I spent some time recently listening to the 8/7/10 Alison Weir (of If Americans Knew & Council for the National Interest) interview with Noam Chomsky. On the subject of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), Chomsky argued again and again that boycotting Israel would be harmful to the Palestinians because it would enable hardliners to ask 'Why boycott Israel, but not the United States?' To which question there was, presumably, at least for Chomsky, no possible answer.
While we can of course acknowledge the misery meted out on a global basis by the United States, including its aiding and abetting of Israel, it seems to me that Chomsky is overlooking the particularly cruel and inhuman punishment - summed up in the term Israeli apartheid - being meted out to the Palestinians, and the fact that this has been ongoing since 1948 and has now reached crescendo proportions, a state of affairs requiring BDS on the grandest of scales.
I note too that Chomsky recently signed, with others, an open letter written by the Emergency Committee for Rojava, A Call to Defend Rojava (nybooks.com), a response to the Turkish invasion of Afrin - "one of three cantons in Rojava, also called the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria."
Reports the letter, "Many of those who fled Afrin are now sleeping in open fields or in tent cities, lacking the most elementary necessities. Those who remain have been subjected to the same kind of ethnic discrimination, looting and sexual violence that ISIS perpetrated against the Yazidis in Iraq."
Need I remind the Palestinian history literate among you that "tent cities," "ethnic discrimination," "looting" and "sexual violence" were all features of the Zionist usurpation of Arab Palestine in 1948-49, and that tent cities, now permanent, concrete-block refugee camps, ethnic discrimination, and looting, now in the form of land theft, are still basic features of Israel's modus operandi vis-a-vis the Palestinians?
And what btw does the Emergency Committee for Rojava (and by extension Chomsky) want the US government to do?
"Impose economic and political sanctions on Turkey's leadership; embargo sales and delivery of weapons from NATO countries to Turkey; insist upon Rojava's representation in Syrian peace negotiations;... "
If only those forms of BDS were applied to Israel...
But there's a final, 4th demand on the group's to-do list:
"... continue military support for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)."
In summary, Chomsky is happy to call for direct US intervention in Syria to protect the Kurds from Turkey, but baulks over the application of BDS to end decades of Israeli apartheid rule over the Palestinians.
Showing posts with label Turkey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Turkey. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
Tunisian Jihadis
A group of revealing July 13 tweets by Lebanese journalist Jenan Moussa (lightly edited for clarity) on Tunisian jihadis in Syria:
I gained access to ISIS prisoners captured by Kurds in Raqqa. One of them was a Tunisian ISIS member...
I sat for 2 hours with a 34-year-old Tunisian ISIS prisoner. During the interview he never looked me in the eye because I'm a female reporter.
I asked him why he joined ISIS. He said, When the Muslim Brotherhood government was in power*, they encouraged the youth to go to Syria.
He said, In Tunisia the mosques said, Go to Syria for jihad. And we were told there'd be no repercussions when we returned. So I left.
My friend and I flew to Turkey. When the customs officer at Istanbul Airport realized we were going to Syria, he said, Yalla, go fast!
It was just so easy to join ISIS in Syria. Now I look back and I think, Was this all a conspiracy to get us all in one place and kill us all?
[*Presumably a reference to Rached Ghannouchi's Ennahda Movement government of 2011-14. Abdel Bari Atwan has this to say on the subject: "I have observed Tunisians in the ranks in previous jihads, but only in very small numbers... former Tunisian dictator Ben Ali suppressed all jihadist activity and imprisoned even moderate Islamists. The 2011 revolution and the subsequent victory of Islamist parties inspired a revival of hard-line Islamism in that country. Now, groups like Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of the Law, based in Libya) are able to recruit openly and have funded and facilitated the passage of Tunisian jihadists to the frontline." (Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate, 2015, pp 165-66)]
I gained access to ISIS prisoners captured by Kurds in Raqqa. One of them was a Tunisian ISIS member...
I sat for 2 hours with a 34-year-old Tunisian ISIS prisoner. During the interview he never looked me in the eye because I'm a female reporter.
I asked him why he joined ISIS. He said, When the Muslim Brotherhood government was in power*, they encouraged the youth to go to Syria.
He said, In Tunisia the mosques said, Go to Syria for jihad. And we were told there'd be no repercussions when we returned. So I left.
My friend and I flew to Turkey. When the customs officer at Istanbul Airport realized we were going to Syria, he said, Yalla, go fast!
It was just so easy to join ISIS in Syria. Now I look back and I think, Was this all a conspiracy to get us all in one place and kill us all?
[*Presumably a reference to Rached Ghannouchi's Ennahda Movement government of 2011-14. Abdel Bari Atwan has this to say on the subject: "I have observed Tunisians in the ranks in previous jihads, but only in very small numbers... former Tunisian dictator Ben Ali suppressed all jihadist activity and imprisoned even moderate Islamists. The 2011 revolution and the subsequent victory of Islamist parties inspired a revival of hard-line Islamism in that country. Now, groups like Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of the Law, based in Libya) are able to recruit openly and have funded and facilitated the passage of Tunisian jihadists to the frontline." (Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate, 2015, pp 165-66)]
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Why Obama Didn't Do What Trump Has Just Done
Everybody, but everybody's convinced that Asad is responsible for what's just happened in Khan Sheikhoun, and that's because everybody, but everybody's forgotten about (or has chosen to ignore), what really happened in similar circumstances in Ghouta in 2013, and why Obama didn't go off half-cocked then as Trump has now with his cruise missile strikes on Syria's Shayrat airbase.
As veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh explained in his April 2014 essay, The Red Line & the Rat Line:
"In 2011 Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August [2013], after the sarin gas attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the 'red line' he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons. Then with less than 2 days to go before the planned strike, he announced that he would seek congressional approval for the intervention. The strike was postponed... and subsequently cancelled when Obama accepted Assad's offer to relinquish his chemical arsenal in a deal brokered by Russia. Why did Obama delay and then relent on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya? The answer lies in a clash between those in the administration who were committed to enforcing the red line, and military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and potentially disastrous.
"Obama's change of mind had its origins in Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire. British intelligence had obtained a sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn't match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army's chemical weapons arsenal. The message that the case against Syria wouldn't hold up was quickly relayed to the US joint chiefs of staff. The British report heightened doubts inside the Pentagon. The joint chiefs were already preparing to warn Obama that his plans for a far-reaching bomb and missile attack on Syria's infrastructure could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. As a consequence the American officers delivered a last-minute caution to the president, which, in their view, eventually led to his cancelling the attack.
"For months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria's neighbors, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdogan was known to be supporting the Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. 'We know there were some in the Turkish government,' a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, 'who believed they could get Assad's nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin gas attack inside Syria - and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat'." (lrb.co.uk)
See also my 4/8/14 post About That Gas Attack in Syria... (Just click on the Seymour Hersh label below.)
As veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh explained in his April 2014 essay, The Red Line & the Rat Line:
"In 2011 Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August [2013], after the sarin gas attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the 'red line' he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons. Then with less than 2 days to go before the planned strike, he announced that he would seek congressional approval for the intervention. The strike was postponed... and subsequently cancelled when Obama accepted Assad's offer to relinquish his chemical arsenal in a deal brokered by Russia. Why did Obama delay and then relent on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya? The answer lies in a clash between those in the administration who were committed to enforcing the red line, and military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and potentially disastrous.
"Obama's change of mind had its origins in Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire. British intelligence had obtained a sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn't match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army's chemical weapons arsenal. The message that the case against Syria wouldn't hold up was quickly relayed to the US joint chiefs of staff. The British report heightened doubts inside the Pentagon. The joint chiefs were already preparing to warn Obama that his plans for a far-reaching bomb and missile attack on Syria's infrastructure could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. As a consequence the American officers delivered a last-minute caution to the president, which, in their view, eventually led to his cancelling the attack.
"For months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria's neighbors, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdogan was known to be supporting the Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. 'We know there were some in the Turkish government,' a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, 'who believed they could get Assad's nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin gas attack inside Syria - and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat'." (lrb.co.uk)
See also my 4/8/14 post About That Gas Attack in Syria... (Just click on the Seymour Hersh label below.)
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Turkish Designs on Northern Syria
Hm...
"Now, prompted by domestic strife and external realpolitik, Mr Erdogan appears to be downsizing his aims and recasting Turkey in a peacemaking role while aiming to secure, with Russia's tacit approval, a large area of northern Syria as a semi-permanent buffer zone under its control. Turkish forces and allied rebel militias have seized an area of 2000sq km in northern Aleppo province since launching a cross-border operation in August to dislodge Islamic State from the frontier. They are now closing in on al-Bab, the last ISIS-held town between Aleppo and Raqqa. According to Turkish government sources, that is where they will stop and where renewed diplomatic ties will take over." (Putin, Erdogan carving up northern Syria, Hannah Lucinda Smith, The Times/ The Australian, 3/12/16)
If this report is correct, it wouldn't be the last time Turkey took a bite out of Syria. The story of the north-western Syrian province of Alexandretta (now Iskanderun), is instructive. In the 1930s, Turkey laid claim to Alexandretta on the grounds that it was Turkish (although less than half the population were Turks). France (which then ruled Syria under a League of Nations Mandate) and Turkey agreed to have the status of the province determined by the League Council, and, in January 1937, a settlement was reached in Turkey's favour. In the words of historian A.L. Tibawi, the settlement's: "... essence was to constitute the district of Alexandretta as a separate political entity with full internal independence under a statute and a fundamental law of its own. Its connection with Syria was restricted to customs and monetary matters, and its foreign affairs which were to be conducted by Syria after independence." (A Modern History of Syria, Including Lebanon & Palestine (1969), p 353)
Now here's where it gets really interesting:
"In the summer of 1938 when elections for an assembly were to be held under the new dispensation, France was more occupied with the larger problems of Germany... and gave way to Turkish pressure on a number of vital matters including the co-operation of Turkish troops for the maintenance of order during the elections. By this and similar means the Turkish minority won 22 out of the 40 seats. When the assembly met for the first time it elected a Turk for a speaker, another Turk for head of the state, renamed the territory the Republic of Hatay, and appointed an all-Turkish cabinet.
"Not content with these victories, the Turkish government exploited the strained world situation to an even greater extent and pressed for the annexation of Hatay. Britain and France were very eager to secure if not a Turkish alliance at least Turkish neutrality in a European conflict that seemed inevitable. It is said that Britain, who had given Turkey a big credit loan for rearmament, persuaded France to sacrifice Alexandretta as a price for gaining Turkish goodwill. France capitulated by signing an agreement in June 1939, ceding the territory to the Turkish Republic. This was clearly a grave violation of article 4 of the mandate which stipulated that the mandatory was required to see that 'no part of the territory of Syria and Lebanon is ceded or leased or in any way placed under the control of a foreign power'." (ibid)
One to watch...
"Now, prompted by domestic strife and external realpolitik, Mr Erdogan appears to be downsizing his aims and recasting Turkey in a peacemaking role while aiming to secure, with Russia's tacit approval, a large area of northern Syria as a semi-permanent buffer zone under its control. Turkish forces and allied rebel militias have seized an area of 2000sq km in northern Aleppo province since launching a cross-border operation in August to dislodge Islamic State from the frontier. They are now closing in on al-Bab, the last ISIS-held town between Aleppo and Raqqa. According to Turkish government sources, that is where they will stop and where renewed diplomatic ties will take over." (Putin, Erdogan carving up northern Syria, Hannah Lucinda Smith, The Times/ The Australian, 3/12/16)
If this report is correct, it wouldn't be the last time Turkey took a bite out of Syria. The story of the north-western Syrian province of Alexandretta (now Iskanderun), is instructive. In the 1930s, Turkey laid claim to Alexandretta on the grounds that it was Turkish (although less than half the population were Turks). France (which then ruled Syria under a League of Nations Mandate) and Turkey agreed to have the status of the province determined by the League Council, and, in January 1937, a settlement was reached in Turkey's favour. In the words of historian A.L. Tibawi, the settlement's: "... essence was to constitute the district of Alexandretta as a separate political entity with full internal independence under a statute and a fundamental law of its own. Its connection with Syria was restricted to customs and monetary matters, and its foreign affairs which were to be conducted by Syria after independence." (A Modern History of Syria, Including Lebanon & Palestine (1969), p 353)
Now here's where it gets really interesting:
"In the summer of 1938 when elections for an assembly were to be held under the new dispensation, France was more occupied with the larger problems of Germany... and gave way to Turkish pressure on a number of vital matters including the co-operation of Turkish troops for the maintenance of order during the elections. By this and similar means the Turkish minority won 22 out of the 40 seats. When the assembly met for the first time it elected a Turk for a speaker, another Turk for head of the state, renamed the territory the Republic of Hatay, and appointed an all-Turkish cabinet.
"Not content with these victories, the Turkish government exploited the strained world situation to an even greater extent and pressed for the annexation of Hatay. Britain and France were very eager to secure if not a Turkish alliance at least Turkish neutrality in a European conflict that seemed inevitable. It is said that Britain, who had given Turkey a big credit loan for rearmament, persuaded France to sacrifice Alexandretta as a price for gaining Turkish goodwill. France capitulated by signing an agreement in June 1939, ceding the territory to the Turkish Republic. This was clearly a grave violation of article 4 of the mandate which stipulated that the mandatory was required to see that 'no part of the territory of Syria and Lebanon is ceded or leased or in any way placed under the control of a foreign power'." (ibid)
One to watch...
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
About That Gas Attack in Syria...
Don't you just love it when one of the world's top investigative reporters blows the official story of last August's 'Syrian government' gas attack clear out of the water, but NO Australian corporate media outlet, despite having dined out on it for months afterwards, bothers to report on his findings?
Here's an edited excerpt from Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo's column on Seymour Hersh's report, The Red Line & the Rat Line, in the London Review of Books (6/4/14), which reveals that the gas attack which almost triggered a full-scale US military operation against the Asad regime was a false flag incident engineered by the Turks:
"Now we learn from Hersh, citing senior intelligence officials, that even as US officials were proclaiming that only the Syrian government had the capability to deploy chemical weapons, and specifically sarin,Western intelligence agencies and the Pentagon knew better... [T]he Russians secured samples days after the late August incident, concluding that the sarin wasn't military grade and the means of delivery appeared makeshift.
"Hersh takes the story further, relating that the Russians sent the samples to the British, who confirmed their analysis. At which point the joint chiefs led by anti-interventionist Gen. Jack Dempsey... went to the President 'with a more serious worry: that the attack sought by the White House would be an unjustified act of aggression. It was the joint chiefs,' reports Hersh, citing former intelligence officials, 'who led Obama to change course.' In a laugh-out-loud moment, Hersh writes: 'The official White House explanation for the turnabout - the story the presscorp told - was that the president... suddenly decided to seek approval from a bitterly divided Congress with which he'd been in conflict for years. The former Defence Department official told me that the White House provided a different explanation to members of the civilian leadership of the Pentagon: the bombing had been called off because there was intelligence 'that the Middle East would go up in smoke' if it was carried out.'
"So they lied to everyone, perhaps even to themselves. Because neither of these explanations even approaches the truth - which is that the President, even after being confronted with evidence he'd been hoaxed, decided to try to rope everyone into the lie. Rather than call the whole thing off, the White House did a good imitation of observing the democratic process - all the while asserting in testimony before Congress that the Assad regime had 'gassed their own people' and that the rebels were the victims rather than the perpetrators. Indeed, they assert the same nonsense even to this day, as indicated by the terse denials included in Hersh's piece. Yet they were (and are) lying through their teeth, reports Hersh, without coming right out and saying so. Citing a former intelligence official, he says US intelligence analysts suspected the Turks, and goes on to relate how: 'As intercepts and other data related to the 21 August attacks were gathered, the intelligence community saw evidence to support its suspicions. 'We now know it was a covert action planned by Erdogan's people to push Obama over the red line,' the former intelligence official said. 'They had to escalate to a gas attack in or near Damascus when the UN inspectors' - who arrived in Damascus on 18 August to investigate the earlier use of gas - 'were there. The deal was to do something spectacular. Our senior military officers have been told by the DIA and other intelligence assets that the sarin was supplied through Turkey - that it could only have gotten there with Turkish support. The Turks also provided the training in producing the sarin and handling it.'
"It also turns out that the international Surveillance State has its uses, because, according to Hersh's source, we 'intercepted conversations in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Principal evidence came from the Turkish post-attack joy and backslapping in numerous intercepts. Operations are always so super-secret in the planning but that all flies out the window when it comes to crowing afterwards. There is no greater vulnerability than in the perpetrators claiming credit for success.' Erdogan's problems in Syria would soon be over: 'Off goes the gas and Obama will say red line and America is going to attack Syria, or at least that was the idea. But it did not work out that way'." (Who was behind the Syrian 'false flag' attack? 6/4/14)
The above is merely an extract. You can read the rest of Raimondo's report at antiwar.com, or Hersh's original at lrb.co.uk. And while you're at it, check out Did Obama's 'rebels' in Syria kidnap children from Latakia and murder them in Ghouta chemical attack to justify US bombing of Syria? thelemniscat.wordpress.com, 27/3/14. Citizen journalism at its best. Finally, my own earlier post, Something Dangerous (11/9/13), long ago cast doubt on the official version.
Here's an edited excerpt from Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo's column on Seymour Hersh's report, The Red Line & the Rat Line, in the London Review of Books (6/4/14), which reveals that the gas attack which almost triggered a full-scale US military operation against the Asad regime was a false flag incident engineered by the Turks:
"Now we learn from Hersh, citing senior intelligence officials, that even as US officials were proclaiming that only the Syrian government had the capability to deploy chemical weapons, and specifically sarin,Western intelligence agencies and the Pentagon knew better... [T]he Russians secured samples days after the late August incident, concluding that the sarin wasn't military grade and the means of delivery appeared makeshift.
"Hersh takes the story further, relating that the Russians sent the samples to the British, who confirmed their analysis. At which point the joint chiefs led by anti-interventionist Gen. Jack Dempsey... went to the President 'with a more serious worry: that the attack sought by the White House would be an unjustified act of aggression. It was the joint chiefs,' reports Hersh, citing former intelligence officials, 'who led Obama to change course.' In a laugh-out-loud moment, Hersh writes: 'The official White House explanation for the turnabout - the story the presscorp told - was that the president... suddenly decided to seek approval from a bitterly divided Congress with which he'd been in conflict for years. The former Defence Department official told me that the White House provided a different explanation to members of the civilian leadership of the Pentagon: the bombing had been called off because there was intelligence 'that the Middle East would go up in smoke' if it was carried out.'
"So they lied to everyone, perhaps even to themselves. Because neither of these explanations even approaches the truth - which is that the President, even after being confronted with evidence he'd been hoaxed, decided to try to rope everyone into the lie. Rather than call the whole thing off, the White House did a good imitation of observing the democratic process - all the while asserting in testimony before Congress that the Assad regime had 'gassed their own people' and that the rebels were the victims rather than the perpetrators. Indeed, they assert the same nonsense even to this day, as indicated by the terse denials included in Hersh's piece. Yet they were (and are) lying through their teeth, reports Hersh, without coming right out and saying so. Citing a former intelligence official, he says US intelligence analysts suspected the Turks, and goes on to relate how: 'As intercepts and other data related to the 21 August attacks were gathered, the intelligence community saw evidence to support its suspicions. 'We now know it was a covert action planned by Erdogan's people to push Obama over the red line,' the former intelligence official said. 'They had to escalate to a gas attack in or near Damascus when the UN inspectors' - who arrived in Damascus on 18 August to investigate the earlier use of gas - 'were there. The deal was to do something spectacular. Our senior military officers have been told by the DIA and other intelligence assets that the sarin was supplied through Turkey - that it could only have gotten there with Turkish support. The Turks also provided the training in producing the sarin and handling it.'
"It also turns out that the international Surveillance State has its uses, because, according to Hersh's source, we 'intercepted conversations in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Principal evidence came from the Turkish post-attack joy and backslapping in numerous intercepts. Operations are always so super-secret in the planning but that all flies out the window when it comes to crowing afterwards. There is no greater vulnerability than in the perpetrators claiming credit for success.' Erdogan's problems in Syria would soon be over: 'Off goes the gas and Obama will say red line and America is going to attack Syria, or at least that was the idea. But it did not work out that way'." (Who was behind the Syrian 'false flag' attack? 6/4/14)
The above is merely an extract. You can read the rest of Raimondo's report at antiwar.com, or Hersh's original at lrb.co.uk. And while you're at it, check out Did Obama's 'rebels' in Syria kidnap children from Latakia and murder them in Ghouta chemical attack to justify US bombing of Syria? thelemniscat.wordpress.com, 27/3/14. Citizen journalism at its best. Finally, my own earlier post, Something Dangerous (11/9/13), long ago cast doubt on the official version.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Ode to Turkey's Police
... with apologies to Leon Rosselson
Every day they're at the ready
Turkey's police.
Restoring calm, maintaining order,
Keeping the peace -
With their strong arms locked
To hold back the mob
To hold back the mob
To hold back...
Every day they're at the ready
Erdogan's police.
Restoring calm, maintaining order,
Keeping the peace -
With their belts and badges and batons and boots
In perfect array.
Their uniformed bodies and disciplined minds
Trained to obey.
And their strong arms locked
To hold back the mob
To hold back the mob
To hold back...
Every day they're at the ready
Turkey's police.
Restoring calm, maintaining order,
Keeping the peace -
With their belts and badges and batons and boots
In perfect array.
Their disciplined bodies and uniformed minds
Trained to obey
The order when it should come
To use the gas that burns the eyes,
The gas that chokes,
The guns, the dogs, the water cannon,
The rubber bullets -
To control the situation.
And their strong arms locked
To hold back the mob
To hold back the mob
To hold back...
Every day they're at the ready
Erdogan's police.
Restoring calm, maintaining order,
Keeping the peace -
With their belts and badges and batons and boots
In perfect array.
Their uniformed, disciplined bodies and minds
Trained to obey
The order when it should come
To use the gas that burns the eyes,
The gas that chokes,
The guns, the dogs, the water cannon,
The rubber bullets, the plastic bullets,
The electrified barbed wire, the high velocity rifles,
The submachine guns, the armoured cars, the tanks,
The petroleum jelly, the fragmentation bombs,
The high radiation bomb...
To control the situation.
And their strong arms locked
To hold back the mob
To hold back the mob
To hold back the mob
To hold back...
To hold back...
In the end there is no holding back.
A final calm descends upon the earth.
All problems solved.
A new order is born,
With none of the messiness of birth.
No trees sway out of line;
There are no trees.
No roses sprawl in riotous display;
There are no roses.
Nothing moves, no one stirs.
No sounds of birds disturb the peace:
There are no birds.
And still they stand
Triumphant & immense,
The silent lines of marble monuments.
Soon the rising seas will cease to rise,
The flecks of grey ash float to rest.
And there will be -
Perfect peace,
Complete calm,
The maximum of order.
Every day they're at the ready
Turkey's police.
Restoring calm, maintaining order,
Keeping the peace -
With their strong arms locked
To hold back the mob
To hold back the mob
To hold back the mob
To hold back...
To hold back...
Every day they're at the ready
Turkey's police.
Restoring calm, maintaining order,
Keeping the peace -
With their strong arms locked
To hold back the mob
To hold back the mob
To hold back...
Every day they're at the ready
Erdogan's police.
Restoring calm, maintaining order,
Keeping the peace -
With their belts and badges and batons and boots
In perfect array.
Their uniformed bodies and disciplined minds
Trained to obey.
And their strong arms locked
To hold back the mob
To hold back the mob
To hold back...
Every day they're at the ready
Turkey's police.
Restoring calm, maintaining order,
Keeping the peace -
With their belts and badges and batons and boots
In perfect array.
Their disciplined bodies and uniformed minds
Trained to obey
The order when it should come
To use the gas that burns the eyes,
The gas that chokes,
The guns, the dogs, the water cannon,
The rubber bullets -
To control the situation.
And their strong arms locked
To hold back the mob
To hold back the mob
To hold back...
Every day they're at the ready
Erdogan's police.
Restoring calm, maintaining order,
Keeping the peace -
With their belts and badges and batons and boots
In perfect array.
Their uniformed, disciplined bodies and minds
Trained to obey
The order when it should come
To use the gas that burns the eyes,
The gas that chokes,
The guns, the dogs, the water cannon,
The rubber bullets, the plastic bullets,
The electrified barbed wire, the high velocity rifles,
The submachine guns, the armoured cars, the tanks,
The petroleum jelly, the fragmentation bombs,
The high radiation bomb...
To control the situation.
And their strong arms locked
To hold back the mob
To hold back the mob
To hold back the mob
To hold back...
To hold back...
In the end there is no holding back.
A final calm descends upon the earth.
All problems solved.
A new order is born,
With none of the messiness of birth.
No trees sway out of line;
There are no trees.
No roses sprawl in riotous display;
There are no roses.
Nothing moves, no one stirs.
No sounds of birds disturb the peace:
There are no birds.
And still they stand
Triumphant & immense,
The silent lines of marble monuments.
Soon the rising seas will cease to rise,
The flecks of grey ash float to rest.
And there will be -
Perfect peace,
Complete calm,
The maximum of order.
Every day they're at the ready
Turkey's police.
Restoring calm, maintaining order,
Keeping the peace -
With their strong arms locked
To hold back the mob
To hold back the mob
To hold back the mob
To hold back...
To hold back...
Monday, October 8, 2012
Good Turks, Bad Turks
How anyone can take Murdoch's Australian seriously is beyond me.
Take today's editorial, Syrian crisis spills into Turkey, for example:
According to the editorialist, if in response to 5 Turks being killed by a (stray?) mortar shell that may or may not have been fired by the Syrian army, the Turks "launched a series of counter attacks" against the Syrian army, then "the international community, especially NATO, should not shy away from pledging solid support for Turkey in its cross border confrontation with the murderous Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus."
If, on the other hand, in response to the cold-blooded murder of 9 Turks aboard the Gaza-bound aid ship Marvi Marmara by Israeli pirates operating in international waters in 2010, Turkey "expelled Israel's ambassador," then Turkey did not "act in the best interests of its NATO allies" and was "misguided."
Take today's editorial, Syrian crisis spills into Turkey, for example:
According to the editorialist, if in response to 5 Turks being killed by a (stray?) mortar shell that may or may not have been fired by the Syrian army, the Turks "launched a series of counter attacks" against the Syrian army, then "the international community, especially NATO, should not shy away from pledging solid support for Turkey in its cross border confrontation with the murderous Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus."
If, on the other hand, in response to the cold-blooded murder of 9 Turks aboard the Gaza-bound aid ship Marvi Marmara by Israeli pirates operating in international waters in 2010, Turkey "expelled Israel's ambassador," then Turkey did not "act in the best interests of its NATO allies" and was "misguided."
Friday, October 5, 2012
Dismembering Syria
The Syrian army mortar round which struck the Turkish border town of Akcakale on October 3, killing 5, has prompted Turkey to not only retaliate in kind but talk of commencing cross-border raids against Syrian government forces. But there's an incredible irony here. Akcakale is in the southern Turkish province of Hatay, and Hatay was once a province of Syria known as the Sanjak of Alexandretta. In fact, the people of Akcakale, and Hatay in general, still speak Arabic and many have relatives south of the border in Syria. Thereby hangs a particularly outrageous but not generally known tale.
Whenever you hear about Turkish involvement in or threats against Syria - or British and French involvement/threats for that matter - it's always useful to recall the history of the post World War 1 Franco-British collusion which led to the dismemberment of greater Syria in general, and the Franco-Turkish collusion which led to France's handing over of large chunks of 'lesser' Syria to Turkey in particular. An understanding of the criminal interwar carve-up of historical Syria puts Turkey's (and France's and Britain's and USrael's) current, supposedly benign, involvement in the Syrian conflict in a whole new light.
The following extracts are taken from Syria expert Patrick Seale's 1988 biography of Hafiz al-Asad, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East:
"When the First World War finished off the 400-year-old Ottoman empire, its Arab provinces were left to the mercies of Britain and France, the victorious superpowers of the time, who had secretly arranged to share out natural Syria between them. France took the northern part which was to become the republics of Syria and Lebanon, while further south Britain seized what were to be Palestine and Transjordan.
"The inhabitants of the whole region made it clear that they wanted natural Syria to be independent and undivided: in July 1919 an elected body calling itself the Syrian National Congress repudiated the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration and demanded sovereign status for a united Syria-Palestine. Overwhelming popular support for this demand was confirmed by the King-Crane commission, an American fact-finding team which visited scores of towns and villages and received nearly two thousand petitions. But in 1920, to the despair of the Syrians, the European powers were given Mandates over the new states carved out of the former Ottoman provinces. These mandates were conceived as a form of guardianship of young nations, but France ousted the Arab administration which the Amir Faysal had established in Damascus and proceeded to set up a colonial regime, before reordering the region to suit itself and its local friends.
"First, in August 1920, it detached large areas from Syria - the ports of Tyre, Sidon, Beirut and Tripoli, the Biqa' valley, and the Shi'i region north of Palestine - and attached them to Mount Lebanon, the fief of its Maronite proteges, so as to create the State of Greater Lebanon. At a stroke Damascus lost its outlets to the sea and saw its horizons violently contract.
"A second amputation occurred in October 1921 when France surrendered to Turkey large parts of the former province of Aleppo, bringing the Turks within 50 kilometres of the city. Aleppo's domain was further whittled away when France granted a special status to the Alexandretta-Antioch enclave of northern Syria because it contained a sizeable Turkish minority. (Less than 20 years later, the whole region was handed over to Turkey.) France then divided into four what remained of the country entrusted to it. In September 1920 Damascus and Aleppo were made the capitals of separate mini-states and in March 1922 the 'Alawi mountains and the Druze mountains were severed from Damascus and proclaimed 'independent'. In addition, the essentially tribal north-eastern part of Syria was brought under direct French rule and separatist sentiment encouraged by the settlement of Christians and Kurds.
"These internal and wholly artificial frontiers were eventually swept away but Syria never regained its lost territories. When the French finally withdrew in 1946, the country had shrunk to 185,190 square kilometres from the 300,000 square kilometres which had been the extent of the Ottoman empire's Syrian provinces. The Syrians did not easily recover from the shock of this surgery, and the feeling that their country was made smaller than it was meant to be became a continued source of frustration." (pp 15-16)
Further into his book, during his discussion of the founding fathers of the Ba'ath Party, the 'Alawi from Antioch, Zaki al-Arsuzi, and the Damascene Christian, Michel 'Aflaq, Seale touches specifically on the situation of the then Syrian province of Alexandretta, (now Turkish Hatay) in the late 30s:
"The great issue of the time in Arsuzi's home province of Alexandretta was the battle between Arabs and Turks for political control. Turks formed the largest single community but the electoral rolls showed that non-Turks - Arabs and Armenians - were clearly the majority. However, as war with Germany was looming, France was anxious to conciliate Turkey and fell in with its demand that Alexandretta should not be absorbed into the Syrian Republic, as the Arab nationalists wanted, but should retain the 'special status' it had been granted under the Mandate. The nationalists were furious at what they saw as France's betrayal of their interests. Taking command of the protest movement, Arsuzi brought youngsters out on to the streets, provoked clashes between Arabs and Turks and landed himself in jail - to no avail; in July 1938, France and Turkey signed a treaty of friendship, whereupon Turkish troops marched into the province and, to the Arabs' astonishment and indignation, the electoral rolls suddenly revealed the Turks to be in the majority. The outcome was that in June 1939 Alexandretta began a new life as the Turkish province of Hatay: another greedy bite had been taken out of Syria's short coastline. By disregarding its pledge to protect the integrity of Syria, France had committed a flagrantly immoral political act. Unwilling to live under Turkish rule, thousands of Arabs left their homes in the province of Alexandretta and moved south to take refuge in Syria." (pp 27-28)
Is Syria about to be dismembered yet again?
See also my posts French Mandate Redux (2/6/12) and Waiting for Francois Hollande (24/7/12)
Whenever you hear about Turkish involvement in or threats against Syria - or British and French involvement/threats for that matter - it's always useful to recall the history of the post World War 1 Franco-British collusion which led to the dismemberment of greater Syria in general, and the Franco-Turkish collusion which led to France's handing over of large chunks of 'lesser' Syria to Turkey in particular. An understanding of the criminal interwar carve-up of historical Syria puts Turkey's (and France's and Britain's and USrael's) current, supposedly benign, involvement in the Syrian conflict in a whole new light.
The following extracts are taken from Syria expert Patrick Seale's 1988 biography of Hafiz al-Asad, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East:
"When the First World War finished off the 400-year-old Ottoman empire, its Arab provinces were left to the mercies of Britain and France, the victorious superpowers of the time, who had secretly arranged to share out natural Syria between them. France took the northern part which was to become the republics of Syria and Lebanon, while further south Britain seized what were to be Palestine and Transjordan.
"The inhabitants of the whole region made it clear that they wanted natural Syria to be independent and undivided: in July 1919 an elected body calling itself the Syrian National Congress repudiated the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration and demanded sovereign status for a united Syria-Palestine. Overwhelming popular support for this demand was confirmed by the King-Crane commission, an American fact-finding team which visited scores of towns and villages and received nearly two thousand petitions. But in 1920, to the despair of the Syrians, the European powers were given Mandates over the new states carved out of the former Ottoman provinces. These mandates were conceived as a form of guardianship of young nations, but France ousted the Arab administration which the Amir Faysal had established in Damascus and proceeded to set up a colonial regime, before reordering the region to suit itself and its local friends.
"First, in August 1920, it detached large areas from Syria - the ports of Tyre, Sidon, Beirut and Tripoli, the Biqa' valley, and the Shi'i region north of Palestine - and attached them to Mount Lebanon, the fief of its Maronite proteges, so as to create the State of Greater Lebanon. At a stroke Damascus lost its outlets to the sea and saw its horizons violently contract.
"A second amputation occurred in October 1921 when France surrendered to Turkey large parts of the former province of Aleppo, bringing the Turks within 50 kilometres of the city. Aleppo's domain was further whittled away when France granted a special status to the Alexandretta-Antioch enclave of northern Syria because it contained a sizeable Turkish minority. (Less than 20 years later, the whole region was handed over to Turkey.) France then divided into four what remained of the country entrusted to it. In September 1920 Damascus and Aleppo were made the capitals of separate mini-states and in March 1922 the 'Alawi mountains and the Druze mountains were severed from Damascus and proclaimed 'independent'. In addition, the essentially tribal north-eastern part of Syria was brought under direct French rule and separatist sentiment encouraged by the settlement of Christians and Kurds.
"These internal and wholly artificial frontiers were eventually swept away but Syria never regained its lost territories. When the French finally withdrew in 1946, the country had shrunk to 185,190 square kilometres from the 300,000 square kilometres which had been the extent of the Ottoman empire's Syrian provinces. The Syrians did not easily recover from the shock of this surgery, and the feeling that their country was made smaller than it was meant to be became a continued source of frustration." (pp 15-16)
Further into his book, during his discussion of the founding fathers of the Ba'ath Party, the 'Alawi from Antioch, Zaki al-Arsuzi, and the Damascene Christian, Michel 'Aflaq, Seale touches specifically on the situation of the then Syrian province of Alexandretta, (now Turkish Hatay) in the late 30s:
"The great issue of the time in Arsuzi's home province of Alexandretta was the battle between Arabs and Turks for political control. Turks formed the largest single community but the electoral rolls showed that non-Turks - Arabs and Armenians - were clearly the majority. However, as war with Germany was looming, France was anxious to conciliate Turkey and fell in with its demand that Alexandretta should not be absorbed into the Syrian Republic, as the Arab nationalists wanted, but should retain the 'special status' it had been granted under the Mandate. The nationalists were furious at what they saw as France's betrayal of their interests. Taking command of the protest movement, Arsuzi brought youngsters out on to the streets, provoked clashes between Arabs and Turks and landed himself in jail - to no avail; in July 1938, France and Turkey signed a treaty of friendship, whereupon Turkish troops marched into the province and, to the Arabs' astonishment and indignation, the electoral rolls suddenly revealed the Turks to be in the majority. The outcome was that in June 1939 Alexandretta began a new life as the Turkish province of Hatay: another greedy bite had been taken out of Syria's short coastline. By disregarding its pledge to protect the integrity of Syria, France had committed a flagrantly immoral political act. Unwilling to live under Turkish rule, thousands of Arabs left their homes in the province of Alexandretta and moved south to take refuge in Syria." (pp 27-28)
Is Syria about to be dismembered yet again?
See also my posts French Mandate Redux (2/6/12) and Waiting for Francois Hollande (24/7/12)
Monday, December 6, 2010
WikiLeaks 3
The backward look behind the assurance
Of recorded history, the backward half-look
Over the shoulder, towards the primitive terror
T. S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages
"American concerns about a Middle East country other than Iran are revealed in WikiLeaks documents that point to a shift by Turkey, a long-time US ally, towards Islamic fundamentalism... According to WikiLeaks documents published on the website of Der Spiegel, American diplomats depicted the present Turkish leadership as divided and permeated by Islamists. Advisers to Mr Erdogan, one cable said, 'have little understanding of politics beyond Ankara'." (Cable reveals US fear of Turkey's leaders, Abraham Rabinovich, The Australian, 1/12/10)
Hang on! Let me get this right: an American diplomat - American, for God's sake! - reckons Erdogan's men don't have a clue about the world outside their Ankara bubble. The implication, of course, is that only Yankee Doodle Dandies (and their Israeli minders?) know what's really going on outside their Washington bubble. Pull the other.
"Mr Erdogan himself got his information almost exclusively from newspapers with close links to Islamists." (ibid)
You mean, as distinct from Bushama, who gets his almost exclusively from Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, which positively pullulates with Zioncon pundits like Bret Stephens (see WikiLeaks 2)?
"Particular concern was expressed about Mr Erdogan's Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, who was described in one cable as 'exceptionally dangerous'. Mr Davatoglu is seen as wishing to restore the grandeur of the Ottoman Empire, which stretched across much of the Middle East and North Africa for four centuries before collapsing in World War I. According to another document, a Turkish official said, in apparent jest, that Turkey wanted 'to take back Andalusia (in modern Spain) and avenge the defeat at the siege of Vienna in 1683'." (ibid)
In apparent jest? Egads, lads! Was that viper really just joking?
Afraid so. Andalusia was never an Ottoman possession to begin with. In fact, Al-Andalus (711- 1492) predated the emergence of the Ottoman Turks by centuries. Moreover, the Ottomans hadn't even gotten around to knocking off the Byzantines until 1453.
As for the siege of Vienna, a little perspective, please.
Historian Andrew Wheatcroft concludes his excellent study, The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans & the Battle for Europe (2008), thus:
"During this long struggle between the Ottomans and Habsburgs something unusual happened, which has gone unremarked. For centuries they were the bitterest of enemies. Then they stopped being enemies, even becoming unlikely allies from 1914 to 1918. After that war, commercial ties continued to grow, and in the 1950s Turks began to arrive in Austria as guest workers, as they did in much larger numbers in West Germany. They were not well treated, but virtually no one regarded them as a threat. Now, the west is gripped by fear, and a fresh Battle for Europe promoted as a direct continuation of the old Battle for Europe.
"The contrast between what actually happened and these carefully fabricated myths is startling. Once more the Siege of Vienna in 1683 is becoming an inspirational metaphor of perpetual struggle, of West versus East, of Muslim vs Christian, just as it was hundreds of years ago. Once more the event is serving a polemical purpose. Now it buttresses the idea that a new Battle for Europe is being fought. The Turks of the 21st century must not be allowed to enter the European Union because this will destroy Christendom. They would succeed where their Ottoman predecessors had failed in 1683.
"Those holdings these views include very prominent men, among them a former Commissioner of the European Union, Franz Bolkestein, who said very publicly that if Turkey entered the EU, then 'the liberation* of Vienna in 1683 would have been in vain'. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XIV, also looked to history: 'The roots that have formed Europe, that have permitted the formation of this continent, are those of Christianity. Turkey has always represented another continent, in permanent contrast with Europe. There were the wars against the Byzantine Empire, the fall of Constantinople, the Balkan wars, and the threat against Vienna and Austria. It would be an error to equate the two continents... the entry of Turkey into the EU would be anti-historical'.
"Against history? This is a very strong claim but Bolkestein and Pope Benedict XIV are not the only people who believe in this fable. The masthead of The Gates of Vienna blog puts it simply: 'At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe. We are in a new phase of a very old war'. I have tried to present dispassionately what happened centuries ago. There was, in that time, unimaginable cruelty, savagery and implacable hatred among all the combatants. Yet in the 19th century the bitter attitudes that so suffused those struggles diminished, and a new kind of relationship developed, which I have also described. The older feelings and attitudes were (and are) still present but they were (and are) definitely in abeyance.
"Scouring the darker parts of the past, creating false memories for use as weapons, is a risky business. No one can say what will happen as a result. In the Balkan wars of the 1990s we witnessed many examples of a partial view of the past being invoked for political ends. Mythologised history became the excuse for savagery: ethnic cleansing is one of the most loathsome neologisms of the 20th century." (pp 266-267)
Thanks to WikiLeaks we now know that Yankee doodle diplomats possess neither a sense of humour nor a knowledge of history. Erdogan and Davutoglu must have pissed themselves
[*Err... the Pope may be infallible, but not his grasp of history: Vienna didn't fall in 1683, so how could it have been liberated?]
Of recorded history, the backward half-look
Over the shoulder, towards the primitive terror
T. S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages
"American concerns about a Middle East country other than Iran are revealed in WikiLeaks documents that point to a shift by Turkey, a long-time US ally, towards Islamic fundamentalism... According to WikiLeaks documents published on the website of Der Spiegel, American diplomats depicted the present Turkish leadership as divided and permeated by Islamists. Advisers to Mr Erdogan, one cable said, 'have little understanding of politics beyond Ankara'." (Cable reveals US fear of Turkey's leaders, Abraham Rabinovich, The Australian, 1/12/10)
Hang on! Let me get this right: an American diplomat - American, for God's sake! - reckons Erdogan's men don't have a clue about the world outside their Ankara bubble. The implication, of course, is that only Yankee Doodle Dandies (and their Israeli minders?) know what's really going on outside their Washington bubble. Pull the other.
"Mr Erdogan himself got his information almost exclusively from newspapers with close links to Islamists." (ibid)
You mean, as distinct from Bushama, who gets his almost exclusively from Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, which positively pullulates with Zioncon pundits like Bret Stephens (see WikiLeaks 2)?
"Particular concern was expressed about Mr Erdogan's Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, who was described in one cable as 'exceptionally dangerous'. Mr Davatoglu is seen as wishing to restore the grandeur of the Ottoman Empire, which stretched across much of the Middle East and North Africa for four centuries before collapsing in World War I. According to another document, a Turkish official said, in apparent jest, that Turkey wanted 'to take back Andalusia (in modern Spain) and avenge the defeat at the siege of Vienna in 1683'." (ibid)
In apparent jest? Egads, lads! Was that viper really just joking?
Afraid so. Andalusia was never an Ottoman possession to begin with. In fact, Al-Andalus (711- 1492) predated the emergence of the Ottoman Turks by centuries. Moreover, the Ottomans hadn't even gotten around to knocking off the Byzantines until 1453.
As for the siege of Vienna, a little perspective, please.
Historian Andrew Wheatcroft concludes his excellent study, The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans & the Battle for Europe (2008), thus:
"During this long struggle between the Ottomans and Habsburgs something unusual happened, which has gone unremarked. For centuries they were the bitterest of enemies. Then they stopped being enemies, even becoming unlikely allies from 1914 to 1918. After that war, commercial ties continued to grow, and in the 1950s Turks began to arrive in Austria as guest workers, as they did in much larger numbers in West Germany. They were not well treated, but virtually no one regarded them as a threat. Now, the west is gripped by fear, and a fresh Battle for Europe promoted as a direct continuation of the old Battle for Europe.
"The contrast between what actually happened and these carefully fabricated myths is startling. Once more the Siege of Vienna in 1683 is becoming an inspirational metaphor of perpetual struggle, of West versus East, of Muslim vs Christian, just as it was hundreds of years ago. Once more the event is serving a polemical purpose. Now it buttresses the idea that a new Battle for Europe is being fought. The Turks of the 21st century must not be allowed to enter the European Union because this will destroy Christendom. They would succeed where their Ottoman predecessors had failed in 1683.
"Those holdings these views include very prominent men, among them a former Commissioner of the European Union, Franz Bolkestein, who said very publicly that if Turkey entered the EU, then 'the liberation* of Vienna in 1683 would have been in vain'. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XIV, also looked to history: 'The roots that have formed Europe, that have permitted the formation of this continent, are those of Christianity. Turkey has always represented another continent, in permanent contrast with Europe. There were the wars against the Byzantine Empire, the fall of Constantinople, the Balkan wars, and the threat against Vienna and Austria. It would be an error to equate the two continents... the entry of Turkey into the EU would be anti-historical'.
"Against history? This is a very strong claim but Bolkestein and Pope Benedict XIV are not the only people who believe in this fable. The masthead of The Gates of Vienna blog puts it simply: 'At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe. We are in a new phase of a very old war'. I have tried to present dispassionately what happened centuries ago. There was, in that time, unimaginable cruelty, savagery and implacable hatred among all the combatants. Yet in the 19th century the bitter attitudes that so suffused those struggles diminished, and a new kind of relationship developed, which I have also described. The older feelings and attitudes were (and are) still present but they were (and are) definitely in abeyance.
"Scouring the darker parts of the past, creating false memories for use as weapons, is a risky business. No one can say what will happen as a result. In the Balkan wars of the 1990s we witnessed many examples of a partial view of the past being invoked for political ends. Mythologised history became the excuse for savagery: ethnic cleansing is one of the most loathsome neologisms of the 20th century." (pp 266-267)
Thanks to WikiLeaks we now know that Yankee doodle diplomats possess neither a sense of humour nor a knowledge of history. Erdogan and Davutoglu must have pissed themselves
[*Err... the Pope may be infallible, but not his grasp of history: Vienna didn't fall in 1683, so how could it have been liberated?]
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Who Let the Dog Out?
"You cannot hope to bribe or twist/ Thank God! The British journalist./ But, seeing what the man will do/ Un-bribed, there's no occasion to." Humbert Wolfe
"It inflames their brains, they have spasms of involuntary behaviour, eventually go mad, froth at the mouth, and will bite the hand that feeds them." (Turkey may no longer be a friend of ours, 14/6/10)
Eretz - Let's Do the Mad Dog Again - Israel?
No. "Gaza has rabies."
Welcome to the howling nonsense of the Herald Sun's Alan Howe.
"Well, sort of. Actually, its disease is an infestation of self-loathing, ungrateful Islamists. But the symptoms and the prognosis are much the same."
Ungrateful Islamists? Hm... what the hell is he talking about?
"Right now, in a change that might yet develop into the greatest threat to those of us who choose to remain civilised, it seems Turkey may be incubating the disease. If Turkey, a full member of the world's most important security club, NATO, falls under the influence of the Islamists, we are all in trouble."
I see. Turkish activists join an aid flotilla to Gaza and are murdered by Israeli thugs and, hey presto, Turkey's the problem? And moving right along, the US encircles Iran with bases, and Israel threatens to nuke it every other day, and Iran's an even bigger problem?
"The United Nations last week voted in new sanctions against Iran, aimed at punishing the country whose nuclear program could easily be used to destroy Israel - and that's top of their agenda - before having a crack at any other democracies within rocket fire range."
Yes, Alan, but could Iran's democracy-destroying nukes be activated within 45' like Saddam's? And isn't it funny how Iran comes in at 104/149 in the 2010 Global Peace Index (see previous post) - 40 points more peaceful than the Middle East's only democracy?
"The lying tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who stole last year's 'elections' in Iran, does not believe Israel, or any of its allies, should exist, and hopes to kill us all. Ahmadinejad was scraped like a piece of scum on to this earth in late 1956, and is embarked on a straight line to Hell, his only distraction being the slaughter of as many innocents as he can rack up in between. By his standards he's doing well. His agents are raping and killing their way through those Iranian kids brave enough to protest at last year's illegal election farce. Public executions, where innocents are slowly and agonisingly strangled, not hanged, from mobile cranes are a specialty. Don't think for a moment Australians aren't in his sights. Anyone who recognises Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury', he once spat out, a dribble of saliva suggesting he is more than unwell."
OK Alan, I give up. I've scoured the latest (9/6/10) Amnesty International report, From Protest to Prison: Iran One Year After the Revolution, and all I've managed to find is: "Some [protesters] have been detained in conditions amounting to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Many have been tortured, including by beatings, rape and solitary confinement in small spaces for long periods."
Bad enough to be sure. But where are the mobile cranes used as makeshift gallows for Iranian protesters? Yes, mobile (is there any other kind?) cranes have been used to hang people in Iran. After a bit of googling, I managed to find the case of a teenage girl executed "for crimes against chastity." (It was actually the subject of a Four Corners doco screened on 7/8/06.) But that was in August 2004 before Ahmadinejad's presidency and years before the Green Revolution protests hit the streets of Tehran. Another instance involved two men convicted of murder (Iranian hangings 'hit new record', bbc.co.uk, 11/2/08).
Now Alan, if you have data on cases of the Ahmadinejad government hanging protesters, you need to contact AI at once so they can include them in their next report. Not that you have a problem with capital punishment though. I mean, didn't you comment just recently, May 3 to be exact: "Would we, as a community, be willing to invest in our judicial system the power for a judge to call for the end to a life? I find myself leaning that way sometimes." (Some crims are fit to kill)
OK - back to the Turks:
"Notwithstanding the extraordinary and shared experience at Gallipoli, and the strong bonds between Australia and Turkey that have grown from them, when it comes to the centenary of that campaign - less than 5 years from now - it is very possible we will be enemies once more. This time the stakes are much higher. We lost against the Turks in 1915. We cannot afford them to win in 2010."
Let me get this straight, Alan, we had an extraordinary and shared experience at Gallipoli in 1915, right? Best thing that ever happened to us, right? Made men of us, right? Even put balls on the sheilas, right? So why wouldn't we want a rerun? Surely you'd agree that our feckless youth need something a bit more spine-infusing than mowing down women and kids in Afghanistan? So what's the problem, mate? Bring it on! The sooner the better! And, if we want to make the most of our second extraordinary and shared experience, shouldn't we hope and pray Johny Turk whips our asses good like before, dig?
But I digress. There's that other, closet Ahmadinejad, that Trojan Horse, Recep Erdogan, lying in wait, ready to pounce:
"The Turks own the story of Troy. You think they'd know a Trojan horse when they saw one [Er, Alan, you're not suggesting he's actually a Greek agent, are you?]... No matter what colours [Erdogan] has tried to show since gaining power, his true ambitions became clear when he supported last month's so-called Freedom Flotilla of boats carrying what they claimed was aid to the people of Gaza. In a stunt organisers knew would end in tears, 6 vessels carrying 663 deluded 'friends' of Gaza attempted to sail there without authority to deliver 'aid'. Gaza, which is in the grip of the terror movement Hamas, is rightly blockaded by both Israel and Egypt, the most influential Islamic nation in the region, because its aim is to export radical Islamic revolution to those countries that might be susceptible - and to destroy those that aren't. The almost non-stop rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel are all the evidence you need."
In the grip? Yeah, as in Australia is in the grip of the Rudd government.
Rightly blockaded or illegally blockaded?
"Interestingly, the Turkish Muslim men on board - their subservient women presumably behind burkas at home where they belong - had not just prepared themselves to become 'martyrs', they appear to have had some combat training, not blinking at the grenades that would have you and me shocked and seeking cover. In any case, they were hardly seeking to become martyrs in the noble Christian sense of persecuted believers being killed for daring to keep faith in Christ while being taunted for their religion; these are angry, murderous blokes hell-bent on provoking a response from a democracy - just like Australia's - obliged to protect its borders and people... Three of the four Turks killed in the encounter sought martydom, according to their relatives and friends. Apparently they had prayed to Allah to grant them their wish. In the end, Allah seems to have done rather less than the Israeli Defence Forces, which took on most of the heavy lifting to dispatch these fellows to the hereafter."
Presumably, Alan? Why presumably? It's because they're Muslims and everyone knows how dreadfully Muslim men treat their women, right? If only they could learn to respect their women as much as Aussie men respect theirs: "Some of our most exploited women are top athletes, a painful example being those playing beach volleyball at the Olympic level. Organisations that should be devoted to promoting, policing and protecting the sport instead insist the women players must dress, well barely, to titillate male television audiences." (Women lose their roar, Alan Howe, Herald Sun, 14/3/10)
Only 4 Turks killed, Alan? And here's me thinking it was 9! But then Alan's a quality journalist and I'm just a niggling blogger, so what would I know?
And gee, some Turkish activists prepared themselves for martyrdom. Really? Martyrdom? As in "somebody who suffers persecution and death for the people, a country or an organisation..." (wikipedia). OMG! They knew they were messing with the Israelis - the Israelis for God's sake! - and the thought actually crossed their minds that they might be returning in a body bag? How paranoid can you get?
But seriously, Alan, that bit about praying to Allah to grant them martyrdom, that's not really in the Guardian report (Flotilla raid: Turkish jihadis bent on violence Israel claims, 2/6/10) you got this martyrdom stuff from, now is it? Let's see what was actually said: One activist said he'd "dreamed" he was going to be a martyr. Not in the sense of wanting to be a martyr, Alan, but, ominously, going to be a martyr. The brother-in-law of another said, Allah gave him a death he desired. Couldn't that perhaps be Turkish for something as simple as, If I'm going to die (and aren't we all) I'd prefer it to be in a good cause? And the third had "dreamt of becoming a martyr." As in had a dream about his fate? Or as in dreamt of winning Lotto? Who knows? Certainly not you, Alan. One thing's for sure though, whatever these martyrs thought of martydom, there's not a jot of evidence for your prattle about praying to Allah to grant them martyrdom.
Finally, Alan reminds us of the Awesome Evil that this "flotilla of fools" was out to aid and abet:
"[F]our Kassam rockets were launched into the Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon. No one was killed, but that wasn't the plan. For Hamas, and the possibly reluctant recruits it has exploited in the blighted region it intends to restore to the Stone Age, it was business as usual."
But Alan, didn't your News Limited colleague over at The Australian, John Lyons, write on June 12: "It's generally accepted now - even by Israel - that Hamas has halted rockets. The war of last year wrought such terrible consequences for Gaza and its 1.5 million people that more retaliation is the last thing Hamas wants now. 'We have declared a unilateral ceasefire', senior Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef tells Inquirer in an interview in his office. 'The priority now is how to take care of our people after the war'?" (Running the Gaza blockade)
"It inflames their brains, they have spasms of involuntary behaviour, eventually go mad, froth at the mouth, and will bite the hand that feeds them." (Turkey may no longer be a friend of ours, 14/6/10)
Eretz - Let's Do the Mad Dog Again - Israel?
No. "Gaza has rabies."
Welcome to the howling nonsense of the Herald Sun's Alan Howe.
"Well, sort of. Actually, its disease is an infestation of self-loathing, ungrateful Islamists. But the symptoms and the prognosis are much the same."
Ungrateful Islamists? Hm... what the hell is he talking about?
"Right now, in a change that might yet develop into the greatest threat to those of us who choose to remain civilised, it seems Turkey may be incubating the disease. If Turkey, a full member of the world's most important security club, NATO, falls under the influence of the Islamists, we are all in trouble."
I see. Turkish activists join an aid flotilla to Gaza and are murdered by Israeli thugs and, hey presto, Turkey's the problem? And moving right along, the US encircles Iran with bases, and Israel threatens to nuke it every other day, and Iran's an even bigger problem?
"The United Nations last week voted in new sanctions against Iran, aimed at punishing the country whose nuclear program could easily be used to destroy Israel - and that's top of their agenda - before having a crack at any other democracies within rocket fire range."
Yes, Alan, but could Iran's democracy-destroying nukes be activated within 45' like Saddam's? And isn't it funny how Iran comes in at 104/149 in the 2010 Global Peace Index (see previous post) - 40 points more peaceful than the Middle East's only democracy?
"The lying tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who stole last year's 'elections' in Iran, does not believe Israel, or any of its allies, should exist, and hopes to kill us all. Ahmadinejad was scraped like a piece of scum on to this earth in late 1956, and is embarked on a straight line to Hell, his only distraction being the slaughter of as many innocents as he can rack up in between. By his standards he's doing well. His agents are raping and killing their way through those Iranian kids brave enough to protest at last year's illegal election farce. Public executions, where innocents are slowly and agonisingly strangled, not hanged, from mobile cranes are a specialty. Don't think for a moment Australians aren't in his sights. Anyone who recognises Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury', he once spat out, a dribble of saliva suggesting he is more than unwell."
OK Alan, I give up. I've scoured the latest (9/6/10) Amnesty International report, From Protest to Prison: Iran One Year After the Revolution, and all I've managed to find is: "Some [protesters] have been detained in conditions amounting to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Many have been tortured, including by beatings, rape and solitary confinement in small spaces for long periods."
Bad enough to be sure. But where are the mobile cranes used as makeshift gallows for Iranian protesters? Yes, mobile (is there any other kind?) cranes have been used to hang people in Iran. After a bit of googling, I managed to find the case of a teenage girl executed "for crimes against chastity." (It was actually the subject of a Four Corners doco screened on 7/8/06.) But that was in August 2004 before Ahmadinejad's presidency and years before the Green Revolution protests hit the streets of Tehran. Another instance involved two men convicted of murder (Iranian hangings 'hit new record', bbc.co.uk, 11/2/08).
Now Alan, if you have data on cases of the Ahmadinejad government hanging protesters, you need to contact AI at once so they can include them in their next report. Not that you have a problem with capital punishment though. I mean, didn't you comment just recently, May 3 to be exact: "Would we, as a community, be willing to invest in our judicial system the power for a judge to call for the end to a life? I find myself leaning that way sometimes." (Some crims are fit to kill)
OK - back to the Turks:
"Notwithstanding the extraordinary and shared experience at Gallipoli, and the strong bonds between Australia and Turkey that have grown from them, when it comes to the centenary of that campaign - less than 5 years from now - it is very possible we will be enemies once more. This time the stakes are much higher. We lost against the Turks in 1915. We cannot afford them to win in 2010."
Let me get this straight, Alan, we had an extraordinary and shared experience at Gallipoli in 1915, right? Best thing that ever happened to us, right? Made men of us, right? Even put balls on the sheilas, right? So why wouldn't we want a rerun? Surely you'd agree that our feckless youth need something a bit more spine-infusing than mowing down women and kids in Afghanistan? So what's the problem, mate? Bring it on! The sooner the better! And, if we want to make the most of our second extraordinary and shared experience, shouldn't we hope and pray Johny Turk whips our asses good like before, dig?
But I digress. There's that other, closet Ahmadinejad, that Trojan Horse, Recep Erdogan, lying in wait, ready to pounce:
"The Turks own the story of Troy. You think they'd know a Trojan horse when they saw one [Er, Alan, you're not suggesting he's actually a Greek agent, are you?]... No matter what colours [Erdogan] has tried to show since gaining power, his true ambitions became clear when he supported last month's so-called Freedom Flotilla of boats carrying what they claimed was aid to the people of Gaza. In a stunt organisers knew would end in tears, 6 vessels carrying 663 deluded 'friends' of Gaza attempted to sail there without authority to deliver 'aid'. Gaza, which is in the grip of the terror movement Hamas, is rightly blockaded by both Israel and Egypt, the most influential Islamic nation in the region, because its aim is to export radical Islamic revolution to those countries that might be susceptible - and to destroy those that aren't. The almost non-stop rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel are all the evidence you need."
In the grip? Yeah, as in Australia is in the grip of the Rudd government.
Rightly blockaded or illegally blockaded?
"Interestingly, the Turkish Muslim men on board - their subservient women presumably behind burkas at home where they belong - had not just prepared themselves to become 'martyrs', they appear to have had some combat training, not blinking at the grenades that would have you and me shocked and seeking cover. In any case, they were hardly seeking to become martyrs in the noble Christian sense of persecuted believers being killed for daring to keep faith in Christ while being taunted for their religion; these are angry, murderous blokes hell-bent on provoking a response from a democracy - just like Australia's - obliged to protect its borders and people... Three of the four Turks killed in the encounter sought martydom, according to their relatives and friends. Apparently they had prayed to Allah to grant them their wish. In the end, Allah seems to have done rather less than the Israeli Defence Forces, which took on most of the heavy lifting to dispatch these fellows to the hereafter."
Presumably, Alan? Why presumably? It's because they're Muslims and everyone knows how dreadfully Muslim men treat their women, right? If only they could learn to respect their women as much as Aussie men respect theirs: "Some of our most exploited women are top athletes, a painful example being those playing beach volleyball at the Olympic level. Organisations that should be devoted to promoting, policing and protecting the sport instead insist the women players must dress, well barely, to titillate male television audiences." (Women lose their roar, Alan Howe, Herald Sun, 14/3/10)
Only 4 Turks killed, Alan? And here's me thinking it was 9! But then Alan's a quality journalist and I'm just a niggling blogger, so what would I know?
And gee, some Turkish activists prepared themselves for martyrdom. Really? Martyrdom? As in "somebody who suffers persecution and death for the people, a country or an organisation..." (wikipedia). OMG! They knew they were messing with the Israelis - the Israelis for God's sake! - and the thought actually crossed their minds that they might be returning in a body bag? How paranoid can you get?
But seriously, Alan, that bit about praying to Allah to grant them martyrdom, that's not really in the Guardian report (Flotilla raid: Turkish jihadis bent on violence Israel claims, 2/6/10) you got this martyrdom stuff from, now is it? Let's see what was actually said: One activist said he'd "dreamed" he was going to be a martyr. Not in the sense of wanting to be a martyr, Alan, but, ominously, going to be a martyr. The brother-in-law of another said, Allah gave him a death he desired. Couldn't that perhaps be Turkish for something as simple as, If I'm going to die (and aren't we all) I'd prefer it to be in a good cause? And the third had "dreamt of becoming a martyr." As in had a dream about his fate? Or as in dreamt of winning Lotto? Who knows? Certainly not you, Alan. One thing's for sure though, whatever these martyrs thought of martydom, there's not a jot of evidence for your prattle about praying to Allah to grant them martyrdom.
Finally, Alan reminds us of the Awesome Evil that this "flotilla of fools" was out to aid and abet:
"[F]our Kassam rockets were launched into the Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon. No one was killed, but that wasn't the plan. For Hamas, and the possibly reluctant recruits it has exploited in the blighted region it intends to restore to the Stone Age, it was business as usual."
But Alan, didn't your News Limited colleague over at The Australian, John Lyons, write on June 12: "It's generally accepted now - even by Israel - that Hamas has halted rockets. The war of last year wrought such terrible consequences for Gaza and its 1.5 million people that more retaliation is the last thing Hamas wants now. 'We have declared a unilateral ceasefire', senior Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef tells Inquirer in an interview in his office. 'The priority now is how to take care of our people after the war'?" (Running the Gaza blockade)
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Armenia On My Mind
The ABC's current affairs program Foreign Correspondent on 22/4/08 dealt with Turkey, Armenia, and the conflicting passions surrounding the Armenian genocide of 1915. In Armenia/Turkey: Ghosts of the Past, reporter Eric Campbell ably exposed the refusal of the Turkish establishment to acknowledge Turkey's responsibility for the ethnic cleansing of its Armenian minority. So far, so good. The synopsis of the program on Foreign Correspondent's website (www.abc.net.au/foreign), however, detracted massively from Campbell's report.
It contained the following sentence: "Respected historians say as many as a million people were killed and many more made refugees. (see extract*)" The extract turned out to be a quote from The Middle East by Bernard Lewis, billed as "an authority on Islamic and Middle Eastern History." Lewis' description of the mass deportations of Armenian civilians were oddly tentative, almost apologetic: "... a practice sadly familiar in the region since biblical times"/"... the task of escorting the deportees was entrusted to hastily recruited local posses"/"The Ottoman central government seems to have made some effort to curb the excess."
What possessed the ABC? Quoting neocon Godfather and Israel apologist Bernard Lewis ("respected historian" and "authority on Islamic and Middle Eastern history") on the subject of the Armenian genocide is like quoting David Irving on the Nazi genocide*. Despite the synopsis' acknowledgment that "in some countries such as France, it is a criminal offence to deny the Armenian genocide," it appears that those responsible for the program (or at least the synopsis) were unaware that they were quoting a holocaust (as in Armenian holocaust) denier.
In fact, Lewis was convicted of denying the Armenian genocide by a French court in 1995. The relevant part of the judgment reads, "... the fact remains that it was by concealing information contrary to his thesis that the defendant was able to assert that there was 'no serious proof' of the Armenian genocide; consequently he failed in his duties of objectivity and prudence by offering unqualified opinions on such a sensitive subject; and his remarks [in an interview with Le Monde], which could unfairly rekindle the pain of the Armenian community, are tortious and justify compensation..." The plaintiff's brief, quoted in the judgment, advanced the view that Bernard Lewis is "actually an engaged intellectual who conducts intensive 'lobbying' activities on behalf of Turkey."
But it gets worse. Lewis' academic career kicked off with a fascination for Kemal Ataturk's secular/democratic transformation of Turkey, a seductive vision which he communicated directly to Dick Cheney in the months before the US invasion of Iraq and which came to be adopted as a blueprint for a post-Saddam Iraq. The 'Lewis doctrine' as it was known held that democratic transformation could be forced on Iraq and that Ahmad Chalabi was just the man to do it. It was also Lewis, not Samuel Huntington, who constructed the 'clash of civilizations' thesis, the intellectual underpinning of Islamophobia. (See Michael Hirsh's 2004 essay, Bernard Lewis Revisited, at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/)
*Nor can Lewis be entrusted with the subject of the Nazi holocaust. As US academic and author Norman Finkelstein points out, "Especially in the wake of Israel's ill-fated invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and as Israeli propaganda claims came under withering attack by Israel's 'new historians', apologists desperately sought to tar the Arabs with Nazism. Famed historian Bernard Lewis managed to devote a full chapter of his short history of anti-Semitism... to Arab Nazism." (The Holocaust Industry, p 62)
It contained the following sentence: "Respected historians say as many as a million people were killed and many more made refugees. (see extract*)" The extract turned out to be a quote from The Middle East by Bernard Lewis, billed as "an authority on Islamic and Middle Eastern History." Lewis' description of the mass deportations of Armenian civilians were oddly tentative, almost apologetic: "... a practice sadly familiar in the region since biblical times"/"... the task of escorting the deportees was entrusted to hastily recruited local posses"/"The Ottoman central government seems to have made some effort to curb the excess."
What possessed the ABC? Quoting neocon Godfather and Israel apologist Bernard Lewis ("respected historian" and "authority on Islamic and Middle Eastern history") on the subject of the Armenian genocide is like quoting David Irving on the Nazi genocide*. Despite the synopsis' acknowledgment that "in some countries such as France, it is a criminal offence to deny the Armenian genocide," it appears that those responsible for the program (or at least the synopsis) were unaware that they were quoting a holocaust (as in Armenian holocaust) denier.
In fact, Lewis was convicted of denying the Armenian genocide by a French court in 1995. The relevant part of the judgment reads, "... the fact remains that it was by concealing information contrary to his thesis that the defendant was able to assert that there was 'no serious proof' of the Armenian genocide; consequently he failed in his duties of objectivity and prudence by offering unqualified opinions on such a sensitive subject; and his remarks [in an interview with Le Monde], which could unfairly rekindle the pain of the Armenian community, are tortious and justify compensation..." The plaintiff's brief, quoted in the judgment, advanced the view that Bernard Lewis is "actually an engaged intellectual who conducts intensive 'lobbying' activities on behalf of Turkey."
But it gets worse. Lewis' academic career kicked off with a fascination for Kemal Ataturk's secular/democratic transformation of Turkey, a seductive vision which he communicated directly to Dick Cheney in the months before the US invasion of Iraq and which came to be adopted as a blueprint for a post-Saddam Iraq. The 'Lewis doctrine' as it was known held that democratic transformation could be forced on Iraq and that Ahmad Chalabi was just the man to do it. It was also Lewis, not Samuel Huntington, who constructed the 'clash of civilizations' thesis, the intellectual underpinning of Islamophobia. (See Michael Hirsh's 2004 essay, Bernard Lewis Revisited, at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/)
*Nor can Lewis be entrusted with the subject of the Nazi holocaust. As US academic and author Norman Finkelstein points out, "Especially in the wake of Israel's ill-fated invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and as Israeli propaganda claims came under withering attack by Israel's 'new historians', apologists desperately sought to tar the Arabs with Nazism. Famed historian Bernard Lewis managed to devote a full chapter of his short history of anti-Semitism... to Arab Nazism." (The Holocaust Industry, p 62)
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