Category: Saudi Arabia

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
WE ARE WITNESSING THE DISASTER

13 October 2014
Istanbul

Aydinlik Daily correspondent Mustafa Birol made an interview with former US Army officer and columnist James Ryan concerning his criminal complaint towards the governments of United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Great Britain, Jordan and Romania regarding violations of Article 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute.

Mustafa Birol:
I talked to James Ryan, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and also a columnist in Aydinlik Daily, concerning his criminal complaint entitled “Criminal Carnage in Syria by the Criminal Cabal for Perpetual War” towards 12 countries including the US and Turkey to the International Criminal Court regarding violations of Article 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute which deal with war crimes and the crime of aggression.

— You have very recently made a criminal complaint against 11 countries including the USA and Turkey for alleged infringements of Articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Your criminal complaint constitutes a detailed summary of the war crimes conducted by the countries which can be defined as the anti-Syria coalition. Can you please tell me about the process which prompted you to make the criminal complaint and also the political developments that shaped your application?

Just living is a process, and not an easy one. The seeds for my filing this Complaint came from living in a foreign land, in my case, Turkey. Living abroad is the best way to see one’s native country as a foreign land. It’s called objectivity. I am a graduate of West Point, the United States Military Academy. It has an honor code—cadets will not lie, cheat or steal. And they are bound by honor to report themselves if they do. They face expulsion for an infraction. That moral behavior is intended to last long after graduation. A deceitful military officer is a danger to all.

In 2006, there was great concern that the illegality of Bush’s attack on Iraq could lead to war crimes charges being made against US military personnel. I and two other classmates began an organization called West Point Graduates Against the War ). We were appalled by the deceitful, murderous behavior of the government of the United States. The commander-in-chief of the military, George W. Bush, was a liar. And we had hundreds of fellow graduates who agreed and joined the organization. And so we come to today to the horrors in Syria and the awful truth about America and its criminal accomplices.

The political developments can be described by two words—greed and immorality. For oil, for power, for new markets, for post-bombing reconstruction contracts, anything and everything to do with money. America and its criminal accomplices live by the rule of the jungle, demonizing all who stand in their way, the latest target being Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria. Syria is a secular, culturally diverse, religion-tolerant country, something America should surely encourage. It is bewildering to me that America is so intent on destroying all the secular nations in this region, including its long-lasting, and apparently successful project in Turkey. Although they finally seem to have awakened from their thirty-four year sleep since the 1980 military coup.

— If we consider that the USA, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are not State Party signatories to the Rome Statute, do you still have hopes that your complaint will be examined carefully and result in a fair verdict?

Absolutely. The USA, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court because their crime of aggression and war crimes against sovereign Syria were planned, prepared and initiated on, in and over those nations who are State party signatories. And Jordan, Belgium, Croatia, Bulgaria, France, Great Britain and Romania ARE signatories. No guns, no war, and most of the guns came from Turkey via Libya and an array of European “donors.” Such generosity… to displace three million Syrians, kill hundreds of thousands and bathe the sovereign nation in blood.

Think of it this way—the weapons and ammunition for the mercenaries didn’t rain from the heavens. When Ilyushin 76 Jordanian transports flying under Jordanian military call signs leave Pleso Airport in Croatia and land in Esenboğa Airport in Ankara, when Qatari air force C-17s make 36 roundtrips between Amman and Zagreb, Croatia, when Qatari and Saudi Arabian C-130s make 30 roundtrips between Zagreb and Ankara…Are they hauling baklava and simit? No, they are hauling the stuff of war crimes and aggression. The evidence is overwhelming. And the law is clear.

Jordan has even given its territory to terrorist training camps run by the intelligence agencies of the United States, France, Great Britain and itself. This is in clear violation of Article 8(e), Crime of Aggression. What national leader gave the order to do this? Hopefully, we shall find out in court.

None of these countries live by the rule of international law, even those who signed the Rome Statute pledging their word to abide by its provisions. Jordan is a particularly hypocritical example. And those who did not sign? They think they are exempt. But they are not. The reason for including Jordan and the others is because they DID sign the Rome Statute. And Article 12(2)(a) and (b) are quite clear. And for this reason the four non-signatory nations should fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Their crimes are ICC statutory crimes. Therefore under Rome Statute Article 12(2)(a) the Court has jurisdiction to prosecute them because their crimes were committed on, in and over ICC member states. Jordan and its fellow signers of the Rome Statute provide the jurisdictional legal leverage to get to the principal criminals, what I call the Criminal Cabal for Perpetual War, that is the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan.

One of the beautiful things about the law is its respect for and emphasis on language. One word emphasized by the International Criminal Court is “impunity,” that is, “to be free of punishment.

According to the Court, those perpetrators that commit grave crimes that threaten the peace and security of the world must not go unpunished. The preamble to the Rome Statute says it clearly, that the Court is “determined to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes and thus contribute to the prevention of such crimes.”

So I say, let justice begin with these eleven nations and its so-called leaders and their lamentably vicious advisors. The names are in my Complaint. Interested readers can see the entire document on my website, Brightening Glance.

Finally, I have utmost confidence in the International Criminal Court. It is the last, best hope for peace and, importantly, to guarantee a lasting respect for international law and its enforcement. Without that, we have nothing.

— What do you think are the major strategic and financial goals of the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, the nations most responsible for the crimes committed in your criminal complaint, on the path of developing such a covert war against Syria?

There is a nonsensical idea called Full Spectrum Dominance that the US military came up with a few years ago combined with the neo-con hallucination called the Project for the New American Century. It’s a two-headed monster that says America knows best and the world will understand, sooner or later, or else. And so this war-driven, financial machine has been grinding away at humanity, aided and abetted by the subversive help of its collaborating allies. The primary, motivating force for these disastrous policies is the sublimely arrogant and illogical idea that somehow, some way, America is “exceptional.” Obama loves to profess how much he believes in American “exceptionalism.” This is an historical extension of “winning” World War II and dropping the atomic bomb on two defenseless Japanese cities to get Russia’s attention. Thus the Cold War began. And as the world knows, Ronald Reagan won the Cold War and America has lived happily since. Setting this nonsense aside, there is a tremendous similarity between the powerful American forces of that era and those of today. One of Eisenhower’s last acts as president was to warn of the dangers of the Military-Industrial Complex. He was solidly ignored, except by one man, the man who succeeded him as president. Today, Eisenhower’s warning could be called the Military-Globalization Complex. These seem to be the deep-state monsters that must be obeyed at all cost. Democratic ideals are irrelevant.

When John F. Kennedy delivered an address entitled A Strategy of Peace in 1963, he also delivered his death sentence. “Mankind must put an end to war,” he said, “or war will put an end to mankind.” Five months later, another criminal cabal put an end to him. And to the prospects of peace, perhaps forever. And every president since then has paid attention to that criminal fact of Kennedy’s murder in full daylight in a street in Dallas, in particular, Barack Hussein Obama, Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

But you asked about the major strategic financial and strategic goals of the five Cabal members. Without getting stuck in a lot more words, here’s a one-word answer—MORE!

–You have openly stated in your complaint that the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and Levand organization (ISIS), infamous with mass murders and brutal catastrophes in Iraq-Syria line, had been created by the United States and and funded by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. So, what is the aim of the operations conducted again by the same anti-Syria coalition under the guise of stopping the ISIS atrocity?

Stopping the ISIS atrocity is a feeble attempt to stop the monster the Cabal created. And it cannot put the genie back in the bottle. We are witnessing the disaster that is US foreign policy and Turkish incompetence. And unless we face these absolute facts, nothing will improve. ISIS could have been destroyed two months ago as they charged along the roads from Syria into Iraq. I remembered the so-called Highway of Death in Iraq where the retreating, helpless Iraq army was destroyed by a relentless air attack. George Bush, the father, was so shocked by the atrocity that he called off the attack and declared victory. That same condition prevailed this summer but no one attacked. President Maleki requested air support to no avail. A great silence prevailed. Obama and his fellow felons were thinking. And so we arrive at today. A paralyzed Turkey. A confused America. And lots of people are dying. It is one of the blackest, sickest jokes in history. And the politicians that created this massive war crime, this massive crime against humanity must pay the price. Arrest. Trial. And if convicted, jail, and perhaps worse. And the International Criminal Court has the jurisdiction and the power to do this.

We face the following picture when we examine your criminal complaint in detail: The United States of America, of which you are also a citizen, is establishing terrorist organizations to achieve its strategic objectives. It is also establishing the logistics network of the said terrorist organizations and managing the transfer of militants, weapons and ammunition. Isn’t this fact sufficiently known by the citizens of the United States? Why can’t the people of the United States develop an effective anti-war opposition just as they have organized in the period of the invasion of Vietnam?

America is an expert in establishing terrorist organizations. It was their most important tool for their military coup business. SAVAK, the secret police in Iran. The Contras in Nicaragua, Augusto Pinochet, himself, in Chile. Kenan Evren, himself, in Turkey. And don’t forget the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. That’s where the South American CIA-inspired bombers perfected their assassination skills. The so-called school was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. I think I hear George Orwell laughing uproariously.

America always has willing accomplices. My Complaint names a few. There are many more. Power seeks out power. So when Obama speaks of America’s “partners” he really means accomplices.

Regarding the anti-war movement in America, I ask, “What war?” No draft of American youth into military, no war. Why do you think America went to the moon? To see if it was really made of green cheese? Such was a childhood myth. Why did America send satellites into outer space? To see if there were really little green men on Mars? Next question. Aren’t cell phones and I-phones wonderful? Sure they are. They tell us almost everything…except one thing…who is targeting us…for that’s what they are, a targeting system. All of these space-age heroic endeavors were but to develop a total targeting system. It’s part of Full Spectrum Dominance, it being the dominance of outer space. It being the domain of so-called “smart bombs.” “Smart” weapons systems eliminated the need for “boots on the ground.” “No boots needed” means American young people have no fear of being called to military service to defend the deceitful purposes of today’s America. So the deceit continues. So the hundreds of millions of parents are safe from having their children killed or maimed. Oh, there are some youngsters who volunteer for the glory of defending America from Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons. And these few are enough to maintain the illusion of boots being available to be on the ground. As far as Americans are concerned, someone else is fighting these wars. For them, America is exceptionally “exceptional.” And its all because their cell phones can tell them where they are. And its technology can kill anyone that threatens to kill them or their children.

— When I read your columns in different media organs in the specific dates I realized that you have faced disappointment with the foreign policy adopted by Barack Obama after being elected as the President of the USA. What had you been expecting and what did you face?

I, and many, many others like me, viewed Obama as the great hope. A highly intelligent, educated lawyer, he spoke sense, and spoke it well. On election day I wept in joy. And I never wept for a politician before. Now I weep, almost every day, for what might have been, for what didn’t happen, and for my native country in general.

Everything he could have done, he did not do. In fact, he became a greater killer than Bush. And now he even sounds stupider than Bush. I am sad, very sad, for this. He spoke so glowingly of change. And change things did. Now the world is in a catastrophic state. And what is to come? No leader speaks sense. Corruption is general all over. Who will save the children of this world? The likes of religious fakes? The likes of hack, sold-out politicians? The likes of boot-licking journalists on the CIA payroll? The likes of singers, and writer and actors that conspire with pseudo-fascist governments to sing and act the safe, party-line? Who will save the children? Smart Bombs?

This is what we face. This is why I filed my Criminal Complaint with the International Criminal Court.

The hero of the epic called LIFE will be the people blessed with the energy and brains of youth. These are the vast majority of people in the world, all of whom have put up with the nonsense of so-called democratic living for decades. They see clearly the disaster that incompetent leadership has brought. The world is on the edge. Brutality is everywhere, from the mouths of politicians to the knives in the bloody hands of ISIS.

So who will save us? We will. There is no other way.

I remember a story on this subject:
A man once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for a hundred years. The man replied, ‘In that case, there is no time to lose, plant it this afternoon.”

So let’s do something this afternoon.

— The charges attributed to Turkey in the criminal complaint are the providing of chemical and war weapons as well as logistics, intelligence and financial support to several terrorist organizations fighting against the Assad administration in Syria. Can you please tell us about the role of Turkey in the broader plan?

Are you asking me whether a country like Turkey, basically a state with a thoroughly politicized and dysfunctional legal system could be expected to abide by international law? Because that is the problem. With such a judiciary system, that allows politics to determine the law, how can one expect Turkey to do anything but participate with America in the rape of Syria as it participated in the earlier rape of Libya? And that’s why the principals should be brought to trial. Things will only worsen if they are not.

As far as Turkey’s role in the broader plan…it was America’s naughty errand boy, doing the dirty work and making some money on the side from black market oil and the like. I think that the duplicity and corruption is, at last, obvious to the world. Turkey’s foreign policy is a disaster and fully responsible for the catastrophe in Syria. That’s the reason for the Syrian catastrophe, that and American stupidity. Turkey did not realize that the Syrian army was well-equipped, well-trained and had high morale. How irresponsible of the prime minister and the general staff! Indeed, it was the height of reckless ignorance. Now it’s zero friends and nothing but enemies for Turkey. And no way out. Due to its cheap thinking and small-minded bargaining, to say nothing about the destruction of the Turkish army, navy and air force, Turkey cannot even defend the borders that its politicians have erased. So a role in a broader plan? What plan? No role, in anything. How Turkey will recover from this domestic and international fiasco is beyond my understanding.

Finally, do you have any message for the pro-peace readers Aydinlik?

Being pro-peace is not enough. But that does not mean making war. It does mean realizing that we have a lot more power than we think we do. We have vastly more collective brain power than the ignoramuses who have brought this world to its current sad condition.

For openers, read my Criminal Complaint to the International Criminal Court at:

http://www.brighteningglance.org/criminal-complaint-international-criminal-court-6-october-2014.html

If you support it, tell the Chief Prosecutor at:

[email protected]

And finally a few closing words from the last pro-peace American president, John F. Kennedy:
“Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”

I believe that. But first we have to get the criminal politicians out of our way.

####

October 19, 2014
LAUGHING MY HEAD OFF

Satan’s Army, Gustav Doré

So numberless were those bad angels

Hovering on wing under the cope of hell

John Milton, Paradise Lost

LAUGHING MY HEAD OFF

22 August 2014

“I suppose the pain of parting will be red and loud.”

Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading

Yesterday President Obama announced that “the entire world is appalled” by the beheading of an American photojournalist. Marie Harf, a spokesperson for the US State Department stressed that nothing whatsoever will change and that the bombings will continue. “We don’t make concessions to terrorists,” she said.

Exceptional America! Please excuse me, dear reader. I’ll be back in a few minutes——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————Okay, I’m back. Thank you for your patience. I feel much worse.

“I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being,” said the president of the United States a few months ago at West Point. And for the past five minutes I have been laughing my head off at the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s “exceptional America.”

And Ms. Harf’s words really cracked me up. Let me describe my out-of-head experience:

I was sitting on a chair in the kitchen. Early morning, still dark. Now, all the mornings and days are dark. I think about how Obama and Clinton and Kerry and Erdoğan and Davutoğlu cooked up this outrageous crime against humanity to destroy Libya and Syria. They would use Turkey as a staging area for their proxy army, their Satanic army of well-paid mercenaries. What geniuses! Exceptional America did the same thing decades ago in Afghanistan funding Bin Laden’s mujahideen that later became al-Qaeda. Wow! How smart these dopes are! Very humorous. And they all wear expensive suits and ride in black, shiny, sad limousines. And again they drive over the terror cliff, this time with the arrogant assistance of the treacherous Turkish government. They say you can’t tell the same joke twice. But not America, not “exceptional” America. Do you remember the song lyric? But where are the clowns?/Quick, send in the clowns/ Don’t bother, they’re here. If you remember, you get the idea.

And these clowns had their military and intelligence and diplomatic agents assemble in Adana, Turkey about three years ago. Everything was secret, except everyone with half a brain knew what was going on, except the American press and the lame, obedient Turkish media. Oh, Petraeus, the boy wonder, was involved, too. So was Fidan, the chief Turk spook. It’s funny how time flies when you are having fun, isn’t it? Ha! Ha! Ha! They had donors come too. Rich, treacherous folks like the obese Saudis and the tennis-tournament-sponsoring-but-non-tennis playing Qataris. They have money, oil money, and lots of it, and not much else, except duplicity.

They also met in Istanbul. At fancy hotels. What better conditions to assemble Satan’s army? But you knew this, didn’t you? No? You mean the New York Times didn’t cover the story? Aydınlık newspaper broke the story in Turkey. Too bad the American correspondents missed it. Not that it really mattered. But how sad. How hilariously tragic. I am now laughing out loud at the empty remarks of Ms. Harf. Marie Harf, spokesperson! Exceptional America certainly does not make concessions to terrorists. How silly of me to think so. Instead of mere concessions, it sponsors, feeds, arms, outfits and pays outrageous salaries to them. Ha, ha, ha, I keep laughing, catching the ironic humor in Harf’s weasel words.

Now I am positively giddy thinking about Turkey. What a funny country! How can two Turkish war criminals become America’s favorite foreign friends. So well did they destroy their own country that America suggested that they both be promoted. And they were! Wow, how funny is that? One, the destroyer of Gezi Park youth, is president, the other, the “zero-problems-with-neighbors” genius, will be prime minister. This genius who wears a perpetual smirk beneath his scruffy moustache wrote a book on foreign policy called Strategic Depth. The destruction that is Turkish foreign policy resides in a deep, deep strategic cesspool. For that, and other miscues, mishaps and misdeeds, he will lead the nation. The ever consistent Erdoğan’s first act as president-elect was to knowingly violate the Turkish constitution. Since the position of the Turkish president is supposed to be above politics—HA! HA! HA!—Erdoğan must immediately resign as prime minister and as head of his political party. He refuses to do this. Why? Because he would lose his immunity from prosecution for a few days. And in case you haven’t heard, Erdoğan has a problem in this regard. But surely the political opposition, the “bread boys,” are pressuring him. Well, ha! ha! ha! not exactly.

Even funnier is how just about everyone in Turkey who can help America is paid off to make it happen. How else to explain this amazing comedy of errors and stupidities. I mean, bribes, big bribes. Big, CIA level unaccountable bribes. How else can one explain a media that only prints pro-government propaganda? Why else would a media fire any and all columnists who dissent? How else can one explain a political opposition that helps their opposition, the opposition that they are supposed to oppose? What a weird sentence that was…but not as weird as the political opposition leaders Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Devlet Bahçeli. These two should have a comedy act on one of the brainless Turkish TV channels. Slapstick would be appropriate—they can beat each other with loaves of bread reminding the electorate of their pathetically inept choice of a presidential candidate.

Just thinking of these two walking laugh-riots makes what’s left of my brain spin. In fact my head is now spinning faster and faster and faster and—whoops!— there it goes, bouncing along the floor—tak! tak! tak!— into the corner by the refrigerator. My left eye sees the wall, the other, the dark space between the floor and the front of the refrigerator. The rest of myself remains on the chair. How humorous this is. I laugh and blow dust. I sneeze and blink my eyes so rapidly that my head rolls back an inch and I can see myself out of the corner of my right eye. There I sit, headless, my arms crossed, stupidly waiting. My head by the refrigerator thinks how it must be for the hundreds that have been beheaded by the evil breed of the American scheme, the devilish Free Libya Army, changing to the diabolical Free Syrian Army, changing now to the fiends of ISID.

I am now hysterical. Like me, even babies, mostly Christian babies, have also been beheaded. But I did it willingly through laughter. They had it done by America and Turkey, by the so-called “leaders” and by their ignoramus makers of foreign policy. How humorous was Ignoramus Clinton to revel in the barbarous disembowelment and anal rape of MuammarKhadafy? “We came, we saw, he died…Ha! Ha! Ha!” chuckled the ignoramus American Secretary of State. Is Kerry, and his litany of lies about Syria, any less amusing? Any less of an ignoramus clown? Ha! Ha! Ha! No. He is just another monstrously “exceptional” American. And speaking of monsters…

How does the president of the United States explain to the American taxpayers that their dollars are financing the beheading of Christian babies…and so much more? The president announced that “the entire world” is appalled by the beheading of an American journalist. But is he, Obama, appalled? If he is, how does he explain that he has assembled Satan’s Army? And why does it take a bestial slaughtering of an innocent journalist to get Obama’s attention to the horror that his policies have created? The world knows this. There are no more cover stories. He has made a devil’s bargain with the “strategic depth” incompetent ignoramuses in Turkey. This is the horrible truth. It is a horrible mistake. Now what?

As for my own beheading through hysterical laughter? My head continues to gather dust by the refrigerator. I can still see my other part on the sitting on the chair like two sacks of onions. Can I stop laughing long enough at this darkest of all tragicomedies to pull myself together? Is it really worth the effort?

James (Cem) Ryan

Istanbul

22 August 2014

August 22, 2014
WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

The burning questions of these times in Turkey

What to do? A presidential election, the first of its kind, is soon coming to Turkey. There are three candidates. One is the prime minister, about whom the less said the better. Another is Selahattin Demirtaş, the Kurdish parliamentary representative, affiliated with the PKK, a separatist, armed terrorist organization. The third is a life-long, Islamist now tricked out as a secularist. He, Ekmelledin İhsanoğlu, characterized himself politically as a loaf of bread. (“Ekmek için Ekmelledin”) While perhaps appropriate, it was not meant to be funny.

Think of it this way, the presidential race is a Turkish-American trifecta. Usually one must pick the exact order of finish, 1-2-3, to win. But not in Turkey’s three-horse run-for-Çankaya. America wins regardless. Erdoğan, who America tried to dump last December, is the odds-on favorite. Demirtaş is the long-shot Kurdish candidate to uphold Joe Biden’s pipedream of a Kurdistan from his days on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And İhsanoğlu, America’s new boy, a smiling loaf of plain, white bread who will make a race of it for awhile. He will be run into the ground by the Erdoğan machine and opposition party voter apathy (and anger). Unless America pushes some magic election buttons at the finish line.

Nevertheless, all three America-bred candidates will win. Erdoğan gets his last gasp of glory until America figures a way to excuse him permanently. İhsanoğlu, entering his first race, is not likely to win (break his maiden) in this one. But he gains experience and will earn a place in America’s stable in case Erdoğan breaks down in a future outing. And Demirtaş gains credibility and track-time as an American entry for the next political operation in Kurdistan. So you see, America wins! The American-bred candidates win! And as usual, those swindled into believing that the presidential race matters, that is, the Turkish people, lose, again. Such is life at Imperial Downs, the American home of rigged elections, puppet shows and broken dreams.

Such are the dire electoral conditions in Turkey today. After a decade of Islamic fascist rule, and opposition party collaboration, its secular democracy is in ruins. This hapless trio of candidates puts the final nail in the coffin of Atatürk’s secular, anti-imperialist republic. This slate was selected by the political parties seated in parliament not the people. The domineering Erdoğan, finishing his third and final term, wants to move into the presidential chair. He will also change the power structure so that his steel-handed, brutish reign will continue. He should win easily. The Kurdish candidate is there to keep his separatist constituency happily dreaming of autonomy and oil revenues. The third candidate, the political opposition’s answer to the religious fascist government, is Ekmelledin İhsanoğlu. He is running because… because… well, because… perhaps because he was born and educated in Egypt, is a career Islamist, has been mute for years about the continuing dangers of shariah being imposed on secular Turkey and has an unconvincing commitment to the principles of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. All this irrelevance somehow fused into a bewildering symbol of a loaf of bread. And, accordingly, his equally bewildering sponsors concluded that he will surely defeat the undefeated and undefeatable Erdoğan. This so-called thinking is called the “Alice-in-Nightmareland Syndrome.”

So how did a loaf of bread come to represent the adherents of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk? The two major opposition parties, cooperating for the first time, swept the countryside seeking a suitable secular, democratic, Atatürk-loving candidate to face the imperialist-puppet Erdoğan. Amazingly, they could find none. Why? Because the opposition parties are deficient in their knowledge of secularity, democracy and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The truth is that they have both collaborated in the destruction of Atatürk’s republic. They have enabled the religious fascists to come to power and remain in power. One need not be a genius to see this. Being marginally alive in Turkey is enough. And Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu’s secretive selection, even to his own party members, of an Islamist bread loaf is first-hand evidence of his treachery.

IF ONLY…

So what is to be done? Oh, if only Mustafa Kemal Atatürk were here to save us. He’d know what to do. Yes, he would. Falih Rıfkı Atay, Atatürk’s close friend, biographer and confidant, told us in 1968. “What would Atatürk do if he were alive today? Shall I tell you? He would curse the lot of us.”

On Sunday 13 July 2014, Ümit Zileli wrote a compelling column in Aydınlık entitled “To Think Like Atatürk” (Mustafa Kemal gibi düşünmek!). It is well worth reading. Briefly put, Zileli says it is now fight time! I agree. So fight. Here’s why.

First, the coming election. American self-interest, ignorance and criminal negligence prevails. And their puppet government loves to see elections. It validates their crimes. Winning recent local elections allowed Erdoğan to feel vindicated of massive theft and bribery allegations. It allows them to lie to their ignorant constituency, shower them with bribes and become more beloved. And America claps hands and showers their pet fascists with praise and good wishes.

Remember the elation a few years ago when the Iraqis “embraced democracy” and voted for candidates they didn’t even know, a puppet slate installed by the occupying power? Suddenly, thanks to America’s brave men and women, Iraq had become democratic. All it took was purple ink for the index fingers. Some democracy. A deception. Examine Iraq today.

The coming election in Turkey is another deception. It is, as Atatürk said in earlier, similar times, “the work emanating from the brains of traitors.” Turkey is now a totalitarian, de facto one-party police state. And the Turkish people are worrying about whether to vote in a phony election? Vote for what? To be a loaf of bread or not to be a loaf of bread? Hardly a burning question, it’s an empty and insulting exercise.

DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS REQUIRE A DEMOCRACY

Democracy requires a sovereign nation not controlled by outside imperialist powers and its agents, be it CIA or, as the prime minister claims, Fethullah Gülen Gang operators. It would also be nice to not have a criminal government, one that lies, cheats, steals, maims, gasses and murders its own people. Citizens of a democracy have certain specific human rights not to be abused. Vibrant, aggressive, honest opposition parties are also essential. The Turkish nation lacks sovereignty, its borders eroded by its own government. Its destiny is controlled by the needs of foreign powers as implemented by its puppet government. By the prime minister’s own admission, a foreign gang, CIA-supported, operated with impunity to deceitfully destroy the nation’s security forces, that is, the Turkish Army. This same government conspires with various terrorist groups to overthrow the governments of neighboring countries, acting under orders from imperialist powers. It is clear that Turkish democracy is a deception and dysfunctional.

Turkish political representation is a deception and dysfunctional. The party leaders select the candidates that we, the people, vote for. The party that professes to be “revolutionary,” the CHP, as of now the largest opposition party, failed miserably to support the Gezi Park movement. It perceived the movement, mostly consisting of young people, to be against the party’s interests. For once the party was correct. The CHP is primarily a fossilized bunch of status quo parliamentary seat-warmers, completely unrepresentative of Turkish young people. Hence came Ekmelledin İhsanoğlu to yet again prove that point. How insulting is CHP to the youth of Turkey!

The Turkish judiciary system is a deception and dysfunctional. Enormous fascist-style justice buildings everywhere, justice nowhere. The courts are in the hands of the ruling party fascists.

The Turkish media slavishly serves the interests of the political ruling party. Freedom of the press is nonexistent. The wolf-pack media fails to understand its democratic rights and responsibilities.

The Turkish people lack constitutionally guaranteed rights to freely assemble and protest. They live under the constant fear of reprisals, both physical and judicial.

The Turkish police, aided by organized street thugs, assault the Turkish population with fiendish brutality. This is applauded by the prime minister. ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and other government-supported terrorists have a free pass into and out of Turkey. There is no personal security in the Turkish police state.

Democracy is dead in Turkey. If you vote, you will be voting for a rotting corpse.

KNOW YOUR ENEMY

The enemy is the system imposed on the Turkish people by insiders and outsiders, the same people Atatürk identified in Nutuk (The Great Speech) over one hundred years ago. They are the “fools and traitors” of the government who “identify their personal interests with the enemy’s political goals.” The enemy is clearly identified. It is the state and the government. It is the treacherous opposition parties. It is America, its ambassadors, its agents and its CIA and NSA operators, here and abroad. The enemy is imperialism and its operators. We all know this. There are no longer any mysteries.

Examine what passes for Turkish foreign policy and weep for the nation. “Peace at home peace in the world?” Atatürk’s motto and Atatürk’s republic are in the hands of criminals and collaborators. And the same tired experts fill the already polluted airwaves with their stale ideas about the responsibility of citizens to vote. Citizens of what? A puppet state of America? Vote for whom? Another imperialistic puppet? Vote for what? More of the same? Or worse?

GETTING STARTED

First, remember that the true objective is often not the field in plain sight but the sea beyond the mountains.

Second, say NO to this false election. If you feel you must vote, carry a pen with you and write the name, MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATÜRK, on your ballot. Sure, it invalidates your vote. But the election itself is invalid.

Third, say NO to these fraudulent and deceitful opposition parties. Surely they will collapse after this fiasco. This is good news and a first step towards solution.

Fourth, say NO to this state that so severely mistreats and insults over half the nation.

Fifth, immediately prepare to fight to save Atatürk’s republic, that is, prepare the field of engagement. Please note that there should be no violence nor will it be necessary to engage the enemy, that is, the imperialist powers and their agents, in any physical manner. We, like Atatürk, should choose where and how we fight.

ACTION PLAN

No religious designations on public documents, particularly identification cards. Immediately demonstrate to the enemy that religious designations will no longer be used for political purposes. Accordingly, and in conformance with European Union standards, immediately apply to have the religious designation removed from all Turkish ID cards. This is easily done. One visit to the population (Nüfus) office starts the process. The objective? To neutralize the enemy’s ability to divide Turkey into religious sects. To tell the wider world that the removal of religious designations by millions of Turks is a profound and dramatic step in the people’s battle against internal religious fascism and external imperialist ambitions. Suddenly, Turkey goes from being 99% Islamic in the eyes of the CIA to something dramatically less. Thus, notice is served that we want no part in a government or its supportive agencies and collaborators that use religion to support its own criminal behavior or the criminal behavior of foreign powers.

No military service in support of imperialism or sectarian war crimes.Immediately file a petition with the European Commission of Human Rights that claims conscientious objection (C.O.) status for all young people of age for conscription into military service. The fact that conscientious objection is not legally recognized in Turkey is irrelevant to our purpose. Resistance to the imperialist powers and their puppets will be on all fronts and at all depths. A government that conspires with the Gülen Gang to destroy the Turkish military and then claims that a parallel state, that is, the same Gülen Gang, did it alone is not competent to claim the lives of Turkish young people to serve its dark designs. A government that allows, either wittingly or unwittingly, the catastrophic destruction of the state’s primary security force is either treasonous or incompetent. In either case, Turkish youth should not be cannon fodder for use by a government that has proven to be an enemy of the Turkish people.

Boycott all mainstream propagandizing media. Avoid viewing all television programs and films that support the enemy. Avoid purchasing newspapers or journals that support the enemy.

Boycott enemy products. Boycott all American product. Its role in the destruction of Turkish democracy and security is profound. Boycott the products of all manufacturers and distributors that deny advertising to media opposed to the government. This is prejudicial and undemocratic marketing behavior, driven solely to gain political favor. It has nothing to do with economics and is purely punitive.

Do not engage in mass public protest. Are we angry? Yes! Are we at war? Yes! Are we stupid? No. So we don’t go into the streets. There is a better way. Let the enemy buy more TOMA monsters from that treacherous Turkish enterprise, Nurol Holding. And let imperialist America and cowardly Brazil sell more and more pepper gas to the Turkish police. Let it all rot in their bloody hands.

Watch the political opposition parties collapse. Revealed by this phony presidential election to be non-representative and fraudulent to the people it claims to represent, the opposition parties will again try to re-invent themselves. This, too, will be a disaster. They have proven, once again, that they no longer represent a huge segment of the population, that is, the young people. And for that failure they will proceed, at last, to destroy themselves. From this collapse comes hope.

Watch a new system emerge. The world is heading there whether the current ruling class likes it or not. Representational democracy represents one thing, money. Wealth is politics. Poverty, local and global, can never be solved by a political system that is a slave of business. In a period of economic crisis, that is, 2008 to today, both the number and net worth of billionaires rose by almost 50%. At whose expense? Everyone else, in particular the poor. People are driven from their land. Resources are controlled by a small group of political and corporate elite. Politics is not representative of real people. How many people determined that Ekmelledin İhsanoğlu would be the candidate to represent the interests of those supporting the secular, democratic republic founded by Atatürk? One. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. He knew best. A new system must come. But first the old one must self-destruct.

Join hands.Who knows when this will happen? But we see the cracks appearing everywhere. The overwhelming arrogance that presented the Turkish people with a rigged, phony election should be the inciting incident that leads on to victory over the imperial powers now besieging Turkey. And remember, the enemy remains without a clue about the origin of and reasons for the Gezi Park movement, as do the opposition parties. A new generation of Turks must lead. Help them!

CONCLUSION

We are passing from the sphere of that historical time of Atatürk’s revolution against the forces of backwardness and imperialism. It’s youthful vigor while he lived gave great hope to the people. But it’s long-term, continuing debilitation after his death left the revolution incomplete and vulnerable. Dangerous flirtations with imperialist powers led to disastrous military coups. Hence now the current state of siege by imperial powers, aided by a treasonous government that has destroyed most aspects of secular democracy. This counter revolution will culminate with the rise to full presidential power of an obvious enemy of secular democracy, aided by the naïve treachery of the incompetent political opposition.

All of the democratic institutions of government have been spoiled by the religious-fascist meddling of the ruling party. The Turkish Army appears lost. Its generals bow their heads to political hacks. There are no longer secure borders. Vast regions in the east operate independently and with impunity. The government actively supports terrorist organizations inside and outside Turkey. The Turkish government lacks independent sovereignty. Foreign imperialist powers control the destiny of the Turkish people. All seems lost.

Still, there is a chance that this catastrophe will lead to the consolidation of a massive source of intelligent, patriotic political power long-ignored and long-suppressed. In a word, the relentless power of YOUTH. Impatient, honest, courageous, vigorous, this is the genuine vanguard of the fight to save secular Turkey. It is the future. The full flower of young manhood and young womanhood will sweep aside the political debris that so contaminated the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. We have seen the young people in action. And they were splendid.

Now is the time to show again how a great people, whose national course was considered finished, regained its independence. Now is the time to show how it recreated a national and modern State founded on the latest results of science. Now is the time to rid the land of imperialists and their agents.

Now is the time to engage the enemy on all fronts, domestic and foreign.

Enough is enough! Now is the time to fight!

Let it begin!

Cem Ryan

Istanbul

18 July 2014

REFERENCES:

Atatürk, The Great Speech (Nutuk), Atatürk Research Center, Ankara, 2005.

Atay, Falih Rıfkı. The Atatürk I Knew, Yapi ve Kredi Bankasi, Istanbul, 1973, p. 252.

Zileli, Ümit. Mustafa Kemal gibi düşünmek! )

“There was never a man like Ataturk. He was a mighty torrent that flowed over barren soil and was lost.”

Falih Rıfkı Atay, The Atatürk I Knew, p. 252

But the Turk is both dignified and proud: he is also capable and talented. Such a nation would prefer to perish rather than subject itself to the life of a slave.

Therefore, Independence or Death!

This was the rallying cry of all those who honestly desired to save their country.

Let us suppose for a moment that in trying to accomplish this we had failed. What would have been the result?—why, slavery!

In that case, would not the consequence have been the same if we had submitted to the other proposals? Undoubtedly, it would; but with this difference, that a nation that defies death in its struggle for independence derives comfort from the thought that it had resolved to make every sacrifice compatible with human dignity. There is no doubt its position is more respected than would be that of a craven and degraded nation capable of surrendering itself to the yoke of slavery.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, The Great Speech (Nutuk) p. 10

July 18, 2014
MEN IN MASQUERADE

Photo taken in the northern Syria town of Raqqa. (Courtesy: Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently)

In case you are one of the millions of Turks still celebrating the fact that Fenerbahçe, to no one’s great surprise, won the league football championship, well, you need to get a grip on reality, painful as that might be. The so-called “news”-papers still regurgitate this gloriously boring “news.” Tapes of the melodramatic fan and player antics after Sunday’s no-score game still runs on the sports channels. And thus all seems right with the world. Except it’s not. The world is horrible.

One really must wonder about the mentality of the Turkish people. Their government is causing a slaughter, if not a genocide, of the Syrian people. And I mean, specifically, that the Syrian Alevites are being directly targeted by Sunni Jihad proxies financed by Turkey. It’s a political “thing” dealing with pipedreams of a neo-Ottoman Sunni empire. By definition, that targeting constitutes a genocide. But the terror spread throughout Syria by Turkey and America affects all the Syrian people, Islamic, Christian, Jewish, atheist, all of them. These bankrolled gangsters are cutthroat killers. Killers kill. But cutthroat killers mutilate. All this should make one wonder. So I do.

Mostly I wonder why the allegedly good-hearted, the self-proclaimed “hospitable” Turks show such little interest and concern about the bloody massacre just next-door caused by their bloody-handed government. It’s no secret. It’s been no secret for years. After all, Seymour Hersh’s article was more affirmation than news. But in Turkey, the approved story on Syria is mostly simple-minded propaganda. Suddenly two years ago, Bashar al–Assad became a bad guy. And Erdoğan was hired by America to do what he does best. But now the truth is out. And things have moved from horrible to catastrophic.

So what consumes their interest, these Turkish people? Why do they now fixate ad nauseam, on television and in the press, on the Ottoman slaughter, if not genocide (the words all mean “mass murder”) of the Armenians in 1915? 1915! Then, a war was on. The Russians were enemies. Turkey’s eastern Armenians collaborated. War is murder. Blah-blah-blah. 100 years ago! 100 years ago! Yet today, the Turkish government openly exports death and destruction and Jihadist terrorism to their neighbor, Syria. And nothing happens. Football. Family. Life is busy. What’s for dinner?

Turkish people! What kind of a social conscience do you have? To silently sit while events of Nazi proportions are being done to the Syrian people by your government? It seems inconceivable that you can fill the streets for Fenerbahçe football but not even mumble a care about what your tax money is doing to the Syrian people. You know the story of the people who watched the freight trains come and go through the tiny town of Oświęcim (Auschwitz). They also said they didn’t “know.” But the camps were only a kilometer away. “We didn’t know.” Will that also be your alibi? Denial.

Turkish people, get real! Wake up from your football-slumber! You allowed the prime minister to appear on the Charlie Rose Show and lie, misrepresent, and double-talk to the world. He does to the world what he does at home. It is ridiculous.

He said that during legal protests every other country beats and gasses and kills its citizens. So what’s the problem? And neither you nor Charlie said anything.

He said, how can a country be corrupt when it has had such dramatic economic growth? And neither you nor Charlie mentioned that he (the prime minister) sold ALL the assets of the nation to finance the destruction of the cities and nature itself. And that everyone in favor politically has a piece of the action. That this growth “miracle” is based on plunder and crony-capitalism. And that’s the economic truth.

He said, how can he be a dictator when 45.5% of the people vote for him. And neither you nor Charlie asked about the majority of the people—54.5%—that voted against him. And why!

He said that he didn’t know Fethullah Gülen was such a threat until 17 December 2013 when he made a “coup.” And neither you nor Charlie Rose said, “Nonsense!”

Nonsense, it is. As everyone knows, Gülen disclosed his own treacherous plan 15 years ago. That’s why he escaped from his country into the warm embrace of the CIA and the Green-Card Land called Pennsylvania. Surely everyone knows that Gülen, a master of disguise, was recorded advising his treasonous followers that:

“You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers…. You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey.”

And fifteen years ago Erdoğan was one of his adherents. Without Gülen and the CIA, Erdoğan would never have left the Kasımpaşa neighborhood of Istanbul. And even an ordinary journalist, let alone Charlie Rose, should have known this. Does Charlie know the real reason why Gülen, no angel himself, is now Erdoğan’s sworn enemy? If Charlie only knew a few journalistic facts he would have quickly figured it all out. We all have, and we’re not respected journalists at all. We’re not even respected. So here’s the truth (and now I’m whispering): On 17 December 2013, a Gülenian wind blew the roof off the massive corruption enterprise called the government of Turkey.

Actually Charlie Rose only masquerades as a journalist, as elementary-school educated Gülen masquerades as an Islamic scholar, as Erdoğan masquerades as a statesman, as Abdullah Gül masquerades as a head of state and as the CIA masquerades as a patriotic, law abiding part of the American government. In Turkey, everyone is someone else and everyone plays dress-up. Welcome to the Mardi Gras a la Turka. It’s a political-social condition called Deceit.

Speaking of which, now the terrorists gangsters, financed, fed and armed by Turkey, are performing a new trick, crucifixion. They apparently grew tired of eating the pulsating hearts of their victims and mutilating their corpses. This is what happens when nitwits make foreign policy. False-flag Turkey supplies thugs with sarin gas. America supplies them with TOW missiles. The inmates run the asylum. Everything is out of control. Crucifixions! The mind cannot grasp the horror. Turkey no longer has borders. Turkey no longer has a viable military chain-of-command. Nor has it a viable judiciary. All of this has been brought about by the man who would now be president. Do the Turkish people know his credentials for the job? Is this the ultimate masquerade?

Turkish people, Get real! Wake up! The day will come when this Turkish government will be in the dock at The Hague for war crimes. Turkish people! By your silence, by your media’s collaboration in this criminal enterprise, by everyone passively accepting the commission of these war crimes, so too will your consciences be on trial. You and the country may never recover from these awful deeds done in your name.

Oh, what have you allowed your ballot boxes to do to your Syrian friends and neighbors and even families! How needy you must be to sell out for bribes of coal and rice, and some of you for so much more.

Oh, what have you allowed your passive, inept political opposition parties to do…and not do!

All the plunder, all the gold, all the dollars, all the shoeboxes, the airports, the money-counting machines, the tunnels, the bridges, the million-dollar wristwatches, the power plants, the shopping centers, the football frenzies and their obscenely expensive stadiums, all of this stuff that masquerades as democracy and capitalism and social value will not buy one second of relief from the coming guilt and shame. Murder, destruction, sickness, starvation, complete barbarism has been unleashed from Turkey. Turkey has raped and murdered Syria. And this is happening now, not a century ago. Crucifixion, a final act of savagery, killed a man named Christ and created Christianity. From evil came good. But in Turkey’s case…one wonders.

Would you not agree?

James (Cem) Ryan
Istanbul
1 May 2014

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Turkey wants to share its housing experience

JEDDAH: ABDUL HADI HABTOOR

Sunday 24 March 2013

Last Update 24 March 2013 2:32 am

Ali Babacan, deputy prime minister of Turkey, has said that relations between his country and Saudi Arabia are built on strong and solid historic and cultural foundations.

“Saudi Arabia and Turkey are working together side by side in numerous regional and international organizations within the framework of the G20 countries that form the largest economic bloc in the world,” he said in an interview.

Indicating that Turkish developers are keen on executing more infrastructural projects and housing in the Kingdom, he said: “The Turkish experience in building is based on the cooperation of the state and the private sector.” Buildings in this regard include houses for low-income families implemented by the private sector under the supervision of the government. The other is for middle class citizens but fully executed by the private sector.

“We take the needs of citizens into account as much as possible, in addition to environmental impact,” he said, adding that Saudi Arabia should adopt the most suitable model on both the financial and social levels. “The largest possible number of houses should be built at affordable prices for all classes of society.”

In the field of trade, he pointed out that exports from his country to the Kingdom stood at $ 3.3 billion against $ 4.8 billion in imports from Saudi Arabia. “Last year, volumes of commercial exchange increased by more than $ 1 billion,” he added.

He said the economic transformation of his country relied on long-term and highly transparent economic policy. “Political stability is a very important factor in this process,” he pointed out.

Babacan said that the projected Turkish economic growth is 4 percent this year, coupled with an increase in employment rates and exports to $ 158 billion.

Turkey recently approved regulations to allow foreign ownership of real estate and property. “Citizens of the GCC will benefit greatly from this regulation,” he said.

via Turkey wants to share its housing experience | ArabNews.

March 24, 2013