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Category: USA

Turkey could be America’s most important regional ally, above Iraq, even above Israel, if both sides manage the relationship correctly.

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
FBI Releases Documents proving Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun fled to Argentina in a Submarine

Newly declassified FBI documents prove that the government knew Hitler was alive and well, and living in the Andes Mountains long after World War II. Click here, on the FBI website to confirm the quiet release of this information.

On April 30 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker. His body was later discovered and identified by the Soviets before being rushed back to Russia. Is it really possible that the Soviets have been lying all this time, and that history has purposely been rewritten? No one thought so until the release of the FBI documents. It seems that it is possible that the most hated man in history escaped war-torn Germany and lived a bucolic and peaceful life in the beautiful foothills of the Andes Mountains.

THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY KNEW.

Recently, released FBI documents are beginning to show that not only were Hitler and Eva Braun’s suicide faked, the infamous pair might have had help from the Director of the US’ OSS office in Switzerland – and the man who would later become the first Director of Central Intelligence, Allen Dulles. In one FBI document from Los Angeles, it is revealed that the agency was well aware of a mysterious submarine making its way up the Argentinian coast dropping off high level Nazi officials. What is even more astonishing is the fact that the FBI knew he was in fact living in the foothills of the Andes.

WHO IS THE MYSTERIOUS INFORMANT?

In a Los Angeles letter to the Bureau in August of 1945, an unidentified informant agreed to exchange information for political asylum. What he told agents was stunning. The informant not only knew Hitler was in Argentina, he was one of the confirmed four men who had met the German submarine. Apparently, two submarines had landed on the Argentinian coast, and Hitler with Eva Braun was on board the second. The Argentinian government not only welcomed the former German dictator, but also aided in his hiding. The informant went on to not only give detailed directions to the villages that Hitler and his party had passed through, but also credible physical details concerning Hitler. While, for obvious reasons the informant is never named in the FBI papers, he was credible enough to be believed by some agents.

The FBI Tried to Hide Hitler’s Whereabouts:

Even with a detailed physical description and directions the FBI still did not follow up on these new leads. Even with evidence placing the German sub U-530 on the Argentinian coast shortly before finally surrounding, and plenty of eye witness accounts of German official being dropped off, no one investigated.

EVEN MORE EVIDENCE IS FOUND

Along with the FBI documents detailing an eye- witness account of Hitler’s whereabouts in Argentina, more evidence is coming to light to help prove that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun did not die in that bunker. In 1945, the Naval Attaché in Buenos Aires informed Washington there was a high probability that Hitler and Eva Braun had just arrived in Argentina. This coincides with the sightings of the submarine U-530. Added proof comes in the form of newspaper articles detailing the construction of a Bavarian styled mansion in the foothills of the Andes Mountains. Further proof comes in the form of architect Alejandro Bustillo who wrote about his design and construction of Hitler’s new home which was financed by earlier wealthy German immigrants.

IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE THAT HITLER ESCAPED:

Perhaps the most damming evidence that Hitler did survive the fall of Germany lies in Russia. With the Soviet occupation of Germany, Hitler’s supposed remains were quickly hidden and sent off to Russia, never to be seen again. That is until 2009, when an archeologist from Connecticut, Nicholas Bellatoni was allowed to perform DNA testing on one of the skull fragments recovered. What he discovered set off a reaction through the intelligence and scholarly communities. Not only did the DNA not match any recorded samples thought to be Hitler’s, they did not match Eva Braun’s familiar DNA either. So the question is, what did the Soviets discover in the bunker, and where is Hitler? Even former general and President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote to Washington. It was not only General Eisenhower who was concerned over Hitler’s compete disappearance, Stalin also expressed his concerns. In 1945, the Stars and Stripes newspaper quoted then General Eisenhower as believing that the real possibility existed of Hitler living safely and comfortably in Argentina.

IS IT POSSIBLE?

With all of the new-found evidence coming to light, it is possible and even likely that not only did Hitler escape from Germany; he had the help of the international intelligence community. Released FBI documents prove that they were not only aware of Hitler’s presence in Argentina; they were also helping to cover it up. It would not be the first time the OSS helped a high-ranking Nazi official to escape punishment and capture. Look at the story of Adolf Eichmann who was located in Argentina in the 1960′s. Did Hitler escape to Argentina? The answer is yes.

Source: Forbidden Knowledge TV

July 5, 2014
TURKEY: NOW THE STORY ENDS

“Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it.The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.”

Red Smith

New York Herald Tribune, October 4, 1951

I wish I had written those above words, now so perfect these days for Turkey, poor, suffering, betrayed Turkey.

Eleven-years-old, I leapt from the sofa screaming. The New York Giants, my New York baseball Giants, had just won the National League championship. A miraculous second ago, the Giants had done the unimaginable. If only you had been there! Bobby Thomson hit a homerun and the Giants were champs. And Red Smith wrote about it. And I, screaming-happy, punched the hell out of the air. And I loved everyone and everything and no one that I knew had ever died.

Enter my mother: “Jesus, Mary and Joseph! What happened?” she screamed back to me, “And your hand! What happened to your hand?”

It seems I had punched more than just air. I had shattered the glass lampshade and was bleeding, spraying the carpet like a garden hose. And so off to the hospital with my mother I went. No more Bobby Thomson and New York Giants. Reality had strangled euphoria.

Today, in Turkey, seventy-six years since Atatürk’s death, reality strangled hope. And today I feel like punching a hell of a lot more than air and lampshades.

A religious nonentity with a nearly unpronounceable religious name was selected as an election candidate by the so-called secular, so-called political opposition parties. He will try to lead them (and us) to victory in the coming presidential election. Laboring like a constipated elephant for weeks, interviews, meetings and discussions, yesterday they again sat and strained and sat and strained and finally…Eureka! Out came the candidate. Finally, they eked out someone named Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, another “pious” Muslim. May Allah please save Turkey from “pious” Muslims!

In any other country, the toxic reputation of Turkey’s ruling religious party scoundrels would rule out any candidate even admitting to being a Muslim. Even atheism would be a winner. But not in Turkey. Corruption, stealing, murder and any and all destruction done in the name of religious piety sells well here. I always wonder if their all-knowing Allah knows this.

Ekmeleddin’s opponent? None other than the “pious” war-mongering, war criminal, man-of-43%-of-the-people, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. His “piety” is well-known. He is “beloved” among the Turkish young people for his Gezi Park gassings, blindings, beatings and other “pious” brutalities including murder. He also excels in defiling his dead victims, all young. Provoking his adoringly ignorant crowds to demean the grieving mothers of his victims is another of his sicker stunts. A real sweetheart of a guy, wouldn’t you agree? And when hundreds of coal miners died because of his government’s corruption he and his brutal police beat the mourners after the funerals. His piety is well-known internationally. He and his friend in Washington, the one with the rancid Nobel Prize, entertain their fellow believers by funding Sunni terrorist killers in Syria, and now Iraq.

What, you might ask, is the matter with the Turkish opposition parties? How can they be so stupid? Well, stupidity seems to come easy for them. In fact, they have been collaborating for years to bring these religious nitwits into power. The former head of CHP, Deniz Baykal, himself a fully disgraced adulterer but still a member of parliament, approved a parliamentary deal that allowed a legally ineligible Erdoğan to come to office. Baykal never said he was sorry, even though his party has been trounced in every election since. His successor party head, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, has been similarly inept. The MHP, the other opposition party, headed by a fossil named Devlet Bahçeli, is equally treacherous, having voted for the AKP religious fascist Abdullah Gül to serve as president. Sold-out to America is the best describer of the political opposition.

But it seems weirdly natural for these so-called secular parties to betray their followers and pander for religious votes. A few elections ago Baykal and his CHP had a brilliant idea about gaining the votes of covered women. These geniuses decided that women who wear the oppressively black, total-body drapery called a charshaf would look good with a CHP rosette pinned there upon. They pinned a few to no avail. In another election, the size of wristwatches prevailed. And in another the debate raged about villas. Losers all. Killing hope is their speciality.

So it was and so it will ever be. The secular, democratic idealism that defined the founding of Turkey has been defiled and cheapened through the generations. Imagine a so-called Muslim nation that slaughters its fellow Muslims, the sin of sins in the Koran? Imagine a secular, democratic nation with no functioning democratic institutions ruled by Islamo-fascist gangsters? Imagine a supposedly sovereign nation whose police and military forces are under the control of a foreign power? Imagine an Islamic nation who continually votes its approval of one of the most corrupt, violent regimes in history? Imagine an election campaign between and among religious ignoramuses, fossils and artifacts that determines the fate of tens of millions of young, secular, intelligent, energetic young people? Imagine a government and a prime minister that defames the founder of Turkey, a man, Atatürk, widely considered to be one of the geniuses of any country in any age?

Today’s Turkey is a den of thieves and liars and worse. Today’s Turkey is a mockery of sovereignty, inextricably linked to America, its war criminal government and its morally degenerate CIA.

So what matters? Recep Tayyip Erdoğan? Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu? Elections? Disloyal opposition parties? Obama? The CIA? The answer? None of them! The nation that was Turkey is dead. The Turkish people have strangled it. They should have burned their identification cards with their Islam religious designation years ago. Turkish people, America has strangled you with your Islamic identification ID cards. They brought the traitors to power in your country and now it is too late. The fiction of religion has murdered your country.

So now what is possible? Truth? Virtue? Independence? Trust? Peace at home? Peace in the world? Not a chance! Idealism? The open-faced smiling optimism of youth? Don’t be naïve. Don’t be stupid. Now it is done! Finished!

For Turkey, only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again. Now the story ends.

James (Cem) Ryan

Istanbul

17 June 2014

June 20, 2014
THE BEAST

Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common power to keep all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and as such a war, against every man. (13/8)

To this war of every man against every man […] nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no justice. (13/13)

The Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes (1651)

Defined by its own horror, The Beast defiles the living and the dead. Lies! Cheating! Stealing! Killing! Its toxic mouth spews division, hate and felonious encouragement. It has no interests except its own and those are all-consuming. It rules in a Hobbesian world, where every person is at war with every person and The Beast is at war with all. Consumption, greed, violence and wealth are the supreme virtues. The Beast’s police are everywhere with its deadly violence. The streets are bloody with death. The Beast has strangled justice. It rules by rules, not laws. The Beast has many backs. Media, corporations, opposition politicians, the brain-washed, the brain-dead, the needy greedy, the destructive tycoons that assassinate mountains, rivers, streams, valleys, virgin forests, farmland, the air, the sea. The Beast divides all, rages against all, slaughters all opposed to its rules. It reigns supreme in triumphant arrogance. If it pleases, even the corpses of its enemies are consumed, not by some purifying fire, but as a vengeful hate-weapon to threaten and increase its power. War is perpetual. Fear of violent death rages like a plague. The arts are destroyed. All representations, and imagination itself, are threats to The Beast. All nature, all living and inert things are raped to satisfy its brutish appetites. Bigger, better, taller, deeper, faster, more, more, more… Society has become a vast wasted land. There is no political community. Public gatherings are attacked. Life is poor, fear-filled, nasty and brutish. Death always comes suddenly in this land called Shame. And The Beast is always pleased with its beastly work.

301 coalminers died suddenly and violently in Soma while feeding The Beast. The Beast was not embarrassed, not at all. No one believes The Beast’s death toll. But there is another number, a horrific number that can indeed be trusted. The Beast’s mass murder left 432 children fatherless. And then The Beast came to the grieving town. It beat and gassed the mourning families. It defiled their children. It proclaimed that its own violent mass murder was really quite comfortingly beautiful and, in beastly “truth”, inevitable and, in beastly “fact,” irrelevant. It’s to be expected, said The Beast. For what is life but death? And having finished The Beast hid from its grieving subjects in a supermarket, looking quite pleased with its beastly self.

The other day a handful of people protested the Soma tragedy in an Istanbul section called Okmeydanı. The 15-year-old Gezi murder victim, Berkin Elvan, was memorialized. It’s an Alevite neighborhood and the Alevites are open-minded and sensible people. Of course, The Beast despises Alevites. The Beast tries to do in Turkey what it failed to do in Syria—exterminate them. So The Beast’s Police developed yet another diversionary incident. They opened fire in the street, both gas and bullets. The cops heaved a few Molotov cocktails to make it look like an attack on themselves, pure self-provocation. But it’s now an old trick—they did the same provocative deadly nonsense during Gezi Park. Predictably, chaos ensued. Gunfire filled the air. Two innocent men attending a funeral died, one in the street, one in the Cemevi, the Alevite worship house. The Beast called the protesters “ruthless.” As for the dead boy from Gezi? “He died and it’s over,” said The Beast, adding that these “terrorists see themselves as the saviors of the world.” Such biting, irreverent sarcasm. Such malice. And again The Beast seemed pleased with itself. The Beast feeds on slander, violence and provocation.

Such name-calling! Looters, plunderers, terrorists, atheists, anarchists, Marxist-Leninist communists, screams The Beast. They may be even Maoists! The Beast does not care how stupid it sounds. We, the opposed, are all of these and more, and proudly so. Its snarling face, its hard, black stares, its hooded eyes baggy and black… what made such a…thing? “You are the sperm of Israel,” shouts The Beast. What fuels The Beast’s incomparable fury? Could it be hell itself? Or something even worse?

The Beasts’s mind rages with conspiracies. When caught in a deceit, it spews hate to create war. Its so-called police and its so-called civil police and its so-called bodyguards are just deputized street thugs, some tricked out in uniforms, all of them goons on the order of Hitler’s brownshirt street gangs. All of them praised by The Beast as heroes, saving the nation from…what? Democracy? Life itself?

War, war, war…it’s always war with The Beast. It has many backs but The Beast rides on the backs of even bigger, master beasts. These are the master killers from beyond the sea, George W. Bush, Barack H. Obama, killers and displacers of millions. Obama even won the Nobel Peace Prize! Such beastly, hypocritically evil behavior. It’s their nature. So get used to it.

James (Cem) Ryan
Istanbul
29 May 2014

http://www.brighteningglance.org/

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security. [….] In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit therefore is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. (13/9)

Reference: Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Oxford University Press, 2008.

May 29, 2014
Biosurveillance: Government to track your health as a matter of national security

By Darlene Storm

A very broad government biosurveillance plan that makes your health records a matter of “national security” showed up on my radar today. It opens the door leading to the government having near-real-time access to monitor your health. I apologize for only hearing about this, and bringing it to you at the last minute, since the deadline to submit comments is 5 PM Eastern time today, May 21. Of course the reason we might not have heard much about this “sneaky biosurveillance plan that will track American’s health records” is because the 50-page departmental draft (pdf) states, “Do not cite or quote.” Well that’s too damned bad, since this affects you, me, our kids, everyone in the United States!

It’s regarded as national security, meaning in the same way NSA surveillance was a secret until the Snowden leaks, you won’t even know how your health is being spied upon and shared with others. The 2015-2018 National Health Security Strategy (NHSS) (pdf) will keep track of and share information about not just sick people and sick animals, but even sick plants.

“The information collected by the government will be ‘all-encompassing’ and include ‘what our health status is, whether we exercise, how often we get a cold, or what kind of medications we’re taking,” according to the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHF).

“This is not privacy.” Twila Brase, president and co-founder of CCHF, added (pdf), “Officials want a ‘near-real-time’ reporting requirement for electronic data systems. What is a ‘health threat’ or ‘incident’ that could jeopardize our ‘national health security?’ The Strategy says these could include terrorist activities, antibiotic resistance, climate change or subjects surrounding the economic environment. In other words, anything and everything could become a health threat by the government’s standards.”

Brase told CNCNews that the “NHSS proposal would allow the federal government to monitor an individual’s behavior before, during and after any government-defined health ‘incident.’ It’s very broad. It doesn’t seem to have any limits, except they say something about, you know, properly protecting the data. But from our perspective, if the government gets access to this kind of data, [and] is allowed to do research with the data…then our privacy has already been compromised. The government has already said that our data is their data for their purposes of national health security.”

There’s an old ACLU “joke” about ordering pizza in the future that’s meant to highlight the unpleasant “potential for centralized monitoring” and “the possibility of a dark future where our every move, our every transaction, our every communication is recorded, compiled, and stored away, ready for access by the authorities whenever they want.” In that future, a person wouldn’t be allowed to order a pizza or soda that would be “unhealthy” — or they could order “unhealthy” pizza but would be charged a health penalty fee and must sign an insurance liability waiver — since the pizza employee has access to the person’s health records. We are already tracked via our cell phones, websites, purchases, license plate readers and now biosurveillance plans to track Americans’ health records. It’s sad that this “joke” from 2006 is very nearly our reality in 2014.

The draft proposal (pdf) claims NHSS will create “health situational awareness” made up from “many types of health-related and non-health-related data.” A graphic illustration of inputs to health situational awareness includes: non-health sources like informatics, supply chain, energy, environment, event driven, media, social determinants, transportation services, active intelligence and veterinary. Examples of health-related sources include: morbidity and mortality, lab/diagnostics, social service utilization, disease prevalence, health service utilization, public health investigation and response asset data. All of the above are merely part of the big picture, or “examples” of what data feeds into the “biosurveillance” portion of public health and medical situational awareness.

Put another way:

Situational awareness will involve collecting, aggregating, and processing data from both traditional and nontraditional sources (such as social media) and from various governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders, while ensuring that data from all sources are of high quality. Health situational awareness will include the ability to interpret data to create relevant, tailored information that decision-makers can use. Decision-makers will have the capability to visualize and manipulate data from many sources to create an operational picture suited to the specific situation and the decisions before them.

Brase warns that the “government’s biosurveillance plan is much more intrusive than the data collection currently being done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).” It “talks about the need for the ‘examination of data from electronic medical records’ and calls for ‘cooperation among federal and non-federal stakeholders, including the scientific community and public and private healthcare providers … to achieve an efficient and reliable surveillance system.”

She added, “It’s very clear to us that really the government is moving toward real-time access, toward close collaboration of government and doctors for ready access to the electronic medical record and then to conduct research and analysis.”

“The scary truth is that this government surveillance program brings together several federal agencies—all who will be able to view, share, interpret and research the data collected through the system,” CCHF warns (pdf). “Cut through the jargon, and simply put, the government’s plan means that your medical records would be shared with government officials.”

CCHF urges you to speak out against the government’s biosurveillance plan to warehouse our health information. Or you can otherwise submit your public comments here.

—

Darlene Storm (not her real name) is a freelance writer with a background in information technology and information security. It seems wise to keep an eye on new hacks and holes, to know what is possible and how vulnerable you might be. Most security news is about insecurity, hacking, cybersecurity and even privacy threats, bordering on scary. But when security is done right, it’s a beautiful thing…sexy even. Security is sexy.

This is a weblog of Darlene Storm. The opinions expressed are those of Darlene Storm and may not represent those of Computerworld.

blogs.computerworld.com, May 21, 2014

May 22, 2014
CYPRUS MAIL: We all stand to gain from Biden’s visit

US Vice President Joe Biden

WE WOULD have thought that the announcement of the visit to Cyprus by US Vice President Joe Biden would have been welcomed by the Greek Cypriot political parties, which had always demanded a more active involvement of the international community, particularly the US, in the Cyprus peace efforts. For years they had been seeking US government help, arguing that only Washington could apply real pressure on Turkey, but now that it is being offered, the parties do not want it.

The parties that see the visit as a dangerous development are the customary peddlers of total negativity and guardians of the status quo. For the fledgling Alliance of Citizens the visit made it clear that the Anastasiades government “has accepted a solution of the Cyprus problem that serves the geo-political planning of the US in the eastern Mediterranean.” EDEK did not believe the US were up to any good while DIKO leader Nicholas Papadopoulos adhered to his simplistic views, posing the question: “Who stands to gain from Biden’s visit, us or the pseudo-state that would be upgraded?”

For all these parties the Cyprus problem must be preserved so they can keep scoring cheap political points with their rhetoric. Any attempt at making things move, such as the US government taking an active interest in the problem, is seen as a threat to the status quo. These parties would prefer nothing were done to bridge the differences of the two sides, which is why they have reacted so badly to the news of the visit.

Vice President Biden’s visit, scheduled for next week, will not only underline US support for the peace process but – if reports from Washington are correct – also pave the way for an agreement on Famagusta. Biden will reportedly announce the financing of a master plan for the Famagusta area, including fenced-off Varosha to which access would be given to the experts drafting the master plan. There would also be demining of three minefields. Both sides have reportedly agreed to the US proposal although there are still some procedural details to sort out.

President Anastasiades has been calling for the opening of the fenced area of Famagusta for a year now, and the US government has undertaken to make this confidence-building measure happen. Such a move, Anastasiades has always maintained, would give impetus to the ongoing talks. So, in answer to Papadopoulos, who rather naively sees every dispute as zero-sum game, we all stand to gain from Biden’s visit. And is this really such a bad thing?

May 13, 2014