IF HISTORY is any guide, President Obama could probably get away with ordering a military strike on Syria without first getting congressional authorization. Yes, the Constitution grants Congress the exclusive right to declare war. And yes, the 1973 War Powers Resolution legislated congressional control over presidentially initiated uses of force. But President Harry S. Truman sent troops to Korea in 1950 without Congress’s permission; President Bill Clinton carried out a 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, despite the War Powers Resolution’s 60-day limit; and two years ago, Mr. Obama committed U.S. planes and other military assets to support British and French airstrikes in Libya. In our view, history has vindicated all three actions.Still, should the president act unilaterally now? The legal authorities his administration has informally cited are slender indeed — slimmer, even, than the U.N. Security Council resolution upon which the Libya mission rested. Officials have suggested that the international norm against the use of chemical weapons is tantamount to a legal prohibition and that punishing and deterring Syrian violations warrants a brief, limited use of force.
Washington Post Editorials
Consult Congress on Syria
Editorial Board 7:43 PM ET
Obama would be wise not to ignore Congress before a military strike.
Mr. Obama has consulted congressional leaders; but this is a far cry from the full-blown debate and vote that more than 100 members of the House have called for in a bipartisan letter to the president. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron has called Parliament into session to discuss Syria, and his government will pursue a U.N. Security Council resolution — albeit with little chance of success, given Russia’s likely veto on behalf of its Syrian clients.Under the circumstances, the president would be wise to seek the maximum feasible congressional involvement. This is only partly a judgment about what’s constitutionally and legally sound; it’s also a judgment about what’s politically optimal. The more Congress shares in the burden of decision-making, consistent with the operational necessities of the prospective mission, the more legitimate the ultimate decision will be.Obviously, the risk is that Congress would deny Mr. Obama power to enforce his “red line” — or would unduly delay it. That this risk exists, alas, partly reflects Mr. Obama’s past reluctance to educate public opinion about the stakes in Syria, which, in turn, reflects his reluctance to get more deeply involved there. But now that U.S. credibility is at stake, we doubt that Congress, even one partially controlled by Mr. Obama’s partisan enemies, would weaken the commander in chief, and the nation, in a confrontation with implications that extend well beyond Syria.Mr. Obama must know that Congress will engage more deeply on Syria sooner or later. Even a short, sharp strike such as the one he reportedly contemplates is unlikely to be the last act in this drama. Nor, in our view, should it be. Unless linked to a broader strategy for weakening the Assad regime — and forcing it either out of power or into real negotiations — the use of force might prove worse than useless. Mr. Obama can and should formulate a sustainable strategy and then make a convincing case for it to the American people and their elected representatives.
Read more from Opinions:
Stephen G. Rademaker: Congress and the myth of the 60-day clock
Jonathan Bernstein: Going to Congress before war helps presidents
Eugene Robinson: The U.S. must act in Syria
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Comments
doggiecris
9:29 PM EST
Now there’s a great idea! Congress can’t decide on what’s for lunch!
USAFirster
9:24 PM EST
“Mr. Obama can and should formulate a sustainable strategy and then make a convincing case for it to the American people and their elected representatives,” says WaPo.It’s news to me that American people have “elected representatives.” What we have is a bunch of rabid polticians who are sworn to burning down America and shutting down the government.But all hope isn’t lost: to get the Tea Party Congress to act on Syria just change the word Syria to Obamacare.
edbyronadams
8:48 PM EST
It’s all so ironic. In primary campaign for the “08 nomination Barack Obama made great hay by touting his opposition to Iraq and hung the votes of those in Congress who had to vote on the issue around their neck. The Democrats in Congress don’t want to be consulted, fearing the same treatment in another future campaign.
Republicans, being stuck on stupid, think every problem will yield to hot lead.
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We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them–
to try to understand what you have done, why you have done it.
That way, you can begin to forgive yourself. That’s very important.
If you don’t forgive yourself you’ll never be able to forgive anybody else
and you’ll go on committing the same crimes forever. ANOTHER COUNTRY, James Baldwin
He bores me, this Erdoğan. A typically flawed tragic hero, now in his political death throes. The story’s been told a million times and the ending is always the same. And Erdoğan, like all the others, deserves it. Now the sharks are gathering. They pumped him up to do their job, this street-wise corner boy from Istanbul. Fingered early, he rose to power. He thought he was prime minister but he was really a pawn. To make up for that shattering awareness, he yelled, scowled and sneered for ten tedious years. They told him to be a tough guy. And he tried. But he thought tough meant straight ahead all the time, all the time with the mouth going. For a while that didn’t bother them. They thought he knew his country. But now they (and the world) know better.
It must have been nice to go to the White House and be hailed by the back-slapping Bush as the leader of the Turks. And because he knew no English and he thought Bush did, and because his advisors were yes-men and a few yes-women, Tayyip became the boss of the American pipedream about mixing moderate Islam with democracy. It will lead to peace in the Middle East, they said. And all honor and glory and riches to himself, he thought. And all he had to do was ramrod some changes on secular, democratic Turkey changing it into another country. They told him more: that he would be in a privileged relationship with the USA, like Israel. You have a free hand. And we will help you out in all respects. And Tayyip saw that it was a good deal and was pleased, so pleased that he always smiled broadly in the White House. The secular, democratic Turks at home in Turkey were surprised that their nation’s leader always looked constipated at home yet so frivolous in America. But it was merely noted in passing because they were mostly asleep, like the Turkish Army. No one even noticed that for his election night acceptance speech he wore a solid, Islamic green tie.
Later, when Obama came to Turkey spouting about “predominantly Christian America” and “predominantly Muslim Turkey,” Tayyip suddenly understood, like Archimedes floating in his bathtub. Shouting EUREKA! to himself, Tayyip had suddenly discovered DIVISION as a political process. Now you’re talking my language! So Tayyip went to work. He divided Sunni from Alevites, “his” people from the rest of the Turks, rakı and beer drinkers from ayran drinkers, head covered women from women whose hair blew gaily in the wind. He separated “his” people from terrorists (everyone else), “his” propaganda-spewing media from the few honest newspapers. And now, with the help of his bewildering foreign minister, has separated Turkey from the rest of the world. But make no mistake about one thing…Erdoğan has an incredible genius for unifying. Now, except for “his” people,” the world is unified AGAINST him.
He also has a genius for making money, tons of it.
In a decade he went from whining about how he couldn’t raise his family on a prime minister’s salary to countless wealth. His family owns fleets, land, everything imaginable. Rumors of Swiss bank accounts abound. A former American ambassador said as much. Erdoğan’s foreign excursions always include hundreds of his bad-actor* business cronies. America made a warrior out of him, pointing out the boundless financial opportunities inherent in destroying nations. Hence his avid embrace of the now catastrophic “Arab Spring.” Obama’s baseball bat and America’s fat wallet did wonders for Tayyip’s cooperative spirit. He could be a team player particularly after he became the team leader. Bye-bye Gadaffi! Who needs human rights awards when you can lead democracy’s charge across North Africa. Bye-bye Assad! Your uncovered wife makes mine nervous. So Hello NATO! Hello Al-Qaeda! Hello hell!
And here’s another “hello.” It goes way back. Hello Feto! a diminutive and derisive nickname for Fethullah Gülen. Gülen is a weepy, elementary-school-educated “Islamic leader” (and CIA asset) who lives in bucolic, well-protected splendor in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. A Green Card holder courtesy of his CIA sponsors, he is a treacherous financial dynamo seemingly lifted from a James Bond novel. His Movement, (cemaat in Turkish) has completely infiltrated and undermined secular Turkey. He had revealed his intent long before he had escaped from the Turkish courts into the loving arms of the CIA. A tape of his treacherous words surfaced in 1999 wherein he said:
You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers…. Until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 [in] Syria, like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in Egypt…The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it…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…Now, I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all—in confidence…trusting your loyalty and secrecy. I know that when you leave here, [just] as you discard your empty juice boxes, you must discard the thoughts and the feelings that I expressed here. **
Of course then, Gülen was talking treason. Today, he is acting treasonously. His infiltration of the Turkish state is everywhere. In the judiciary, the media, the military, the state police, the parliament and in the ruling party. It is well known that the Gülen movement’s heavy hand is instrumental in the legal fiasco that has destroyed the credibility of the Turkish legal system. The same hand was instrumental in the astonishing and ongoing police violence from the Gezi Park Movement.
Only a fool would fail to notice the common ground that Erdoğan and Gülen stand upon, united by their allegiance to the aims of the United States, fueled by cold, hard American dollars, ever encouraged by the cold, sneaky hand of the CIA. Erdogan controls everything in Turkey with his hands of stone. Thanks to their collaboration, the army’s professional leadership is in jail. The judicial system is rancid. There is neither justice nor democracy in Turkey but the police clubs, tear gas, water cannons, bullets (rubber and real) are everywhere. The police destroy all democratically demonstrating groups with the violence of Hitler’s Brownshirts. It is widely known that the Gulen movement played a major role in the legal fiasco called Ergenekon of which the prime minister dubbed himself chief prosecutor. The jail system is a penal industry by itself on the order of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s, The Gulag Archipelago. Telephone conversations, e-mail messages, are monitored. There is no privacy in Turkey. The prime minister encourages so-called “neighbors” to report all fellow neighbors if they dare bang on pots protesting the government. He claims such banging violates people’s privacy. There is no freedom of banging in Turkey either. The cleansing of leftist patriots continues, in the army and in all institutions controlled by the government. The brutal crackdown on Gezi Park demonstrators continues in all its Erdoğanian fury. Call what’s happening in Turkey a post-modern extermination campaign. And the astonishingly unreliable political opposition acts as the ruling party’s best friend and may even be an active collaborator in the destruction of secular Turkey.
And Erdoğan? Outside Turkey he has ruined himself. His near delirious rants, preposterous claims, the insults flying, the ignorance of his advisors all fully displayed on the world stage. His rage, greed, and arrogance have brought him to comic levels. But his money and his bad-actor friends and advisors remain. And so does he prime minister. In any other country he would have long been rejected by the electorate forthwith. But as long as America says, yes, Erdoğan remains. So sad for Turkey to be the lapdog of the likes of Erdoğan, Fethullah Gulen and America. So sad for Islam to be linked with these two masters of deceit. So sad for the Turkish people to be harnessed to the moral corruption that is Turkish politicized Islam.
Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Erdogan betrayed a lot more for a lot more. Treachery has always been a good business, indeed an American specialty in their CIA-driven foreign policy. And it perfectly suits Erdoğan’s two-faced description of “his” Turkey as an “advanced democracy.” But now he stands alone, babbling nonsense, rich, naked to the world and disgraced. One wonders if he even knows this much. What price this glory? What price this treason?
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
MACBETH, William Shakespeare
Cem Ryan, Ph.D.
25 August 2013
Istanbul
NOTES:
* According to the Merriman-Webster Dictionary, a “bad actor” is an unruly,
turbulent, or contentious individual.
** See Claire Berlinski’s excellent article, Who Is Fethullah Gülen? inCity Journal, Autumn 2012.
“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Erasmus
Forget what the big-mouth crime ministers and the duplicitous oral cavities of selected foreign ministers are shouting about democracy. About political “mandates.” About how they represent the living essences of “the will of the people.” And about how they all care so deeply for all the downtrodden and abused of the world. These ignoramus champions of democracy shamelessly harangue the world ad nauseam about the importance of elections, elections, elections. Remember the purple index fingers wagging after the first post-Saddam election in Iraq? And the wonderful “democracy” that followed and is still slaughtering its citizens. If democracy only needs elections then we are all indeed lost on the road to ruin with our purple index fingers tucked securely where the sun don’t shine. All these crime ministers and “Nobel” presidents babble gibberish because they understand very little about democracy. And the biggest babbler of all? The ever-scowling, ever-treacherous winner of the 2010 (and last) Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the crime minister of that so-called democracy, Turkey. The award was cancelled after Al-Gaddafi was disemboweled and anal raped by the valiant democratic gangs aided and abetted by NATO under the inspirational leadership of the two international thugs who are now attempting to destroy Syria, “Bonnie” Obama and his partner in international crime, “Clyde” Erdoğan. They have yet to be added to the following list of democratically elected dictators. But their day may be nearing.
The following betrayers of their oaths of office also had mandates. And they all promptly forgot, ignored or destroyed the other aspects of a democratic form of government. Elections without a fully aware, fully protected, fully functioning electorate are worthless. And also worthless were the elections of these dictators:
Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan), 1991-present
Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, Paraguay, 1813-1840
Jorge Ubico, Guatemala, 1931-1944
Forbes Burnham, Guyana, 1966-1984
Artur de Costa e Silva, Brazil 1947-1969
Juan Maria Bordaberry, Uruguay, 1972-1976
Alberto Fujimori, Peru, 1992-93
Mohamed Morsi, Egypt, 2012-2013
François Duvalier, Haiti, 1959-1971
Adolph Hitler, Germany, 1933-1945
It need not even be said that those who are democratically elected are duty-bound to honor and support both the process and institution called democracy. None of the above did, despite swearing to do so.
So let’s examine today’s most vocal defender of his own “democratic” essence, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. How does his own country, Turkey, stand regarding its democratic structure? “Democracy,” Erdoğan once declared, “is like a trolley car. You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off.” This is a vitally important statement. While it reveals what we already know about Erdoğan, it also confirms that he knows nothing about the democratic process and, more dangerously, has no respect for the concept. Astounding it is that such a person could even be considered electable in a secular democracy. But then even the street dogs in Istanbul know how THAT happened. It undoubtedly will come as a surprise and shock to Erdoğan when learns that democracy is intended to outlast its participants and is not merely a stop at a mosque, a Turkish bath or the White House. Such deceit-filled thinking is typical of the deceptive language used throughout the decade-long Erdoğan regime.
This screwed-up thinking is akin to his and his party’s claim that the mean old dictator, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, traumatized the citizens of the new Turkish Republic by changing the alphabet from Ottoman script to Roman script. Trauma indeed, for a nation’s people of whom 90% lived in rural areas and 97% were illiterate! Forget the trauma of unlearning one and relearning another alphabet, they never knew one in the first place. Instead, it was the “thrill” of enlightenment which “traumatized” them, a learning experience (or trauma) which still seems to have eluded Erdoğan and his supporters. In fact, Atatürk knew instinctively what the new republic’s fundamentally impoverished people needed most in order to live and prosper in a modern secular state and future democracy. And that was first, literacy, then, education.
It is important to expand this point. To remediate this national educational deficit, Atatürk conceived of a nationwide rural learning system called the Village Institute. Designed to teach language skills and much more, it began in 1940. Six years later, the first fatal sign of Turkish compliance with America’s needs appeared. Godless communism had become a threat after the World War II and God-filled Turkey had a job to do. And so came the nonsense of the Islamic Green Belt protecting the west and the tagging of Turkey as a religious nation. Thus the Village Institute System must be disbanded. Too risky. Too red. Those bad communists would infiltrate and overthrow everything. So it follows that the disaster that is Turkey today regarding the great percentage of its uninformed voters began with the abandonment of the Village Institute system. How generous were the Turkish democratic politicians selling out to America’s interests. So today illiteracy rates, particularly among rural women remain uncomfortably high. But no one, least of all, Erdoğan is concerned. It keeps him afloat politically. So far.
But let’s start at the beginning. What does a country need to maintain a viable flourishing democracy? First, its citizens need guaranteed protections, else why sign-on as citizens. This is codified in a constitution which enumerates the nature and conditions of personal and political rights. It also states the terms of fair and free elections. Also vital to democracy is the inviolable presence of an independent judiciary uninfluenced by the political regime. Another key requirement of democracy is the separation of powers, namely that executive, legislative and judicial branches operate independently. And how about Mr. Erdoğan’s record after swearing to support and defend the constitution of Turkey?
He has actively worked to subvert it. He has illegally detained and/or incarcerated thousands of those opposed to his regime. Articles dealing with freedom of speech, assembly, and media expression have been trampled by the heavy boots of religious fascism. The courts are the extension of the ruling party and the ruling party is simply Erdoğan, himself. He has even declared himself to be the “chief prosecutor” of a sham case called Ergenekon. And what about the security of the nation’s borders? Erdoğan, aided and abetted by America, has destroyed the nation’s defense system. The experienced commanding general staff is in prison. The collaborators now command. Senior officers sold out their subordinates. One general is even considered to have been a secret witness against his comrades in arms. So much for moral and esprit-de-corps. So much for trust and honor. So much for the viability of the military academies. Equally worrisome, the police rule with a viciousness unparalleled since the good old days of Pinochet’s Chile and Hitler’s Germany. The Gezi Park Movement revealed the full horror of Erdoğan’s state police. Even more troublesome for the Turkish citizenry, is the questionable allegiance of the nation’s security forces. They seem to be oddly influenced and even controlled by a foreign power, namely a longstanding CIA asset/imam residing in Pennsylvania. (In case this sounds strange to you, it has been in all the newspapers, even a few in Turkey). Worse yet, Erdoğan has jeopardized the nation’s security by collaborating with America in the destruction of numerous North African and Middle East nations, most lately Syria and Egypt. Put plainly, these have been disasters for all concerned, and a political and moral disaster for Erdoğan. The integrity of the Turkish state seems at great risk, particularly regarding its eastern borders. And finally, let’s speak of Erdoğan’s favorite subject, elections. The election campaigns, aside from his usual bombast, has consisted of bribes-for-votes. Coal, food, even refrigerators (whether or not the village has electricity) are delivered to the ever-grateful, if somewhat bemused, masses living in the hinterlands.
So what, you might be saying. That’s the way democracy works in the world. And anyway, all politicians are thieves and liars. Tragically, perhaps you are right. So let’s all just lean back and enjoy our extermination. But I am talking about Turkey here, a nation chosen by America to be a role model of Islamic democracy so peace can reign throughout the carnage that has always been the Middle East. Of course, the premise is ludicrous, even delusional. We all know it. And now the world knows it. How the people of the democratic, secular Republic of Turkey have suffered from this catastrophic delusion promoted by their deluding politicians. A few questions are necessary to complete this analysis of Erdoğan’s democratic credentials.
Is it a democracy when someone writing a political opinion unfavorable to the regime is jailed?
Is it a democracy when newspapers are controlled by the political regime?
Is it a democracy when citizens exercise their constitution right to assemble and are brutally attacked by police with tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, real bullets, clubs, truncheons, boots, scimitars, butcher knives and blades of all varieties?
Is it a democracy when these same police are celebrated by the prime minister as heroes? Is it a democracy when telephone conversations are recorded without a court order?
Is it a democracy when people are arrested and incarcerated for years without due process?
Is it a democracy when a prime minister’s children openly campaign to subvert the provisions of the Turkish constitution?
Is it a democracy when houses are ransacked in “fishing expeditions” for evidence without court order? Is it a democracy when a nation’s judicial system is controlled by the ruling political party?
Is it a democracy when the police brutally assault, even murder, innocent citizens and are not held accountable? Is it a democracy when secret witnesses give testimony that is never examined in open court?
Is it a democracy when journalists, writers, academicians, political thinkers, rot in jail because they dare to have ideas?
Is it a democracy when convicted murderers of judges are bribed to give secret testimony and are afterwards acquitted?
Is it a democracy when an entire military leadership cadre is jailed on trumped-up charges that even schoolchildren would laugh at?
Is it a democracy when anyone opposed to the ruling party is considered a terrorist? I
Is it democracy when opposition parties that gain less than 10% of the total vote are denied seating in parliament?
Is it democracy when a prime minister advises neighbors to report to the police other neighbors who bang on pots and pans in protest against his regime?
Is it democracy when school authorities are told to inform on students and teachers who may have participated in the Gezi Park protests?
Is it a democracy when prime ministers insult the legitimacy of religious groups such as the Alevites in Turkey?
Is it a democracy when the houses of Alevites are marked with hate messages?
Is it a democracy when government vendettas are conducted against businesses, humanitarian organizations, lawyers and doctors, all those public spirited entities, who act to defend the constitutionally guaranteed interests of innocent citizens being brutally attacked by the state police force?
Is it a democracy when a government engages in general devastation of the environment, larceny of a nation’s treasure, captures the public space as its own, conducts unremitting surveillance of the populace, degrades the civil conscience and constantly rebukes contrary opinions?
If so, then what? If not, then what?
Regarding Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, what is he?
Cem Ryan, Ph.D.
Istanbul
19 August 2013
“What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, ‘This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!’ Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, ‘Never have I heard anything more divine’?”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Bilal Erdoğan, the Turkish prime minister’s son. 16 August 2013. At Fatih Mosque, Istanbul, participating in a demonstration for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Placards advocated against democracy and for the return of the caliphate
Demonstration at Fatih Mosque, Istanbul. 16 August 2013
Demonstration at Fatih Mosque, Istanbul. 16 August 2013
LAUSANNE: According to Star, Polish top-flight club Legia Warsaw were on Wednesday ordered by UEFA to shut a stand used by its die-hard fans after racist chanting by supporters at a Champions League match.
UEFA said that Legia would have to bar fans from the north stand of the Stadion Wojska Polskiego during their Champions League play-off on Aug 27, when they face Romania’s Steaua Bucharest.
In addition, UEFA slapped a fine of 30,000 euros (RM130,100) on the club.
Nicknamed the “Zyleta“, a play on the word “razor“, the north stand is home to the most passionate and, frequently, controversial fans of the club in the Polish capital.
The regularly have fallen foul of both Polish and European football authorities, as well the club itself.
The racist incidents in question occurred during Legia’s Champions League second qualifying round victory over Welsh club The New Saints on July 23.
Survivors look for their missing relatives from lists of survivors after a ferry disaster
CEBU, Philippines –
According to Reuters worsening weather and sea conditions on Saturday forced the Philippines to suspend a search for survivors of a ferry disaster that killed at least 32 people and left 170 missing, authorities said.
The ferry sank on Friday after a collision just outside the central port of Cebu with a cargo vessel owned by a company involved in the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster nearly 30 years ago.
Divers will resume searching early on Sunday, Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya told a news conference in Manila, after heavy rain brought by a typhoon and low pressure had reduced visibility at sea almost to zero.
“Diving operations stopped because of weather conditions,” Abaya said, adding that 661 of the 831 passengers and crew on the ferry had been accounted for. With 32 dead and 629 rescued, there are 170 missing. Just 17 of the dead have been identified.
“But we’ve got information that some bodies have been recovered, and we expect the number of missing to decrease, and we expect the casualties to increase.”
Many of the survivors were sick from swallowing oil and seawater, disaster officials said.
Scores, sometimes hundreds, of people die each year in ferry accidents in the Philippines, an archipelago of 7,100 islands with a notoriously poor record for maritime safety. Overcrowding is common, and many of the vessels are in bad condition.
The 40-year-old ferry was approaching Cebu late in the evening when it was struck by the departing cargo vessel, the Sulpicio Express 7, leaving two huge holes in the latter’s bow. The ferry sank in minutes, about a kilometer off Cebu.
Small planes and helicopters also scoured the waters and coastal areas of Cebu island for survivors, officials said.
Divers found four bodies outside the sunken ferry hours before the search was halted, said Commander Noel Escalana, a naval operations officer.
“During the dive, they saw bodies from the windows,” he told reporters, saying the divers did not attempt to retrieve them. “It’s dangerous to enter the ship…Because they need special equipment and extra oxygen tanks.”
Escalana added that rescuers had no idea how many people were trapped inside the ship, lying on a seabed around 150 feet below sea level.
Fourteen bodies had been found in the town of Talisay, south of Cebu City, said Imelda Sabillano, another local official.
“We don’t know where these bodies came from, but we already have brought to a local morgue 31 bodies for identification,” she said, adding that morgue officials awaited the arrival of the 14 bodies to add them to the toll from the disaster.
Officials said a recount at the morgue showed 32 bodies awaited autopsy.
The Sulpicio Express 7 is owned by unlisted firm Philippine Span Asia Carrier Corp, formerly known as Sulpicio Lines Inc, which owned the MV Dona Paz ferry.
That vessel collided with a tanker in the Sibuyan Sea in December 1987, killing 4,375 on the ferry and 11 of the tanker’s 13-man crew.
The owners of the ferry involved in Friday’s accident said it was carrying 723 passengers, 118 crew and 104 20-ft containers. It had an authorized capacity of 1,010 passengers and crew and 160 containers.
The captains of the two ships are alive but have yet to be questioned, said Rear Admiral Luis Tuason, the coast guard operations chief.
Abaya said initial information showed the cargo ship loaded with container vans bound for Davao on the southern island of Mindanao hit the ferry’s “vulnerable part” on the right side.
“We felt the cargo ship hit us and minutes later we noticed our ship was listing,” passenger Aldrin Raman told reporters. “I grabbed a life vest and jumped overboard. I saw many passengers doing the same.”
One of the crew said the ferry sank within 10 minutes.
“The collision left a gaping hole in the ferry and water started rushing in, so the captain ordered (us to) abandon ship,” the crew member said. Most of the passengers were already wearing life jackets before the ship sank, he added.
Another passenger, Jerwin Agudong, said several people had been trapped. “It seems some were not able to get out. We saw dead bodies on the side,” he said.
Fishermen on shore said they saw flares.
“It was very dark and we could hear a lot of people shouting, asking for help,” said George Palmero, a 35-year-old fisherman who helped pull 10 survivors from the water.
According to Afp Arnie Santiago, head of the enforcement division of industry regulator Maritime Industry Authority, said Sulpicio Lines was suspended after the 2008 disaster, then re-emerged with its new name of Philippines Span Asia.
Go said changing the company name in 2009 was unrelated to the previous accidents, but did not explain what the reasons were.
He said his company would do whatever it could to help investigators in the latest accident, while pointing out it was too early to assign blame.
“We respect the government fact-finding bodies and the authorities. We will cooperate with them, we trust their judgement. We do not want to pre-empt their fact-finding,” he said.
Go is a the grandson of Sulpicio Go, a Chinese Filipino businessman who founded the firm in 1973.
The government of Turkey, in primary collaboration with the government of the United States of America, has dared to attempt to destroy the duly constituted government of Syria. In that process it has funded, encouraged and armed a motley gang of terrorist killers that include numerous members of Al-Qaeda and other recognized terrorist groups. The Hatay region of Turkey is being used as a staging area for attacks on a neighboring country, a country that until relatively recently had enjoyed great favor with Turkey. Hatay, perhaps the most enlightened, peaceful region in Turkey, now is under occupation by gangs of terrorist killers. The people are regularly accosted on the streets by these ruffians, and asked if they are Alevites. You will be next, they are told. This anti-Alevite dialogue is fostered by divisive statements made by the Turkish government.
In 2012, a rash of hate crimes broke out in Turkey against members of the Alevite religious sect (20 million in Turkey), an enlightened, modern-thinking branch of Islam. (It is important to note that there is a long, violent history of hate crimes committed against the Alevites in Turkey.) Last year, verbal insults, beatings, and the painting of threats on houses spread throughout the country. Inexplicably, there were no statements of warning, concern or reproach issued by the government. Making matters worse and fanning the flames of violence, the prime minister called the houses of worship of the Alevites “ucube,” a “freak.” Clearly this should have been deemed as “hate speech” and punished as such under the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 20 (as ratified by The Republic of Turkey on 23 September 2003). Interestingly, Turkey, a majority Sunni Islamic country, has no specific hate crimes laws.
And there are many Alevites in Syria. Many innocent Syrian people have been murdered by this assembled-in-Turkey terrorist machine. Moreover, the citizens of Hatay are daily threatened by these terrorist gangs that the government of Turkey has organized, of course, with the help of the CIA, proven by history to be experts in unspeakably violent subversions. These crimes are well known and now well-documented. This lawless behavior, indeed a crime against the Syrian people, and a war crime in terms of the Geneva Conventions, is the supreme insult to all truth, all justice, all morality and all religion.
As these government and foreign operatives have dared to drag the Turkish people through their filth of deceit, lies and murder, so shall I dare. Dare to tell the truth, since the normal channels of the media and the Turkish justice system have failed so miserably to do so. If people fail to speak out they become accomplices to this murderous travesty of justice. But there is more to this, much more.
At the root of it all is one man, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. A man of great ambition and great scowls. A perpetrator of epic police violence against the peaceful Gezi Parl protesters, he and his henchmen were also revealed to be epic story tellers. The entire world has witnessed their performance so there is little to add. Since he came to power he has relentlessly embarked on a policy to divide and weaken the republic. Who is this man, Erdoğan? Or as Cassius asked the reluctant assassins of Julius Caesar, “Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, that he is grown so great?”
In the Turkish case I suspect American hamburgers and hotdogs. For he and his ilk are of them. And now, during these days of tragedy, there are no longer any secrets. The truth is as bare as an eyeball hanging from its socket. Blood and death in the Turkish streets, poisonous pepper gas supplied by valiant allies like America and Brazil. Government street thugs wielding machetes. Beatings, clubbings, mass arrests. Roundups of lawyers, physicians, anyone who provided humanitarian aid to the protesters. Savage reprisals are now in full sway. And threats, threats, threats.
And of late, the finish of the destruction of the Turkish military, for how else to divide and reparcel the once integral Republic of Turkey in order to conform to the dictates of its American master’s pipe dream of regional stability? The ludicrous show trials called Ergenekon and its related fantasies that polluted all concept sof legal jurisprudence. Hundreds falsely imprisoned: military officers, journalists, writers, academicians. Secret witnesses, false testimony admitted without cross-examination. Lawyers jailed for making procedural objections in court. It all boils down to two words, justice raped.
Turkey is a nation held captive by the not-so-secret Obama-Erdoğan cabal. This is aided and abetted by its foreign policy, intelligence and espionage operations, and includes nongovernmental freelance organizations, both financial and mercenary. It is a stunning and deceitful array of destructive operators. The target? To destroy Turkish secularity, replacing it with a post-modern blend of religious fascism and uneducated compliance, a lethal long-term cocktail indeed. But they are adamant to once and for all create a compliant Turkish puppet state. And that’s where Erdoğan comes in. And Mustafa Kemal Atatürk departs. And that’s where Turkey is today, under occupation by a cabal of domestic ruling (AKP) and foreign (USA) powers. The army secular leadership is in jail. The police are feral and rabidly loyal to the ruling power. The situation is dire.
But we in Turkey do live in a wider world though this is rarely obvious in the discourses of the two occupying powers. And, believe it or not, there are indeed laws that are upheld and enforced in this wider world. Below are a few that are being violated by the prime minister of Turkey and the President of the United States and the members of their cabal. The dimensions are of Hitlerian proportions which was the motive force for establishing many of these laws and protocols. We, the real people of the real world, should demand their enforcement. The nightmare is here. It is time.
James (Cem) Ryan, Ph.D.
Istanbul
14 August 2013
LAWS AND PROTOCOLS BEING VIOLATED
UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION 3314: Definition of Aggression Aggression is the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations. INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS
Article 20. 1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.
2. Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.
NUREMBERG TRIBUNAL CHARTER
The Tribunal established by the Agreement referred to Article 1 hereof for the trial and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries shall have the power to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests of the European Axis
countries, whether as individuals or as members of organizations, committed any of the following crimes. The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility: (a) Crimes Against Peace:namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;
(b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;
(c) Crimes Against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated. leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common Plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.
Note: the above provisions were codified as legal principles by the International Law Commission of the United Nations.
PROTOCOL ADDITIONAL TO THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS OF 12 AUGUST 1949, AND RELATING TO
THE PROTECTION OF VICTIMS OF INTERNATIONAL ARMED CONFLICTS (PROTOCOL 1) (2ND PART) Article 50. Definition of civilians and civilian population 1. A civilian is any person who does not belong to one of the categories of persons referred to in Article 4 A (1), (2), (3) and (6)
of the Third Convention and in Article 43 of this Protocol. In case of doubt whether a person is a civilian, that person shall be considered to be a civilian. 2.The civilian population comprises all persons who are civilians. 3.The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character.
Article 51. Protection of the civilian population
1. The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations. To give effect to this protection, the following rules, which are additional to other applicable rules of international law, shall be observed in all circumstances.
2.The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.
3. Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this Section, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities. 4.Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:
(a) Those which are not directed at a specific military objective; (b) Those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; (c) Those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and
consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.
5. Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate: (a)An attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated
and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects; and
(b) An attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. 6.Attacks against the civilian population or civilians by way of reprisals are prohibited. 7.The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations. 8. Any violation of these prohibitions shall not release the Parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians, including the obligation to take the precautionary measures provided
for in Article 57.
Article 52. General protection of civilian objects 1.Civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals. Civilian objects are all objects which are not military objectives as defined in paragraph 2. 2.Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military of advantage. 3.In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used.
Article 57. Precautions in attack 1. In the conduct of military operations, constant care shall be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects. 2. With respect to attacks, the following precautions shall be taken:
(a)Those who plan or decide upon an attack shall:
(i) Do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects and are not subject to special protection but are military objectives within the meaning of paragraph 2 of Article 52 and that it is not prohibited by the provisions of this Protocol to attack them; (ii)Take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects;
THE NUREMBERG PRINCIPLES These principles define a crime against peace as the “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for accomplishment of any of the forgoing.”
INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT Rules of Procedure and Evidence U.N. Doc. PCNICC/2000/1/Add.1 (2000). http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/instree/iccrulesofprocedure.html
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