Tag: Bashar al-Assad

President of Syria

Turkish politics: Erdogan’s counterproductive ambition

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is too focused on becoming Turkey’s next president

Sep 1st 2012 | ANKARA AND ISTANBUL | from the print edition

THE Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has recently been seen sporting a Cossack-style hat like Ataturk’s. Kemalists were horrified. Yet nobody could dispute that Mr Erdogan has been Turkey’s most impressive leader since the great man’s death in 1938. His mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) party came to power in 2002 on a wave of popular support and a rejection of decades of inept rule. Mr Erdogan has lifted Turkey out of stagnation and political paralysis and made it an inspiration in its region.

He has chipped away at the generals’ might, improved the rights of women and Kurds, doubled GDP per head, built modern roads and hospitals and empowered the downtrodden. His reforms prodded the European Union into opening membership talks in 2005. Despite worries about a gaping current-account deficit, the economy has slowed but not crashed, unlike others in the Mediterranean.

»Erdogan’s counterproductive ambition

It was no surprise when AK won a third term of single-party rule in June 2011. Yet a year on Mr Erdogan is being tested as never before. Setbacks include an alleged bout with cancer, a row with the powerful Muslim Gulenist group, escalating Kurdish violence and the war in Syria. He has grown increasingly authoritarian, his judgment perhaps clouded by an ambition to be elected president when the term of the incumbent, Abdullah Gul, ends in 2014.

It is this ambition that critics say is undermining Mr Erdogan’s promises to deliver a new democratic constitution. A parliamentary committee supposed to produce a draft text appears designed to fail. It needs unanimous approval from all its members for every article. “Are the nationalists going to agree to the Kurds’ demands for Kurdish-language education? Of course not,” says Levent Gultekin, a pro-Islamic commentator. Many suspect Mr Erdogan wants the AK party to produce its own blueprint that would boost the powers of the presidency, enabling him to keep running the country after the party’s rules require him to step down as prime minister. Since he does not have a two-thirds majority in parliament, a new constitution would need to be put to a referendum; most polls give AK a big lead.

Still, he is not taking chances. Over the past year he has been increasingly hawkish over the Kurds, scrapping secret talks with the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to end their bloody 28-year insurgency. He has reverted to force and the mass arrests of thousands of Kurdish activists. “The bond between Turks and Kurds is growing weaker by the day,” warns Selahattin Demirtas, leader of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party.

Media bosses fearful of losing government contracts have sacked critical journalists. At least 80 journalists are in jail, many of them Kurds accused of PKK membership. The government’s intolerance extends to students, 2,824 of whom are in prison, almost a quarter of them charged with “membership of a terrorist group” for calling for free education and other “sins”.

Mr Erdogan’s secular opponents accuse him of reverting to his Islamist roots. Calling for a “more religious youth”, he has proposed to restrict abortions and has reintroduced imam hatip (clerical-training) middle schools. A new curriculum includes optional Koran and Arabic-language classes. Mr Erdogan’s embrace of pious nationalism is calculated to appeal to the far right and to conservative voters. But he may be overplaying his hand. The army’s battle against the PKK has had little effect. Scores of soldiers have been killed this year and the rebels have carried their battle from the mainly Kurdish south-east as far west as Izmir.

Mr Erdogan has taken to blaming the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, for the renewed violence. Mr Assad has ceded control of Kurdish towns along the border to a Syrian Kurdish group affiliated to the PKK. Yet critics point to Turkey’s overt support for the Syrian rebels, which has antagonised not only Mr Assad but also Iran. With scores of generals jailed on coup-plotting charges the army has been cowed into silence. But even Mr Erdogan’s supporters are questioning his Syrian gamble. His gibes at Turkey’s Alevi minority, which has spiritual bonds with Mr Assad’s Alawite sect, have not helped.

With America distracted by its presidential election, Europe bogged down in the euro crisis and the EU membership talks stuck, Turkey’s Western friends have little sway. A recent poll suggests that only 17% of Turks now believe they can join the EU. Many fear their country may be sucked into a regional war. Mr Erdogan is a master at scenting the public mood, but his popularity is falling. His priority ought to be putting his house in order, with a constitution that supports all Turkish citizens rather than his presidential aspirations.

from the print edition | Europe

via Turkish politics: Erdogan’s counterproductive ambition | The Economist.

September 3, 2012
AMERICA’S WAR-HORSE HARLOTS (by Cem Ryan)

AMERICA’S WAR-HORSE HARLOTS

Stoop, Romans, Stoop,
And let us bathe our hands in Caesar’s blood
Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords; Then walk we forth, even to the market-place,
And waving our red weapons o’er our heads, Let’s all cry, “Peace, freedom, and liberty !”
Julius Caesar, Act III, i

According to experts if you really, really want to get rid of a neighbor—“bump off” is the professional term—call the mafia. But if you’re a down-at-the-heels fast fading super power, broke and bewildered, and need to continue the Arab Spring fairy tale about having the Arabs choose America-friendly democracies that sprout like orange groves throughout the Middle East, these same experts unanimously suggest you call Turkey. Just dial 011-90-ALLAHSBOYS. Oerators are standing by to answer your calls.

ALLAH’S BOYS specialize in duplicity: double-talking, double-dealing, and double-facing. Once upon a time not so very long ago “peace at home, peace in the world” was a national motto in Turkey. Now, thanks to ALLAH’S BOYS, there is no peace anywhere. And even more recently, ALLAH’S BOYS declared a foreign policy aphorism: “zero problems with our neighbors.” Now Turkey has nothing but problems and zero genuine neighbors, despite the weak-knee scribbling of the government-controlled propaganda press.

So since America needs to oust the leadership of Syria, Turkey is their international gangster of choice. Need to secure the oil pipeline forever? Want to protect Israel’s borders, even though expansionist Israel has never declared them? Call Turkey. This amnesiac country can forget the “van minit” fiasco at Davos in approximately one minute, if the price is right. It’s so terribly easy. All it takes is money.

Yes, ALLAH’S BOYS will do the sneaky, dirty work, especially on their brother Muslims, very democratic, these boys. After all, ALLAH’S BOYS are CIA creatures. Remember the “our boys did it!” exclamation from the 1980 CIA-induced Turkish military coup? ALLAH’S BOYS are the bad seed Islamo-fascist children of that catastrophe. True masters of disaster who have raped their own country through privatization, just like the juntas did in South America. Inside Turkey environmental disaster prevails. Forests are destroyed, rivers contaminated by stupid self-serving plans. “No river shall run in vain,” says the head ALLAH’S BOY, meaning that all running waterways will somehow, somewhere generate electricity. Forget nature. Turkey’s once thriving agriculture is nearly barren, its seed imported from Israel. The uneducated voting base of ALLAH’S BOYS remains bedazzled and uneducated. With no economic plan for the future, ALLAH’S BOYS encourages them to have at least 3-5 children. It needs the votes. The once proud Turkish Army has been purged, its senior ranks now stuffed with government toadies. The recent military disasters related to America’s drone-fiascos attest to its incompetence; it has yet to explain or otherwise account for the grievous loss of Turkish lives. Hundreds, thousands—one loses count—of democratic dissenters are in jails throughout the land. Everyone is wire-tapped. Public-space cameras abound. Fascist style police control the streets. Every public assembly of citizens turns into a police riot. Democratic constitutional protections no longer exist. The judicial system is thoroughly politicized. Art, music, cinema, theater, writing, all is subject to censure or fine or destruction. And political thievery an institutional art form.

All this and more is what America’s favorite adopted sons, ALLAH’S BOYS, have brought to their own country. ALLAH’S BOYS knows how to do two things very well, destroy and make money. And America truly loves what this motley crew has done for now the US is paying them big war-bucks for a new, disastrous adventure in the name so-called democracy. Now the Arab world is experiencing democracy a la Turka, as prepared in America, as delivered by ALLAH’S BOYS and their CIA handlers.

It all happened so quickly, like love at first sight. Only two years ago the capo of ALLAH’S BOYS wondered out loud about “what business does NATO have in Libya?” This was shortly after he had accepted the Muammar Gaddafi Human Rights Award. But then a breeze blew past his bristled upper lip bringing the smell of cordite, carrion, and chaos, followed by a little bird carrying a wad of large denomination American dollars. Twitter. Twitter. And ALLAH’S BOYS suddenly learned how to make money from war. And suddenly Muammar became a big-time loser and the Turks were bombing Libya along with the rest of NATO. And for the last 15 months ALLAH’S BOYS have been provoking Syria. In collusion with the CIA, automatic weapons, tanks, rockets, all the toys of war, have been given to the so-called Friends of Syria mercenaries. These unsavory characters bear a painful resemblance to the US-financed gangsters who toppled Saddam’s statue in Firdos Square in 2003 and, to Hillary Clinton’s great glee, sodomized and disemboweled Gaddafi last year. And now the murderers from the infamous Blackwater gang are in southern Turkey. Such is the way ALLAH’S BOYS (and the CIA) operate. Money. Money. Money.

But now they have provoked Syria too much. A Turkish jet, violating Syrian air space, coming in low and fast, got dropped into the sea. Remember the Gulf of Tonkin fiasco? The concocted incident that “validated” America’s disastrous war in Viet Nam? This is the same lying subterfuge played on the world stage, courtesy of the CIA and America’s puppet show provided by ALLAH’S BOYS. And now ALLAH’S BOYS cry murder most foul their own self-provoked crisis. And of course their American handlers echo the outrage. Make no mistake about this: they, ALLAH’S BOYS and America, are the real murderers of the two downed Turkish pilots. Along with the incompetent military commanders who approved this mission of provocation. But indeed they all found out that, Yes, Syria does indeed have an air defense capability. How stupidly negligent can one be? Ah, but the money is good.

As they used to say about Mexico and America, can be said about Syria: “Poor Syria. So far from God. So close to Turkey.” And to think Bashar Assad, a physician trained in England and president of Syria, and his stylish wife, Esma, British and college-educated, were feted in Ankara not too long ago. His wife dazzled in comparison to the fashion-retard covered wives of ALLAH’S BOYS. Then, Turkey and Syria were on great terms. The border was open. No visas or passports necessary. Trade was booming between Hatay in southern Turkey and Syria. But then that same little bird flew in the window at Ankara. And suddenly the room was full of money. And suddenly it became War! War! War! And American war bucks galore filled the Turkish air. And the ever capacious, ever open pockets of the Turkish government became happy pockets indeed.

The Turkish media lackeys bang their pathetic war drums. ALLAH’S BOYS cry wah-wah-wah to NATO, the UN and any other agency who cares to listen. It’s known as the alibi-cover up scam, also known as “protesting too much.” But the BOYS have America’s melodramatic outrage to revel in, and “endless support” according to the hapless American ambassador. So now Turkey can add its bloody hand to the millions of its Muslim “brothers and sisters” killed and displaced in Iraq and Afghanistan. What a bloody bunch! What a collection of phonies! What a dishonorable gang!

There is no honor in war. Just examine the photographs of the destroyed Iraqi children. Where are your children, ALLAH’S BOYS? There surely is no honor in America’s endless, hopeless, murderous wars. And there is nothing but treachery and greed among America’s War-Horse whores, these dogs of war who wave their red weapons over their heads crying “PEACE! FREEDOM! LIBERTY!” when they really mean MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! Killers all.

And all this carnage under the aegis of the Nobel Peace Prize winning American president.

The shame is boundless, the rape obscene.

Cem Ryan
13 July 2012

PS: See the websites of West Point Graduates Against The War and Service Academy Graduates Against The War for further details about America’s war crimes and its war criminals.

http://www.brighteningglance.org/americarsquos-war-horse-harlots-29-june-2012.html

Money makes the world go around…

Joel Grey, CABARET

Money, money, money, money

Money, money, money, money

Money, money, money, money, money

_____________________________________________________

THE DESTROYED CHILDREN OF IRAQ

WAR IS A CRIME!

STOP THE WAR CRIMINALS!

July 13, 2012
Leading article: It is time for Turkey to take the lead on Syria

Here was Ankara’s first serious test as a regional power: it is a test that it has so far failed

Outrage over the Houla massacre remains high, but there is also a growing sense of despair that nothing effective is being done to prevent its repetition. Almost every day, evidence is produced of fresh killings by Syrian government-backed death squads that bring the country closer to all-out sectarian civil war.

The expulsion of Syrian diplomats this week was a purely symbolic gesture, and the economic sanctions in place are more likely to hurt ordinary Syrians than their leaders. And although Russia shows signs of becoming weary of paying an ever-increasing political price for its support for Syria, the stalemate in the UN Security Council is also unlikely to change for the moment.

But perhaps the most surprising aspect of the impasse is Turkey’s failure to act effectively during the crisis. It is a country which shares a long land border with Syria and had previously been on exceptionally good terms with President Bashar al-Assad, helped by its exporters’ domination of the Syrian market before 2011 and the Turkish goods that fill shops throughout the country.

Here was Ankara’s first serious test as a regional power: it is a test that it has so far failed. But any future resolution of the crisis must involve Turkey, as the only one of Syria’s immediate neighbours capable of exerting influence.

At the start of the popular uprising 15 months ago, the Turkish government appeared well-positioned to act as a conduit between the Syrian government and the opposition. Sadly, Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan set too much store by the laudatory press clippings about the rise of “the new Ottomans” and exaggerated his government’s influence in Damascus.

When Ankara discovered that Mr Assad was stringing them along, without any intention of implementing their proposals for reform, warm relations between the two countries turned ice-cold over night.

But for all the talk of establishing a “safe haven” for refugees on the Syrian side of the Turkish border, it never happened, most likely thanks to the combination of threats from Iran and a desire to avoid the risk of war with Syria. Ankara would also be conscious that, until 2000, Syria was the main supporter and base for the Turkish Kurd guerrillas – the PKK – and Damascus could unleash these once again.

It would have been preferable if Turkey had not broken so wholly with the Syrian regime. As a result of Mr Erdogan’s mis-playing of his cards, it is not the Turks but the Russians who have ended up as the one country with pivotal influence in Damascus. But there is still time to take back the initiative. And if there is to be regional action, it would be better led by Turkey than Saudi Arabia and Qatar – not least to avoid the absurd hypocrisy of pretending that two of the last absolute monarchies on earth are trying to overthrow Mr Assad because of their concern for the democratic and civil rights of the Syrian people.

It will be difficult at this stage to ease the Syrian regime out of power, and the prospect facing the world is rather of a prolonged guerrilla war, with alarming regional implications, that still may not produce a conclusive winner. International military involvement, or even just arming the rebels, have little to recommend them, even in the unlikely event that Russia could be brought on board. But there is much else that the international community can do, including the establishment of humanitarian corridors to ease the appalling suffering of Syria’s civilian population. It is up to Ankara to take a lead.

via Leading article: It is time for Turkey to take the lead on Syria – Leading Articles – Opinion – The Independent.

June 2, 2012
Is Turkey preparing for an intervention in Syria?

Syrian refugees at the Reyhanli refugee camp in Turkey. (Photo: AFP)

The short answer is yes. Although it won’t happen tomorrow or without assistance especially from the United States, which is evidently first going to allow Kofi Annan to try his luck getting Iran to broker a peace deal. But Abdullah Bozkurt, a columnist at Turkey’s Today Zaman newspaper, outlines the legal case for intervention that wouldn’t require UN Security Council authorisation (read: the say-so of Russia and China). This strikes me as the most likely set of events to unfold:

What will happen if the UN cannot get its act together, and Russia and China end up using their veto powers for the third time? Ankara will probably invoke the 1998 Adana agreement with Syria to justify the military interference while calling on NATO members for the application of the Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which says that an attack on any member shall be considered to be an attack on all. The article was invoked by the US for the first time in October 2001, when NATO determined that the terrorist attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City were indeed eligible under the terms of the North Atlantic Treaty. Since the Assad regime allows the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its affiliates to launch attacks on Turkish soil and harbors some 1,500 to 2,000 hard-core PKK militants in areas close to the Turkish border, Turkey can very well utilize the NATO security cover for assistance…

The Adana Agreement, which certified the beginning of more cordial ties between Ankara and Damascus, stipulated that Syria would not allow any activity from its territory that would threaten the “security and stability of Turkey.” It mainly referred to terrorist attacks from the Kurdish militant group PKK, which the Assad family has hosted in Syria for decades and with which Syrian military intelligence still enjoys a tactical co-operation. (For more on this, see the Henry Jackson Society report “The Decisive Minority: The Critical Role of Syria’s Kurds in the Anti-Assad Revolution”, written by Ilhan Tanir and Omar Hossino.)

The PKK, which are not represented in the main pro-revolutionary Kurdish National Council bloc of Syrian Kurdish parties, have said that if Turkey invades Syria they’ll launch counteroffensives. This has been a major disincentive for Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erodgan to impose a buffer zone. However, his threat assessment is now changing after Syrian security forces waged a cross-border raid into a Turkish refugee camp last Sunday, wounding two Turkish nationals, and also because the number of Syrian refugees pouring over the border has increased exponentially. Of the more than 24,000 currently housed in the Hatay province, a third arrived only in the last three weeks, according to Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Apart from how destabilising this refugee population is to Turkey’s own delicate sectarian balance is the fact that any human rights abuses committed against Syrians on Turkish soil fall within the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. Anyone who has been following the British press in the last several months will know how Ankara must greet such a prospect.

Borzkurt highlights another interesting possibility. Because of yet another bilateral agreement between Turkey and Syria, signed in December 2010, both countries have the right to conduct joint operations in each other’s territory aimed at rooted out terrorists. Though Assad has labelled the whole opposition to his rule as “terrorist,” that term more aptly applies to the roving death-and-rape squads known as shabbiha that he has employed since the start of the uprising last year. It also applies to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hizbollah agents that have assisted in the regime’s crackdown. If Turkey were to recognise the Syrian National Council as a government-in-exile, then it could lawfully intervene in Syria with that government-in-exile’s express consent. And let’s not forget that the Free Syrian Army is still headquartered in Antakya.

However it all shakes out, Turkey’s forbearance isn’t going to last forever. Ironically, it may just be that Turkey’s “no trouble with the neighbours” foreign policy, which led to its rapprochement with Syria, becomes the ultimate platform for making trouble with the neighbour downstairs.

via Is Turkey preparing for an intervention in Syria? – Telegraph Blogs.

April 12, 2012
2 Turkish journalists missing in Syria

From Anna Ozbek, CNN

Turkish journalist Adem Ozkose (left) and Hamit Coskun are missing in Syria, according to the Milat newspaper.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Adem Ozkose and Hamit Coskun were last heard from Saturday

Turkey is seeking information from Syrian authorities

The Syrians “have not been able to confirm anything,” a Turkish official says

Istanbul (CNN) — Two Turkish journalists who were covering news and shooting a documentary in Syria are missing, Turkey’s Milat newspaper said Wednesday.

Adem Ozkose, a columnist and war reporter for Milat and the Middle East correspondent for Gercek Hayat magazine, was working for both publications in Syria, the newspaper said in a statement.

He and freelance cameraman Hamit Coskun were last heard from on Saturday, said Turgut Alp Boyraz, a member of the newspaper’s foreign editorial board. The two, who went to Syria about 11 days ago, notified the paper on Saturday they had arrived in Idlib in northern Syria, the paper said.

“Their relatives have not heard from them,” Boyraz said. “We are all worried about them.”

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said it immediately instructed its offices to contact Syrian authorities “to formally ask about the whereabouts or any kind of information they might have about these two journalists,” spokesman Selcuk Unal said.

“We are in touch with both the journal and the families. So far, Syrian authorities in Damascus have not been able to confirm anything,” he said.

Turkey’s consulate general contacted the governor’s office in Aleppo on Tuesday night, he said, but “we have not heard anything concrete back.”

via 2 Turkish journalists missing in Syria – CNN.com.

March 15, 2012
U.S. – Turkey United On Syria

Photo: AP

This image from amateur video made available by Shaam News Network, purports to show black smoke rising in the air in Homs, Syria, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012.

The on-going violence in Syria and how best to end it were primary topics of discussion between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. “It is deplorable,” said Secretary Clinton, “that the [Syrian] regime has escalated violence in cities across the country, including using artillery and tank fire against innocent civilians. We stand with the Syrian people and we are looking for a peaceful resolution.” Since March 2011, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has killed well over 5,000 people.

The United States and Turkey continue to call on the Assad regime to heed the Arab League’s latest efforts to end the killing immediately, withdraw military forces from residential areas, allow in monitors and journalists, release political prisoners, and begin a genuine, sincere democratic transition that starts with a serious dialogue with the opposition.

The Arab League called on Syrian opposition groups to unite ahead of a February 24th meeting in Tunisia of the “Friends of Syria” group, which includes the United States, its European allies and Arab nations working to end the uprising against Assad’s authoritarian rule.

Turkey and the United States, said Secretary Clinton, will intensify their diplomatic pressure on the Assad regime by strengthening targeted sanctions and increasing outreach to opposition both inside and outside of Syria. At the same time, both countries are exploring ways to address the growing humanitarian crisis within Syria. The U.S. and Turkey have increased funding to international humanitarian partners providing medical assistance to Syrians, and are working directly with Syrian organizations to help families who have no electricity, food, or clean water.

The United States and Turkey will work together with like-minded partners to promote a peaceful political process in Syria. “This is essential,” Secretary Clinton said, “and the Syrian people deserve no less than a democratic future free of government oppression, terrorism, and violent extremism.”

via U.S. – Turkey United On Syria | Editorials | Editorial.

February 20, 2012