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Category: Cem Ryan

James (Cem) Ryan is a writer living in Istanbul, Turkey. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, he holds a Ph.D. in literature. His historical novel, Natural Affinities, about New York City during World War I, was published in 2004 by (www.trafford.com/robots/03-1783.html).

VOTE FOR TURKEY! NOT AMERICA
(Photo: Reuters) Supporters of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party wave flags during an election rally in I

24 May 2015

Istanbul

When Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, party leader of the Peoples Republican Party (CHP), had a delicious dinner with the American ambassador in Ankara on 22 October 2013, he forgot to complain about the gas. Instead, he just booked a happy-talk trip to Washington, DC. No need for uncomfortable discussions.

And everyone, particularly the American ambassador, was thrilled. Members of Congress and the Executive branch would be interested in seeing Kılıçdaroğlu, said the ambassador. Even the Brookings Institute! Oh good, thought Kılıçdaroğlu, not wanting to dampen the warming glow of the American ambassador’s vacuous ambassadorial smile. So he swallowed the idea (if he even had one) of mentioning the gas. Such a polite, discrete leader of the party of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. So discrete that the words “we are Mustafa Kemal’s soldiers” stuck in his throat, the definitive word “soldiers” becoming bland, impotent “citizens.”

No, the gas was not of the discomforting, gastric kind. It was the poisonous kind, the kind that kills, destroys eye sockets, maims and infects, crushes skulls. Pepper gas. The pepper that is sprayed not shaken, shot in canisters at youthful heads not passed politely from diner to diner. The American ambassador failed to note his treacherous contribution to Erdoğan’s Gezi Park Menu of Death. And party leader Kılıçdaroğlu failed to remind him.

Forty-three tons of pepper gas (labeled “firearms”) rushed from America to Ankara on 23 June 2013 for $365 thousand dollars. Why did he fail to confront? Well the answer is obvious, pathetically obvious. And all you Atatürk-lovers and Atatürk-experts and even Atatürk-haters, know the answer. Still wondering? Would you like a hint? It’s about leadership, responsibility and courage, their absence. And treachery, its overwhelming presence. And so marks Kılıçdaroğlu’s political party.

We come to today. The good old days are back. Just like in 1980, the good old military coup times. The American “boys,” within and without, are again “doing it” to the Turkish nation, which means the Turkish people. Turkish youth die in the mean streets of Gezi and the CHP, once the party of the eternally young Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, can’t even raise a whimper of protest to the American ambassador. Instead, off Kılıçdaroğlu dutifully trotted to America. Met with some members of America’s warmongering Congess. Met with the neocon, imperialisim-mongers at Brookings Institute. And chatted with a sprinkling of the Gülen Movement gangsters, those traffickers in moderately violent Islam and other hallucinatory narcotics. Then, full of American “wisdom,” he returned to Turkey with a “new” CHP.

No Atatürk followers needed. Kılıçdaroğlu purged them. His traveling companion, Faruk Loğoğlu, former ambassador to the USA, became the party’s designated criticizer of all things youthful and courageous. Metin Fezioğlu, the dashing, youthful head of the Turkish Bar Association, spoke at the Council of State in Ankara. As the saying goes, he made a monkey out of Erdoğan. Embarrassingly irate, Erdoğan heckled him in a fine imitation of Third Reich manners. So what does the CHP’s mouthpiece say? Fezioğlu spoke too long showing poor manners.

The Turkish Youth League (TGB), the most valiantly patriotic of all organizations, symbolically rub and wave hoods to a few American sailors to highlight the continuing affront of American imperialism. And recall to the collective Turkish memory the hooding of Turkish soldiers by the Americans in Iraq. Tut-tut, for shame, said Loğoğlu, bad manners. Such paternalistic slop is typical fare for the CHP. And a big reason why genuine Turkish youth avoid it.

Last year’s presidential election campaign was even more pathetic. The “secular” candidate to face the meatgrinder Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was selected by a collaboration of CHP and MHP. After much stressing, straining and pre-natal interviewing, they labored to bring forth a 72 year-old political mouse, a scholarly Islamic obscurity named Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu. America had also whispered his name into a willing CHP ear.

His first name contained the first four letters of the Turkish word for bread, “ekmek.” For reasons as obscure as those for his candidacy, the collective brains of the two parties thought the phrase “Ekmek için Ekmeleddin”( “For bread, Ekmeleddin”) would be an exciting slogan. It is surely possible that in world political history there has been a worse slogan, but not likely. Enhancing the bread image, he also toted a baby in his campaign photograph. Ah, the empowering powers of bread.

Still, Kılıçdaroğlu was optimistic. Why not? It was his idea. Party members were outraged. They had this weak fait-accompli crammed down their throats. This counter reaction inspired Kılıçdaroğlu to rise to Erdoğanian levels of authoritarianism. He demanded, in language a parent would use to a toddler, that everyone just be quiet and vote. “Tıpış tıpış,” he said, just do it! But they just did NOT! Fed up with a ridiculous candidate to represent Atatürk’s party, millions of usual CHP voters boycotted the polls. Predictably, Erdoğan made toast crumbs of “Ekmek için Ekmeleddin.” And that’s how America made sure that Erdoğan would be president. And how the CHP lost millions of loyal voters.

Yet despite Kılıçdaroğlu’s catastrophic decision-making, incompetent leadership and total failure at the polls, he remains the party leader singing the same tired tune. That is, that his party is the only choice to stand against the fascist government. The truth? CHP is fascist, too. But incompetently fascist. The truth? CHP is the worst choice to stand for anything.

AND SO WE COME TO TODAY

Turkey is being dismembered.
- It has lost its East to Joe Biden’s favorite cause, Kurdistan.
- Its democratic governmental system, especially the judiciary, has collapsed.
- The Turkish president’s insistence on acting without constitutional permission is causing severe and dangerous diplomatic upheavals. These outlandish, illegal, bully-boy tactics in a supposedly mature country casts great embarrassment and defamation of character on the Turkish people. It vividly demonstrates the lack of a constitutional justice system, indeed of any justice system whatsoever.
- The Turkish army was destroyed by America and its agents inside and outside Turkey. Thus serious security threats prevail for the Turkish people given the outrageously risky policies of its government and its president. The command and staff structure of the Turkish Army remains problematic since the rupture of its chain of command and its drift away from NATO mobilization standards. It all seems reminiscent of the fate of politicized armies whose forgotten ashes litter the battlefields of history.
- The presidential paranoiac fantasy of a parallel state is delusional. If there is a parallel state it is Erdoğan himself illegally intruding into affairs that are the constitutional responsibility of the elected government. Only low-grade morons believe that Fethullah Gülen acted alone for 8 years destroying the Turkish Army while the AKP spent all its time being completely deceived. That is, until 17 December 2013 when the police found their shoe boxes stashed with billions of dollars.
- What passes for justice is completely in the hands of the government and the presidency. In other words, there is none.
- Syria is being destroyed by Sunni forces under the leadership and sponsorship of America, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan. All are committing crimes of aggression and crimes against humanity. Formal criminal complaints have been filed with the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
- Borderlands in southern Turkey, particularly in Hatay, are porous and unstable. They are used as staging areas (as is Jordanian land) for a massive assault on Syria, in particular its secular, Alevite government. This can easily be perceived as a genocidal attack. This conclusion is reinforced by the angry, disdainful remarks of the Turkish president towards Alevites in his own country and generally. It is difficult to believe that the people of Turkey would continue to tolerate a government of accused war criminals.
- The big plan calls for a dismemberment of Turkey in the east and in the south. This is not news. The main idea is to give the coming Kurdistan a corridor to the sea. This means a passage for Kurdish oil through Syria. It will be a Sunni passage. So too bad for the Alevites. This also means an added bonus named Hatay, in particular Iskenderun harbor. It will become a Kurdish Sunni harbor. Too bad for the Alevites. And this genocide will be a real one for Turkey to swallow.
Blood must flow. So must oil. “Not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man’s blood was spilled for it,” wrote Herman Melville about whale oil over 160 years ago. Now we spill gallons of blood for a drop of oil. We destroy nations and races and cultures. We grow beards to celebrate beheadings and crucifixions. Starving children in our streets annoy us. Welcome to the pursuit of the happiness of advanced democracy.

Welcome to hell.

THE COMING ELECTION

The major political parties are the same. They smell of America.

CHP

Kılıçdaroğlu and his CHP are solidly in the American camp. Kermal Derviş, the darling of America’s imperial banking and finance system is back over the ocean with the CHP. And Kılıçdaroğlu is happy. Expect nothing good for Turkey from either. Ever today’s man, the party is loaded with Gülen sympathizers in hopes of capturing religious votes from AKP, the cheapest of short-term tactics. While all Atatürk influences have been cleansed, that doesn’t stop Kılıçdaroğlu and CHP from making money from his name. The CHP TV channel hawks all varieties of Atatürk books, videos, inspirational music, clothing and jewelry. More need not be said why this political party is an inappropriate steward for our sacred homeland.

MHP

The other opposition party, the MHP, the right-wing nationalist party, was born in the bloody run-up to America’s 1980 military coup in Turkey. It helped the USA butcher-boy general, Kenan Evren, do his dirty work thereafter. Evren, Turkey’s Pinochet, both courtesy of the CIA. No party has been more treacherous in helping Recep Tayyip Erdoğan remain in power than the MHP. It has even stooped to resurrect the political baking fiasco called Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu. He will run for a parliamentary seat in Istanbul as a MHP candidate, presumably without his bread loaves.

GDP

The other “so-called” opposition party is the Kurdish Party, the HDP. The HDP supports everything that benefits Kurdish autonomy and separation from Turkey including the PKK, an international terrorist group. . The HDP also supports a new constitution which will help solidify Erdoğan’s death-grip on power. This is a quid-pro-quo for separation. Thus HDP is exactly like AKP.

The ISIS/ISID fiasco is a planned clearance operation of eastern and southern Turkish territories for eventual sovereign habitation by the Kurds. Now the Kurds are cleansing ISIS/ISID along the Turkish-Syrian border. A Criminal Cabal comprised of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, America and other international terrorist organizations are preparing to mop-up the remainder of ISIS/ISID resistance in northern Syria. ISIS/ISID has done its job very well and will slowly disappear from the scene. The Criminal Cabal (and the Kurds) will then emerge victorious in northern Syria. Then on to Damascus to clean out Assad. Thus the Kurds will get their oil-rich homeland down to the former Syrian seacoast including the former Turkish region of Hatay. America is incredibly generous with other peoples’ property.

There is also pressure applied on the Kurds by the Turkish Islamist government to make the coming nation of Kurdistan an Islamic republic. This is alienating the Alevite Kurds who want no part of the Sunnis and historic Sunni oppression. Assassinations of Alevite Kurdish women in Paris a few years ago were a precursor to this sectarian inner conflict within the PKK. That’s what Turkey and its Middle East backers want. Sunni. Sunni. Sunni. It also increases the genocidal pressure on the Alevites. And no secularism in sight, anywhere.

CONCLUSION

Not really knowing what it wants, that’s what America will get. Chaos, genocide, fascism and religious-inspired terror, a lovely victory for Erdoğan’s advanced democracy and a clueless America.

The deplorable condition of Turkey was brought to us by the interaction of all the above political entities. The violence, dishonesty and antidemocratic political process is killing the Turkish people. But from

America’s perspective the process has done admirably well.

But we, the people, are neither in America nor are Americans. We are members of a fatherland, Turkey. As logical, patriotic people, we should vote for the interests of that fatherland. None of the above political parties serve those interests. Treacherous connivers, they speak with twisted tongues and sold-out souls. We all know this. It is time to fix it.

If you take the easy route and vote for CHP because they will likely be seated as a majority opposition party you are missing the big picture. Surely you now see the quality of the “new” CHP. Turkey needs a new party but not this regurgitated one. It needs a clean, intelligent, patriotic party to serve the interests of similar-minded people. A political entity is needed to describe a buffer and a balance between the fascists and the neo-fascists, that is, between the AKP and the others. We desperately need a parliamentary position that is reliable and America-free. Our children’s needs are not the needs of the Erdoğan family or the Saud family. We need brains, honesty and enlightenment in parliament not bullying, hatred and darkness.

If we are left to be the only true heirs of the enlightened principles of Mustaf Kemal Atatürk and the western Enlightenment…then what? Should we go “tıpış tıpış” like toddlers because there is some false security in CHP or because we are so clever that we can scheme our one vote? What did Mustafa Kemal Atatürk say in situations exactly like today’s? You all know what he said! And you all know what he did! And you all know what he did NOT do!

He did not go to the Sultan’s palace and play cute until the time was right. That remains the CHP strategy, a guaranteed loser against bullying fascists. Atatürk went to Samsun. And we also have a Samsun. Don’t betray your birthright. And don’t think that by collaborating with the sold-out-to-America parties you are doing a good thing. Remember the loaf of bread candidate! It will recur to you like a bad dream in a wet bed.

Don’t vote for the “American mandate” parties. Vote for intelligence, morality and independence. Vote for the interests of your fatherland. Vote for yourself, for your real country, your real fatherland, your home.

VOTE VATAN!

James (Cem) Ryan

24 May 2015
May 24, 2015
PARIS IS SEETHING, TURKEY IS STINKING

Istanbul
7 January 2015

Enough! No more Turkish experts. No more lying politicians. No more cheating and stealing. No more talk of the obscene palace wherein resides the source of all of it. No more rancid, pompous rhetoric from the president of this stinking country. No more television discussion panels. No more Turkish language for it has died from murderous abuse. Shame covers Turkey like gas from a swamp. Breathe! Breathe! Breathe, you Turks!

You, the Turkish people, have so diligently supported your terrorist government. What didn’t you understand? What clouded your minds? Islam? Please be serious. What clouded your minds was money. Bribes. Jobs. Big construction contracts. Unnecessary bridges. Irrelevant airports. Polluting power plants. Coal in bags. You were cheated there, too. Coal and stones. Can you tell coal from stone? Shit from shoe polish? The government couldn’t even give you a “pure” bribe. Such is its cheating, thieving nature. Thefts. Nothing could prevent you from supporting a criminal for prime minister who grew to become a criminal as president. And nothing could prevent you from supporting the treasonous opposition parties who collaborate with the terrorist government and foreign powers intent on your destruction. Bow down, Turks! Stoop and bathe in the blood of innocents! Let it run up to the elbows! Stoop! Stoop! Bow to your boss!

It was all in front of your noses, this stink. This rotten game played with Syria. This disgusting, double-faced game known as being-a-friend-of-Erdogan. And so the weapons and bestial volunteers flowed through Turkey. And so rose ISIS! And Hatay was destroyed. Erdogan, the big shot friend of America. Erdogan, the expert on the Middle East. Erdogan, a man whose venality defies description, indeed a scowling metaphor of venality. And the corruption continued to flow. Arms to terrorists under the cover name of Free Syrian Army. Moderate Islamic “folks” trying to overthrow a duly constituted, sovereign nation—Syria! He is the source of the evil, of the beheadings, the slaughters, the rapes, the genocide of the Syrian Diaspora. And all the thefts from the moderate Islamic killers flowed back into Turkey. How eager were these Turks to buy cheap gasoline, stolen whisky, stolen cars. Isn’t god great? What a bargain! Cheap gas for the lives of innocent Syrians. Good job! Eat! Eat! Eat, you Turks!

The blood of the innocents in Paris is on the Turkish government’s hands. Erdogan, this most unnatural creature, has already destroyed his own country. And 53% of the Turks think that this is a good idea, if they are thinking at all. This Erdogan was America’s main man. A hard guy who could make it all happen. America loves guys like this. They make movies about them. But this hard guy had another agenda, and it wasn’t moderate. His ego was as big as all outdoors. Look at his house. Can you understand, you 53% of the Turks who are the equivalent of war criminals? You aiders and abettors of terrorism and murder! And you of the remainder, the 47% who think your ideas are the only important ideas and delay and discuss while the fascists prepare the end of Turkey as a nation. Talk! Talk! Talk! And then the back of your skull suddenly splinters like all the others.

The weapons in Paris arose in Syria through Turkish hospitality. The road to hell leads through Turkey. And so does the road to Paris. And so do these others, these big shots who think they know something. These are the ones who have helped Erdogan’s Turkey become a terrorist state. Their guilt is vast. And is no mystery to normal, ordinary people. And a complaint was filed with the International Criminal Court on 6 October 2014.

I have the honor to file with you and the International Criminal Court (ICC) this Criminal Complaint against

U.S. citizens Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Forbes Kerry,John Owen Brennan, Michael Joseph Morell, David Howell Petraeus, and Leon Edward Panetta;

Turkish citizens Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Ahmet Davutoğlu and Hakan Fidan;

Saudi Arabian citizens King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and Prince Saud al-Faisal;

Qatari citizens Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa and Al Thani Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani;

Jordanian citizens Abdullah II ibn al-Hussein and Abdullah Ensour;

Croatian citizens Ivo Josipović and Zoran Milanović;

Belgian citizen Elio Di Rupo;

Bulgarian citizens Boyko Borisov, Marin Raykov Nikolov and Plamen Vasilev Oresharski;

French citizen François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande;

Great Britain citizen David William Donald Cameron;

Romanian citizens Traian Băsescu and Victor-Viorel Ponta;

for their criminal policy planning, subsequent crimes against humanity and ongoing crime of aggression in Syria.

I accuse the above listed individuals of planning, preparing, initiating and executing an act of criminal aggression resulting in the commission of grievous crimes against humanity. These crimes are both “widespread” and “systematic” within the meaning of Rome Statute article 7(1). Therefore the Accused have committed the “Crime of Aggression” by supporting and arming brutal and bestial mercenaries in violation of Rome Statute articles 8(2)(a), 8(2)(b), 8(2)(d), 8(2)f) and 8(2)(g). Furthermore, the Accused have committed numerous “Crimes against Humanity” in flagrant, repeated and longstanding violation of Rome Statute articles 5(1)(b), 7(1)(a), 7(1)(b), 7(1)(d), 7(1)(e), 7(1)(f), 7(1)(g), 7(1)(h), 7(1)(i), and 7(1)(k). Finally, the Accused’s Rome Statute Crimes Against Humanity as specified above constitutes ongoing criminal activity that continues today.

Read the details below. It won’t take long. These are the ones that should be arrested immediately.

But first, Hollande! Then Erdogan!

James (Cem) Ryan
Istanbul
7 January 2015

January 8, 2015
THE MAN WHO SNIFFED PARADISE

Some like the perfume from Spain

I’m sure that if,

I took even one sniff,

It would bore me terrifically, too,

Yet I get a kick out of you.

Cole Porter, I Get A Kick Out Of You

As a boy, he used to kiss his mother’s feet and it made her nervous.

No, no, Mama, the book says so.

Huh? What book? You shouldn’t read such things.

Yeah, it says heaven is under your feet.

My feet? Stop…this tickles. Stop! It’s like what the dog does.

Aw come on Mama, don’t be shy. I’m seeing Paradise.

Paradise? What Paradise? You’re seeing calluses and split toenails and a hole in my stockings.

Please, please, stop wiggling your toes, Mama. I’m having a spiritual experience. They smell like heaven.

Not with the feet! Not with the feet! Wait until I tell your father! You’ll be seeing the back of his hand!

Aw pleeeeze….Mamaaaaaa…..now I’m seeing a mosque in Havana. And Fidel abluting his cigar.

Allah! Allah! Why don’t you go out and play football like the rest of the boys, my son.

No, no, please Mama, those boys are different…

Many are criticizing the Turkish president for his remarks at a meeting of a group called, with great irony, the Women and Democracy Association. The name is like something they made up in the lobby. At the meeting the president again shared his wide-ranging, penetrating insights from his lifelong study of Anti-Feminology, namely that women are in no way, no how, equal to men. It’s “against nature,’ he said. Although he did offer the fascinating concept that women, if they tried real hard, could be “equivalent” to men. He also declared that feminists reject motherhood, adding something about breast-feeding women should not work in communist factories. Predictably, feminists and communists, and particularly feminist-communists, were unified in an outrage equivalent to the firestorm bombing of Dresden. As a male feminist, uncertain about motherhood issues, I find the president’s ideas inspirational, perplexing and perfectly suitable to his adoring audience. And his charm and sunny disposition have won my heart, perhaps forever.

Some people think that the Turkish president is a strident troublemaker. Not me!

Some say he is spiteful, hateful and full of anger, particularly towards breast-feeding mothers and their communist significant others. Not me!

Some even say that he is a complete……well……I can’t even think about this one, no less say it, no less write it.

I stridently, but respectfully, disagree with all of his critics.

The president of Turkey deserves our gushing respect and undivided attention.

Here’s why.

He said that the characters, habits and physiques of women are different from those of men. This is a brilliant insight! This is true! I hope his audience rose as one to render a standing ovation of loving applause. I immediately thought of Marilyn Monroe and Woody Allen. It would indeed be “against nature” to put these two on an “equal footing.” The president is correct in his assertion about character and habit, but especially about physique. I mean, whose feet would you rather kiss?

And as far as breastfeeding women and non-breastfeeding communists working together in some Soviet-era tractor factory, well, again the Turkish president is perfectly correct. Breastfeeding women couldn’t even hold the wrenches properly. Think about it and you will instantly grasp the president’s wisdom. Holding a baby to one’s breast is a completely different motion and habit than the complicated, manly habit of turning a wrench. And even if men could lactate, could they handle having a baby sucking at their breasts every few hours while those tractor axles kept on coming? No, of course not. And where would they stash the babies in between feeding time? It would be so unnaturally confusing, wouldn’t it? The commissar would send them all to Siberia. Besides, if I understand the Turkish president’s deeper meaning, communist men are always looking to start revolutions. It’s their nature. Just look at history! And to make revolutions they need free hands, that is, no screaming, hungry babies interfering with their secret meetings. This is what the clever Turkish president meant. And he is absolutely correct. And that’s why he buys more and more tear gas and more and more TOMA monsters. It all makes sense, doesn’t it? Thank you Mr. President! Your applauding audience is proud of you.

He also said that women being equal to men is “against nature.” Bravo! Brava! This is true too. I mean, what women would cultivate nature like the Turkish president, a man, does? He has leveled millions and millions of trees so that nature can breathe freely. No woman would dream of doing that. He has leveled mountains to free marble from its lifelong imprisonment so that villas and hotels and palaces can have shiny walls and slippery floors. And the president knows how women, by nature and habit, like to clean things. So women now have something to do. And marble also now has something to do, rather than just stay inside some dumb mountain. And women can clean and polish all of it, doing what comes naturally to them. No woman could even come close to thinking of such a perfectly complex idea. Only men can do that. The president of Turkey is very smart and deserves loud acclaim until the end of recorded time.

And I completely agree with the Turkish president that women should be equal among women and men should be equal among men. Such a great social philosophy, though it seems to border on that nasty communism thing. Nevertheless, I agree with the president. For example, when we are alone, my wife and I never argue unnaturally about whether we are equal to each other, she being a woman and I a man. I am perfectly content to be a man equal to myself and, so far, she is happy to be a woman equal to herself. It proves the president’s intelligently argued point regarding the natural law that men are men and women are women. On this issue, peace prevails. The argument as applied to gay couples has yet to be addressed. Perhaps at the next meeting of the Women and Democracy Association the brilliance of the Turkish president can enlighten us further.

The natures of men and women are different, too. Right again, Mr. President! And the following shows how true that is and how correct you are.

Who brought us religion? Men.

Who invented prostitution? Men.

Who spent millennia hunting and killing animals? Men.

Who spent millennia hunting and killing each other? Men.

Who invented armies? Men.

Who created historical catastrophes such as genocides? Men.

Who invented, and continue to invent, weapons of mass destruction? Men.

Who dropped the atomic bomb on innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Men.

Who destroyed native populations in Africa and the Americas for profit and power? Men.

Who finance and organize bestial mercenary hordes to murder, rape and plunder? Men.

Who cannot produce children? Men.

Who are condemned to extinction because of their characters, habits, physiques and natures? Men.

Indeed, there is nothing like a man.

James C. Ryan

Istanbul

November 26, 2014

November 26, 2014
SOMETHING’S COMING

Could be!

Who knows?

There’s something due any day;

I will know right away

Soon as it shows.

It’s only just out of reach,

Down the block, on a beach,

Under a tree.

Stephen Sondheim, West Side Story

More deadly gas is coming. They’re buying those gas bombs again. 1.5 million more. They must have exhausted the 43 tons they bought from America last year at the height of their Gezi violence. Ten million dollars gone with the fascist wind. And the latest news says that the public-space-destroying Gezi Park shopping-center project is alive and quietly ticking. Those treacherous, revolutionary Gezi Park trees, like Carthage, must be totally destroyed!

And then there are the personal antics of you-know-who. Heisting more of the public’s money, he’s adding thousands more rooms to his royal roost. Painfully aware of his public, he has privatized his own Waffen-SS. It’s an especially loyal bunch, a comforting pious blend of Turkish police, the Gendarmes (easily appropriated from his ever-generous Turkish Army) and his ever-popular scimitar-waving street thugs. They will all emerge on call like mushrooms on a rainy day. Surely the blessings of safety and security will loom over the land forever.

And at last Turkish schoolchildren will be freed from all error and will finally learn the truth about just who discovered America. Oh, happy Turkish day! Perhaps they will learn that God is also a Muslim along with Fidel Castro.

Oh, the pope is coming. He is scheduled to meet and greet the new president at his new, illegal palace. How nice. Thus the pope will also be an accomplice-after-the-fact to a crime. This from a man considered by zillions of Catholics to be infallible in matters of faith and morals. But St Peter’s has such a suitable dome… for a mosque…or better, a shopping center. Let’s make a deal. Let’s have a conversion. So many things are coming…

One more thing is coming—the truth. Can you feel it? It’s just out of reach.

The truth is this. The Turkish people are fed up with the Turkish people. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.

These AKP people came to power—with a lot of help from their American friends in high places—following years of coalitional incompetence and corruption. The people were fed up then, too. And so came Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his friends, the self-proclaimed “pious” people. Surely they would clean up things. They sold everything leveraging it into a self-proclaimed “economic miracle.” Then came their true colors—repression, fascism and more corruption, all in the name of piety.

But as Cassius said to Brutus, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.” And that’s why the Turkish people are fed up, particularly Turkish young people.

Turkey is the youngest country in Europe. 17% of its population is in the 18-24 age group. With a median age of 29.6 years, Turkey is far younger than the U.K. (40.4), France (40.9) and Germany (46.1). More importantly, half of Turkey’s eligible voters are in the 19-35 age group. And that means 26 million “young” voters! And this is why Turkish young people SHOULD be fed up.

They have virtually no political representation, particularly in the fossilized opposition parties. CHP, Turkey’s oldest political party dating from 1923, has only six members of parliament under the age of 40. While the average age of party members is 46.9 years, the average age of its parliamentarians is almost a decade more, 55.5 years. How political parties can ignore half of the voter base is a great mystery and a great shame. And a great tragedy for Turkish young people.

In the twisting and turnings and whims and whines of the opposition parties they have today maneuvered themselves into near irrelevance. The bizarre joint presidential candidacy of a 71-year-old Islamist no one knew named Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu may have been their final curtain. Predictably trounced by Erdoğan at the polls, almost as many voters stayed away (15.4 million) as voted for Ekmeleddin (15.6 million). And for those that did vote for him, how many held their noses and voted out of fast-fading party loyalty? The entire affair was unseemly and CHP continues to struggle with the implications.

Herein resides, in part, the disenfranchised voter base. There are others, women, for example. Workers, for another. Something’s coming. Not surprisingly, recent surveys suggest a large “undecided” category, as high as 25%. Something’s coming.

Turkish youth have seen what the political process has delivered for them. While they filled the streets in protest at Gezi Park, the opposition parties mostly dawdled. When America sold the AKP more tear gas bombs to bomb the kids, the opposition parties mostly watched. And when the opposition parties chose a 71-year-old unknown as a presidential candidate to face the ferocious Erdoğan, well, you know the rest.

This is why the young people are on the move and coming. Not only are they the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal, they are his youth, Atatürk-youth. Like him, unbounded by age, open-minded and open-hearted, holding real opinions and ideals worth fighting for. Falling in love with truth, with science and the modern way, living honorably with care and sensitivity. Upholding the law and defending the human right to live freely. In short, living as a true Turk, a modern Atatürk Turk.

There is also new political party coming, the Anatolia Party (Anadolu Partisi). A party of enlightenment, like the sun rising in its logo. A party for an anti-imperialist, sovereign nation, secular and tolerant, honest and hopeful. A party for Turkish youth of all ages.

Half the voters in Turkey are young people, 26 million of them. Let it begin with them.

James (Cem) Ryan

Istanbul

24 November 2014

November 24, 2014
AMERICAN BOYZ N THE HOOD

Turkish Soldiers Hooded by America
Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. 4 July 2003

Istanbul: 13 November 2014

Yesterday, three sailors from the uncontrollably violent neighborhood called America met the true face of Turkey. Poor boys, they don’t even know what they represent. They don’t even know that their so-called leaders have made them punching bags for its criminal enterprise called American imperialism. They don’t even know how America and its treasonous internal agents, in particular the Turkish government, are attempting to destroy the future of the Turkish youth.

Perhaps these American boys got a quick lesson in the true nature of Turkish-American relations yesterday? But, sadly, probably not. The American boys ran back to the false safety of their warship, re-entering their “safe” world of imperialist propaganda, economic excess and hypocrisy. But there is no safety anywhere any longer. That is the gift of America to Turkey, and to the world. As usual, America authorities and its treacherous collaborating Turkish puppets screamed in outrage. And, as usual, the youth of Turkey, the true defenders of the Republic of Turkey, went to jail for exercising their patriotic duty. Nothing has changed, except one thing. Turkish young people, the nation’s true patriotic voice, will not take American crap anymore. And America should understand that. Listen and learn, America. You owe it to your own youth. Think of it this way, think of it as a symbol.

That’s the way the resident American-imposed agent of destruction, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, thought about his hooding of Turkish women into a grotesque series of Middle Age costumes that squeeze feminine brains into numb submission. So what, declared the then prime minister, if the head scarf is a political symbol? So what, indeed! Erdoğan used his compliant covered women to destroy democracy in his own country. He and his collaborators hid behind their women’s headscarves to do America’s dirty work. And now they cannot safely visit any neighborhood in their own land. No “hood” is safe for the hoodlums. And now the new president hides in a billion-dollar illegal palace, his inadvertent monument to treason. So what if he and his ilk cannot appear in public! So what!

So what if in 1980 the American president celebrated the success of his CIA-engineered military coup by proclaiming “Our boys did it!” Yes, then his gangster BOYZ did it. And yesterday, today’s Turkish youth remembered. And yesterday, our Turkish boys did it to America, symbolically, of course, because Turkish youth is civilized. They can be no other way; they are the current-day “soldiers of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.” This is something that the treacherous opposition political polities can neither say nor understand. Yes, Turkish young people are civilized and enlightened by the patriotic principles of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. That’s why, yesterday, no one, neither American boy nor Turkish boy was hurt. No one was tortured. No one was hung. No one was shot, exploded, beaten, gassed, or otherwise maimed. And that’s a lot more than America can ever say about their overt and covert interventions in Turkey’s affairs.

So what if America and its craven ambassador, Francis Ricciardone, aided and abetted the Turkish government in its beating, gassing, maiming and murdering of democratically assembled Gezi Park protestors. “The Turkish government is having a conversation with its people,” said the deceitful ambassador, as he arranged to have more poisonous gas sold to Erdoğan and his hoodlum police. A “conversation?” So what!

So what if the same ambassador conspired with the main opposition party leader to assure the election of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to the presidency!

So what if yesterday the American boys’ heads momentarily felt the experience of being symbolically hooded! Symbolically hooded, not actually hung like so many patriotic Turkish young people have been. And by their own government! The Turkish people have been strangled and hooded by America, by its CIA meddlers and by its corrupt politicians for decades. And in the past decade of Erdoğan’s treacherous rule, America’s CIA “boys” have done it again. Or tried to.

So what if America has used its youth to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in its deceitful, illegal war of aggression!

So what if America has humiliated the Turkish military by hooding its soldiers in Iraq in July 2003!

So what if America has conspired with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan to kill hundreds of thousands of Syrians in its deceitful pretext of bringing democracy!

So what if America has supported the treasonous, under-educated, Islamic zealot, CIA-asset, Fethullah Gulen for decades in the Pennsylvania countryside!

So what if Gulen and Erdoğan have collaborated for decades in treacherous union to do America’s bidding in the subversion of the Turkish Republic! So what if the Turkish Army has been destroyed! So what if the independence of the Turkish judiciary has collapsed! So what if rivers have been stopped, farmers’ fields uprooted, forests felled, eternal olive trees murdered, lakes polluted, mountains plundered, the air made poisonous, all in pursuit of private profit, all indicative of massive governmental corruption! So what if the government has looted public funds! So what if the Turkish mass media slithers like a reptile on its overstuffed belly doing the bidding of its governmental master! So what if Turkey stinks from America’s subversion like a rotting corpse in the noonday sun!

Yes, SO WHAT?

Yesterday, clearly, directly, in a street-theater performance, Turkish “boyz” encountered American “boyz” in the Turkish “hood.” The US embassy in Turkey called the incident “appalling.” What is appalling is the embassy’s ignorance and arrogance. What is appalling is the criminal behavior of its criminal boss, the president of the United States. It is he and Erdoğan and all their co-conspirators, all the ones who need protection by regiments of armed-to-the-teeth goons, who deserve to be hooded. And now they can never step foot in our hood, ever again. Not ever! That’s the message from yesterday. Take your warships and your political puppets and go!

James C. Ryan

Istanbul

13 November 2014

November 13, 2014
AND SO PASSES A WOMAN’S LIFE IN TURKEY

Serena Shim (1984-19 October 2014)

I never met her. I wish I had. But I knew she was a reporter, a good reporter telling of bad wars, and telling all the sides. And this one in Kobani (Ayn al-Arab) has many more sides than two, all of them bloody, all of them reeking of criminality. This carnage in Syria is perhaps the most corrupt, criminal, imperial assault in modern history. There are no “good guys” in this slaughter on the rapidly crumbling edge of Turkey. It’s all lies, deceit and power politics. Call it murder. Call it the ultimate man’s tough-guy game—bombardment, siege, street-fighting, and always the stupidity.

The dogs of war run wild and ignorantly. For what? For a nothing town destroyed by chaos. She was telling as much as she could. The Turks there, the intelligence guys, the cops, the Turkish army, all the government “watchers” watched her and her partner, Judy Irish. She was called a spy. Watch out, they said. Maybe you’ll even be arrested, they mumbled. And the word got around. Not an easy assignment. She confessed that she was worried. Who wouldn’t be?

Note the eyes. They would tell exactly what they saw, wouldn’t they? She had two children, this beautiful Lebanese-American woman. She was 30 years-old, hard-working and dedicated. Perhaps it was Napoleon who spoke about his Marshalls “marching towards the sound of the guns.” She didn’t need the advice. She followed the danger instinctively. Maybe she could make sense of it all in Iraq, Lebanon, the Ukraine, and lastly, Turkey? Maybe? Maybe not? She told of the ISIS killers being smuggled into Syria in trucks with NGO labels like World Food Organization. Turkey has been at this double-dealing game for years. But this kind of truth hurts and it did not endear her to the Turkish “watchers” and “handlers” and “muscle-guys.”

On the way back to the hotel in a town called Suruç a cement-mixer truck, massive and deadly accurate, somehow, some way, intervened to crush her car and her. It all had the stink of bad fish. Based on the historic violence visited upon journalists and other dissenters in Turkey such a first impression of foul play is logical.

The governor of that area immediately said that “Turkey is a democratic state of law. The allegations are completely untrue.” What is completely untrue is exactly what he said. Democracy and the rule of law have both been crushed by the cement-mixer truck known as the Turkish government. And Serena confirmed that in her reportage. And so passes a brave young woman’s life in Turkey. And so continues the war.

James (Cem) Ryan

Istanbul

21 October 2013

Brightening Glance http://www.brighteningglance.org/

October 22, 2014