Tag: Bashar al-Assad

President of Syria

Syria’s Bashar Assad Finds Solid Support Among Alawites in Turkey

The Alawite Towns That Support Syria’s Assad — in Turkey

Even as the regime’s Alawite support erodes, the President of Syria finds vocal support among his co-religionists in Turkey

By Steven Sotloff / Antakya, Turkey | September 10, 2012 | 2

An Assad carpet for sale in Harbiyya, on Sept. 6, 2012.

Steven Sotloff

A Bashar Assad carpet for sale in Harbiyya, Turkey, on Sept. 6, 2012

While the Alawites of Syria may not be monolithic in their support of their fellow Alawite President Bashar Assad, the dictator can find near unanimous backing among members of the sect across the border in a region that is part of Turkey. In 1939, Syria’s colonial master, France, ceded the Syrian province of Alexandretta and its population of over 120,000 — most of whom were Alawites, also known as Alawis — to Turkey. Known today as Hatay, the region’s inhabitants are equally divided between Alawites and orthodox Sunnis, along with a small number of Christians. For decades, an uneasy truce reigned between the sects. But since the outbreak of the revolution in 2011, the Turkish Alawites, who number around 500,000, have increasingly taken to the streets to express their support for the Assad regime.

In a carpet shop in the village of Harbiyya in Hatay, the rugs portray familiar personages: Turkey’s first leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, with his penetrating eyes, next to the flowing curls of Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law who is venerated by Shi‘ite Muslims, including the Alawites. But one carpet stands out among the lot — that of Syrian President Assad. In this Alawite village within Turkey, the beleaguered leader who has been labeled a war criminal by the West is more popular than Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

(PHOTOS: Syrians Flee into Turkey)

The Alawite communities in Turkey and Syria have been torn by the latter’s 18-month civil war. Sect members in Turkey have thrown their weight behind the Syrian regime even as Prime Minister Erdogan has denounced Assad’s “attempted genocide” of defenseless civilians. Harbiyya residents have no qualms about their support for Assad. “In Syria, there is democracy,” explains restaurateur Riyad Aslan Yurek. “There is a freedom there that is absent in other Arab countries.” For Yurek, the allure of Syria lies in its secularism. He contrasts the liberties there with the austere Islam that reigns in Saudi Arabia, where he labored for five years. “After Friday prayers, the Saudis would execute drug dealers and amputate the hands of thieves,” he recounts. “This extremism does not exist in Syria.”

Alawite activists are vocal in their support of Assad in Hatay’s capital. Every day in the city of Antakya, a group of students in their 20s collect signatures at a table located in the downtown pedestrian mall, calling for an end to the Syrian conflict. The men take turns shouting out slogans such as “We don’t want America’s imperial war!” and “No to the shedding of blood in Syria!” Some passersby ignore the loud cries, while others are curiously intrigued by the petition drive. When an American journalist stops to ask about the group’s activities, though, a burly man in his 30s hisses him away, shouting, “America is funding terrorists in Syria!”

Later, one of the volunteers, Ilena Coksoyler, explains the group’s frustrations. “We watch television at night and see the [rebel] terrorists hanging Alawi soldiers and yelling, ‘God is Great!’” the 25-year-old education student notes. “We are afraid for the Alawis in Syria and afraid that the foreign terrorists will try to do the same here in Turkey.”

(MORE: Eyewitness from Homs: An Alawite Refugee Warns of Sectarian War in Syria)

Foreign fighters from countries like Libya and Saudi Arabia have indeed been spotted in the city. But last week the Turkish daily Today’s Zaman revealed that a local organization is trying to recruit Turkish Alawites to fight on the side of the Syrian regime. Alawites in Turkey deny that any such mobilization has taken place, but they sympathize with the need to protect their brethren in Syria.

Many in this city claim that the foreign fighters trickling into Syria are injecting fanatic ideas into Syrian society. “Bashar is fighting al-Qaeda, who want to create an Islamic emirate in Syria,” explains Nizam Ozar. “He is killing terrorists who are threatening the security of the state.” It is a refrain heard throughout the small tourist village dotted with hotels that welcome foreigners who go there to see the waterfalls. Residents assert that the Saudi Arabian and Qatari funds fueling the rebellion are being doled out to radicals who want to destroy the secular state the Assad family cultivated over 40 years.

“The Syrians are using the refugee camps [in Turkey, which house Syrians fleeing the conflict] to set up training bases,” explains Ozar, before excusing himself to welcome some tourists to his trinket shop. “At night the fighters sneak into Syria and kill the soldiers,” he comments when he returns. “Turkey allows this and this makes us angry.”

MORE: Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Song of the One-Legged Revolutionary

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via Syria’s Bashar Assad Finds Solid Support Among Alawites in Turkey | World | TIME.com.

September 16, 2012
In Turkey, Alawite sect sides with Syria’s Assad

View Photo Gallery — Syrian refugees flock to Turkey and Jordan: Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have spilled across the border into Turkey and Jordan since the 17-month uprising in their homeland began.

By William Booth, Published: September 14

SAMANDAG, Turkey — When the first families of Syrian war refugees straggled into this seaside city a few months ago, the locals offered a wary welcome.

Last week, they kicked them all out.

This ancient pilgrimage town in southern Turkey is populated by Alawites, adherents of a heterodox offshoot of Shiite Islam, who share their faith with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian leader has filled the upper ranks of his military, security services and feared shabiha militia with fellow Alawites.

Although Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has thrown his support behind the Syrian rebels in their armed uprising against Assad, the Turkish street is revealing itself to be more divided about what is happening in Syria and along its borders.

Many Turks are proud that their government is giving a hand to those in need, but the main opposition leaders are warning that the country is being dragged into a sectarian conflict. The business community is also rattled.

Here in the Hatay province, where Turkey’s small Alawite population is centered, critics of the government’s role in the 18-month conflict next door are especially vocal.

“We are sure there are foreign fighters here, all the extremists and all the terrorists,” said Ali Yeral, a prominent religious leader of the Alawite sect in the southern Turkish city of Antakya. “They spend the day drinking tea, and at night they cross the border to kill our relatives” in Syria.

Yeral and other Alawite activists repeat stories, impossible to verify and likely not true, that nevertheless illustrate the level of animosity they feel about the 120,000 Syrians living in refugee camps and rented apartments in Turkey.

“We have heard them say after they get finished with the government of Assad, they will come for us and cut our heads off,” Yeral said. “They are Libyans, Saudis, Syrians. They are all terrorists. And they say to our girls, ‘I will have you in my bed and your father’s villa will be mine.’ ”

In Antakya, with its large Alawite population, Turks have staged street demonstrations, their most recent Tuesday, in support of their co-religionist Assad.

Protesters are calling on the Turkish government not only to oust the 40,000 displaced Syrians living in houses across Turkey but also to empty the 11 refugee camps along the Turkish-Syrian border, where an additional 80,000 Syrians languish in tent cities.

Most of the Syrian refugees, and most of the Syrian rebel fighters, are Sunni Muslims. Many Alawites, like the Christians in Syria, have seen Assad as a bulwark against a Sunni Islamist takeover.

Feeling the heat, the Turkish government last week quietly announced that it would begin to ask Syrians without passports to enter camps and those with passports to move away from the border.

The officials promised that the refugee camps would remain open and welcome those fleeing the bombing and fighting in Syria.

Turkish officials said there are good reasons for the tough policy — secure borders and knowledge of who’s coming and going — but Selcuk Unal, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said “local tensions” played a role in the decision to move refugees deeper into Turkey.

via In Turkey, Alawite sect sides with Syria’s Assad – The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-turkey-alawite-sect-sides-with-syrias-assad/2012/09/14/97e73500-fdd8-11e1-98c6-ec0a0a93f8eb_story.html

September 15, 2012
Turkey Is No Partner for Peace

How Ankara’s Sectarianism Hobbles U.S. Syria Policy

Halil Karaveli

September 11, 2012

Letter From

Turkey’s Democratic Dilemma

Piotr Zalewski

After years of cozying up to Middle East dictators, Turkey now urges its neighbors to liberalize — or risk regime change. But these calls for change will ring hollow unless Turkey gets its own democracy in order.

Erdogan, right, attends the funeral of two pilots shot down by Syria in June. (Umit Bektas / Courtesy Reuters)

At first glance, it appears that the United States and Turkey are working hand in hand to end the Syrian civil war. On August 11, after meeting with Turkish officials, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement that the two countries’ foreign ministries were coordinating to support the Syrian opposition and bring about a democratic transition. In Ankara on August 23, U.S. and Turkish officials turned those words into action, holding their first operational planning meeting aimed at hastening the downfall of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Beneath their common desire to oust Assad, however, Washington and Ankara have two distinctly different visions of a post-revolutionary Syria. The United States insists that any solution to the Syrian crisis should guarantee religious and ethnic pluralism. But Turkey, which is ruled by a Sunni government, has come to see the conflict in sectarian terms, building close ties with Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood–dominated Sunni opposition, seeking to suppress the rights of Syrian Kurds, and castigating the minority Alawites — Assad’s sect — as enemies. That should be unsettling for the Obama administration, since it means that Turkey will not be of help in promoting a multi-ethnic, democratic government in Damascus. In fact, Turkish attitudes have already contributed to Syria’s worsening sectarian divisions.

Turkey has framed the Syrian conflict in alienating religious terms.

Washington is pushing for pluralism. In Istanbul last month, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon emphasized that “the Syrian opposition needs to be inclusive, needs to give a voice to all of the groups in Syria . . . and that includes Kurds.” Clinton, after meeting with her Turkish counterpart, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, stressed that a new Syrian government “will need to protect the rights of all Syrians regardless of religion, gender, or ethnicity.”

It is unclear, however, whether Ankara is on board. As it lends critical support to the Sunni rebellion, Turkey has not made an attempt to reach out to the other ethnic and sectarian communities in the country. Instead, Turkey has framed the Syrian conflict in alienating religious terms. The governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), a Sunni conservative bloc, singles out Syria’s Alawites as villains, regularly denouncing their “minority regime.” Hüseyin Çelik, an AKP spokesperson, claimed at a press conference on September 8, 2011, that “the Baath regime relies on a mass of 15 percent” — the percentage of Alawites in the country. Such a narrative overlooks the fact that the Baath regime has long owed its survival to the support of a significant portion of the majority Sunnis.

The AKP has antagonized not only Syria’s Alawites but also its Kurds. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has insisted that his country would resist any Kurdish push for autonomy in parts of northeastern Syria, going so far as to threaten military intervention. The Turkish government’s unreserved support for the Sunni opposition is due not only to an ideological affinity with it but also to the fact that the Sunni rebels oppose the aspirations of the Syrian Kurds.

Meanwhile, the AKP has sought to sell its anti-Assad policy to the Turkish public by fanning the flames of sectarianism at home. The AKP has directed increasingly aggressive rhetoric toward Turkey’s largest religious minority, the Alevis, and accused them of supporting the Alawites out of religious solidarity. The Alevis, a Turkish- and Kurdish-speaking heterodox Muslim minority that comprises approximately one-fifth of Turkey’s population, constitute a separate group from the Arab Alawites. But both creeds share the fate of being treated as heretics by the Sunnis.

At the September 2011 press conference, Çelik insinuated that Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu, an Alevi Kurd who leads Turkey’s social democratic Republican People’s Party (CHP), based his opposition to Turkey’s entanglement in the Syrian civil war on sectarian motives. “Why are you defending the Baath regime?” he inquired. “Bad things come to my mind. Is it perhaps because of sectarian solidarity?” In a similar vein, Erdogan claimed in March that Kiliçdaroğlu’s motives for supposedly befriending the Syrian president were religious, stating, “Don’t forget that a person’s religion is the religion of his friend.”

On the face of it, the Obama administration’s positions on Syria are consistent with those of Turkey. In their meetings in Turkey, Clinton reiterated that Washington “share[s] Turkey’s determination that Syria must not become a haven for [Kurdish] terrorists,” and Gordon underlined that the United States has “been clear both with the Kurds of Syria and our counterparts in Turkey that we don’t support any movement towards autonomy or separatism which we think would be a slippery slope.” Such statements may comfort the Turkish government, but the preferred U.S. outcome of a Syria where all ethnic and religious communities enjoy equal rights would nonetheless require accommodating the aspirations of the Kurds to be recognized as a distinct group. And that is precisely what Turkey deems unacceptable. Consider the fact that Turkey has persecuted its own Kurdish movement for raising the same demand; in the last three years, Ankara has arrested 8,000 Kurdish politicians and activists to keep the nationalist movement in check.

None of this is to suggest that the United States should not work with Turkey, especially since Saudi Arabia, the other main participant in the effort to bring down Assad, has even less of an interest in promoting democracy. But to have a reliable partner in the Syria crisis, Washington will have to pressure Ankara to rise above its ethnic and sectarian considerations.

The United States should therefore confront these differences in approach head-on and encourage Turkey to see the benefits of pursuing a more pluralistic policy. Despite its fear of Kurdish agitation at home, Turkey would stand to gain from establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with the Kurds in Syria, like the one that it has come to enjoy with the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq. Indeed, representatives of the leading Syrian Kurdish party, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), have urged Ankara to forge a similar partnership. In an interview with the International Middle East Peace Research Center, Salih Muhammad Muslim, the leader of the PYD, said that Turkey should get over its “Kurdish phobia.” Erdogan’s government seems reluctant to do so, fearing that by reaching out to Syria’s Kurds and other minorities, and accepting the idea of a pluralistic Syria, Turkey would encourage its own ethnic and religious minorities to seek constitutional reform and equality. But if Turkey allows ethnic and sectarian divisions in Syria to further spiral out of control, those divisions may spill over its own borders.

By now, it should have dawned on Ankara that shouldering the Sunni cause to project power in its neighborhood courts all kinds of dangers. Framing Turkey’s involvement in Syria in religious terms leads Sunni Turks to imagine that they are waging a battle for the emancipation of faithful Muslims from the oppression of supposed heretics. This fanning of sectarian prejudice against Syria’s Alawites naturally engenders hostility toward religious minority groups in Turkey, leading the country’s already fragile social fabric to fray.

There is a bigger risk here, too. The AKP’s pro-Sunni agenda in Syria threatens to embroil Turkey in the wider Sunni-Shiite conflict across the Middle East. By taking on Iran’s ally, Turkey has exposed itself to aggression from the Islamic Republic. In a statement last month, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s chief of staff, General Hasan Firouzabadi, warned that Turkey, along with the other countries combating Assad, can expect internal turmoil as a result of their interference. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Kurdish rebel group considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and the United States, stepped up its attacks over the summer, notably staging a major offensive in Turkey’s Hakkari Province, which borders Iran and Iraq. Iran denies any responsibility for the PKK attacks, but Turkish officials assume that Tehran is involved and that PKK militants cross into Turkey from Iran.

Until now, the Sunni bent of Turkish foreign policy has suited the geopolitical aims of the United States, as it has meant that Turkey, abandoning its previous ambition to have “zero problems” with its neighbors, has joined the camp against Iran. That advantage quelled whatever misgivings U.S. officials may have harbored about Turkey’s sectarian drift. But if the United States achieves, with Turkish help, its strategic objective of ousting Assad, it will need a different kind of Turkey as its partner for what comes after.

September 12, 2012
Hackers Reveal How They Accessed Syrian President Bashar Assad’s Email Using World’s Worst Password

Assad Worst Password

Hackers recently disclosed they broke into Syrian President Bashar Assad’s email using the password “1234.”

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s private email address was sam@alshahba.com. His password was 1234.

This absurd factoid about the now-floundering president came to light on Thursday, in an interview with opposition hacker Abdullah al-Shamri gave to the Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat.

In February, under the aegis of an opposition group, Shamri’s confederates released 3,000 of Assad’s private emails to the Guardian. But until Al-Hayat published Shamri’s interview on Thursday, the world knew little of the hackers themselves, or of the absurd tale that was their break-in.

The Times Of Israel reports:

After a week of attempting to decipher what they thought would be an enigmatic code protecting Assad’s private correspondences, one of the sophisticated cyber-burglars tried ‘thinking like an idiot,’ Al-Hayat reported Thursday.

‘You’re doing it wrong,’ said hacker Abdullah Shamri, recalling for the paper the moment at which epiphany struck one of his criminals-in-arms. ‘You always call the heads of the regime morons, so let’s try to work like morons’.

An enterprising hacker immediately tried a password widely acknowledged to be one of the most imbecilic possible: 1234…Within moments the hackers had at their fingertips a trove of private missives belonging to the dictator of Damascus.

But 1234 isn’t just a bad password; it is, as the Times of Israel notes, widely acknowledged to be one of the most imbecilic password possible, thanks to the famous scene in “Spaceballs”.

Shamri and his group didn’t release the emails immediately upon cracking the code, however. For eight months, they used this exclusive access to read the private emails of Assad and his wife Asma, looking for a “devastating revelation” that would help “oust” the regime, the Guardian reports.

They did not find it, but they did, however, find valuable information, including some they later used to protect opposition leaders and Western journalists in Homs.

But as Shamri and his confederates waited to move and the civil war in Syria escalated, another tribe of hacktivists turned interested in the regime: the hacker group Anonymous.

In January of 2012, Anonymous broke into the mail server of the Syrian Ministry of Presidential Affairs and gave whistleblowing-site Wikileaks 2.4 million formerly regime-eyes-only emails. By Feb. 7, the owner of the sam@alshahba.com address was known, and Assad began receiving threatening emails. He closed the presidential account the same day, according to Information Week.

Ironically, Assad did appear to have knowledge of security procedure, at least in the way he treated his email account. he deleted his mail after reading and never attached his name or initials to any email he sent from sam@alshahba.com. But in other ways, he and his wife were woefully out of touch.

After the missives leaked to the Guardian, blog Foreign Policy reported that “Asma is apparently an Internet shopaholic, buying enough luxury items to stock a Tom Wolfe novel: Necklaces of amethyst, diamond, and onyx; a Ming Luce vase; and roughly $15,000 worth of candlesticks, tables, and chandeliers” — all while the country was falling apart around her.

Assad, meanwhile, “made light of reforms he had promised in an attempt to defuse the crisis, referring to ‘rubbish laws of parties, elections, media’” and at one point forwarded to an aide “a link to YouTube footage of a crude re-enactment of the siege of Homs using toys and biscuits,” the Guardian reports.

At the beginning of the Syrian crackdowns, Shamri was running the Internet’s first Arab-language information network, and he also moonlighted as an opposition blogger.

Shamri told Al-Hayat (per Al-Monitor):

I received a call from a Presidential Office official, who told me: ‘We used to hold a grudge against you. However, we found out that although your words are cruel, they speak the truth. I cannot deliver your articles to the President. I will give you his private and confidential e-mail and you send him your articles in your own way’.

Originally, Shamri planned to use the emails to petition the president for reform, but when the crackdowns worsened and his emails stayed unanswered, he decided to hack the president’s account instead.

Now the Guardian claims it has 3,000 of Assad’s emails, and Shamri says he has “7,500 Emails”, many unseen, that “blow the lid off the President’s secrets.”

In the leak to the Guardian, the hackers claimed their motive was to “show the world what this regime is like.” Now, says Shamri, he plans to sort and document the emails for “recorded history.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6iW-8xPw3k

WATCH the scene from “Spaceballs:”

via Hackers Reveal How They Accessed Syrian President Bashar Assad’s Email Using World’s Worst Password.

September 10, 2012
Letter to The Honorable Abdullah Gül, President of the Republic of Turkey
9 September 2012

The Honorable Abdullah Gül

T.C. Cumhurbaşkan

06689 Çankaya

Ankara

Dear Mr. President,

Would you allow me to show my concern about maintaining your well-deserved prestige and to tell you that your star which, until now, has shone so brightly, risks being dimmed by the most shameful and indelible of stains.

You have passed healthy and safe from the troubles pertaining to your rise to the presidency. You seem to have won over the hearts of the citizens. But what filth this wretched “Syria Affair” has cast on your name and the name of your country. 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 recent months 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. The shops and restaurants are being ripped off by these foreign mercenaries. Send the bill, to Tayyip, they say, He sent for us. And rather than protect the citizens the police turn a blind eye. What is going on, Mr. President? Who is ruling this country?

Many innocent Syrian people, including my wife’s uncle in Damascus, have been murdered by this assembled-in-Turkey terrorist machine. Moreover, the good citizens of Hatay are daily threatened by this scum 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. 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. Now Turkey is willingly sullied by this filth. History will record that it was under your presidency that this crime against humanity was committed. Something must be done Mr. President.

As these government and foreign operatives have dared to drag the reputation of Turkey through the filth of deceit, lies and murder, so shall I dare. Dare to tell the truth, as I swear to tell it, since the normal channels of the media and the Turkish justice system have failed so miserably to do so. My duty as a good citizen is to speak, and not become an accomplice to this murderous travesty of justice. My nights would otherwise be haunted by the spectre of innocent men, women and children, not so far away, suffering the most horrible tortures of war.

And it is to you Mr. President, that I shall proclaim this truth, with all the revulsion that an honest man can summon. Knowing your integrity, I am sure that you do not know the truth. If you did, you would have long ago taken action against this blatant attack on Turkish sovereignty. The ruling power is complicit in this attack. And the opposition is hopelessly divided and incompetent. So to whom if not you, the first magistrate of this country, shall I reveal the vile baseness of those who are truly guilty, the ones steeped in innocent blood up to their elbows.

As you know, Mr. President, the problem has always been Turkey. Blessed with abundant natural resources, an edenic environment for agriculture, waters teeming with fish, vast olive groves overlooking the sea, a winning warm water climate, the land nexus between east and west, Turkey has always been a target. And being a target is most uncomfortable and always susceptible to treachery.

Since the death of the founder of modern Turkey, who tossed the imperialist occupying powers into the sea, Turkey has been in a state of decline, particularly regarding its susceptibility and submission to western interests. First it was Communism! Communism! Communism! And a nervous America needed an Islamic green buffer zone against godless Russia. So Turkey said Yes! Yes! Yes! Please forgive us for not joining all you western imperialists in World War II. Please allow us to become a “green zone.” And please, please, please take some incredibly fertile land from our agricultural heart in Çukurova, eight kilometers east of Adana. And of course build your airbase, said Turkey, but please like us and respect us. So America built its airbase in the fertile heart of Turkey. And that was the beginning of America’s close relationship—meaning CIA involvement—with Turkey. Vital rural education programs were abandoned lest those evil Communists infiltrate. And in the villages, ignorance remained. And the politicians knew it. And the plunder began. And today, Mr. President, the headquarters for this foul deed being done to Syria, the Syrian people, and the Turkish people is at Incirlik Air Base. What goes around, comes around, Mr. President.

At the root of it all is one man, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the head of the AKP ruling party and the prime minister of the Republic of Turkey. A man of bombast, scowls and ill-humor, he seems not to like anyone. It’s the strangest thing, Mr. President, to observe his grin when visiting the White House in Washington DC. And then the pain that comes to his face when he returns to his native land. He came to power in a landslide election in 2002 that was repeated four years later. Could it have something to do with the lack of education in the provinces, Mr. President? Since he came to power he has relentlessly embarked on a policy to divide and weaken the republic. I am sure you have noticed this, Mr. President. Haven’t you?

Who is this man? Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, that he is grown so great?

I suspect American hamburgers and hotdogs, Mr. President. For he and his ilk are of them. And now, during these days of tragedy, there are no longer any secrets, Mr. President.

Who is this prime minister who so disparages, dismisses, defames and divides, to wit:
- What head of government would jail the senior officers and the command and general staff of a nation’s armed forces and within months enter a de facto war against its hitherto peaceful neighbor, Syria?
- What head of government would actively solicit the entry into its country of known terrorists?
- What head of government would defy the will of the people as expressed by the existence of a parliament by arming known terrorists at the behest of a foreign power, i.e., the United States of America?
- What head of government would jail many hundreds of students for protesting their desire for a free education? Some are sentenced to as much as an eight year imprisonment for being members of a “terrorist” organization because they wore traditional poşhu headscarves.
- Who is this prime minister of a secular, democratic, equal rights espousing country who:
- In Istanbul 2010 International Women’s Day, opined to a conference of representatives of women’s organizations that women are not equal to men. His wife sat stoically on the dais.
- On International Women’s Day, 2008 encouraged women to have three and even better, five, children each.
- On 16 August 2008, called martyred (killed in action) Turkish soldiers “kelle”, a derogatory expression likening them to heads of cattle.
- In 2011 changed the name of the Ministry for Women and Family to the Ministry of Family and Social Policies thus further effacing and disparaging women.
- In 2011 on International Women’s Day, he was asked why honor killings had increased 14 fold since 2002 under his regime. In bizarre logic, the prime minister said the enormous increase was because more murders were being reported, thus apparently both praising and loathing improved administrative procedures.
- After the Turkish Air Force with the help of American “intelligence” from drone observation aircraft bombed and killed 34 innocent Kurdish citizens on 28 December 2011 in Uludere, the prime minister announced his opposition to abortion preposterously likening it to rape. He thus deflected attention from the massive loss of life caused by the Turkish military. No viable explanation has yet been given.
- In 2011, in a gross demonstration of his Taliban state of mind, the prime minister ordered the destruction of The Statue of Humanity by the acclaimed sculptor Mehmet Aksoy. The statue stood in Kars on the Armenian border. The prime minister called the statue dedicated to Turkish-Armenian peace, “ucube,” a “freak.”
- And now, in primary collusion with agents of the United States of America, the prime minister and his oh-so-willing underlings have launched an illegal, unconstitutional aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic, a sovereign nation. Can they have so soon forgotten the international crime and human disaster that such illegal recklessness brought to the innocent Iraqi people? Have they so quickly become emboldened to disregard the will of the Turkish people who so courageously chose not to collaborate with the western rape of Iraq in 2003?
- And now, in primary collusion with agents of the United States of America, the prime minister and his oh-so-willing underlings have launched an illegal, unconstitutional aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic, a sovereign nation. Can they have so soon forgotten the international crime and human disaster that such illegal recklessness brought to the innocent Iraqi people? Have they so quickly become emboldened to disregard the will of the Turkish people who so courageously chose not to collaborate with the western rape of Iraq in 2003?
- Has he forgotten the many historical foreign connivances of America? Has he forgotten the murderous campaigns of subversion that featured ruthless CIA involvement? Has he forgotten the American CIA killer-puppet Pinochet? Has he forgotten the destabilizing bombings, the tortures, the disappearances of pregnant women who were executed after giving birth, their children re-engineered for the “new” Argentine society? Has he forgotten the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia, a state terrorist training camp? How about the KUBARK program, the CIA how-to-do-it interrogation manual, the book that destroys victims’ minds? Deep, disorienting shocks, day and night jumbled, electroshock, humiliation, silence, noise, sensory deprivation, the slow destruction of brains, has he remembered any of this? And now Turkey has the very same type of organization teaching assassination, sabotage and terror. Mr. President, in times like these we must remember our Nietzsche: “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”
- Has he forgotten Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Cuba (1959-present), Congo (1960), Cambodia (1961-73), Brazil (1965), Argentina (1976), Indonesia (1965), Vietnam (1961-74), Laos (1961-73), Cambodia (1961-73), Greece (1946-81), Chile (1973), Afghanistan (1979-present), El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua (1980s), Grenada (1983), Turkey (1980-present), Agfhanistan (1979-89) (2001-present) and Iraq (1991-present)? These are all victims of terror American style.
- Has he forgotten the human wreckage caused by these American assaults? Surely he remembers the horror that America brought to Turkey in 1980, the torture, the mass imprisonment, the executions? Has the prime minister not had his fill of the criminal antics of the USA and its CIA? Most of humanity has, Mr. President? Have you?
And now Syria, a new horror brought to the Syrian people courtesy of Turkey and America.

And of course, the not-so-secret planning that turns out to be so terribly fatal. Earlier this year, General Dempsey, David Petraeus, now the CIA capo, and Hillary Clinton came to town, and came to down, and still come to town. A typical American foreign policy team, one civilian and two generals. In case you haven’t been paying attention, Mr. President, American foreign policy has shrunken to its bare essentials: military muscle-flexing and threats. Culturally insensitive and hopelessly hypocritical, it relies on force alone. In between these American visits the Turkish foreign minister feverishly visited Washington. Their cartoonish visits are insulting to Turkey. Meanwhile, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Mu’ammar al-Khaddafi Human Rights Award winner for 2010, soon after the award ceremony ended commenced raining bombs on al-Khaddafi’s head. He then proceeded (like Hillary Clinton) to celebrate his former host’s murder by evisceration via sodomy with various sharp instruments. Then he turned his invective on his former Syrian friend, Bashar al-Assad. How seductive must be the eye-popping smiles of that most incompetent, amoral American secretary of state.

The deep and treacherous pockets of Saudi Arabia and America’s other military stooge, Qatar, would provide the financing of their fellow Arab neighbor’s demise. In violation of its constitution Turkey now provides a safe haven for the so-called Free Syrian Army, a collection of mercenaries and terrorists dredged up by the collective intelligence services of Turkey, the USA, Israel, and any other western jackals that want some of the action. How does such a safe haven in Hatay differ from the safe haven provided to the PKK in Iraq? Make no mistake, Mr. President, the Free Syrian Army is the equivalent in every way of the America-financed mujadhideen, the “freedom fighters” of the 1980s war in Afghanistan. And venal Turkish businessmen, having been denied projects in Iraq due to governmental blundering, rub their hands together anticipating post-war reconstruction contracts in Syria.

And lately, again the CIA visited Turkey in the form of its boss, the military man, the general, David Petraeus, a man who as an honorable West Point cadet swore to not lie, cheat or steal, all of which he now does with wanton abandon for his country. Who would not say that this man has not become a monster? And the day after Petraeus left, the prime minister suddenly became a latter-day Mehmet the Conqueror shouting that “In a short time we will go to Damascus and God willing pray in the Emevi mosque.” And a day later 25 soldiers were exploded into very small pieces carrying ammunition in an armory in the middle of the night in Afyonkarahisar. A minister blamed God. The commanding general blamed the media. As usual, all explanations were garbled. As usual, the circumstances are highly suspicious. As usual, an investigation is pending. Chaos, chaos, always the chaos.

Isn’t this all this a disgusting business, Mr. President?

Of course, Mr. President, all the posturing about meetings and speeches are hoaxes. This rape of Syria was cooked long ago in Washington. How so? On 20 August 2012 a car bomb exploded in downtown Gaziantep. Warnings had been issued weeks ago that this would. But despite this “intelligence,” the car bomb was carried by a flat-bed truck and offloaded in front of the police station. So much for being alert. Nine people were killed, scores injured. But suddenly something spilled out of a blacker-than-black bag. It seems that three American neo-con think tanks (the Brookings Institute, the America Enterprise Institute and the War Studies Institute) had figured it out in advance months ago at a Washington DC conference. It was attended by representatives from Turkey and Saudi Arabia. First it was called a “scenario,” later a “plan,” then, amazingly, it wasn’t called anything. It just disappeared, never to be mentioned again.

What’s the difference? Well, hundreds of generals and other senior staff officers remain jailed because of a laughable military coup “scenario” called “Sledgehammer” (Balyoz). This cartoon involved bombing mosques and shooting down Turkish planes. The so-called evidence was slathered across on the front page of so-called newspapers like Taraf, Mr. President. Hundreds of senior officers were arrested, Mr. President! A mammoth investigation and round-up ensued. The army’s command and general staff was purged. But about the American bomb “scenario?” Nothing! The story ran in the press for one day. After that a great silence has prevailed. Why, Mr. President? No arrests. No investigation. No questions. And soon thereafter the CIA’s David Petraeus came to town again, this time peddling another deceitful scheme. How disgusting, Mr. President.

And guess what familiar names surround the think-tank bomb fiasco? Richard Perle of the 1980 Turkish military coup infamy, Eric Edelman and Douglas Feith, neo-con diplomatic thugs from the recent Bush regime. It all smells to the highest of heavens, Mr. President.

This is the plain truth, Mr. President, and it is terrifying. It will leave an indelible stain on your presidency. I realize that you may have no direct power over this issue, that you may be limited by the Constitution and your entourage. You have, nonetheless, your duty as a man, which you will recognize and fulfill. As for myself, I have not despaired in the least of the triumph of the right and justice. I say with the most vehement of conviction: truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it. Today is only the beginning, for it is only today that the positions have become clear: on one side, those who are guilty, who do not want the light to shine forth, who crave war and power, on the other hand, those who seek justice and peace and eschew the disgusting laws of the jungle.

Yes, Mr. President, truth is on the march. The full deception is apparent. And now the Turkish government stands alone in the eyes of the world as a deceiver par excellence. A conniver for the base interests of its American boss. A subversive conspirer who illegally arms, quarters and trains secret terror forces, and by doing so subverts its own constitution. How can this not be treason, Mr. President?

Mr. President, when the truth is buried underground by lies and deceptions and subterfuges, it grows and builds up so much force that the day it explodes it blasts everything with it. We shall see whether we have been setting ourselves up for the most resounding of disasters. Sadly, it seems clear that Turkey is well along its own road to perdition.

Today, the endgame now rages inside and outside Turkey. The dangers to the nation and its citizens are clear and present and deadly. And all these dangers lay bare the full deceit of the plan. All is now in plain sight, particularly the vastness of the crimes.

Herein follows some of the international laws and agreements possibly broken by this violent, criminal cabal organized and directed by the United States of America and the Republic of Turkey, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and The State of Qatar, among others. These are the laws and statutes possibly breached by this vile bunch, headquartered in Istanbul and Incirlik Air Base in Adana. And whose international terrorist militants who are trained and staged in the Hatay region in southeastern Turkey. Of course, there are other higher level operators far distant from Turkey that can easily be traced through the nefarious deeds of their hired henchmen. We know who they are, and where they are, Mr. President. Their list of offenses is long and grievous, Mr. President, particularly for a nation whose government takes great pride in its religious piety.

I accuse this monstrous cabal of possible crimes against the following standards of civilized behavior.

CRIMES AGAINST MANKIND

Realizing that the Republic of Turkey is the sole operator within your jurisdiction, I nevertheless accuse all the above mentioned parties and their agents of committing the crime of naked, treacherous aggression, of committing crimes against peace, of committing crimes against humanity, and of committing war crimes against the Syrian people of catastrophic proportions. These grave offenses are described in greater particularity as follows:

The Constitution of the Republic of Turkey

Declaration of State of War and Authorization to Deploy the Armed Forces

Article 92.
1. The power to authorize the declaration of a state of war in cases deemed legitimate by international law and except where required by international treaties to which Turkey is a party or by the rules of international courtesy to send Turkish Armed Forces to foreign countries and to allow foreign armed forces to be stationed in Turkey, is vested in the Turkish Grand National Assembly.
2. If the country is subjected, while the Turkish Grand National Assembly is adjourned or in recess, to sudden armed aggression and it thus becomes imperative to decide immediately on the deployment of the armed forces, the President of the Republic can decide on the mobilization of the Turkish Armed Forces.
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.

Charter of the United Nations

Chapter VII: Action with respect to threats to peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression

Article 40.

In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures.

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.”

Mr. President, these are grievous, heavy offenses. I well realize that some, in particular the government of the United States, may consider them to have become “quaintly” obsolete. But that is not the opinion of the overwhelming majority of mankind and its nations. I have hitherto considered the Republic of Turkey to be among those nations advocating the primacy of the rule of law. Unfortunately, given the current situation, I am no longer so sure.

Finally, I must turn to another aspect of morality, the concept of divine justice. Because of the outrageous hypocrisy of the accused parties these are the most disgusting and egregious of charges, Mr. President.

CRIMES AGAINST GOD

I accuse these Turkish ringleaders and their murderous operators, these so-called Muslims who take such great public pride in proclaiming their faith while reviling the faith of others, in particular, the Alevites, I accuse these blatant hypocrites of sinning against the word of God as revealed by his esteemed prophet, Muhammad, as proscribed by the following verses of the Holy Koran:

Sura 4:92 that says “It is unlawful for a believer to kill another believer.”

Sura 4:93 that says “He that kills a believer by design shall burn in Hell forever. He shall incur the wrath of God, who will lay his curse upon him and prepare for him a mighty scourge.”

Sura 5:60 that says “Shall I tell you who will receive a worse reward from God? Those whom God has cursed and with whom He has been angry, transforming them into apes and swine, and those who serve the devil. Worse is the plight of these, and they have strayed farther from the right path.”

Sura 49:11 that says “Do not defame one another…”

Only God can judge them. And God will do it in God’s good time. But in the meantime, while these so-called Muslims and their non-Muslim supporters, advisors, financers and protectors still live in this world so should they be compelled to adhere to the laws of this world else we all become like them, demons and monsters.

I realize that this letter is long. But so is the list of transgressions against humanity by the current Turkish government and its enablers. I have but one passion, Mr. President, the search for light, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My protest is simply the cry of my very soul.

With my deepest respect, Mr. President,

James (Cem) Ryan, Ph.D.

Founder, West Point Graduates Against the War

PS. With apologies and thanks to Emile Zola who would surely understand.

Cc. International Criminal Court, Office of the Prosecutor, The Hague, The Netherlands
September 9, 2012
US not interested in military intervention in Syria

The United States would not take unilateral military actions against Syria before or after its general election, said an American political professor on Friday.

“In my opinion, the US is not interested to take the responsibility alone to end the Assad regime,” Professor John Louis Esposito said in an interview with Xinhua on the sidelines of a two-day international conference held in Istanbul.

Titled “The Arab Awakening and Peace in the Middle East: Muslim and Christian Perspectives,” the conference brings more than 200 religious and academic leaders from 19 countries to Istanbul to discuss peaceful co-existence and religious pluralism in the Middle East after the Arab revolutions.

“The United States just finishes two exhausting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has no intention to start a new war in the Middle East. There is strong aversion of war among the American public,” Esposito said, adding “The United States has many domestic problems such as economy recession to deal with. So it is not a good time for the US to send troops directly to Syria.”

The specialist holds that it was not easy to end the current Syria crisis soon. “It takes at least another six month to see the end of war,” he said.

“The Gulf states and Arab countries should take more responsibilities in solving the regional problem of the Middle East. It is not America’s responsibility to solve the Syrian problem alone,” he said.

Esposito is a professor of International Affairs and Islamic Studies from Georgetown University, the founder and current director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding of the same university.

On Wednesday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the United States lacks initiative on Syria and its general election hampers its Syrian action.

“Right now, there are certain things being expected from the United States. The United States had not yet catered to those expectations,” Erdogan said.

via US not interested in military intervention in Syria – Globaltimes.cn.

September 9, 2012