficulty is that the Iranian regime has disseminated a highly successful disinformation campaign about the MEK, a trick that the mullahs learned from studying with the Soviet Union's KGB

Bearing that in mind, we are told that MEK didn't really target and kill US military personnel and contractors back in the 1970's. This nasty rumor is nothing more than Soviet-style disinformation from the mullahs, according to the professor. Unfortunately for the professor, there was no mullah-rule back in the 1970's. Additionally, the claim that American intelligence, i.e. the CIA, didn't know anything about MEK back then is ridiculous. Is our professor a Persian, to tell such a big lie? SAVAK was the shah's spook-type goons, and who was tight with them but America's own spook-type goons in the CIA. In fact, the CIA's goons taught the shah's goons just about everything they knew and had become famous for. Who else was involved with SAVAK? Israel's own spook-type goons in the MOSSAD.

All of these spook-type goons were working together like demons to keep the shah's regime propped up, so don't come around and tell me that American intelligence didn't know about MEK.

Now, I have no love whatsoever for Iran, and I don't care if it was pre-shah, shah, post-shah, pre-mullah, mullah, post-mullah Iran, and I don't care what kind of big, fat glow-in-the-dark mess that Iran will be in the future. But what I do know is that anyone who expects me to swallow this whopper of a lie about CIA not knowing about MEK back in the day. . . well, that person is doing some serious narcotics, boyfriend.

The professor mentions the Marxist thing too. MEK started out as a Marxist organization, but either our professor doesn't understand the concept of time as expressed grammatically, or he's trying to pull a linguistic sleight of hand here. He says that MEK believes in a free-market economy and private property. He says this in the present tense. He makes no reference to the past. He does not even hint at the possibility that MEK may have changed its views on capitalism in the interim. Worse, he expects us to that there was some kind of changeling organization that came along and stole MEK's name from them while the real MEK leadership was enjoying their tea party with SAVAK.

This is the sleight of hand, the covering up of a lie, the attempt to sell a rotten bill of goods. In short, it's dishonest.

The fourth paragraph is the attempt to explain away MEK support of the student takeover of the US Embassy in Teheran. The misunderstanding here is that MEK was really trying to protect the Americans from the Islamists and then they were framed:

Indeed, the Islamist leaders of the embassy-takeover themselves have written that the MEK was not part of their group and would not have been allowed to participate because of major doctrinal differences. (See the account of the takeover by the hostage-takers' pokeswoman, Ms. Masoomeh Ebtekar.) The above points are all carefully documented in the Iran Policy Committee's White Paper # 3 of September 13, 2005, as well as the new IPC White Paper "Appeasing the Ayatollahs and Suppressing Democracy: U.S. Policy and the Iranian Opposition", released on July 27, 2006.

Let's make sure we understand what's going on here. The professor claims in paragraph two that the current regime (the one involved with the takeover of the embassy), was trained by the Soviets in disinformation. Yet the same professor, who appears to object to Soviet-style disinformation, uses the current regime's own documentation as proof of MEK's innocence. Doesn't that mean that the professor is relying on Soviet-style disinformation to make his case?

The paragraph on MEK's popularity is interesting for it's lack of sources. It's also interesting for another reason:

How is it possible for the MEK to uncover details of the regime's nuclear and missile programs if the people don't trust and respect the MEK? For that matter, how does the MEK manage to have the written support of 11,000 Iraqi jurists and 5.2 million Iraqi individuals including, Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, if the MEK was an agent of repression under Saddam Hussein?

How is it possible for MEK to have details of the mullah's nuclear program? Simple. Soviet-style disinformation. They are merely the messengers of the lies the mullah regime wants the West to know. They are handed the lies and then they hand them over, kind of like Ahmed Chalabi did.

Ask yourself why old Chalabi got himself into big trouble with the US, to the point of having his house raided by US troops two years ago. There was never any explanation for Chalabi's spectacular fall from grace, was there? At least the Defense Intelligence Agency (DOD's equivalent of CIA), finally cut off the funds. But Chalabi was Iran's boy in Iraq from Day 1. Why should we believe that MEK is any different and why should we believe the professor's unsourced claims in support of it?

It's pretty clever of the professor to leave out the part about MEK helping Saddam to crush the 1991 serhildan. There's some mention of that at The Agonist. The Agonist post also notes a connection to Chalabi:

Another speaker at the event, Neil Livingstone, is often interviewed by the press as a terrorism expert. He has been quoted as saying he has had good relations with the MEK for 30 years and also advised Ahmed Chalabi's INC. Livingstone urged the government to step up its efforts to destabilize the Iranian government, saying "we must recognize the Iranian government in exile." This refers to Rajavi, who was declared by her movement to be President-in-exile. "We are all members of the Iranian Resistance," he closed.

There's a mention of one Captain Vivian Gambara at The Agonist, too. She was a US Army negotiator at with the MEK at Camp Ashraf. Interestingly enough, she's involved with our professor at Americans for Democracy in the Middle-East (Note: the TLD for that site is "ws").

The rest of the professor's article is nonsense. Who cares that MEK didn't take up arms against the mullahs until 1981 or that some US government flunky had to take 4,000 DNA samples at Camp Ashraf? These things are irrelevent. Why should anyone believe MEK, or its Western supporters, about anything, especially when we have the Chalabi example, and Chalabi's own ad man deep in MEK's muck for thirty years?

The thing that really strikes me about all the articles like this one, is how chickenshit they are and how chickenshit the people behind these schemes are. Instead of coming out and saying that Iran is an evil regime that needs to be destroyed, and confronting them head-on about it, they engage in proxy wars to do their dirty work.

This is what we see in Lebanon right now. Hezbollah is the proxy doing Iran's dirty work and Israel is the proxy doing the West's dirty work. Everyone else is caught in the middle. Iran began this proxy war to distract attention from scrutiny over it's nuclear program by the limp, impotent, totally worthless UN--another one of Iran's enablers. Given that all Persians are inveterate liars, the big question is this: How close is the evil Teheran regime to owning it's first homemade-from-scratch nuclear warheads?

I have the suspicion it's a lot closer than the "experts" are misleading us to believe.

In the meantime, Kurds continue the fight against the evil regime on their own, with one Kurd in a pasdaran unit killing some of his pasdaran comrades during a battle against the Kurdish HPG, and then defecting to HPG, as reported by DozaMe. I hope this is a sign of things to come as the clashes continue between Kurdish freedom fighters and the forces of the Teheran.

AIN'T GOT NO RESPECT

What you want
Baby, I got
What you need
Do you know I got it?
All I'm askin'
Is for a little respect . . .

Written by Otis Redding; best performed by Aretha Franklin.

What the hell is going on in South Kurdistan? The last couple of weeks have been one disaster after another.

A journalist was detained for three days in Zaxo for posting articles on the internet. People are tortured in prisons in Hewlêr, all of which is hidden from the International Red Cross. Again from Hewlêr, there's some weird stuff going on with cell phones and sex videos, leading to murder. Is this a result of Islamsts? Inquiring minds want to know.

Protestors were arrested in Kifri because they had the nerve to demonstrate against crappy public services. Then PUK pêşmerge shot at them, "over their heads," just like they did at Helebçe in March. The next day, 4,000 people demonstrated in Çemçemel, again to protest crappy public services and to demonstrate their objection to "corruption. . . abuse of power, nepotism, and misuse of public funds."

Do you think the people got that corruption idea and all the rest from the fact that pêşmerge are being employed as oppressors of Kurds instead of liberators?

The Kurdish Globe (formerly The Hewlêr Globe) has a big front page photo of the Tasluja cement factory outside of Silêmanî, and has a short story on the shooting of workers there on page 8. Apparently, the workers had met to speak to the director of the factory about their grievances, including the firing of 180 other workers. The Egyptian company that's running Tasluja had raised production rates but cut workers' salaries several times. In other words, the Egyptians treat Kurdish workers as if they were slave labor.

What does the Kurdish governor of Silêmanî province, Dana Ahmed Majid, have to say about this unjust shooting of Kurdish workers? "Kurds should be THANKFUL!" Dude, grow a pair! You're supposed to be a Kurd, and here you are, sounding like Erdogan.

How much does anyone want to bet that old Dana is a PUK guy? Pretty ironic, isn't it, that a party that has Marxist roots is now defending a pack of Egyptian bloodsuckers and their hired guns against Kurds.

Let me ask you something, old Dana, old buddy, old pal, why are these Egyptians permitted to run factories in Kurdistan when Egypt still has not issued a public apology to the Kurdish people for their complicity in Anfal, for their purchase of Kurdish girls from Saddam for their whorehouses? How much did the Egyptians pay you to be their PR man, Dana? When people are paid for like you are, what are they called?

Some of us don't forget so easily, and we certainly don't forgive.

I guess this is just one example of how wonderful, marvelous, fabulous, and downright ducky it will be to have foreign investment in Kurdistan. Yeehaw! I can't wait to see what happens when that stupid 10-year free-for-all of an investment law kicks in and we see every ordinary Kurd in South Kurdistan walking around in chains, sleeping in hovels, eating a bread-and-water diet, all in abject slavery to their foreign masters. Does anybody think they'll be selling Kurdish girls again? At what profit? Gelek sipas to their Kurdish collaborator elites.

After reading a week of this kind of news, is it any wonder that it should all be topped off with news that young Kurds are fleeing this thriving democracy in hordes?

As they say, every cloud has a silver lining; just so, there's a certain beauty buried in all of this trouble, a beauty which manifests itself in the demonstrations. Kurds will take so much because Kurds are a patient people--too patient. But there will come a day when all the pressure built up from the suppression of legitimate demands meets a massive roadblock on the political avenue. On that day we will see a new serhildan and it will be justified.

In the meantime, come on up to Qandîl and sit a while, young Başurî. After all, it's so nice and cool in the mountains at this time of year and you'll have some sympathetic ears to listen to your troubles.

ILISU

"I wouldn’t accept, even if they gave all of Batman to me as compensation. I want to return to my village. I can never accept the destruction of history. If they are saying that they consulted us then they are lying. The [Turkish] State lies everywhere, they are lying to the EU and the EU listens to those with money and power, not to us."
~ Kurdish villager from Çaltepe, The Cultural and Environmental Impact of Large Dams in Southeast Turkey.

Erdogan, the intrepid errand boy of the pashas, broke ground today on the highly discredited Ilisu Dam project in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan.

The original consortium for Ilisu broke down in 2000 and 2001, due to many problems associated with the project. Turkey never commissioned an environmental impact study, nor did it assess potential climate changes as a result of going ahead with the project. Turkey's atrocious human rights record and its war against the Kurdish people was cited as problematic, as well as the example of resettlement problems preceding the construction of the Ataturk Dam. There were problems with regard to international law and the water rights of Syria and Iraq--a fact that caused the World Bank to refuse to get involved with any part of the GAP as far back as 1984. The CIA even felt that this scheme was a major security risk.

Finally, in 2001, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, confirmed all these problems in their own study of the situation. That study noted that GAP did nothing for the poorer, rural regions and it recommended that the affected populations needed to be brought into the planning process as well as be informed of all impacts of the project. The study also pointed out that there were other more effective and cost efficient means of modernizing the energy system. Moreover, the Swiss acknowledged that there was a lot of international financial support for the project, due to Turkey's dismal economic situation. Naturally, these international companies stood to gain from GAP.

Austria was involved with GAP from the beginning and seems to have stayed with it (along with the French company, Alstom Power), perhaps even acquiring German and Swiss shares in the project, especially with regard to a renewed effort to go ahead with the Ilisu Dam. The Austrian company, Andritz AG, has had very close working ties to Siemens and Swiss Sulzer-Hydro. That last, Sulzer-Hydro, belongs to Austrian VA Tech and, as of Spring, 2006, VA Tech Hydro became the property of Andritz AG.

While public pressure over the scandal of the Ilisu project caused Swiss, German and other countries to drop out due to public discussion over the findings of a Swiss Export Credit Agency (ECA) report, Austria's Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG kept a lid on the information to protect its "investment." Andritz AG is still attempting to silence any public discussion of the project, as is evident by the fact that the company refused to allow an Amnesty International representative to be present at its press conference on the dam earlier this week.





The face of the new Hitler:
Andritz AG's Wolfgang Leitner.



What could Andritz AG be trying to hide? Maybe similar information as that found by the Zurich study? Or the Swiss ECA study? Or that found in February 2005 by a fact-finding mission conducted by the National University of Ireland, Galway, and Kurdish Human Rights Project?

The NUI and KHRP present a thorough case for the historical and cultural arguments against the construction of the Ilisu Dam, but even more compelling is their case on the basis of human rights, because we are talking about the impact of this project on the lives of some 78,000 individuals, as well as their collective identity. There is no plan in place for adequate compensation. Indeed, given the fact that many of those 78,000 are not landholders, they will receive no compensation. In addition, their sources of survival, such as subsistence farming and fishing will be completely destroyed. They will be forced into the region's cities, all of which have unemployment rates well above 50%, the effects of which are already documented in the delegation's document as regards previous displacements.

Going ahead with the construction of the dam will increase human rights abuses and impunity of state security forces, something that is already well underway with the state's renewal of the dirty war. Widespread lack of food, clean water, sanitation, housing, health care, education, and lack of a welfare system and unemployment assistance will continue to increase. The situation of Kurdish women and children, accepted targets of the security forces, will become even more dire.

All of the problems uncovered by previous studies of the GAP in general and Ilisu in particular still hold, including the fact that none of the affected communities have been informed about the situation, nor have their concerns been addressed. On the contrary, the state is once again lying in its claims that the Ilisu Dam will bring economic invigoration to The Region and that the people want the project to continue. One of the most outrageous lies is the one cited in which Kurdish women are allegedly quoted as desiring to have dishwashers like everyone else. Washing dishes is the least of the worries of these Kurdish women, and this lie illustrates how completely out of touch the state is with the reality of the situation on the ground, day to day, as Kurds struggle for survival. The situation has grown worse in 2006.

There is also the question of mass graves of Kurds murdered by state security forces during the Dirty War. In recent years, several mass graves have been uncovered, containing the bodies of those Kurds who had been last seen as detained by security forces. Mass graves of HPG şehîds have also been uncovered, indicating that not only is the Turkish state responsible for mass murder of Kurdish civilians, but of gross violations of the laws of war, laws to which NATO members are, theoretically, supposed to adhere. The Ilisu Dam will flood areas in which more mass graves are located, thus hiding evidence of the Turkish state's atrocities.

It is very clear that Austria is now complicit in the hiding of these crimes, thus making them an accessory to the fact. Not only is Erdogan's turning of the spade another in a long history of Turkish state aggression against the Kurdish people under occupation, but with that spade, Austria has also involved itself in the same aggression.

Such an aggression deserves a proper response, whether in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan or in Europe--it makes no difference.



More resources on Ilisu Dam:

Ilisu Dam Campaign

RiverNet: Ilisu Dam Project

KHRP February 2006 Report

Amnesty International Austria

Behind Closed Doors

The Corner House: Dam Resources

FRIENDLY FIRE

"Friendly fire (fratricide or non-hostile fire) is a term originally adopted by the United States military in reference to an attack on friendly forces by other friendly forces, which may be deliberate (e.g. incorrectly identifying the target as the enemy), or accidental (e.g. missing the enemy and hitting "friendlies"). Friendly fire is contrasted with fire originating from enemy forces ("enemy fire"). In a friendly fire incident personnel may be killed, or material assets may be damaged or destroyed. Friendly fire is one kind of collateral damage."
~ Wikipedia.

The events described below by BBC correspondent John Simpson are the events you will see on the video. If you are squeamish, it might be better to stick with the text version that I tracked down and posted for your convenience, because the video is a graphic of a very serious business. In fact, it don't get any more serious than this.

Many of you may remember that during Operation Iraqi Freedom there was a friendly fire incident in which the Americans bombed their own Special Forces, along with Wajî Barzanî and some of his pêşmerge bodyguards. There just happened to be a BBC film crew along for what turned out to be a very wild ride. I remember seeing a commercial on the BBC World Service satellite channel in Hewlêr on this incident last year, so when I came across the video, I knew exactly what it was about.

The BBC reporter on scene was John Simpson. Check his read of the events, which he wrote down for GlobalJournalist.org:

On the morning of April 6, 2003, my team and I, working independently of the coalition forces alongside the Kurds in Northern Iraq, were in the Kurdish-held village of Pir Daoud, between Erbil and Kirkuk. We heard that the nearby town of Dibargan had fallen to the Kurdish Democratic Party forces, so we headed along the road that had recently been relinquished by the retreating Iraqi forces. It was empty, and we were worried we might have pushed a little too far ahead of the Democratic Party.

We were then overtaken by a column of Kurdish special forces commanded by Waji Barzani, brother of the Kurdish Democratic Party president. He was guarded by his own men and by three or four vehicles containing U.S. Special Forces. It seemed safer for us to tag along with them.

At a crossroads overlooking the plain that led to Dibargan, the convoy stopped so Barzani could see the action for himself. Several Iraqi tanks were driving across the plain, and one of them fired in our direction. The officer commanding the U.S. Special Forces called in an air strike to deal with the tank.

Two F-14s streaked low across the sky, only about 500 feet above us, low enough to be able to see the orange panels on the roofs of most of the 18 or so vehicles in the convoy, showing that they were from the coalition. They were also low enough to show the pilots and navigators the outsized Stars and Stripes the U.S. vehicles were flying and the separate group of American Humvees that were stationed only about 50 yards from where we had stopped.

Maybe the navigator got the coordinates wrong and fired one of his Maverick missiles at the position which the U.S. Special Forces commander gave as his own, instead of the position the commander gave for the tank. Maybe the commander got the coordinates mixed up. It obviously didn’t help that a disabled Iraqi tank lay on the side of the road close to where we had all stopped. A careless, excited navigator might have fired off a missile in the direction of the tank before taking an instant to verify whether the group of vehicles below was Iraqi or coalition.

The missile hit the precise center of the crossroads. I was standing about 30 feet away with my cameraman, assistant cameraman and translator. The producer and safety advisor had gone back to their vehicle to get the tripod so that the cameraman could get a steady shot of the two American planes as they flew unusually low overhead. I actually saw the missile leave the plane, and a brief time later, I was aware of the huge downward rush of the missile to my right. I had an infinitesimally brief impression of something white and red, a split second before it hit the ground; a Maverick missile is usually silver with a red nose-cone.

It exploded into thousands of pieces of shrapnel, many of which hit the surrounding cars. One by one the cars went up in flames, and the bullets, mortar rounds and RPG-7 rockets that they contained, began exploding. This must have gone on for a good 10 or 12 minutes, and most of the 18 deaths (the figure later rose to 22) occurred during that time. The entire area was covered with dead and dying men, some of them burning to death. In a broadcast by satellite phone from the spot, I described it as a scene from hell; and for once the cliché seemed justifiable.

Remarkably, given that we were so close to the missile as it landed, all but one of my team escaped with light injuries: the cameraman suffered a cut on his forehead that bled profusely, the assistant cameraman had a small piece of shrapnel in his leg and I was hit by 14 pieces of shrapnel. The largest of the pieces was absorbed by my flak jacket. The second largest went into my hip, but did no serious damage. All three of us suffered perforated eardrums; in my case, the eardrum virtually disappeared. The producer was hit in the foot by an inch-long piece of shrapnel, which did no serious damage. The security adviser was scarcely touched.

Our local translator, however, was hit by a large piece of shrapnel that severed his femoral artery. Another piece almost severed his right foot. The producer and security advisor did what they could for him, and then the U.S. Special Forces medics took over and worked hard to save him. But he was probably beyond any help. Within 20 minutes he was clearly dying, and we put him on the back of a vehicle to take him to the hospital. He died soon afterward.

More is at the link.

Wajî Barzanî is effectively brain dead as a result of this attack, something which was confirmed to me in South Kurdistan last year, and which John Simpson mentions in his article.

The BBC's Kurdish translator, Kamran, died three hours after the attack.

PLAYING WITH EXPLOSIVES

"The most industrious and creative producers of land mines are not the Cold War vassal states but the high-tech Western countries who make such a big stink about all those little kids who get blown to bits."
~ comebackalive.com.

Something weird has been going on in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. There have been a lot of landmine explosions lately. Somehow, I have the feeling that many of the landmine reports are as genuine as the reports of exploding gas cannisters at Manavgat. Somehow, I suspect that the reports of "landmine" explosions have more to do with Turkish propaganda against the PKK's recent signing of the non-state actors' equivalent of the Ottawa Treaty, in both Geneva and at Qandîl.

Here's a little something from the 2005 LandMine Monitor report on Turkey:

The use of antipersonnel mines by Turkish Armed Forces was banned by a directive from the Chief of General Staff on 26 January 1998.[24] In September 2003, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its successor groups[25] ended the 1999 unilateral cease-fire, in favor of a future bilateral cease-fire. In 2004, attacks against government forces increased, including use of mines. The media has reported numerous mine incidents in 2005 as the fighting has intensified.[26] Most of these reports cite the PKK/Kongra-Gel as the party responsible for new mine use in Turkey. Media reports primarily indicate use of antivehicle mines, including command-detonated mines, which has resulted in civilian as well as military casualties.[27]

The Turkish government has reported that from March 2004 to March 2005, 25 military personnel were killed and 123 injured by mines laid by the PKK/Kongra-Gel.[28] In July 2005, General Ilker Basbug, the army second-in-command, said that PKK violence had claimed the lives of 105 soldiers and 37 civilians over the past year, and claimed that the rebels used mostly explosives and landmines in their attacks.[29]

In November 2004, police seized weaponry and explosives including one mine (not specified as antipersonnel) in Baglica village, Sirnak province.[30]

First of all, the PKK did not end its unilateral ceasefire in September, 2003. It ended its unilateral ceasefire on 1 June, 2006. The media, i.e. Turkish media, reported that PKK was using mines, anti-vehicle mines, including "command-detonated mines," which are remote-controlled mines. These do not fall under the classification of landmines as defined by the Ottawa Treaty and the Deed of Commitment for Non-State Actors.

Nothing here specifically mentions anti-personnel mines (APM).

But let's think about what it takes to plant a minefield of APM's. In theory, and general practice, planting an APM is not difficult, but it takes a little time and care. However, it's generally ineffective and a waste of time and energy to plant only one APM. You have to plant lots of them to be effective and that's why they invented the idea of a minefield. Minefields are used to block avenues of approach or deny key terrain to the enemy. It takes several people to plant a number of mines over a wide area.

If gerîlas do this, they have to expose themselves for the amount of time it takes to plant the minefield and that isn't usually an option because it exposes the gerîlas to observation, if not enemy fire. Since the potential risks outweigh the potential advantages for the gerîlas, it's logical to assume they aren't planting APM fields.

The TSK has plenty of time and doesn't have to worry about being observed or coming under gerîlas fire too often. They've got plenty of Mehmetciks to provide cover anyway. They can plant mines at their leisure and a minefield can be cost-effective for them; the minefields deny avenues of approach and key terrain.

TSK has one little problem, however. When you plant a minefield, you're supposed to make a map of the minefield and keep it on file so that everyone knows where the field is and where each mine is in that field. You're also supposed to mark the field on the ground too, so that everyone knows where it is--even during hostilities and especially if you're NATO's second largest army. When you're finished playing, you're supposed to pick up your toys before you go home. Your map helps you to pick up your toys with minimal damage to yourself.

TSK doesn't always observe these little minefield protocols. Check Voices From The Front by Nadire Mater on that (or the original Turkish, if you can find it: Mehmedin Kitabi: Guneydogu'da Savasmis Askerler Anlatiyor). In that book, also pay attention to how other UXO ended up in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, like from drunk TSK officers throwing grenades for the hell of it, and leaving the duds behind for Kurdish children to find.

Additionally, there's this from the Landmine Monitor report:

There are no reports of any formal survey or assessment of mined areas being carried out or planned, with regard to either known or suspected mined areas. However, Turkey stated in 2005 that, “Activities to identify areas mined by the PKK/KONGRE-GEL terrorist organisation have been continuing.”[47]

Turkey has not revealed how information on mined areas is collected, stored and updated. It is not known if there is an information management system for mine action planning.

It sounds like it corroborates the fact that there was no required and enforced mapping system on the part of the TSK. So if you don't have a map, or you're stupid and feckless and simply leave shit lying around, then the day will come when you will pay the price for stupidity and fecklessness. When that day comes, don't cry about the big, bad PKK.

So much for APM's.

With anti-vehicle mines, however, the gerîla gets a bigger bang for the buck. . . and the time. When you employ the mine as a remote-controlled bomb, as HPG does, you get the added bonus of knowing you've hit a target because you had to set the mine off yourself. In other words, you waited until the right number of vehicles passed over your mine(s), and then you detonated. This is cost effectiveness for gerîlas in terms of the time you exposed yourself to potential observation or enemy fire, and in terms of the kill.

Although the types of roads on which these attacks take place are not usually specified by the media, my suspicion is that most of them happen on dirt roads or paths. If you plant a remote-controlled mine on a paved road or highway, you have to dig through the paving. Since I've never noticed unusual reports of abandoned jackhammers littering the countryside of Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, I'm betting that jackhammers aren't standard issue for gerîlas. Besides, jackhammers need electricity and they weigh a lot. If you're going to use one, you've got to hump it in and hump it out, something that I would not want to do.

As part of its obligations under the Ottawa Agreement, the Ankara regime has already begun clearing mines from its border with Syria. But there are a lot of other places where TSK planted mines, too. The regime claims it's already started mine-clearing operations in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, but it would appear the regime isn't as sincere as it leads everyone to believe:

The locations of clearance operations were not included in the Article 7 report for 2004. In February 2004, Turkey reported that clearance activities initiated in 1998 have taken place in the east and southeastern provinces of Diyarbakir, Batman, Mardin, Bitlis, Bingöl, Tunceli and Göle.[55] However, local people interviewed in Diyarbakir and Mardin provinces stated that no clearance operations have taken place in these areas.[56]

If local people in Amed and Mêrdîn have not seen any clearance activity, what is the activity really like in the other areas, areas where there has been a lot of HPG activity since the end of the PKK's 5-year unilateral ceasefire? "Doubtful" is the word that comes to mind.

According to the Ottawa Treaty, signatories are required to commit resources not only to mine clearance, but also to survivor assistance. Here's a little nod to that requirement from those fun-loving guys and wannabe humanitarians at the Turkish General Staff (Note: if you're dying for the URL, email me and I'll send it to you, otherwise we don't really need a link, do we?):

Moreover, being a country attaching great importance to ongoing humanitarian mine clearance activities on different parts of the world, Turkey offers mine clearance courses in the context of Peace for Partnership (PfP)/bilateral agreements, and provides personnel and equipment besides the financial contributions to de-mining activities in various countries as well.

Sure, they attach great importance to clearing mines from every other patch of earth on the planet, except that patch which they occupy.

The Turkish regime seems to be attempting to comply with requirements for survivor assistance, with some notable exceptions, as the Landmine Monitor reports:

In June 2004, representatives of the Initiative for a Mine-Free Turkey visited mine/UXO survivors and their families in the cities of Diyarbakır and Mardin. Interviews indicated that the rehabilitation needs of civilian mine survivors are not being adequately addressed, and that survivors may not be aware that they could receive medical and rehabilitation assistance through military facilitates.[80]

No one should be surprised by the double standard; it's what passes for normal when you're an occupied people. The fascists in Ankara have no reason to clear mines from Kurdish lands or to provide assistance to Kurdish survivors. The whole point of all this, along with everything else, is to get rid of Kurds.

The Ankara regime, for all its show of signing the Ottawa Treaty and posting humanitarian concerns on the Turkish General Staff website, is not in compliance.

KURDS, WARINESS, AND HONOR

“There are people who observe the rules of honor as we observe the stars: from a distance”
~ Victor Hugo.

There's an interview over at Balkanalysis.com by Christopher Deliso with Philip Giraldi, former CIA Deputy Chief of Base in Istanbul. Since this is a former CIA we're talking about, I'm putting this one in the For-What-It's-Worth file, but it does have a little tie-in with recent Rastî posts. Chris Deliso interviewed Sibel Edmonds in July, 2004, an interview that was originally carried on Balkanalysis.com. I guess that's because Chris Deliso is the director over there. For those who are interested, you can spend some time doing a search for "Sibel Edmonds" on the site's internal search engine.

The interview with the spook can be found here, but let me post some excerpts that are pertinent to the Rastî Deep State posts:

Thoughts on the Sibel Edmonds Case

CD: Let’s speak for a moment regarding the case of former FBI translator and whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. Your summary of the case in the American Conservative was rated the best such one so far by Sibel herself. How much of what she has disclosed can be verified independently?

PG: I have not attempted to corroborate Sibel’s story as I have no resources to do so. And it would appear that the government gag order she is under precludes the type of confirmation that would be desirable.

CD: Can you elaborate at all on the role of neocon and other actors mentioned in your article, who were allegedly involved with illegal arms sales and more, such as Doug Feith, Richard Perle, Eric Edelman, Steven Solarz and Marc Grossman?

PG: As my article stated, the preoccupation with Turkey of the key neocons named is curious indeed. It is plausibly explained by their interest in Israel and their connections to the weapons industry in the US, Turkey, and in Israel.

I can recall Solarz showing up in Turkey in 1986 after he left Congress, and the connection with Perle and Feith in particular is well documented. I don’t know if the illicit arms sales are still going on, but I would suspect they are. Weapons dealing is big business and there are many players in it.

CD: You also mention Turkey and false end user certificates in association with illegal proliferation to dangerous states. Was this something you were involved with monitoring when in the CIA? What about special teams like the Brewster Jennings outfit? Did they operate or have a predecessor working with you at the time?

PG: I have no inside information on CIA or US government monitoring of arms sales to third parties a la the work of Brewster Jennings. When I was in Turkey, I was not aware of any US government interest in such matters and there was no non-proliferation staff at headquarters.

CD: The exact period in which you were in Turkey, 1986-1989, was important for the Pakistani nuclear program. Did you have any awareness of the oft-attested Turkish-Pakistani cooperation in this regard?

PG: I don’t know anything about Turkey-Pakistan re. proliferation… I suspect the [CIA] station did not have any interest in it at that time.

There's also a little about the future of Turkish-American covert cooperation:

CD: Many observers, and most pointedly the neocons, have declared that there has been a breakdown in relations with Turkey since the invasion of Iraq and the Turkish refusal of a northern attack route for the US. How bad are things really?

PG: I certainly know that the relationship is regarded as cool and that the Turks are extremely mistrustful of the United States, primarily due to our failure to suppress PKK activity in northern Iraq. The neocons, of course, would like to see Turkey join in a new crusade against Syria and Iran, but that is not about to happen.

CD: So has the CIA’s intelligence-sharing cooperation with Turkey also suffered because of this chill?

PG: Intelligence cooperation with Turkey has always been so-so. They share information only when it is completely in their interest to do so, not otherwise.

CD: So is Turkey now being categorized at the policy-making level as more of a hostile power than a friend? If so, Will the US be able to win back Turkish trust?

PG: Turks really dislike the US because of the mess in Iraq and the impending mess that our unquestioning support of Israel means for the region. And the Turkish government has reflected that antipathy. If you want to change the perception, you have to change the policy. Not likely to happen, is it?

Since Giraldi says that he was almost exclusively involved with monitoring Iranian terrorists (you know, the state of Iran), he has some information in the interview that might be of interest to our Rojhelatî friends. The entire interview is a pretty interesting read, so spend a little time to look the whole thing over.

There's a mention of a column Girardi did for The American Conservative on the Sibel Edmonds case, and that can be found on another blog that has closely followed this subject, Wot Is It Good 4.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I'm offering this interview for what it's worth. One thing should be kept in mind while reading it. The CIA works for the State Department. State Department goals are CIA goals. Girardi is ex-CIA, so he's going to present everything from the CIA-State Department frame of reference. The CIA-State gang clashes with the Neocon-Deep State gang, and anyone who followed the previous posts on the Deep State, may have noticed this rift. The Plame Affair is one of the explosions in these clashes. For Kurds, all of this means that neither side is "friendly." Wariness is the watchword of the day.

Another subject that needs to be engaged with a high level of wariness is Deep State investments in South Kurdistan, as represented by the pashas' personal ambassador to Hewlêr, Ilnur Cevik. He makes Turkish investment sound like such a sweet deal for everyone, doesn't he?

Turkish businessmen are the leading players in the commercial activities of the region. Turkish contractors are again the key players leading all others by a wide margin. We now feel that Turkey should examine the huge prospects that are being brought to it on a golden plate.

There are very lucrative areas for investment in the Kurdish region, ranging from tourism to energy production. Turkish companies are already involved in many projects in the education, energy and tourism sectors, even without the foreign investment law. Now Turkish companies will be able to conduct all these investments while fully owning their operations.

Excellent! Now if only Talabanî will do the same for the evil mullahs, there will be so much economic incentive for both of these terror states to continue their military cooperation and invade. After all, aren't economic interests always national interests? Why hasn't anyone woken up to the fact that unbridled foreign investment, especially by the neighbors, is a very dangerous thing? Does everyone think that this investment is going to "save" Kurdistan? Think again:

On Sunday the Kurdish regional government unveiled a landmark Foreign Investment and Incentives Law that allows foreigners 100 percent ownership, full transfer of profits and a minimum of 10 year's tax relief. They will also provide free land for investment.

It's a free-for-all! It's exploitation! Just open the borders and let in the Turkish General Staff (Think: OYAK). Don't build your own energy infrastructure; let Turkey expand theirs into your land so that when they want to, they can shut the whole grid down. Don't refine your own oil, let Turkey do it for you. Let Iran do the same. Just keep building those 5-star resorts, because when TSK does invade to protect its national interests, they'll have a place to relax with their collaborator friends. Everyone can mingle with the fat Gulf Arabs who stop by.

Let Turkey and Iran be your sole food source, too, so that they can cut you off and starve you when it strikes their fancy to do so.

Ambassador Cevik sums it up best:

Turkey is best situated to make maximum gains from the new law. Let us not miss this golden opportunity.

That's right, folks, don't miss this golden opportunity to put an end to "Iraqi" Kurdistan. Looking on the bright side, though, it will mean an expansion of Turkish- and Iranian-occupied Kurdistan.

Yeah, the free-for-all investment law, that's the way to do it! That's the way to dishonor all the blood of the şehîds.

DEEP STATE COMES TO AMERICA, PART 2

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friend

~ John Lennon & Paul McCartney.

The question of Turkey's compensation for its Gulf War losses brings us to the Baybasins and Turkey's heroin trade. According to a 1996 interview with the consumately corrupt, and then Prime Minister, Tansu Ciller, Turkey's losses for the five years following the Gulf War amounted to some $27 billion. According to Kendal Nezan, in an article on Turkey's heroin-trafficking, Turkey brought in $25 billion in 1995 and $37 billion in 1996. Even figuring in the cost of Turkey's dirty war against the Kurdish people, estimated at upwards of $12.5 billion, Turkey turns a tidy profit on its business, more than enough to cover its Gulf War losses.The state has been involved with the heroin business since the 1950s, working closely with its own intelligence service, MIT.

That article also refers to Huseyin Baybasin's public statements that he (and other traffickers) operated with the blessing of the Turkish state. In the mid-1980's, Baybasin was caught with a load of heroin in Britain, sentenced to 12 years, and sent back to Turkey a few years into his sentence. Upon arrival in Turkey, he was released--something that doesn't happen to just anyone. He became persona non grata with his state bosses when Ciller decided that Turks should be the only ones handling heroin. That was during her term as PM in the mid-1990's. It was during that time that stories of drug-traffickers' links to PKK began to be spread by the Turkish state, links that not even Western scholars who study Kurdish issues and the PKK confirm (in English, check Paul White's Primitive Rebels or Revolutionary Modernizers? for that) . When Baybasin fled to Europe, he needed a safety net to help protect him from Turkish reprisals, so he tried to make cozy with the PKK. In spite of his protestations to the contrary, especially through his book, Trial by Silence, our cause was never Baybasin's cause. Baybasin always had only one cause: his gang.

A little trivia on Tansu Ciller: She was an economics professor before becoming PM, having obtained her doctorate in the US, where she also obtained US citizenship. As the "face of modern Turkey," she was the darling of the Americans and Europeans--even as she drenched Kurdistan with Kurdish blood and armed Turkish Hezbollah with weapons from TSK installations in "The Southeast."

The money flowing into Turkey through its very lucrative drug- and weapons-trafficking industries may have been flowing into congressional and government officials' pockets for some time, but it is only now that this dirty business is coming to light. Last year, right before legislation on the Armenian Genocide was due to hit a House of Representatives panel, Brent Scowcroft sent a panicked and threatening letter to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert:

Only days before Armenian Genocide legislation is set to come before a key U.S. House panel, American Turkish Council (ATC) Chairman Brent Scowcroft has warned Speaker Dennis Hastert that even the discussion of the Armenian Genocide on the floor of the U.S. House would be "counter-productive to the interests of the United States," reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

In his September 12th letter, Scowcroft, speaking on behalf of the corporate members of the ATC, accused Congressional supporters of Armenian Genocide legislation (H.Res.316 and H.Con.Res.195) of trying to "pull Turkey away from the West. He stressed that: "The careless use of genocide language provides and excuse to do so, delivering a direct blow to American interests in the region."

The statement goes on to quote the ANCA executive director as saying that the Armenian community is "outraged that Brent Scowcroft appears to have so compromised his own integrity in pursuit of personal business interests that he finds himself enlisted by the Turkish government in its desperate and patently immoral genocide denial effort." While it's true that the efforts of Scowcroft, and the fascist Turkish regime he represents, to silence acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide is outrageous, no one really feels any outrage over Scowcroft's compromise of his own integrity; He'd have to have integrity in order for anyone to be outraged. Just as outrageous as this is the fact that the Turkish state regularly works to pervert justice. It's outrageous too that the same names keep popping up in connection with it all.

In 2004, the Honorable Frank Pallone of New Jersey had this to say to say, on the floor of the House, about Dennis Hastert's work for the Turkish state in Congress:

I'm also puzzled by your insistence that Turkey is a reliable ally of the United States. As a supporter of the Iraq War, I'm sure you recall Turkey's continued demands in the months leading up to the war in which Turkey asked for billions of dollars in financial assistance. When the U.S. government refused, Turkey said it would not help the U.S. in the war against Iraq. Turkey's decision forced the U.S. government to amend its war plan, and yet you characterize them as a "reliable ally."

Furthermore, past experiences have shown that Turkey's threats about repercussions to the United States or any country that defies them is nothing more than elaborate bluffs. Yet, we in the United States government, continue to buy into their threats and abide by their requests.

[ . . . ]

We as a nation cannot allow the government of Turkey to undermine our democratic process and usurp our principles. To do so is to stand against the will of the people of the United States. Mr. Speaker, last night Mr. Schiff introduced a sound amendment that approved by the House of Representatives. Yet your statement today, undercuts that vote and asserts that the people's voice can be silenced.

Who does Hastert represent in Congress? The American people or the Turkish government? Follow the money trail. According to the FBI wiretaps that Sibel Edmonds translated, Turkish callers gloated about Hastert accepting bribes. Later independent examination showed that Hastert received (and accepted) some $483,000 in unitemized campaign contributions from 1996 to 2002, a large amount of such contributions when compared to other Republican lawmakers. Only one other congressman had more unitemized contributions, but he didn't have any wiretaps of Turkish-speaking "constituents."

All of this bribery and underhanded lobbying efforts on the part of the Turkish state cannot be confined to American shores alone. There must be similar efforts long underway among European lawmakers as well, particularly in connection with EU accession efforts. The link to Ambassador Joe Wilson's involvement in the Corporate and Public Strategy Advisory Group may be the tip of that iceburg.

From the ANCA press release on the Armenian Genocide legislation:

The ATAA warns its members: "Inaction on the part of the Turkish American Community will compromise U.S.-Turkish relations, encourage more acts of harassment, violence and terrorism against people of Turkish and Turkic descent, and could potentially lead to territorial and compensations claims against the Republic of Turkey."

This would be hilarious if it weren't so pathetic. When have there been acts of harassment, violence and terrorism against Turks in the US? I want to see the police reports. This is typical of Turkish propaganda and Turkish racism. While they shriek about alleged "terror" attacks against them, or are concerned about territorial or compensations claims against them, they continue in their occupation of the largest part of Kurdistan, play the victim when the ECHR rules against them, and renew their terrorist Dirty War against the Kurdish people in Turkey and Turkish-occupied Kurdistan.

Not only does Turkey continue its terrorist brutality against Kurds under occupation, it threatens to expand that terrorism to the people of South Kurdistan, somewhat similar to the way that the Nazis expanded their sphere of terrorism throughout Europe almost 70 years ago. In doing so, Turkey uses weapons systems purchased from the West, through Deep State ties to the web of players exposed by the Sibel Edmonds case. That this same web also incorporates various think tanks, institutes and consulting services headed, staffed or advised by the same repetitive cast of players should raise suspicions and calls for an examination into their sources of funding. Who provides the funding that permits people like Douglas Feith, for example, to rake in $60,000 annually from International Advisors, Inc., not to mention what he earns as an attorney for one of the ATC's Golden Horn corporate members, Northrup Grumman?

How much drug money and weapons money, in addition to corporate money, keeps these individuals and organizations running?

As the new cold war continues to unfold in the Middle East, the struggle of the Kurdish people remains one of the horrific consequences of Turkish Deep State machinations in the region and on American shores. We're waiting to see whether the European documentary will be aired in America. If it isn't aired here, we'll know that the government of Turkey has undermined and usurped American principles, to paraphrase Representative Pallone. The American people will have become subject to Turkey's own anti-free expression laws, in violation of the First Amendment and enforced by the Turkish lobby . . . with a little help from their friends.


By the way, a couple of things. First, check DozaMe's newly translated dispatches on TAK operations in the last few days.

Second, if anyone's heard the news about Mel Gibson's latest binge, then dude, you have to check out this blog post titled Mel Gibson + Saddam Hussein: Separated at Birth.

Teaser: "What’s really weird is that Mel actually looks crazier than Saddam."

Read the whole thing. Mel is totally dissed. Hilarious!

DEEP STATE COMES TO AMERICA, PART 1

“A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a number of men for the pursuance of policies which they dare not admit in public”
~ Mark Twain.

It looks like a TV documentary will be aired this fall in Europe about the possible connections between the Turkish Deep State and American lawmakers. . . connections wide-ranging enough to bring together such disparate characters as Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis Hastert and Deep State drug lord Huseyin Baybasin?

The connections are coming to light as a result of FBI whisteblower, Sibel Edmonds, who was fired by the FBI for raising serious concerns about the possible espionage activities of another FBI Turkish-language translator, Melek Can Dickerson. A little preview on that, from "The Secrets Behind 'State Secrets'" by Mike Mejia:

According to what we know so far from Sibel Edmonds’ many interviews and from the groundbreaking story on her case from Vanity Fair, “An Inconvenient Patriot,” Edmonds found that within the U.S. a nest of Turkish spies, some working at the Turkish embassy, others affiliated with namely the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA), the American Turkish Associations (ATA) and the American Turkish Council (ATC), were involved in espionage, bribery, illegal lobbying, drug trafficking and the infiltration of U.S nuclear research labs. Separately, from a former CIA Counterterrorism official, Phillip Giraldi, who himself was once based in Turkey, we know that some arms sales meant for Turkey and Israel were actually meant for resale to countries like China and India- and perhaps even to international terrorists- using fake end-user certificates. So we have Turkish nationals at the Embassy and NGOs stealing U.S. secrets for sale to the highest bidder, re-selling arms meant for Turkey, bringing in drugs from Europe, and pouring money into bribes and lobbying activities.

In January, 2005, the Office of the Inspector General (part of the US Department of Justice) issued a declassified version of its review of the FBI's investigation of Sibel Edmonds' allegations. The review substantiates them:

We found that many of Edmonds’ core allegations relating to the co-worker [Melek Can Dickerson] were supported by either documentary evidence or witnesses other than Edmonds. Moreover, we concluded that, had the FBI performed a more careful investigation of Edmonds’ allegations, it would have discovered evidence of significant omissions and inaccuracies by the co-worker related to these allegations. These omissions and inaccuracies, in turn, should have led to further investigation by the FBI. [ . . . ] We also found that Edmonds was justified in raising a number of these concerns to her supervisors. For example, with respect to an allegation that focused on the co-worker’s performance, which Edmonds believed to be an indication of a security problem, the evidence clearly corroborated Edmonds’ allegations.

. . . However, Edmonds’ assertions regarding the co-worker, when viewed as a whole, raised substantial questions and were supported by various pieces of evidence. While there are potentially innocuous explanations for the co-worker’s conduct, other explanations were not innocuous. Although the exact nature and extent of the co-worker’s security issues are disputed, it is clear from the OIG’s investigation that the facts giving rise to Edmonds’ concerns could have been uncovered had the FBI investigated Edmonds’ allegations further. We believe that the FBI should have investigated the allegations more thoroughly. We also believe the FBI’s handling of these allegations reflected an unwarranted reluctance to vigorously investigate these serious allegations or to conduct a thorough examination of Edmonds’ allegations. As will be discussed in the next section, the FBI did not, and still has not, conducted such an investigation.

According to the Vanity Fair article, Melek Can Dickerson lied on her application to the FBI; she stated she had never worked before in the US when, in fact, she had interned for the ATC for two years. Melek's US Air Force husband was a big supporter of the ATC, apparently because it could help him and his wife retire early and live well. Obviously both stood to gain from the ATC and they knew it. Did they also know that ATC was under investigation by the FBI? Did they know that ATC phones were being wiretapped? Is that why, when she applied for a job to translate some of those wiretaps, Melek Can lied on her application?

A lot of other names come up in connection with Sibel Edmonds' allegations, two of which were mentioned in the previous Rastî post--Douglas Feith (former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy at the DoD) and Richard Perle (Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration)--both former Defense Department officials. Interestingly enough, both departed DoD leaving a wake of investigations into their activities.

In 1989, Richard Perle set up a consulting business "as a foreign agent representing the government of Turkey to "promote the objective of U.S.-Turkey defense industrial cooperation." Is this all a bunch of fancy talk to cover up the facilitation of weapons-trafficking, including the transfer of nuclear technology and materials? If some arms sales to Turkey are ending up in China and India, can't the same things end up in Iran, too? It's funny that now we have Iran wagging its own tail in Lebanon at precisely the time they were supposed to have the spotlight shined on them for their nuclear program. A few months ago, there was a little item from the AP on FOX News that never made headlines, although it should have.

ANKARA, Turkey — An Iranian-owned company, based in Turkey, has illegally shipped alleged guided missile parts as well as "dual use" nuclear-related material to Iran, including high-strength aluminum tubes, according to a recent Turkish government report obtained by The Associated Press on Friday.

The company imported the material to Turkey, the supposed end-user, from dozens of firms around the world, including the United States, and then shipped them to Iran apparently after falsifying documents to hide the nature of the material, customs inspectors said in the report dated May 12.

Turkish authorities would not comment on the report, which was first published by Cumhuriyet and Milliyet newspapers Friday. A government official provided a copy of the report to the AP.

Was that a good-will gesture on Turkey's part, in preparation for their hosting of joint military exercises as part of the Proliferation Security Initiative? How many other companies in Turkey are shipping dual use materials to Iran? More importantly, in light of Iran's face off with the international community over its nuclear weapons aims, why was this information not widely reported? Who made the decision to quash this news?

Another interesting guy is mentioned in connection with the Turkish lobby and Edmonds' allegations: Mark Grossman. Following the link at the Deep State article, we find the following from Grossman's bio:

In 1994, President Clinton appointed Ambassador Grossman U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. In Turkey, he promoted security cooperation, human rights and democracy and forged a vibrant U.S.-Turkish economic relationship. Ambassador Grossman had previously served as the embassy''s Deputy Chief of Mission from 1989 to 1992.

He worked in the US Embassy in Ankara for eight years during the height of the Dirty War against the Kurdish people and he failed in promoting everything except "security cooperation." He left in 1997, the year after Susurluk; the year of the soft coup. Imagine how much Kurdish blood is on his hands? Or on the hands of his friend, Ambassador Joe Wilson, who served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Baghdad from 1988 to 1991? What did he know about the Anfal operations? Old Joe has also been working for Turkey, at least through 2003, through a consultancy called Corporate and Public Strategy Advisory Group. Check out their "Press Coverage" page. Do any of the names of the newspapers and magazines look familiar?

Coincidentally, or maybe not, Wilson is married to Valerie Plame, supposedly a CIA operative whose identity was leaked to the public as political retaliation against Wilson. Wilson was the first to publicly criticize the Bush Administration's claims of Iraq's possession of WMD's. There's more on the Plame connection, by Mike Mejia, here.

Again, coincidentally, or maybe not, Brent Scowcroft, chairman of the ATC, also opposed the war, providing a number of reasons against it. The weird thing is that Scowcroft never mentioned Turkish reasons for opposition to the war: fear of Kurds and disruption of trade, especially petroleum. Turkey has the habit of crying about not receiving compensation for its economic losses during the Gulf War. Why didn't Scowcroft bring up these subjects? By focusing on other concerns, was he hiding the fact that he was pushing the Turkish government's agenda?

To be continued . . .

COLD WAR V.2

"Resistance does not start with big words
but with small deeds [...]
asking yourself a question
and then asking that question to others
that is how resistance starts."

~ Remco Campert.

Like I was saying, I see a lot of ridiculous stuff and today was no different. In an article about Iran's and Syria's potential moves against Israel in Lebanon, take a look at what one idiot in NYC has to say about Kurds:

In Damascus, the Assad regime has prepared itself for an epochal war that will transform the Syrian culture into a martial cult such as was achieved under the current president's father, the late Hafez al-Assad. [ . . . ] The Assads recall 1967 and 1973 not as strategic defeats but as spiritually liberating events that empowered the Assad regime in the ummah. Syria is resolved, well armed, fatalistic, and inspired by the wealth of Iran, the allegiance of the Iraqi Baathists, the strategic support of Kurdistan, Turkey, Lebanon.

What?? Syria has the strategic support of Kurdistan? Yeah, when pigs fly! But there's more:

The Kurds have made a deal with Tehran that looks to the future and the establishment of an independent, oil-rich Kurdistan.

The Kurds aim to drive out or massacre the minority Turkmen in their territory, and they know this will be a casus belli for Turkey. The Kurds will need Iran for an ally and also for a transportation route to get their oil to market.

The Russians must certainly know that Iran is using Turkey and Kurdistan in their war effort, and the Russians have presumably made a decision not to interfere in any fashion with their Caspian Sea neighbor and commercial partner Iran.

So who, exactly, is this jackass anyway? John Batchelor. Never heard of him? Neither had I, so I had to do some checking. Apparently he's got a radio talk show that airs in NYC in the wee hours. I guess his big claim to fame, and the thing that really makes him such an expert on all things Middle Eastern, especially Kurds, is the fact that he's a writer:

John is a veteran novelist, author of seven political romances as well as a short history of the Republican Party.

A veteran novelist of political romances? I didn't even know there was such a genre, but it looks like this is what passes for Middle East experts in America these days. No wonder everything is so screwed up. Fiction is his specialty, and that's exactly what his speculation on the Iran situation is: Fiction.

How else could some one come up with the fantasy that Kurdistan gives strategic support to the dirty Syrian Ba'athi? And what does he mean by "Kurdistan?" Like most Americans, I'm sure he figures Kurdistan is just that little piece of Kurdistan located in Northern Iraq. This veteran novelist has no clue that Kurdistan is divided by four tyrants and that this division is supported by the entire international community, especially the United States.

Kurds making a deal with Iran? Okay, maybe Mam Celal is up to his old tricks again, but ask an ordinary Kurd--the only kind that really matters as far as I'm concerned--and you'll find that Kurds hate Iran, and I suspect that in his heart of hearts, old Mam Celal hates Iran just as much as the next gundî. Why would Kurds need Iran to ship oil anyway? If we're talking all-out war here, get rid of Syria and Kurds can build a pipeline all the way across Kurdish land to get it to a seaport. If we're talking Kurds making peace with some of the neighbors, then we might be talking Kerkuk-Haifa pipeline once again. This guy also fails to consider that all the enemies of Kurdistan would never allow Kurds to profit from their own resources. Why else do they bother with the trouble of occupation?

Kurds aim to ethnically cleanse all the Turkmen in their territory? Sounds like our veteran novelist is barking at the moon like a Gray Wolf. Probably was a Gray Wolf who passed this juicy lie to him. After all, our fiction writer is an American, and America is Turkey's best ally. But where is demographics most crucial for Southern Kurds? Kerkuk, right? Where would be the best place to wipe out Turkmen then? Kerkuk, right? This is what Turkey and the Iraqi Turkmen Front would like fiction writers like John Batchelor to believe. I guess they all missed this news, from South Kurdistan:

“Those Turkmen who live in Kirkuk do not fall under KRG jurisdiction, so they cannot vote. Kurdistan includes three provinces and Kirkuk is not included, so they do not have the right to participate in elections in Kurdistan,” he says. “If Kirkuk were restored to Kurdistan, we might have 20 MPs in the Kurdistan parliament instead of four. And instead of two ministers, we would have five ministers, or maybe even a deputy prime minister.”

According to Noureddin, the Turkmen population in Erbil alone numbers 250,000 Turkmen. In greater Kurdistan, he guesstimates there to be about a million, with about 350,000 in Kirkuk. In Iraq, there are probably 2.5 million Turkmen, he claims. The Movement claims to have 4,500 members, and receives funding from the KRG.

That's from an interview on Soma Digest with the Turkmen Democratic Front head, Kalkhi Najmaddin Noureddin in Hewlêr. He was a founding member of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), but eventually left the movement. Here's why:

But after realizing that the party would not achieve their intended goals, “because foreign interference does not serve the interests of Turkmens in Kurdistan”, some members, including Noureddin, decided to splinter in 2004.

The foreign interference he's talking about is Turkey. The ITF is true to its name; It is very much a front for Turkish interests and has been involved with JITEM activity in South Kurdistan and Kerkuk. It seems to be losing credibility lately, "losing members everyday," as Noureddin remarks at the end of the Soma interview. Obviously there is no reason to slaughter Turkmen in KRG-administered areas and no reason to slaughter them in Kerkuk. With the exception of the ITF, there is no reason for Kurds to harm Turkmen at all, but Turkey stands everything to gain by pushing this lie. Just as Iran has been interfering with the Shi'a, so Turkey has been interfering with Kurds. ITF is a proper target because it's the proxy of Turkey, just as Hezbollah is the proxy of Iran.

The bottom line here is that I have never heard a single mention of slaughtering Turkmen from any Kurd--not in Diaspora and not in Kurdistan. Kurds aren't that way. If our veteran novelist had ever met Kurds or bothered to listen to Kurds, he'd know that.

Pretty interesting those demographic figures on Turkmen from Noureddi, eh?

Our veteran novelist tries to explain how Iran is going to move armaments through "tribal routes"--whatever those are--through Turkey and Kurdistan to Syria. The problem here is that it is impossible for Iran to move armaments through Turkey unless they go through Armenia and parts of Georgia. On the other hand, Iran could move armaments through Turkish-occupied Kurdistan with the connivance of Iran's good ally, Turkey. Wouldn't it be really great if those transport convoys became fat little targets for a few of PKK's remote-controlled bombs? Imagine the secondary explosions from that! Otherwise, I seriously doubt that the KRG is going to permit any such movements through South Kurdistan. After all, they don't even want to get involved with mere talks between the CIA and the PKK, as the article from yesterday's post shows.

Ask yourself where this guy gets his information. Where does it sound like it's coming from? Maybe from another of Turkey's allies . . . like Israel? John Batchelor has been to Israel 9 times in the last 3 years.

Israel has never said anything about Turkey's atrocities against Kurds. In that respect, Kurds are sort of like Armenians in Israel's eyes, because Israel has never acknowledged the Armenian genocide. You'd think that a people that had been decimated by the Europeans some 60 years ago would be more sensitive when similar things happen to others. Maybe not. The historic relationship that Israel had with the Southern Kurds (and with Barzanî Nemirî in particular) is something else to remember, and it was not a one-way street, either. In 1971, Barzanî Nemirî and his pêşmerge risked their lives to save 3,000 Iraqi Jews, leading them through the Zagros Mountains to the safety of Iran. From there they departed for Israel and other destinations further west.

But why would Israel spread around a dangerous scenario about Kurds such as that written up by our intrepid author of political romance novels? Why bother to antagonize the largest non-Arab ethnic group in the Middle East, a nation of potential allies? Could profits be the reason? From The Nation:

Indeed, there are some in military and intelligence circles who have taken to using "axis of evil" in reference to JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) and CSP (Center for Security Policy), along with venerable repositories of hawkish thinking like the American Enterprise Institute and the Hudson Institute, as well as defense contractors, conservative foundations and public relations entities underwritten by far-right American Zionists (all of which help to underwrite JINSA and CSP). It's a milieu where ideology and money seamlessly blend: "Whenever you see someone identified in print or on TV as being with the Center for Security Policy or JINSA championing a position on the grounds of ideology or principle--which they are unquestionably doing with conviction--you are, nonetheless, not informed that they're also providing a sort of cover for other ideologues who just happen to stand to profit from hewing to the Likudnik and Pax Americana lines," says a veteran intelligence officer. He notes that while the United States has begun a phaseout of civilian aid to Israel that will end by 2007, government policy is to increase military aid by half the amount of civilian aid that's cut each year--which is not only a boon to both the US and Israeli weapons industries but is also crucial to realizing the far right's vision for missile defense and the Middle East.

Who's been affiliated with JINSA past and present? Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Eugene Rostow, and Michael Ledeen. Of the retired US military officers affiliated with JINSA, either as supporters or advisors, almost all have worked with military contractors who do business with the Pentagon and Israel. The contractors are heavy-hitters too, including Northrup Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics. Boeing has a presence in the CSP. Also deep into CSP are Lockheed Martin, TRW, Ball Aerospace & Technologies, and Hewlett-Packard.

All of these icons of the American military-industrial complex are well represented with the ATC (American Turkish Council), too, which makes for a lot of mutual special interests. When the Cold War ended, the threat was that blood money might become scarce. What to do with such a crisis looming? According to a paper penned by Perle, Feith, and a few others, in 1996, the answer was obvious: create a new cold war:

. . . [B]eyond economics, the paper essentially reads like a blueprint for a mini-cold war in the Middle East, advocating the use of proxy armies for regime changes, destabilization and containment.

Although The Nation article dates from August, 2002, given the expanding events in the Middle East, it looks prophetic in hindsight. Given the work of fiction by our veteran novelist of political romances, someone is trying to align Kurds with the very evildoers that Kurds, themselves, oppose.

Resistance continues to be life.

THE KURDISH BACK DOOR

“The name of the game is taking care of yourself, because you're going to live long enough to wish you had.”

~ Grace Mirabella.

There's a pretty good article at Macleans giving a breakdown of some of the ethnic-based organizations in and around Iran who would like to see the mullahs take a hard fall. The gist of the article is that the US is covertly talking to these groups in order to instigate regime change.

Of those ethnic-based groups posing a threat to the evil Teheran regime, who are the baddest? The Kurds, naturally. Who tops the list as the baddest of the bad? The PKK. The CIA seem very interested in our bad boys and girls:

For the moment, it's the Kurdish groups, with their camps lined up along the Iranian border in Iraq, that pose the greatest threat to Iran. That's a fact the U.S. hasn't missed. The militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting a bloody insurgency against Turkey since the mid-1980s in the hopes of establishing a Kurdish homeland, has been using the slopes of Qandil mountain, approximately 130 km north of Sulaymaniyah, as a home base from which to launch attacks against both Turkey and Iran. The PKK is a threat to the region's territorial integrity, as it hopes to carve a Kurdish homeland out of sections of Iran, Turkey and Iraq. And the PKK has apparently been recruited by the U.S.

Rustam Joudy, one of the group's senior leaders, initially denied that. "We have nothing to do with the Americans," he said. But locals living alongside the PKK contradicted him. "The Americans were coming here regularly six months ago," said one villager. "We don't know why. The PKK leadership never talked to us about it." When confronted with such allegations, the PKK leadership drastically modified its earlier comments, admitting that they not only met U.S. representatives in the past, but that these meetings continue. "They have stopped in Qandil," a spokesman told Maclean's, "but these meetings continue in other places. As for their purpose, that's strategic. I cannot tell you why."

After repeated requests for a comment, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued a terse denial: "The report that U.S. government officials are meeting with PKK representatives is false." But the mere fact that the PKK and others continue to operate in Iraq shows they are of use to the U.S., says a former PKK member who would identify himself only as Raoof. "The Kurdish revolutionaries are a threat to Iraqi Kurdistan's stability as well," he says. "And yet, they are still here. If the Americans didn't have a use for these groups, they would not let them remain in Iraq."

I see the CIA uses PKK "confessors," too. Did they learn that from the Turks or teach it to the Turks?

It's no secret that the CIA was making regular trips to Qandîl in 2003 and early 2004. Several articles appeared in Western media as testimony to that, at the time. A short time after the stream of trips and articles ended, PWD appeared on the scene. Come to think of it, there was a CIA "expert" on hand to take a look at the car in which Kani Yilmaz and Sabri Tori died.

The KRG is trying to take a hands-off approach to any business the CIA might have with the PKK over regime change in Iran, but believes that US State Department involvement with a group they consider to be "terrorist" is acceptable.

On the other hand, there have been a number of articles recently on PJAK, which is also a member of KONGRA-GEL. PJAK therefore falls under the umbrella of Koma Komalên Kurdistan which, in turn, is headed by Murat Karayilan. In short, and for those who don't understand the hierarchy, PJAK is a member of "PKK." According to one of those articles, the Americans have not been in contact with them:

Unlike most other rebel groups in the Middle East, PEJAK is secular and Western-oriented. When the group's members talk, their Kurdish is peppered with such Western words as "freedom," "human rights" and "ecology."

Iran has denounced it as a terrorist group and accused the United States of funding it. But at PEJAK's camp, there is no obvious evidence of American equipment or money. The only weapons on show are AK-47 assault rifles and grenades, and the funding is clearly limited.

Each recruit has a single pair of khaki fatigues, and even its leaders subsist on simple meals of bread, cheese and fresh vegetables at communal outdoor tables.

The group's leaders say that they have had no contact with the United States, but that they would be willing to work with Europe or America against the Tehran government.

"We demand democratic change in Iran," Mr. Zagros said. "And if the U.S. government wants to help us, we are happy to accept their support.

"The U.S. talks about bringing democracy to the region," he added. "But for 200 years, the Kurds have struggled against dictatorship and oppression and in defense of our human rights. And so far the West has not helped us. Why?"

Why? That's the big question, isn't it?

Another article of interest on PJAK can be found at Mother Jones. Another one, from last year, can be found at Caucaz.

Is the CIA really talking to PKK? Are they really trying to use the back door to take down the evil Teheran regime? Who really knows? Only one thing is important: Any deals cut with the Americans (and anyone else, for that matter) must be cut, first and foremost, with Kurdish interests at heart.

Other interests are unacceptable.