October 21, 2014
How do you be this completely incompetent? This is unbelievable. Obama has more blood on his hands.
Check it out:
Posted on October 21, 2014
How do you be this completely incompetent? This is unbelievable. Obama has more blood on his hands.
Check it out:
13 October 2014
Istanbul
Aydinlik Daily correspondent Mustafa Birol made an interview with former US Army officer and columnist James Ryan concerning his criminal complaint towards the governments of United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Great Britain, Jordan and Romania regarding violations of Article 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute.
Mustafa Birol:
I talked to James Ryan, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and also a columnist in Aydinlik Daily, concerning his criminal complaint entitled “Criminal Carnage in Syria by the Criminal Cabal for Perpetual War” towards 12 countries including the US and Turkey to the International Criminal Court regarding violations of Article 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute which deal with war crimes and the crime of aggression.
— You have very recently made a criminal complaint against 11 countries including the USA and Turkey for alleged infringements of Articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Your criminal complaint constitutes a detailed summary of the war crimes conducted by the countries which can be defined as the anti-Syria coalition. Can you please tell me about the process which prompted you to make the criminal complaint and also the political developments that shaped your application?
Just living is a process, and not an easy one. The seeds for my filing this Complaint came from living in a foreign land, in my case, Turkey. Living abroad is the best way to see one’s native country as a foreign land. It’s called objectivity. I am a graduate of West Point, the United States Military Academy. It has an honor code—cadets will not lie, cheat or steal. And they are bound by honor to report themselves if they do. They face expulsion for an infraction. That moral behavior is intended to last long after graduation. A deceitful military officer is a danger to all.
In 2006, there was great concern that the illegality of Bush’s attack on Iraq could lead to war crimes charges being made against US military personnel. I and two other classmates began an organization called West Point Graduates Against the War ). We were appalled by the deceitful, murderous behavior of the government of the United States. The commander-in-chief of the military, George W. Bush, was a liar. And we had hundreds of fellow graduates who agreed and joined the organization. And so we come to today to the horrors in Syria and the awful truth about America and its criminal accomplices.
The political developments can be described by two words—greed and immorality. For oil, for power, for new markets, for post-bombing reconstruction contracts, anything and everything to do with money. America and its criminal accomplices live by the rule of the jungle, demonizing all who stand in their way, the latest target being Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria. Syria is a secular, culturally diverse, religion-tolerant country, something America should surely encourage. It is bewildering to me that America is so intent on destroying all the secular nations in this region, including its long-lasting, and apparently successful project in Turkey. Although they finally seem to have awakened from their thirty-four year sleep since the 1980 military coup.
— If we consider that the USA, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are not State Party signatories to the Rome Statute, do you still have hopes that your complaint will be examined carefully and result in a fair verdict?
Absolutely. The USA, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court because their crime of aggression and war crimes against sovereign Syria were planned, prepared and initiated on, in and over those nations who are State party signatories. And Jordan, Belgium, Croatia, Bulgaria, France, Great Britain and Romania ARE signatories. No guns, no war, and most of the guns came from Turkey via Libya and an array of European “donors.” Such generosity… to displace three million Syrians, kill hundreds of thousands and bathe the sovereign nation in blood.
Think of it this way—the weapons and ammunition for the mercenaries didn’t rain from the heavens. When Ilyushin 76 Jordanian transports flying under Jordanian military call signs leave Pleso Airport in Croatia and land in Esenboğa Airport in Ankara, when Qatari air force C-17s make 36 roundtrips between Amman and Zagreb, Croatia, when Qatari and Saudi Arabian C-130s make 30 roundtrips between Zagreb and Ankara…Are they hauling baklava and simit? No, they are hauling the stuff of war crimes and aggression. The evidence is overwhelming. And the law is clear.
Jordan has even given its territory to terrorist training camps run by the intelligence agencies of the United States, France, Great Britain and itself. This is in clear violation of Article 8(e), Crime of Aggression. What national leader gave the order to do this? Hopefully, we shall find out in court.
None of these countries live by the rule of international law, even those who signed the Rome Statute pledging their word to abide by its provisions. Jordan is a particularly hypocritical example. And those who did not sign? They think they are exempt. But they are not. The reason for including Jordan and the others is because they DID sign the Rome Statute. And Article 12(2)(a) and (b) are quite clear. And for this reason the four non-signatory nations should fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Their crimes are ICC statutory crimes. Therefore under Rome Statute Article 12(2)(a) the Court has jurisdiction to prosecute them because their crimes were committed on, in and over ICC member states. Jordan and its fellow signers of the Rome Statute provide the jurisdictional legal leverage to get to the principal criminals, what I call the Criminal Cabal for Perpetual War, that is the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan.
One of the beautiful things about the law is its respect for and emphasis on language. One word emphasized by the International Criminal Court is “impunity,” that is, “to be free of punishment.
According to the Court, those perpetrators that commit grave crimes that threaten the peace and security of the world must not go unpunished. The preamble to the Rome Statute says it clearly, that the Court is “determined to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes and thus contribute to the prevention of such crimes.”
So I say, let justice begin with these eleven nations and its so-called leaders and their lamentably vicious advisors. The names are in my Complaint. Interested readers can see the entire document on my website, Brightening Glance.
Finally, I have utmost confidence in the International Criminal Court. It is the last, best hope for peace and, importantly, to guarantee a lasting respect for international law and its enforcement. Without that, we have nothing.
— What do you think are the major strategic and financial goals of the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, the nations most responsible for the crimes committed in your criminal complaint, on the path of developing such a covert war against Syria?
There is a nonsensical idea called Full Spectrum Dominance that the US military came up with a few years ago combined with the neo-con hallucination called the Project for the New American Century. It’s a two-headed monster that says America knows best and the world will understand, sooner or later, or else. And so this war-driven, financial machine has been grinding away at humanity, aided and abetted by the subversive help of its collaborating allies. The primary, motivating force for these disastrous policies is the sublimely arrogant and illogical idea that somehow, some way, America is “exceptional.” Obama loves to profess how much he believes in American “exceptionalism.” This is an historical extension of “winning” World War II and dropping the atomic bomb on two defenseless Japanese cities to get Russia’s attention. Thus the Cold War began. And as the world knows, Ronald Reagan won the Cold War and America has lived happily since. Setting this nonsense aside, there is a tremendous similarity between the powerful American forces of that era and those of today. One of Eisenhower’s last acts as president was to warn of the dangers of the Military-Industrial Complex. He was solidly ignored, except by one man, the man who succeeded him as president. Today, Eisenhower’s warning could be called the Military-Globalization Complex. These seem to be the deep-state monsters that must be obeyed at all cost. Democratic ideals are irrelevant.
When John F. Kennedy delivered an address entitled A Strategy of Peace in 1963, he also delivered his death sentence. “Mankind must put an end to war,” he said, “or war will put an end to mankind.” Five months later, another criminal cabal put an end to him. And to the prospects of peace, perhaps forever. And every president since then has paid attention to that criminal fact of Kennedy’s murder in full daylight in a street in Dallas, in particular, Barack Hussein Obama, Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
But you asked about the major strategic financial and strategic goals of the five Cabal members. Without getting stuck in a lot more words, here’s a one-word answer—MORE!
–You have openly stated in your complaint that the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and Levand organization (ISIS), infamous with mass murders and brutal catastrophes in Iraq-Syria line, had been created by the United States and and funded by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. So, what is the aim of the operations conducted again by the same anti-Syria coalition under the guise of stopping the ISIS atrocity?
Stopping the ISIS atrocity is a feeble attempt to stop the monster the Cabal created. And it cannot put the genie back in the bottle. We are witnessing the disaster that is US foreign policy and Turkish incompetence. And unless we face these absolute facts, nothing will improve. ISIS could have been destroyed two months ago as they charged along the roads from Syria into Iraq. I remembered the so-called Highway of Death in Iraq where the retreating, helpless Iraq army was destroyed by a relentless air attack. George Bush, the father, was so shocked by the atrocity that he called off the attack and declared victory. That same condition prevailed this summer but no one attacked. President Maleki requested air support to no avail. A great silence prevailed. Obama and his fellow felons were thinking. And so we arrive at today. A paralyzed Turkey. A confused America. And lots of people are dying. It is one of the blackest, sickest jokes in history. And the politicians that created this massive war crime, this massive crime against humanity must pay the price. Arrest. Trial. And if convicted, jail, and perhaps worse. And the International Criminal Court has the jurisdiction and the power to do this.
We face the following picture when we examine your criminal complaint in detail: The United States of America, of which you are also a citizen, is establishing terrorist organizations to achieve its strategic objectives. It is also establishing the logistics network of the said terrorist organizations and managing the transfer of militants, weapons and ammunition. Isn’t this fact sufficiently known by the citizens of the United States? Why can’t the people of the United States develop an effective anti-war opposition just as they have organized in the period of the invasion of Vietnam?
America is an expert in establishing terrorist organizations. It was their most important tool for their military coup business. SAVAK, the secret police in Iran. The Contras in Nicaragua, Augusto Pinochet, himself, in Chile. Kenan Evren, himself, in Turkey. And don’t forget the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. That’s where the South American CIA-inspired bombers perfected their assassination skills. The so-called school was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. I think I hear George Orwell laughing uproariously.
America always has willing accomplices. My Complaint names a few. There are many more. Power seeks out power. So when Obama speaks of America’s “partners” he really means accomplices.
Regarding the anti-war movement in America, I ask, “What war?” No draft of American youth into military, no war. Why do you think America went to the moon? To see if it was really made of green cheese? Such was a childhood myth. Why did America send satellites into outer space? To see if there were really little green men on Mars? Next question. Aren’t cell phones and I-phones wonderful? Sure they are. They tell us almost everything…except one thing…who is targeting us…for that’s what they are, a targeting system. All of these space-age heroic endeavors were but to develop a total targeting system. It’s part of Full Spectrum Dominance, it being the dominance of outer space. It being the domain of so-called “smart bombs.” “Smart” weapons systems eliminated the need for “boots on the ground.” “No boots needed” means American young people have no fear of being called to military service to defend the deceitful purposes of today’s America. So the deceit continues. So the hundreds of millions of parents are safe from having their children killed or maimed. Oh, there are some youngsters who volunteer for the glory of defending America from Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons. And these few are enough to maintain the illusion of boots being available to be on the ground. As far as Americans are concerned, someone else is fighting these wars. For them, America is exceptionally “exceptional.” And its all because their cell phones can tell them where they are. And its technology can kill anyone that threatens to kill them or their children.
— When I read your columns in different media organs in the specific dates I realized that you have faced disappointment with the foreign policy adopted by Barack Obama after being elected as the President of the USA. What had you been expecting and what did you face?
I, and many, many others like me, viewed Obama as the great hope. A highly intelligent, educated lawyer, he spoke sense, and spoke it well. On election day I wept in joy. And I never wept for a politician before. Now I weep, almost every day, for what might have been, for what didn’t happen, and for my native country in general.
Everything he could have done, he did not do. In fact, he became a greater killer than Bush. And now he even sounds stupider than Bush. I am sad, very sad, for this. He spoke so glowingly of change. And change things did. Now the world is in a catastrophic state. And what is to come? No leader speaks sense. Corruption is general all over. Who will save the children of this world? The likes of religious fakes? The likes of hack, sold-out politicians? The likes of boot-licking journalists on the CIA payroll? The likes of singers, and writer and actors that conspire with pseudo-fascist governments to sing and act the safe, party-line? Who will save the children? Smart Bombs?
This is what we face. This is why I filed my Criminal Complaint with the International Criminal Court.
The hero of the epic called LIFE will be the people blessed with the energy and brains of youth. These are the vast majority of people in the world, all of whom have put up with the nonsense of so-called democratic living for decades. They see clearly the disaster that incompetent leadership has brought. The world is on the edge. Brutality is everywhere, from the mouths of politicians to the knives in the bloody hands of ISIS.
So who will save us? We will. There is no other way.
I remember a story on this subject:
A man once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for a hundred years. The man replied, ‘In that case, there is no time to lose, plant it this afternoon.”
So let’s do something this afternoon.
— The charges attributed to Turkey in the criminal complaint are the providing of chemical and war weapons as well as logistics, intelligence and financial support to several terrorist organizations fighting against the Assad administration in Syria. Can you please tell us about the role of Turkey in the broader plan?
Are you asking me whether a country like Turkey, basically a state with a thoroughly politicized and dysfunctional legal system could be expected to abide by international law? Because that is the problem. With such a judiciary system, that allows politics to determine the law, how can one expect Turkey to do anything but participate with America in the rape of Syria as it participated in the earlier rape of Libya? And that’s why the principals should be brought to trial. Things will only worsen if they are not.
As far as Turkey’s role in the broader plan…it was America’s naughty errand boy, doing the dirty work and making some money on the side from black market oil and the like. I think that the duplicity and corruption is, at last, obvious to the world. Turkey’s foreign policy is a disaster and fully responsible for the catastrophe in Syria. That’s the reason for the Syrian catastrophe, that and American stupidity. Turkey did not realize that the Syrian army was well-equipped, well-trained and had high morale. How irresponsible of the prime minister and the general staff! Indeed, it was the height of reckless ignorance. Now it’s zero friends and nothing but enemies for Turkey. And no way out. Due to its cheap thinking and small-minded bargaining, to say nothing about the destruction of the Turkish army, navy and air force, Turkey cannot even defend the borders that its politicians have erased. So a role in a broader plan? What plan? No role, in anything. How Turkey will recover from this domestic and international fiasco is beyond my understanding.
Finally, do you have any message for the pro-peace readers Aydinlik?
Being pro-peace is not enough. But that does not mean making war. It does mean realizing that we have a lot more power than we think we do. We have vastly more collective brain power than the ignoramuses who have brought this world to its current sad condition.
For openers, read my Criminal Complaint to the International Criminal Court at:
http://www.brighteningglance.org/criminal-complaint-international-criminal-court-6-october-2014.html
If you support it, tell the Chief Prosecutor at:
otp.informationdesk@icc-cpi.int
And finally a few closing words from the last pro-peace American president, John F. Kennedy:
“Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”
I believe that. But first we have to get the criminal politicians out of our way.
####
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
“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
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.
DUMBBELLS (English slang for stupid fools)
DÜMBELEKLER (Turkish slang for stupid fools)
I sing what was lost and dread what was won,
I walk in a battle fought over again,
My king a lost king, and lost soldiers my men;
Feet to the Rising and Setting may run,
They always beat on the same small stone.
Willam Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
I read the news today, oh boy. Here’s what Reuters said:
“Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan has applied to Turkey’s constitutional court on Friday to challenge the alleged violation of his and his family’s rights by social media, a senior official in his office told Reuters.”
Isn’t it grand, this so-called rule of law. The prime minister is correct in his action. Long ago his family’s rights were well-established as were his. When the fox owns the chicken coop every day the menu-du-jour is chicken. We and the world know the quality of those who rule this sad country.
But who’s to argue? Not the sheep…if they whimper, they’re next. And besides, they’re well-bribed with food and coal and things magical from the bountiful Ankara sky. They have indeed learned to deeply love their Big Brother. They repay with their pathetic ballots. So, who? Perhaps young people who, like all young people everywhere, thought they had a future? Sorry. Enough of them have died and been maimed. Maimed by the prime minister who now frets about his and his family’s rights. Hah! So surely it will be the political opposition who once thought they had a patriotic responsibility, even a cause? No cause. No thought. No brains. No nothing. The military? The ones with the soundest, strongest emotional and ethical legacy? Nope. Folded up like a cheap suit. Hardly a whimper. Generals now bow their heads to thieving politicians. Cowardly submissive stuff like that makes one wonder if they ever received an education (and at taxpayer expense). Atatürk? Huh? Please, we must not speak aloud of such things. So who’s left to argue? Media? Ha! Sold-out. Universities? Ha! Ha! Expounding on pet obscurities, historical quirks, dead poets and deader laws and what once was and now will never be. There is no time left for history and literature and law and medicine and philosophy and too many more words. Speaking of which, what about writers? Well, who reads? The world is too much with all of us, and we are all too late.
So who will care? Care enough to act, to really act? To stand up and say that this is enough. That the people will no longer be governed by a corrupt political process. Nor by numbskull, repetitive political opposition parties nor by America’s CIA gangsters? Is that too much to ask?
It seems so. Time grows short. Another crooked election is coming, this one presidential. One way or another the same small people will throw the same big stones at us. Ah Turkey, the saddest country with the saddest people with the saddest stories. Always beating on, always being beaten. Ah, dear Turkey, Atatürk’s children deserved so much more. So did Atatürk.
James (Cem) Ryan
Istanbul
19 April 2014
“A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.”
Ezra Pound (1885-1972)