STUPIDITY OR RACISM?

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
~ Albert Einstein.

Does anyone recognize this:



That's a dersok. It's a distinctive accoutrement to the proper Kurdish gentleman's traditional ensemble. The red dersok, similar to the one pictured, is a symbol of the Barzanî tribe. The Yezîdîs in South Kurdistan also favor the red dersok.

There's also a black dersok, which is favored by most Kurds including our gerîlas in HPG, YJA-STAR, or HRK.

In short, if you know Kurds, you'll recognize the dersok.

Imagine my surprise, then, to see that the fascist American right wing calls the Kurdish dersok "a terror symbol." Check a post from LGF for more on that, and make sure to check out the stupid comments--all 300+ of them.

But I have a little shock in store for the fascist idiots at LGF. Take a look:

Here's Mesûd Barzanî wearing the dersok folded up as şaşik (LGF's "terror symbol") when he was a teenager and fighting in the mountains.

Here's Mesûd Barzanî wearing the dersok (LGF's "terror symbol") with Condoleezza Rice.

Here's Mesûd Barzanî wearing the dersok (LGF's "terror symbol") in the White House.

Does anyone remember these guys:

They were found buried in Southern Iraq:

8,000 of them were disappeared by America's long-time ally, Saddam Hussein. They were Barzanîs. Only the remains of 512 of them have been found so far. All of them wore the red dersok (LGF's "terror symbol"). All of them were murdered by America's ally simply because they were Barzanîs.

Either the posters at LGF are a bunch of morons or they're a bunch of racists. Take your pick.

CHOLERA UPDATE

"Sickness comes on horseback but departs on foot."
~ Dutch proverb.

CNN has more on the cholera outbreak in Silêmanî province and Kerkuk:

"Local authorities report that over 2,000 people have been affected so far by the outbreak, with five deaths reported and 500 patients admitted to hospital with severe diarrhea within the last two days alone," said the U.N. Children's Fund, or UNICEF.

Forty-seven cases have been confirmed as epidemic cholera, but the number is expected to grow, said UNICEF, which has rushed emergency aid to the affected area.

The outbreak has hit the Sulaimaniya province and the nearby Kirkuk region in northern Iraq.

[ . . . ]

The outbreak is being attributed to "serious problems with water quality and sewage treatment" -- an assessment repeated by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq.

Only 30 percent of the population in Sulaimaniya has an adequate water supply, according to local reports, and "many people have been reduced to digging shallow wells outside their own homes," UNICEF said.

More from Scientific American:

Health officials said the source of infection in Sulaimaniya appeared to be polluted well water that residents were forced to rely on because of a shortage of drinking water. In Kirkuk, cracked water pipes had allowed contamination by sewage.

Visiting a hospital in Kirkuk, Othman said there were 2,000 suspected cholera cases in Sulaimaniya and 1,924 in Kirkuk.

Health officials in Sulaimaniya have shut down juice bars and ordered restaurants to stop serving vegetables that may have been washed in polluted water, Sherku Abdullah, the general director of the health office in Sulaimaniya, told Reuters.

Abdullah, who heads an emergency team set up to tackle the disease, said there were 35 confirmed cases in Sulaimaniya and six people had died. Othman put the death toll in the province at seven, with an eighth victim in Kirkuk.

He said there were 47 confirmed cases in Kirkuk.

Abdullah said Iraq's Health Ministry had sent 50 tons of medical supplies to the Kurdish region to fight the epidemic.

Dr. Sabah Hawrami, head of the educational hospital of Sulaimaniya, said most of the cholera patients had probably used well water for drinking because of a shortage of treated drinking water, a common problem in Iraq during summer.

Well water levels dropped in the summer months and could have mixed with sewage water.


A health alert issued by Kurdistan's Health Ministry has panicked people in Sulaimaniya. Many have stopped eating in restaurants for fear of becoming infected.

There is no Saddam Hussein to blame this kind of thing on anymore, is there? There is no racist Turkish government to blame this kind of thing on, is there? Where, then, does the blame lie? At whom should the finger be pointed?

Silêmanî now boasts about tourist projects but one has to wonder, in light of the "serious problems with water quality and sewage treatment," if there will be two separate water systems. One water system for tourists, equipped with the latest technology to ensure safe and sanitary water for the foreigners, while the locals are forced to endure the current lack of water sanitation.

All the locals, that is, except the ruling Talabanî clan and their close cronies in the PUK politburo.

As for the tourist industry, well, it simply wouldn't do for well-heeled tourists to make a run for it because they have a case of the runs, as a result of substandard infrastructure--much less would it do to have tourists exposed to the danger of cholera. Nor would it do to have such a thing happen to our hypothetical, hapless foreign tourists in Silêmanî, a city whose inhabitants pride themselves on their "culture."

While reports indicate that health officials are doing the best they can with the limitations imposed on them by the provincial government, maybe a lot less culture is needed in Silêmanî--along with a lot less greed on the part of the ruling PUK--to be exchanged for a greater level of humanity and common sense.

CHOLERA, "FRIENDLY FIRE", ATHEISM

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
~ James Madison.

It looks like there have been outbreaks of cholera in Silêmanî and Kerkuk. Özgür Gündem first had some news on the matter over the weekend. ÖG reported that 700 people were showing symptoms of cholera. It also reported that five people had died of the disease which caused the populations of the cities to become fearful. The KRG issued information on the sanitization of water and how to properly handle food.

Kerkuk poses a different problem with regard to any outbreak of disease because it falls under the control of the central Baghdad government. So far, Baghdad has done nothing with regard to the cholera outbreak in Kerkuk, which prompted the KRG to take over public health duties in the city with regard to the outbreak.

Today, news of the cholera outbreaks appeared in English-language media through Arab media, with one report at Uruknet, another at Informed Comment--in which KTV was cited--and another from Alsumaria.

Note the discrepancy between the number of infected persons mentioned at Alsumari and ÖG: 2,000 to 700. According to both Alsumaria and ÖG, investigations into the source of the infections continue. Since Kerkuk is approaching the date of the referendum, it's not out of the question that the outbreak may be the result of sabotage by the usual suspects.

There's more background information on cholera at the WHO, but cholera generally occurs as a result of a contaminated water supply. Given that the infrastructure of South Kurdistan is dated, and that cities like Silêmanî have undergone population booms since 2003--of village Kurds as well as refugees from Arab Iraq--this is an example of the critical attention that a clean, secure public water system should receive.

US forces have killed more Kurdish security forces in another so-called "friendly fire" incident, this time in Diyala province. Naturally, the Americans claim they don't have any idea what anyone is talking about nor do they know which unit of their courageous armed forces have committed this crime. The last "friendly fire" incident was in February.

Actually, I just think that these trigger-happy cowboys don't know what in the hell they're supposed to be doing. There's probably a big streak of cowardice involved, too.

Finally, here's something different to think about. . .The top ten least religious countries and the social implications thereof:

1. Sweden (up to 85% non-believer, atheist, agnostic)
2. Vietnam
3. Denmark
4. Norway
5. Japan
6. Czech Republic
7. Finland
8. France
9. South Korea
10. Estonia (up to 49% non-believer, atheist, agnostic)

[ . . . ]

The survey concluded that "high levels of organic atheism are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such as low homicide rates, low poverty rates, low infant mortality rates, and low illiteracy rates, as well as high levels of educational attainment, per capita income, and gender equality. Most nations characterized by high degrees of individual and societal security have the highest rates of organic atheism, and conversely, nations characterized by low degrees of individual and societal security have the lowest rates of organic atheism. In some societies, particularly Europe , atheism is growing. However, throughout much of the world – particularly nations with high birth rates – atheism is barely discernable."

A study by the University of Michigan showed the US to be one of the most religious countries in the world, with researchers there hypothesizing that American religionism may derive from the fact that the US "has a less comprehensive social welfare safety net than most other economically developed countries, leading many Americans to experience the kind of existential insecurity and economic uncertainty characteristic of highly religious populations."


Interesting. Very interesting.

WHITEWASHING HISTORY

"We laid out our position in the first meeting very clearly to both sides [the US and Iran] and in the frankest clearest language that we don't want Iraq to be a battleground to settle scores ... at the cost of our security and stability."
~ Hoshyar Zebarî.

Christopher Hitchens, a somewhat controversial figure on the neoconservative, fascist American Right, has penned an article at Slate that has to do with Iraq, and he kicks it off with the Southern Kurds:

. . . [W]e can point to Kurdistan as the most outstanding success of the past four years, with its economically flourishing provinces run along broadly secular lines, and with the old Kurd-on-Kurd civil war now in real abeyance for almost a decade (which shows that people can and do come to their senses). The Kurds are also active in the center of the country; their ministers of foreign affairs and water are universally regarded as the most capable and intelligent, and they have also been secure enough to lend units of their own peshmerga forces to the coalition's efforts in Baghdad, Fallujah, and elsewhere. The forces of AQM do not care to tackle this real people's army, preferring to concentrate their attacks on the defenseless, and although there have been truck-bomb attacks in the Kurdish capital of Erbil and in the still-disputed city of Kirkuk, these are so far pinprick events. (Appalling to record, though, a recent and much-disputed incident near Erbil airport has led to a temporary suspension of some international flights to Kurdistan.)

No mention of the 500 Yezîdîs, dead from a few little pinpricks in Şengal, but otherwise stuff like this should make one nervous when coming from the extreme American Right; it usually means that someone is trying to whip up support for the Republicans against the Democrats, or vice versa. As a result, there's always a noticeable lack of criticism of the failure to supply basic services in South Kurdistan, or to invest in agricultural development that would make survival a Kurdish matter and not a Turkish or Iranian matter. There's always a noticeable lack of criticism of violations of basic civil and free expression rights. In short, there's a noticeable lack of criticism. There's not even a mention of criticism. In reading these kinds of things, one would think that everything is very ducky indeed.

While Hitchens' comments on South Kurdistan are generally true to a degree, the reality of South Kurdistan lies somewhere in between the sanctifications and the demonizations used as the political tools of Westerners.

How can I tell that Hitchens is using Kurds as pawns to support the Washington regime's policies in Iraq? By this tell-tale sentence:

An American family that lost a son or a daughter in the defense of free Kurdistan or in the struggle against AQM could console itself that the death was in a worthwhile cause.

That is sheer propaganda. No American family has ever lost a son or daughter in the defense of free Kurdistan. No American soldier, male or female, has received so much as a paper cut or a hangnail in the so-called "defense of free Kurdistan." Ever. Period. And whoever believes that the US "liberated" Iraq for the sake of Kurds, whether live Kurds or those buried in the mass graves in the mountains behind Helebçe, well, the burden of proof is on that person.

Hitchens also engages in a little historical whitewashing:

The obliteration of political life and civil society by Saddam Hussein's fascism has meant that most of the successor political figures are paltry (and the Kurdish exception to this exactly proves the point: Kurdistan escaped from Baathist control a full decade before the rest of Iraq did).

Who was it who found "Saddam Hussein's fascism" so useful that Saddam was given great support for his fascism?

A full decade of escape from Ba'athist control? Let's see, the Kurdish revolution in South Kurdistan began in 1961, with Mustafa Barzanî's call to arms, which would make it more like four decades of escape from Ba'athist control--at least in attitude and outlook. Barzanî's revolution was not supported by the West, nor by the US, except in those rare historical moments that it served US interests. For the most part, that revolution was as studiously ignored by the Washington regime as was Mustafa Barzanî himself.

After all, who can forget the Algiers Agreement? Or the support of Saddam Hussein's Anfal? Or the call for uprising in 1991? Or the "safe haven" in which Turkey bombed Southern Kurdish villages instead of Saddam bombing them?

Who these days remembers the Montagnards?

Speaking of remembrance, that brings us to the reference of Senator Hillary Clinton:

Sen. Clinton in particular has said several times in the past that we cannot, for example, abandon the Kurds as we once did before.

And that's a perfect example of the Washington regime's long-time Kurdish policy, which can be summed up in four words: "good" Kurd, "bad" Kurd. It was Senator Clinton's husband, the former President Clinton, under whose watch tens of thousands of Kurds in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan were slaughtered, 4,000 villages were destroyed (conservatively speaking), and millions of Kurds were forcibly driven from their homes. It was the former President Clinton who armed Turkish security forces to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and who acommodated the Paşas whenever they felt like dropping American munitions from American planes onto Kurdish civilians in South Kurdistan during the "safe haven."

Given that Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is being funded, at least in part, by the same Turkish community that funded Denny Hastert, we might as well consider that she will be at least as bloodthirsty as her husband was . . . when it comes to Kurdish blood, anyway. In the last week we've seen Iranian cross-border operations into South Kurdistan (which is still part of the sovereign state of Iraq), and attacks against Kurdish civilians. While an act of war is perpetrated by Iran against Iraq, the Washington regime hunts in every dark corner to manufacture something against Iran.

Was the joint Turkish-Iranian offensive hammered out between Rice and Gül in Ankara in April 2006, and between Ryan Crocker and Hassan Kazemi Qomi in Baghdad at the beginning of this month, during their "security" talks? Inquiring minds want to know.

Kurdish cehş from Iran have been captured in Hewlêr. See DozaMe for details.

Hevallo has a post on the ten şehîds from the clashes at Uludere. More at ÖG. In the meantime, clashes between Amed and Şirnex, from 24-25 August, yielded 16 dead Turkish soldiers.

UPDATE ON TURKISH-FUNDED COUNTER-GUERRILLAS IN IRAQ

In an update on some information published on Özgür Gündem a few weeks ago (for English check here).

Apparently, the Iraqi insurgent group, 1920 Revolution Brigade, has been "rebranded" by the US military in a new marketing campaign to show how well The Surge® is doing:

The updated vocabulary for referring to the 1920 Revolution Brigade, described by a U.S. commander on Saturday, is a sign of the abrupt change in tactics that has seen U.S. forces cooperate with former Sunni Arab enemies.

The 1920 Revolution Brigade was one of the main anti-American Sunni Arab insurgent groups in Iraq in the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and has claimed responsibility for killing scores of U.S. troops in ambushes and bomb attacks.

But for the past several months its members have cooperated with U.S. forces to help drive the strict al Qaeda Islamists out of Sunni Arab areas, part of a new U.S. tactic of cooperating with former Sunni Arab foes against al Qaeda.

Colonel David Sutherland, the U.S. commander in Diyala Province, said his men prefer not to call the group by its name.

"The 1920s as they're called, we call them 'the Baquba Guardians', we call them the 'concerned local nationals'," he said. Baquba is the provincial capital.

"These are patriots who have come forward and have joined the security process. They are working with my soldiers and they are working with the Iraqi security forces," he said.

And they're paid by Turkish intelligence.

The 1920 Revolution Brigade was named by Özgür Gündem as among those Sunni insurgency groups that Turkey was paying and supplying technical and logistical support in order to delay the Kerkuk Referendum.

Now, obviously, it appears that the 1920s have been whitewashed of their "terrorist" past by the US military. It makes me wonder how much the US is involved with black operations in order to put off the Kerkuk Referendum.

Oh, yeah, bear in mind that while groups like the 1920 Revolution Brigade have "kill[ed] scores of U.S. troops in ambushes and bomb attacks," no organization belonging to KCK (i.e. "PKK") has ever killed a single American.

AL-MALIKI ON THE WAY OUT?

"I never staged a coup. They picked me up. Like I say, they forced me to become premier, maybe hoping that by that way, they send me to the electric chair."
~ Nguyen Cao Ky.

It's beginning to sound like al-Maliki will soon be replaced because he's proven not to be as strong as the next strongman of Iraq needs to be for the US.

The best article on the subject can be found at Harper's by Scott Horton. In it, he discusses the scuttlebutt among Washington's dirtiest, the lobbyists:

For the last three weeks, rumors have been swirling around a relatively depopulated Washington to the effect that the Bush Administration is very unhappy with Prime Minister al-Maliki. “They’re going to take him out,” one lobbyist told me, “and replace him with former interim Prime Minister Allawi.”

[ . . . ]

I heard that the “town was flooded with Allawi money.” It was “being spread around everywhere and was drawing results.”

[ . . . ]

I started watching the media closely. Suddenly an Allawi op-ed showed up in the hallowed editorial pages of the Washington Post. And then a faint whisper against al-Maliki got louder and louder. Suddenly it was on CNN, Fox and other broadcast media. Then a story surfaced pointing to former RNC chair Hailey Barbour’s lobbying firm as the source of all of this. Barbour, of course, is now governor of Mississippi and no longer running this lobbying outfit (though his name is invoked in connection with it continuously). Carl Levin, Pete Hoekstra and a number of others made sudden and dramatic statements that seemed carefully jiggered to help the Allawi campaign.

It's only fair to mention that the lobby firm mentioned (Barbour Griffith & Rogers) is the same one that the KRG hired. It was also BGR that produced The Other Iraq campaign, which turned out to be a colossal waste of KRG money.

Horton quotes another article on Allawi from ABCNews that mentions Allawi's past relationship with the CIA through his Iraqi National Accord and Horton reminds us of how well the lobbyist pimps are able to plant their own paid-for propaganda in American media, by referencing Ken Silverstein's recent investigation into Washington's very expensive red-light district.

For more on Allawi's lobbying, see Outside the Beltway.

As Horton comments, Allawi "seemed to get along just swell with the Neocon clique, right from the beginning," and that's probably true in more ways than one. In a fine example of campaigning Washington for the top job in Baghdad, Allawi's hopped onto the neoconservative bandwagon that tries to make the claim that the failure in Iraq is not the fault of the US, but is the fault of the Iraqi government. A little backgrounder on Allawi from Sourcewatch makes mention of Allawi's involvement with helping to spread the disinformation on the Saddam regime's non-existent links to Mohammed Atta and 9/11, as well as to the non-existent Iraqi purchase of yellowcake from Niger, and the non-existent Iraqi WMD's. All of this is on top of Allawi's longtime membership in the Ba'ath party and his relationship with Britain's MI6.

Horton definitely hits the nail on the head by referring to Allawi as "a fairly repulsive figure with a dark background." There's more on Allawi's filth at the Institute for Public Accuracy. TPMmuckraker talks about Allawi's close affiliation with the head of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, and tell how, after US funding of $3 billion, the INIS told the CIA that al-Maliki was "too close to the Iranians." But the bottom line for the US is that INIS provides Allawi with the intelligence backing it would take to become Iraq's new puppet-strongman:

Shahwani's U.S.-funded independence from the Iraqi government helps contextualize the recent push for Allawi. Unlike most alternatives to Maliki, Allawi has at least something resembling a security apparatus that he can call upon. Of course, whether it can actually take control of fractious, chaotic Iraq is a dubious proposition -- and Allawi has never called for an outright coup. But when Maliki opens his newspaper and reads about Allawi's push in Washington to become premier again, he has reason to look to INIS and see a threat to his administration.

Last week, Allawi's political "bloc" withdrew from the Iraqi government.

Lest anyone think that the whole Iraq adventure is merely for Republicans and their corporate controllers, or to disabuse any remaining illusions about the US being anything but a single-party system, check Democratic support for Allawi's ouster as described at Counterpunch and remember, it was the Democratic JFK who ordered the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem (see photos at the Harper's link) in South Vietnam.

As Ho Chi Minh reportedly said after Diem's assassination: "I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid," providing a striking example of how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

ASSASSINS TRAINED IN ISTANBUL

"I don't know why you are treating me like this. The only thing I have done is carry a pistol into a movie."
~ Lee Harvey Oswald.

More on Turkey's meddling in South Kurdistan . . .

Zanetî has an excellent summary of Turkish involvement with the recent murder of 525 Yezîdî Kurds in Şengal, near the Syrian border, on 15 August. The president of South Kurdistan, Mesûd Barzanî, went so far as to call out Turkey and Syria for their cooperation with Sunni Arabs against the Kurdish people.

Now Özgür Gündem has an article describing the training of Turkmen assassins and their operations in South Kurdistan. According to Özgür Gündem, an ex-assassin, Muhammet Sait Ali, confessed some important information regarding the murder of the 525 Yezîdî Kurds in Şengal.

Sait Ali was caught in Kerkuk,where he confessed that he was trained in Istanbul, at the police station headquarters in Vatan Street. Iraq's regional neighbors--Syria, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt--even though they have their own disagreements over many matters, come together easily to cooperate against the Kurds.

The most recent example of this is their cooperation against the Kerkuk Referendum. In order to suffocate the Kurdish movement and to sabotage the Kerkuk Referendum, they have organized several suicide attacks against Mûsil, Kerkuk, Maxmur, and Hewlêr. The groups that attacked as suicide bombers were trained in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and are financially supported by them.

Now, we can add Turkey to the list of suicide bomb trainers in addition to its well-earned reputation as a state-sponsor of terror.

According to Sait Ali, an ethnic Turkmen, Turkish MİT trained 44 Turkmen as assassins at the Vatan police headquarters. It was these who were sent to ply their new trade in South Kurdistan. According to the documents received, 12 of the Turkmen assassins were sent to Kerkuk, 8 to Hewlêr, 4 to Silêmanî, and 20 to Baghdad. As Sait Ali stated:

"On 19 February 2006, they sent me to Ankara, and on the second day they sent me to Istanbul. They gave me the nickname of "Zeki." We were 44 people. MIT gave us assassination training. We didn't know each other. They took us to a building in Vatan Street, and gave us sniper and handgun training."

According to Ali, retired generals trained them:

"We were 44 guys and everyone had a nickname so that no one knew who the other was. However, it was obvious that the people who were training us were very knowledgeable and sufficient people. The training was given on behalf of MIT, but it wasn't official. They told us to get trained very well, but after leaving the building, to forget about all the people we had met. They warned us not to reveal their identities."

A Canadian passport was found on Sait Ali's person when he was detained in Kerkuk. He also carried several letters with him that had been sent from Syria. According to the letters, Turkey and Syria are cooperating in order to create chaos in South Kurdistan. Ali says that Syria has an enormous influence on ex-Ba'ath supporters and trained the Ba'ath Arabs, while Turkey trained Turkmen, so that both Syria and Turkey could enhance their intelligence web.

In addition, Sait Ali mentioned that arms supplies come from Turkey and Syria. Syria is making things easier for Turkey to operate in South Kurdistan by using its influence over Sunni Arabs in Kerkuk and Mûsil. That's why the Turkish intelligence agents that staff the so-called Turkish "consulate" in Mûsil are able to move about freely in extremely dangerous areas, while residents of all ethnicities must take extreme care to move about in the city and surrounding areas.

Turkey is supplying arms to the intelligence staff in Iraq through Syria and Iran, either transported by train or in large trucks--which reminds us of the train that had been derailed by HPG gerilas at the end of May. There are links to HPG's derailing operation in yesterday's post.

As Sait Ali said:

"We get most of our arms from ex-Ba'athist or Turkmen parties, and they help us."

It kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it, where the propaganda is coming from that supplies Arab bloggers with wild suppositions such as the one that blames "Kurdish warlords" of being the masterminds behind the murder of the Şengal Yezîdîs. Meanwhile, Yezîdîs themselves know that the attack was the work of those who don't want stability in the region and don't want Kurds to have any kind of freedom.

Don't forget to check Hevallo. He has some photos of Kurdish refugees fleeing Iranian bombs and invasion, as well as a video of life among HPG/YJA-STAR gerîlas. That video clip comes from a longer documentary that had been available on Google last year, until it was "disappeared."

MORE ON JOINT TURKISH-IRANIAN MILITARY OPERATIONS IN KURDISTAN

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet it was planned that way."
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In keeping with the theme of the last couple of posts here at Rastî, you may want to take a look at DozaMe's recent post about joint Turkish-Iranian military operations in South Kurdistan.

DozaMe outlines the plan and its aims, and both are consistent with the recent conduct of operations by the two oppressor regimes.

DozaMe quotes PKK sources and, at the moment, I'm willing to bet the information was obtained through PKK's intelligence network, the same network that acquired information on the train that was carrying Iranian arms through Turkey to Syria. That was the intelligence that HPG used to derail the train at the end of May.

More on that derailing here, here, here, and here.

But don't hold your breath waiting to see news of joint Turkish-Iranian military violations of Iraqi territorial sovereignty in the Western (particularly American) media. Don't hold your breath waiting for them to report about Iranian katyusha rockets being used against Kurdish civilians in South Kurdistan/Iraq. Don't hold your breath waiting for them to report the new State of Emergency in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. They're too busy trying to propagandize a justification for a war with Iran to notice an Iranian army incursion 5 kilometers deep into Iraqi territory.

Besides, it wouldn't look too good that America's best ally in the region, and NATO's second largest army, is a long-time bed partner with a member of the Axis of Evil.

IRANIAN LEAFLETS, AN ARMENIAN FREEDOM FIGHTER, AND SIBEL

Oh, let me think about this: The Turkish and Iranian armies started bombing Southern Kurdish villages last Saturday but they only started dropping leaflets urging Kurds to flee their villages on Tuesday--three days after they destroyed villages, homes, and other property.

Yeah, Iran is trying to "cleanse" the region, all right, and in the same way that Turkey "cleansed" so much of The Southeast during the 1990s and continue to enforce today.

It goes without saying that the Teheran regime is doing all this "without hurting civilians."

If you ask me, the mullahtocracy would be pretty stupid to send helicopters to drop the leaflets after another of their military helicopters, along with eight of Teheran's finest, was brought down by PJAK's HRK over the weekend. But--hey--it could happen.

By the way, you can find something about how the corporatocracy is vandalizing and editing Wikipedia with propaganda at DozaMe, and there's a good opinion piece on the subject at AlterNet.

The other day I stumbled onto an interesting little post at Kurdistan and Hayastan about one of the most interesting revolutionaries of recent times--Monte Melkonian.

Monte Melkonian is one of those non-Kurds that Kurds should learn something about. He fought with the Rojhelatî peşmêrge against the evil Iranian mullahs in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution. He spent time in Lebanon while the PKK was in the area. As the post notes, Melkonian once said:

"We need to build a mass-based guerrilla force closely aligned with Turkish and Kurdish revolutionaries."

There's more on Monte Melkonian here and a copy of his own writings, The Right to Struggle, is also in publication.

Lukery has several new posts up about the Sibel Edmonds case, including this one, in which Sibel blasts the kerxane that is Washington and quotes Thomas Jefferson.

You go, girlfriend.

TURKISH-IRANIAN JOINT MILITARY OPERATIONS IN KURDISTAN

"Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the [U.S.] media."
~ Noam Chomsky.

From last week, Özgür Gündem reported that on 11 August, while the TSK was conducting military operations on Gabar with two Sikorsky helicopters, the HPG opened fire on the helicopters and troops. One Sikorsky was seriously damaged and a number of soldiers exiting the aircraft were killed by HPG snipers.

After being damaged by HPG, the helicopter crew attempted to leave the area of operations as quickly as possible, but the damage caused the aircraft to bank heavily to one side, spilling supplies to the ground.

TSK began an operation on the slopes of Gabar mountain in Çırav, Şırnak. Bombings during the operation caused several forest fires which continued to burn out of control.

Also on 14 August, five truckloads of Turkish soldiers crossed into Iran through the Esendere border gate to begin a joint military operation with Iran. The following day, in the early morning, the Iranian army with TSK began shelling South Kurdistan's Bölgesi region together. The Iranian army bombed Keladiz in Silemani region, and Singeser. Meanwhile, the Turkish military bombed Mount Binave in Diyana, Misoreke, Cinete and Xakurke.

At the time, Özgür Gündem reported no wounded or dead, however two villages were burned and there was other serious damage. This information was confirmed by both HPG and PUK.

At the end of last week, TSK began operations in Çukurca against HPG. There were clashes between HPG and TSK at Kavuşak village on the border separating Turkey and Iraq.

On Saturday, more enemy helicopters came under attack. Özgür Gündem carried a report from Firat News Agency about the downing of an Iranian military helicopter, which has since been permitted as a subject for Western media to publish.

According to Firat, the helicopter was conducting forward observation of the bombardment by Iranian ground forces. It was downed by PJAK in the Qendil region during a period of heavy shelling. Eight Iranian troops were killed with one of them being a lieutenant--contrary to Western reports in which Iran claims the helicopter flew into the side of a mountain because of inclement weather. This was the same claim the Teheran regime used the last time PJAK shot down an Iranian military helicopter.

There had been ongoing joint Turkish-Iranian military action against the Kurdish people, as outlined above. Then, on 16 August, the Teheran regime fired Katyusha rockets at villages in the Qendil region, including Dola Kokê, Ş. Ayhan, Rızgê, Meredo Köyü, Qalatuka, Ş. Harun, Suredê and Ş. Bêrîtan in Xakurkê region.

Britain's Guardian has more in English, including the fact that Guardian reporters observed no evidence of American weaponry at Qendil. But what may be the most interesting observation of all in every Western media report on the downed Iranian military helicopter, is the total absence of any mention of NATO's second largest army, the Turkish army, and its full cooperation with the Teheran regime in these blatant violations of Iraqi territorial integrity.

But, then, Western media was the same media that completely disregarded the Teheran regime's shipping of military weapons to Syria through Turkish territory. For more on that incident, check DozaMe's posts from the end of May and the beginning of June.

CONSPIRACY AMONG THE TERRORISTS

"I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar soaked fingers out of the business of these [Third World] nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the "haves" refuse to share with the "have-nots" by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans."
~ General David Sharp.

Jose Padilla and company were convicted today "of conspiracy to commit illegal violent acts outside the US, conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, and providing material support to terrorists."

So, you gotta ask yourself when everyone in the US government is going to be convicted for committing illegal violent acts outside the US, conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, and providing actual material support to terrorists. Take Turkey as just one example of the US government's support for terrorists. You would think such support would get the attention of the American people, since the US government arranged for them to subsidize, if not gift outright, actual material support to terrorists, including the training of terrorist forces by the US military in full knowledge of the fact of Turkey's atrocious human rights record.

Then there is the recent support for Turkish state terrorism and the continuing MİT-run Turkish heroin processing industry.

Yes, all of this is in full knowledge because Turkey's brutality has been well-known for decades--and it's not only Kurds who gripe about the brutality. Others have done so and continue to do so.

And let's not forget efforts to spread the "good times" to the Arab world, or to Israel and Egypt--repressive regimes all.

Justice would demand that since the US has decided to place an arm of the Iranian government on The Terror List® in order to target its business and financial empire, so too the most dominant arm of the Turkish government--the TSK--should also be placed on The List®. After all, it, too, is more than simply a military; it's a military-industrial complex which maintains its own business and financial empire.

However, instead of justice, what do we see? We see the excruciatingly neoconservative Washington Institute for Near East Policy shutting down bloggers for having the nerve to expose the consultant shared by both Iran's Supreme Leader, Seyyed Ali Khamane'i and America's Vice President, Dick Cheney.

Surprise, surprise, surprise! I guess that's what Halliburton's been doing in Iran--a little exercise in building a networked business and financial empire with the Axis of Evil.

So this is the big question of the day: When will successive American administrations be tried for their complicity and conspiracy to spread terror among many populations and societies throughout the world?

15 TEBAX PÎROZ BE!

"A populace never rebels from passion for attack, but from impatience of suffering."
~ Edmund Burke.

15 Ağustos'ta bütün arkadaşlara en içten dileklerimi sunuyor ve bu mücadele uğruna vermiş olduğumuz şehitlerimizi saygıyla anıyorum.

On 15 August I wish the best for the friends and I do remember with respect those who became martyred for this struggle.

THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT SOCIAL NETWORKING

"I am continually shocked and appalled at the details people voluntarily post online about themselves."
~ Jon Callas, chief of security, PGP.

Why should you avoid social networking sites? Here's the answer, via Cryptome.

Don't assume that information applies only to Facebook.

To really mess with your mind, check out this older post on the "ugly truth about online anonymity," from Cryptogon.

You've been warned.

The hevals at KurdishInfo have KCK's statement on the recent Turkish elections, and the political analysis included in the statement is far better than any of the pablum presented by so-called experts on the subject in any other media. For instance:

. . . the AKP government made the most of all the possibilities presented. They used both the additional support of international funds and the nature of a political environment, which presented no alternative to the bureaucratic state ideology. The AKP has also been successful in gaining the support of voters, by playing the victimized party against the practices of the Turkish military, bureaucratic government and undemocratic interventions. The AKP has acted in self interest, and has done everything possible to gain majority rule, it has used the sensitivities of the community very well, and has developed appropriate sayings and slogans and has won votes by taking advantage of the political environment. However what is more important is the failure of the oppressive ‘Kizil Elma’ understanding led by the military .This is the most significant outcome in the election of 22nd July. The extent to which the AKP government, who has come to power today, will solve main issues and how seriously they will approach these issues is open to debate. The practices which they have put across to date and their recent sayings strengthen the belief that, rather than solve issues, they will continue to act disingenuously, and follow the route which will satisfy only their interests and maintain their majority rule.

It is particularly important to evaluate the outcome of these elections in light of the impact it has had on Kurdistan, the developed practices and the tableau which has emerged as a result of these. It is a reality that for the past four years AKP government has continued to show lack of interest in solving the Kurdish issue. It has in the same way failed to provide any serious funding in Kurdistan, and has left the community face to face with poverty, misery and hunger.

During the elections, however, the AKP acted unethically by acting as savior, and buying votes in this way. It has adopted a method which allows it to both subjects the Kurdish community to hunger, than use this hunger against them. Some dominant Kurdish classes and sects have also closed their eyes to these practices. These people have, for a long time betrayed the Kurdish people, denied their own reality and have sold their souls. AKP has exploited the poverty of Kurds, their religious sensitivities and their reaction against the military as well as various other commitments to buy votes. The true face of the AKP, who have developed dishonest and unethical methods, will now become even clearer. If the AKP is serious about the reality of the Kurdish question, then no obstacle can be presented to solve the Kurdish issue.

There is much more in the statement, including a rundown of the questionable election practices against the independent candidates, and praise for DTP as it maneuvered itself through the election minefield to reach the TBMM with more Kurdish parliamentarians than have ever represented the Kurdish people in the TBMM.

It's definitely worth a read.

KURDISH INFANT MURDERED BY TSK FOR SUPPORTING PKK

"Security forces will intervene with every possible means indiscriminately, including against women and children."
~ R. Tayyip Erdoğan.

Back in June, Şirnex, Culemêrg, and Sêrt were declared "security zones" (OHAL) by the Turkish general staff, in an agreement with the centralized Ankara regime. Now, the rising pressure in these areas by the Turkish military has resulted in a baby's murder.

Özgür Gündem reports that a six-month old baby in Çemê Karê, a zozan of Pervari in Sêrt, became ill and the parents decided to take him to the hospital. However, the Turkish military did not let the parents take the baby because it had closed the roads into and out of the town two weeks before. According to the Turkish military, the people of the town were supporting PKK by giving supplies to the gerîlas. The father had asked for permission from the jandarma to take a vehicle to transport the ill baby, but permission was refused.

The father and sixteen other villagers then decided to saddle up, even putting the baby on the back of a horse to travel the 90 kilometer distance to the hospital in an attempt to save the infant's life. En route, the baby died.

Thus we can say that the Turkish military murdered a Kurdish baby because it was a supporter of the PKK. This is another example of who the real baby-killers and terrorists are.

After the death of the infant, the villagers and the father of the baby went to court to press charges against the jandarma commander who had refused permission of the use of a car to transport the baby to the hospital. On their way to the court, the group was arrested and detained by Turkish soldiers. After their statements were taken, they were released.

IHD is expected to investigate the murder of the baby by the Turkish military.

There is a pregnant woman in the same village who needs to go to the hospital because she's in a critical medical situation. She may be the next one to die, since permission to take her to the hospital has been denied, just as it was for the baby.

The irony of this report is that while the villagers are accused of providing supplies to HPG gerîlas, they are suffering a critical food shortage themselves due to the severe restriction of travel. Villagers are permitted one kilo of flour per person every three days, which makes it virtually impossible to provide any extra provisions to anyone at all.

This is another example of the continuing genocide against the Kurdish people. There's no other possible explanation for the murder of a Kurdish baby, the threat of death hanging over a pregnant Kurdish woman, and the slow starvation of an entire Kurdish village.

Yesterday, Köksal Toptan became the head of the TBMM and also became a grandfather on the same day. What would Toptan do if his grandbaby were refused hospital care by the Turkish military and died as a result? Or what would Grandfather Erdoğan, the great lover of Kurdish-Turkish Islamic brotherhood, if it were his grandchild who had been murdered by Turkish military baby-killers?

After all, "bir Türk dünyaya bedel" (One Turk is worth all the world). Right?

My ass.

CONTRA-GUERRILLAS AND KERKUK

"Some see the contra-guerilla as separate from the state. This is wrong, say the DHKP-C: in Turkey the contra-guerilla IS the state."
~ DHKP-C.

Early in the year, I posted some information about US-based Turkish mercenaries and some reasons why regimes may turn to a wider use of mercenary forces in the future. Among those reasons were the following:

1. A lack of other means: Many states lack the means to perform their own security effectively. . .

2. Plausible deniability: . . . Some states may wish to pursue policies covertly that would bring harsh and swift retaliation from their enemies if they were overt.Many states wish to pursue policies covertly that if pursued overtly would bring massive opprobrium upon them, from the press, their own electorate, their allies, or the "international community." The use of proxies in pursuing such policies might be one way to avoid such retaliationStateless actors might allow a bit of discretion or separation that would otherwise be impossible.

3. Circumvention of Laws: States may wish to circumvent their own laws or international regulations in the pursuit of certain policies. One solution is to make a deal with a stateless organization that can operate with much more extralegal freedom than can a state organization. . .

4. A Lack of Political Will: There may be times when states are compelled to pursue policies that their populations cannot stomach. . .

While mercenaries may be the new way to go for regimes who want to appear to keep clean hands, there is still the tried-and-true method of using black operatives or contra-guerrillas for similar work, and it looks like that is, in fact, part of the plan.


According to Özgür Gündem, a contra-guerrilla base has been founded in Amed (Diyarbakır) by the Ankara regime. These contra-guerrillas not only will operate against Kurds in the region of Amed and North Kurdistan, but also against Kurds in Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

The goal of the contra-guerrillas is to delay the Kerkuk referendum through black operations. Since Turkey cannot conduct a military operation in the South, it's initiating black operations through this contra-guerrilla group, operating in the same way it did in Semdinli, in the Council of State, and in the Hrant Dink murder. JITEM and the Patriots Movement were behind those operations.

Ostensibly the contra-guerrilla group raised donations from $500,000 per month to $1,000,000 per month for the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF). I say "ostensibly," because it's more likely that the "donations" are coming directly from the Ankara regime. In addition, the contra-guerrillas give rewards for each successful ITF operation.

Turkey is working in Iraq with 3 major Sunni radical groups: Ansar al-Sunni Army, Iraq Islamic Army, and the 1920 Revolution Battalion, especially within the last 6 months. Turkey is supplying technical and logistic support to them.

The contra-guerrillas contacted some Arab tribes in Mosul and promised economic assistance to the tribes if they encourage the Sunnis to attack KDP and PUK offices.

Turkey has also been in contact with Arabs in Kerkuk, who had moved there during Saddam's arabization. Turkey organized these Arabs into death squads and provided them with assassination lists of Kurdish leaders. Attacks against Turkmen leaders, including Iraqi Turkmen Front leaders, would be encouraged in order create chaos.

They have assassination plans for some Arab and Turkmen leaders in order to turn Kurds and other peoples against each other and create a basis for the justification of the assassinations of Kurdish leaders.

The goal is to delay the Kerkuk referendum and not to allow Kerkuk to become part of Kurdistan.

WHOSE HEGEMONY?

"We indeed may see epochal changes. We are at the end of the era of monetarism, where Federal Reserve monetary targeting was implemented by free market ideologues frustrated with the stagnation of New Deal and post-World War II central government planning strategies."
~ Richard C. Cook.

For those who doubt my suggestions that Kurds should keep an eye on China to see what kinds of deals can be made in the Far East, here's a little news update for you from the last few days.

From the UK's Telegraph:

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress.

[ . . . ]

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

That would totally screw the system, wouldn't it?

Commentary on that from one of Reagan's former assistant Secretary of Treasury--I particularly like the title on this one:

Early this morning China let the idiots in Washington, and on Wall Street, know that it has them by the short hairs. Two senior spokesmen for the Chinese government observed that China’s considerable holdings of US dollars and Treasury bonds “contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency.”

Should the US proceed with sanctions intended to cause the Chinese currency to appreciate, “the Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar.”

If Western financial markets are sufficiently intelligent to comprehend the message, US interest rates will rise regardless of any further action by China. At this point, China does not need to sell a single bond. In an instant, China has made it clear that US interest rates depend on China, not on the Federal Reserve.

The precarious position of the US dollar as reserve currency has been thoroughly ignored and denied. The delusion that the US is “the world’s sole superpower,” whose currency is desirable regardless of its excess supply, reflects American hubris, not reality. This hubris is so extreme that only 6 weeks ago McKinsey Global Institute published a study that concluded that even a doubling of the US current account deficit to $1.6 trillion would pose no problem.

Strategic thinkers, if any remain who have not been purged by neocons, will quickly conclude that China’s power over the value of the dollar and US interest rates also gives China power over US foreign policy. The US was able to attack Afghanistan and Iraq only because China provided the largest part of the financing for Bush’s wars.

And, just to rub a little salt in the wound, here's something on "NATO's rival" holding its first joint military exercise:

Russian and Chinese troops are joining forces this week in the first military exercises by an international organisation that is regarded in some quarters as a potential rival to Nato.

Thousands of soldiers and 500 combat vehicles will take part in “Peace Mission 2007”, organised by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia. Russian officials have also proposed an alliance between the SCO and a body representing most of the former Soviet republics.

Scores of Russian and Chinese aircraft begin joint exercises tomorrow before a week of military manoeuvres from Thursday that will include Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. At least 6,500 troops are involved in what is described as an antiterror exercise.

Colonel-General Vladimir Moltenskoi, the deputy commander of Russian ground forces, said: “The exercise will involve practically all SCO members for the first time in its history.”

Staff officers from Uzbekistan, the sixth SCO member, will also attend in what is being regarded as a major extension of the organisation’s capabilities.

Let's not forget that Iran has observer status in the SCO, so not only does China not want appreciation of the yuan, it doesn't want a US attack against Iran and will not finance such an attack.

For more background on dollar hegemony, see a little something by Henry C.K. Liu at Asia Times.

Who's hegemony is it now and who says there's no new Cold War?

AHA!

"Distrust and caution are the parents of security."
~ Benjamin Franklin

Now I know why Robert Novak suddenly says that some consider PKK as freedom fighters rather than "terrorists"--Rahman Haj-Ahmadi is in Washington.

Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.

US VIES WITH ZIMBABWE AS BEACON OF FREEDOM

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
~ Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution.

There's some important news for those of you who use the Internet--and that would be everyone reading this post.

Before the rats in Congress fled the sinking ship for their summer break, they signed into law a bill that will turn US Internet and phone systems into a massive surveillance system. This is scheduled to go into effect in six months.

You can read the details at Wired but here are the highlights of the new law:

The law:

* Defines the act of reading and listening into American's phone calls and internet communications when they are "reasonably believed" to be outside the country as not surveillance.

* Gives the government 6 months of extended powers to issue orders to "communication service providers," to help with spying that "concerns persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States." The language doesn't require the surveillance to only target people outside the United States, only that some of it does.

* Forces Communication Service providers to comply secretly, though they can challenge the orders to the secret Foreign Intelligence Court. Individuals or companies given such orders will be paid for their cooperation and can not be sued for complying.

* Makes any program or orders launched in the next six months [ . . . ] last for a year after being authorized

* Grandfathers in the the current secret surveillance program -- sometimes referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- and any others that have been blessed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

* Requires the Attorney General to submit to the secret surveillance court its reasons why these programs aren't considered domestic spying programs, but the court can only throw out those reasons if it finds that they are "clearly erroneous."

* Requires the Attorney General to tell Congress twice a year about any incidents of surveillance abuse and give statistics about how many surveillance programs were started and how many directives were issued.

* Makes no mention of the Inspector General, who uncovered abuses of the Patriot Act by the FBI after being ordered by Congress to audit the use of powerful self-issued subpoenas, is not mentioned in the bill.

In short, the law gives the Administration the power to order the nation's communication service providers -- which range from Gmail, AOL IM, Twitter, Skype, traditional phone companies, ISPs, internet backbone providers, Federal Express, and social networks -- to create possibly permanent spying outposts for the federal government.

These outposts need only to have a "significant" purpose of spying on foreigners, would be nearly immune to challenge by lawsuit, and have no court supervision over their extent or implementation.

The only one to keep watch over this surveillance system will be the Department of Justice which, if anyone can keep up with the scandals involving the DOJ and the US Attorney General, is something akin to having a hungry fox guard the hen house.

The best part of the article was the comparison of the US leadership to the leadership of Zimbabwe:

In related international news, Zimbabwe's repressive dictator Robert Mugabe also won passage of a law allowing the government to turn that nation's communication infrastructure into a gigantic, secret microphone.

How very appropriate. The Fourth Amendment is dead; expect the First to follow shortly.

While you're at it, check out how this guy hacked a coded chip in the new biometric passports thus effectively sabotaging passport readers. In fact, with the right hack, you can really screw things up for the fascists.

We need more hackers.


Check out the parakeet at DozaMe. This avian apocu is just the right colors and needs only a small red star tattooed on her breast.

WAR DRUMMING CONTINUES

"The owners and managers of the press determine which person, which facts, which version of the facts, and which ideas shall reach the public."
~ Report by the Commission on Freedom of the Press, quoted by Michael Parenti in Democracy for the Few.

The WaPo continues to beat the war drums and employs the same old mantras while doing so:

At least 30,000 people have been killed since the Kurdish rebels launched a campaign in 1984 for an independent Kurdish homeland in eastern Turkey. Clashes and bombs this week killed 14 Turkish soldiers and rebel fighters. The rebels also kidnapped eight residents of a Kurdish village in the east.

What's lacking here? Context. As always. Who were those 30,000 people? They were Kurds. Who killed them? NATO's second largest army, the TSK. There were 14 Turkish soldiers and HPG gerîlas killed last week? Wouldn't have happened if the Ankara regime had accepted the ceasefire and HPG's offer of a democratic resolution. Gerîlas kidnapping Kurdish villagers? Now it's odd that there are a lot of links in the article to sources, but this claim has no source. Maybe it happened; maybe it didn't. But I'd like to know just what kind of "villagers" these were supposed to be. If they were Village Guards, oh well.

Turkey accuses Iraq's Kurds -- who have built a nearly autonomous Kurdish state in northern Iraq under protection of the U.S. military since the early 1990s -- of giving the Kurdish rebels a haven and allowing them free passage back and forth across the Iraqi border into Turkey.

Really? You mean there was some kind of US protection for Southern Kurds during the 1990s? Then I wonder how the WaPo's propagandist would explain the Turkish military's bombing of Kurdish villages during the time of the "safe haven." I also wonder if the WaPo's propagandist has ever looked at a map of the region and comprehended what it means to conduct an operation in the Dersim area while enjoying a breezy "free passage back and forth across" the border. I'm going to guess that map-reading is not the WaPo's strong point.

It's fascinating that Zeyno Baran is quoted as such a know-it-all on the matter of a Turkish invasion, but that may have to do with her familiarity with the Turkish general staff. Baran was one of those present with members of the Turkish general staff at the Hudson Institute when the "beheading" of PKK was being planned.

"Both the civilian and military leadership believe we really have to do something about it, that this is getting ridiculous," Baran said.

No, what's ridiculous is the fact that the Ankara regime still has not done anything to come to terms with the population of its internal Kurdish colony. It failed to do anything during the long ceasefire that began in 1998. It failed to take advantage of the ceasefire after Erdoğan's visit to Amed in 2005. It is failing to take advantage of the current ceasefire. In other words, the Ankara regime has finely honed the state of being utterly ridiculous.

We can skip over the info on Leaky Novak's ratting out of Eric Edelman, because that's a game, and jump to this:

U.S. reluctance to hit the PKK has angered many in Turkey and damaged relations between the two NATO allies. A recent Pew public opinion survey showed only 9 percent of Turks viewed the United States favorably.

Gee, that wouldn't have anything to do with the massive propaganda system known as the Turkish media, would it? And who is it that controls what gets said or what gets omitted in Turkish media? That's right, America's good allies, the Paşas.

Oh, by the way, just for the record, the Ankara regime was getting cozy with the mullah regime back in 2003 after the US invasion of Iraq but before PKK ended it's long, unilateral ceasefire.

A Turk, Omer Taşpınar, at the Brookings Institution--another neocon bastion--is trying to link a Southern Kurdish response against PKK with the Kerkuk referendum, but that's going to be hard to do since some 1,000 HPG gerîlas are supposed to be integrated with the KDP's special forces. I don't know; maybe Brookings' financial backers paid Talpınar to suggest the quid pro quo on Kerkuk because those financial backers would benefit financially from more fighting, as they include many of the usual suspects--Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon. Other financial backers would no doubt love to control Kerkuk--ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, Conoco-Phillips, and Marathon Oil.

Finally, we have another former ambassador to Turkey--don't these guys ever die?--Morton Abramowitz, calling for the US to go fight the gerîlas. This is the same former ambassador who recently called for the US to use air power to destroy PKK. The thing about "air power" is that it kills a lot of civilians, something that rarely gets discussed in the mainstream media although it does, occasionaly, make it into foreign media. But, if a real discussion of the use of "air power" did make it into the mainstream media, it would become clear that "air power" is the coward's way of war.

Instead of threatening Baghdad or Southern Kurds for failure to "act" against Kurdish gerîlas, the Ankara regime should have taken advantage of the many opportunities the PKK has offered over the years and, especially, the recent opportunities. The West, particularly the EU, should have negotiated a political solution, such as the solution reached between the UK government and the IRA. This is what Öcalan tried to get Europe to do.

But for the warmongers of the MIC, peace just doesn't pay.

TAKING THE TURKISH ELECTION TO THE ECHR

"In politics, strangely enough, the best way to play your cards is to lay them face upwards on the table."
~ H.G. Wells.

Last week there were indications that a lot of funny business had attended the vote in Culemêrg:

. . . Özgür Gündem has a couple of articles (here and here) about more election corruption in Culemêrg (Hakkari). Apparently, people voted in Culemêrg who were out of town on election day for various reasons--like they were in the military in other parts of Turkey, or they were teachers off to spend the summer with relatives--and voting was held in the graveyard . . . by dead people. Not only did the military cast votes in Culemêrg, even though the military is not permitted to vote by Turkish law, but the military also forced 317 villagers to vote openly. In other words, the military violated their right to a secret ballot.

The Higher Election Board (YSK) rejected a renewal of elections for Culemêrg (Hakkari) which had been called by the Thousand Hopes (DTP) candidates. The Thousand Hopes candidates objected to dead people voting, soldiers voting, and absent voters voting.

The problem is that back in 1989, YSK renewed an election in Culemêrg because only one dead person voted. That's kind of odd, don't you think? YSK said that if one dead person votes, the entire election for Culemêrg must be renewed and a new election held. But if five dead people vote, soldiers vote, and people out of town vote (okay, maybe they bilocated on election day), YSK now says that the election stands.

In addition, there was the problem of non-Culemêrg residents whose votes were applied to Culemêrg. These were the customs votes. And it's questionable how many of those non-Culemêrg voters have even heard of Culemêrg.

The bottom line is that there has been much more corruption in the recent election than there was in 1989 yet YSK says that the election stands.

For that reason the Thousand Hopes candidates are not only claiming a double-standard for dead voters, but they're going to take their complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Dr. Baskın Oran will also challenge the customs votes in the ECHR because the independents were cut out of the customs ballots and all votes went to parties alone, in violation of Article 1 of the Turkish election regulations. Dr. Oran adds a further point to his challenge, that a Turkish citizen living outside of the country came to vote and was refused the right because he wanted to vote for an independent candidate, none of which were included on the ballot.

Luke Ryland has something up at his blog on Eric Edelman's role in the Sibel Edmonds case. Edelman is the former ambassador to Turkey and Deep State pimp, now at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, that Robert Novak wrote about in connection with US Special Forces assisting Turkish commandos in a fruitless hunt for PKK. He's got a cross post at his other blog, Let Sibel Edmonds Speak. Go study his post to get all the poop on Edelman--and there's a lot of poop to be shoveled there.

There's really nothing surprising about the neocon cabal in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans coming up with the idea of hunting Kurds for Turkey. We know that they've always been in support of this. So, what's far more interesting than Edelman's statements in his briefing to Congress is the guy who leaked the information--Robert D. Novak.

Consider that Novak is telling Turkish media that what's one man's "terrorist" is another man's freedom fighter:

When asked whether he believed that his article had harmed US interests and served to advance the interests of the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by the US and a majority of the international community, Novak said: "You're calling the [PKK] a terrorist organization. Others call them 'the Kurds' freedom fighters.' I said this once on television and got into trouble. I believe that one side's 'terrorist' is the other side's 'freedom fighter.'"

Consider also that Novak was a long-time CNN talking head who not-too-long-ago moved to FOX News. More importantly, consider that it was Novak who leaked Valerie Plame's covert CIA operative status. Remember? Novak was the one who outed Plame.

In fact, Novak has a long history of serving as a professional leaker, working with such shining stars of American political life as Richard Perle.

A very interesting game is shaping up.