Within the past two weeks Turkish F-16s have shot down a Russian SU-24 bomber and a US-led coalition airstrike has hit a military base controlled by the Syrian Arab Army. It begs the question: are these people actually insane?
ISIS could not have had a better two weeks than these past two if it had its own air force. But with the US and Turkey among its ‘enemies’ it appears they don’t need one, for those countries have been doing its job for them.
How else are we to explain the strikes carried out by both countries, not against ISIS but against Russia and Syria, who are fighting ISIS?
Never in the annals of military conflict has such a dangerous and absurd scenario been played out as the one being played out in Syria today. Two entirely separate multi-nation coalitions are engaged in combat operations against one enemy, thus dictating they coordinate and combine their efforts. Yet such is the lack of leadership and statesmanship within one of those coalitions – led by Washington – that the prospect remains a distant dream even after a recent spate of atrocities resulted in the mass murder of citizens and civilians belonging to both.
This at least is one narrative, which holds that incompetence, stupidity and hubris is the root of the problem, impairing the judgment and clarity of the West when it comes to Syria and the wider region, responsible for allowing a terrorist menace in the shape of ISIS and other extremist groups to grow and enjoy the kind of success they should never have enjoyed.
There is a second narrative to be explored, however, one far more insidious. It is that these attacks are evidence of the real objective of the West and its allies when it comes to Syria, despite the rise of ISIS, which remains regime change in Damascus.
Turkey’s president, Recip Erdogan, has long harbored this objective. In fact, more than harbor the man has been utterly obsessed with it. He has taken every opportunity to rail against Syria’s president, attributing the entire blame for the Syrian crisis and conflict to him, even though the majority of Syrians support their president and have done so throughout.
Never in the annals of military conflict has such a dangerous and absurd scenario been played out as the one being played out in Syria today.
With Russian airstrikes bearing down on the illicit oil trade between ISIS and Turkey, the strong suspicion is that Turkey’s desperate action in shooting down the Russian bomber was directly related to it being unmasked as a key actor in facilitating the terrorist group, rather than an ally in the struggle against it.
This has now been followed by Turkey’s military incursion into northern Iraq, where its troops have occupied territory around Mosul, slap bang in the middle of the oil smuggling route from the oilfields located there up into Turkey.
The Turks claim they are there to train Kurdish Peshmerga forces they are supporting, at the request of the Kurdistan Regional Government, led by Massoud Barzani, which administers a de facto independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq in defiance of central government authority in Baghdad. The equally independent oil trade controlled by he Barzani administration has come under attack from the PKK over the past few months, which has managed to destroy pipelines transporting oil from the Mosul region to Turkey.
By now the penny should be starting to drop.
Erdogan is a man who many consider to be engaged in a neo Ottoman policy of re-establishing Turkey’s hegemonic influence in the region, exploiting the chaos and turmoil across its southern border in both Iraq and Syria to establish Turkey as a regional power broker and architect of a Sunni state comprising eastern Syria across into northern Iraq.
The collapse of US leadership in the region, measured in the rise of ISIS, has left a vacuum that its regional allies – Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel – are exploiting with an aggressive pursuit of their own national and sectarian agendas. Those agendas are contrary to the interests of stability and security, and unless reined in can only lead to more chaos and conflict rather than less.
The point is that the aforementioned states are leading the wider Western strategy towards the region at this point, the primary aim of which, as mentioned, is the toppling of the Assad government in Syria and the weakening of Iranian influence in Iraq and Lebanon.
The US airstrike, despite Washington’s denial of responsibility for it, should be seen with the aforementioned in mind. It also helps explain the recent entry of British airstrikes into the Syrian conflict.
Less than the official justification of helping to crush ISIS, Britain is intent on establishing an overt military presence in Syria with its eyes not on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa but on Damascus in advance of the upcoming peace talks in Vienna. We know this because no sooner had the British Government received the vote required to press ahead with airstrikes from the House of Commons than British foreign secretary Phillip Hammond was talking up the need for a transitional government in Damascus, making it clear that President Assad cannot remain in power.
Overall it is becoming increasingly apparent that for the West and its regional allies, such as Turkey, ISIS is but a sideshow and that the real priority is the removal of the Assad government. They want a pliant alternative in its place, one willing to be their place man in a region that has long been the focus of their geopolitical, strategic, and economic priorities.
In the process they are willing to court the risk of a major conflagration, evidence of their failure to learn the lessons of history and playing with fire as a consequence.
The First World War was the last major conflict into which the major powers sleepwalked. It resulted in a level of carnage that undermined the very foundations of civilization and led inexorably to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. The response to the Western powers of the collapse of the latter in the Middle East, in moving in to carve up the spoils between them regardless of the wishes and interests of the people living there, has brought us a century of turmoil and conflict from then to now.
In a very real sense, the world of today is paying the price of the crimes of the past. As a consequence, committing more crimes is more than folly it is tantamount to dragging us back in time to a hell of our own creation.
Follow John Wight on Twitter @JohnWight1
December 8, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism | Iraq, ISIS, Russia, Syria, Turkey, UK, United States |
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A previous article explained Syria’s Foreign Ministry reported US-led warplanes bombed its army camp in Deir ez Zor province – killing three soldiers, injuring 13 others, as well as destroying three armored vehicles, four military vehicles, an arms and ammunition depot, along with 23mm and 14.5mm machine guns.
The Pentagon denied being caught red-handed in its latest attempt to push back on Russia’s effective intervention against ISIS and other terrorists groups in Syria.
It blamed Moscow for its provocative aggression. An unnamed Pentagon spokesman lied, claiming it’s “certain” a Russian warplane carried out the attack. “We’ve got a radar track showing a Backfire bomber flying directly over the town that the Syrians named a few minutes before the first claims that we killed some Syrian troops.”
Who knows what Washington has or doesn’t have. It’s “certain” it bore full responsibility for the incident. Russian airstrikes are directed solely against ISIS and other terrorist groups with pinpoint accuracy, shown by photographic evidence each time.
A US-led anti-Assad coalition statement claiming attacks were conducted “against oil well heads” about 35 miles from the Syrian base was a bald-faced lie – compounded by saying its warplanes struck no “personnel targets…We have no indication any Syrian soldiers were near our strikes.”
The dead, injured and destruction tell another tale. Even the pro-Western, London-based, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights surprisingly reported US-led airstrikes attacked a Syrian military post near Ayyash in western Deir al-Zour on Sunday.
It bears repeating, the Pentagon was caught red-handed. Russia so far hasn’t commented on the incident or false accusations claiming its warplanes were responsible.
US, UK, French and other coalition partners continue bombing Syrian infrastructure and government targets. Sunday’s attack was the first known attack directed at Assad’s military – suggesting more provocative actions to come.
So far, they’ve included a Turkish warplane downing a Russia Su-24 bomber in Syrian airspace – OK’d by Washington, Ankara obstructing Russian sea traffic through the Bosphorus Strait and Dardanelles in either direction, international waterways in northwest Turkey connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.
Erdogan is involved in stealing, smuggling, transporting, refining and black market selling industrial scale quantities of Iraqi and Syrian oil.
He’s illegally bombing Kurdish fighters in northern Syria and Iraq – on the phony pretext of combating ISIS. His troops operate illegally in northern Iraq, violating its sovereign territory – perhaps to keep oil smuggling routes open and aiming to expand Turkish borders, incorporating parts of northern Iraq and Syria.
Washington is sending more specials forces to Syria on top of thousands already there, along with additional numbers illegally to Syria, perhaps many more to follow.
Fars News reported “US experts” intend turning a “desolate airport… controlled by Kurdish forces in Syria’s Hasaka region… into a (US) military base.”
Runways are being constructed to accommodate US warplanes – the operation entirely illegal, uninvited on foreign soil.
Washington is upping the stakes, escalating things dangerously toward direct confrontation with Russia, a reckless act – complicit with Turkey, Britain and other coalition partners.
Obama earlier promising he’ll “not put American boots on the ground” proved false – one of his many Big Lies. Will full-scale US invasion follow – with thousands of US special forces and perhaps other combat troops, protected by US warplanes?
War winds are blowing dangerously toward gale force. Possible US instigated nuclear war is humanity’s greatest threat.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
December 8, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | Obama, Russia, Syria, Turkey, United States |
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As a Baghdad-issued ultimatum for Turkish troops to leave the area is nearing its deadline, Russia intends to bring up Ankara’s invasion of northern Iraq without the country’s request at the UN Security Council on Thursday.
“The issue will be raised at a closed-door meeting,” TASS cited a diplomatic source within the organization as saying. The source also dismissed earlier reports that Moscow was going to call a separate UNSC meeting.
According to Iraqi media, Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has put the Iraqi Air Force on high alert and the ruling National Iraqi Alliance has given the prime minister the go-ahead to take “any measures” to ensure territorial integrity and protect its borders, including addressing the UN and the Arab League.
Turkish Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday that the country is suspending further deployment of troops to Iraq, but refuses to withdraw servicemen and hardware already on Iraqi soil.
Baghdad was informed of Ankara’s decision in a phone conversation between the Turkish and Iraqi foreign ministers late on Monday.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reiterated Ankara’s respect for Iraq’s territorial integrity, Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic told reporters.
In a separate statement, Turkish PM Davutoglu expressed readiness to visit Baghdad as soon as possible to discuss the current troop deployment crisis between Ankara and Baghdad.
Iraqi media reported earlier that on December 4 Iraq’s PM said: “Turkish troops numbering around one regiment armored with tanks and artillery entered Iraqi territory,” labeling the incident as a “serious breach of Iraqi sovereignty.” He added that the move “does not conform with good neighborly relations,” and called on to Ankara to “withdraw immediately from Iraqi territory.”
Ankara’s reaction has been offhand. It claimed up to 150 of its troops had crossed into Iraq to train forces battling Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
Although the US-led anti-IS coalition was aware of Turkey’s move, it emerged later that Ankara’s deployment is not part of the efforts of the US-led coalition battling Islamic State.
Turkish troops did not simply cross the Iraqi border into the Nineveh province, but penetrated 100 kilometer into Iraq, according to Reuters. They reached the Bashiqa region, about 10 kilometers northeast of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, which has been occupied by IS terrorists since June 2014.
Turkey is lying when it says it received Baghdad’s blessing to invade part of its territory, according to the Iraqi PM.
On Monday, the governor of the Iraqi province of Nineveh told Sputnik that the number of Turkish servicemen there has reached 900.
On December 6, Baghdad warned that “Iraq has the right to use all available options, including resorting to the UN Security Council if these forces are not withdrawn within 48 hours,” reiterating the same ultimatum on Monday giving Ankara 24 hours to leave the area.
Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled Obeidi turned down his Turkish counterpart’s invitation to visit Ankara. A spokesman for the Iraqi Defense Ministry said the visit will take place only after Turkey sends “positive signals” regarding the withdrawal of its troops from northern Iraq.
Ankara refused to extract its military, claiming that heavily armed troops deployed to a camp near Mosul are needed to protect an Iraqi Kurd training mission, which is taking place near the frontline with Islamic State.
“It is our duty to provide security for our soldiers providing training there,” the Guardian cited the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu as saying in an interview with Kanal 24 television. “Everybody is present in Iraq … The goal of all of them is clear. Train-and-equip advisory support is being provided. Our presence there is not a secret.”
December 8, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism | Iraq, NATO, Russia, Turkey |
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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Research Paper: ISIS-Turkey Links
By David L. Phillips
Introduction
Is Turkey collaborating with the Islamic State (ISIS)? Allegations range from military cooperation and weapons transfers to logistical support, financial assistance, and the provision of medical services. It is also alleged that Turkey turned a blind eye to ISIS attacks against Kobani.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu strongly deny complicity with ISIS. Erdogan visited the Council on Foreign Relations on September 22, 2014. He criticized “smear campaigns [and] attempts to distort perception about us.” Erdogan decried, “A systematic attack on Turkey’s international reputation, “complaining that “Turkey has been subject to very unjust and ill-intentioned news items from media organizations.” Erdogan posited: “My request from our friends in the United States is to make your assessment about Turkey by basing your information on objective sources.”
Columbia University’s Program on Peace-building and Rights assigned a team of researchers in the United States, Europe, and Turkey to examine Turkish and international media, assessing the credibility of allegations. This report draws on a variety of international sources — The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, BBC, Sky News, as well as Turkish sources, CNN Turk, Hurriyet Daily News, Taraf, Cumhuriyet, and Radikal among others.
Allegations
Turkey Provides Military Equipment to ISIS• An ISIS commander told The Washington Post on August 12, 2014: “Most of the fighters who joined us in the beginning of the war came via Turkey, and so did our equipment and supplies.”
• Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), produced a statement from the Adana Office of the Prosecutor on October 14, 2014 maintaining that Turkey supplied weapons to terror groups. He also produced interview transcripts from truck drivers who delivered weapons to the groups. According to Kiliçdaroglu, the Turkish government claims the trucks were for humanitarian aid to the Turkmen, but the Turkmen said no humanitarian aid was delivered.
• According to CHP Vice President Bulent Tezcan, three trucks were stopped in Adana for inspection on January 19, 2014. The trucks were loaded with weapons in Esenboga Airport in Ankara. The drivers drove the trucks to the border, where a MIT agent was supposed to take over and drive the trucks to Syria to deliver materials to ISIS and groups in Syria. This happened many times. When the trucks were stopped, MIT agents tried to keep the inspectors from looking inside the crates. The inspectors found rockets, arms, and ammunition.
• Cumhuriyet reports that Fuat Avni, a preeminent Twitter user who reported on the December 17th corruption probe, that audio tapes confirm that Turkey provided financial and military aid to terrorist groups associated with Al Qaeda on October 12, 2014. On the tapes, Erdogan pressured the Turkish Armed Forces to go to war with Syria. Erdogan demanded that Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (MIT), come up with a justification for attacking Syria.
• Hakan Fidan told Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Yasar Guler, a senior defense official, and Feridun Sinirlioglu, a senior foreign affairs official: “If need be, I’ll send 4 men into Syria. I’ll formulate a reason to go to war by shooting 8 rockets into Turkey; I’ll have them attack the Tomb of Suleiman Shah.”
• Documents surfaced on September 19th, 2014 showing that the Saudi Emir Bender Bin Sultan financed the transportation of arms to ISIS through Turkey. A flight leaving Germany dropped off arms in the Etimesgut airport in Turkey, which was then split into three containers, two of which were given to ISIS and one to Gaza.
Turkey Provided Transport and Logistical Assistance to ISIS Fighters
• According to Radikal on June 13, 2014, Interior Minister Muammar Guler signed a directive: “According to our regional gains, we will help al-Nusra militants against the branch of PKK terrorist organization, the PYD, within our borders… Hatay is a strategic location for the mujahideen crossing from within our borders to Syria. Logistical support for Islamist groups will be increased, and their training, hospital care, and safe passage will mostly take place in Hatay… MIT and the Religious Affairs Directorate will coordinate the placement of fighters in public accommodations.”
• The Daily Mail reported on August 25, 2014 that many foreign militants joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq after traveling through Turkey, but Turkey did not try to stop them. This article describes how foreign militants, especially from the UK, go to Syria and Iraq through the Turkish border. They call the border the “Gateway to Jihad.” Turkish army soldiers either turn a blind eye and let them pass, or the jihadists pay the border guards as little as $10 to facilitate their crossing.
• Britain’s Sky News obtained documents showing that the Turkish government has stamped passports of foreign militants seeking to cross the Turkey border into Syria to join ISIS.
• The BBC interviewed villagers, who claim that buses travel at night, carrying jihadists to fight Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq, not the Syrian Armed Forces.
• A senior Egyptian official indicated on October 9, 2014 that Turkish intelligence is passing satellite imagery and other data to ISIS.
Turkey Provided Training to ISIS Fighters
• CNN Turk reported on July 29, 2014 that in the heart of Istanbul, places like Duzce and Adapazari, have become gathering spots for terrorists. There are religious orders where ISIS militants are trained. Some of these training videos are posted on the Turkish ISIS propaganda website takvahaber.net. According to CNN Turk, Turkish security forces could have stopped these developments if they had wanted to.
• Turks who joined an affiliate of ISIS were recorded at a public gathering in Istanbul, which took place on July 28, 2014.
• A video shows an ISIS affiliate holding a prayer/gathering in Omerli, a district of Istanbul. In response to the video, CHP Vice President, MP Tanrikulu submitted parliamentary questions to the Minister of the Interior, Efkan Ala, asking questions such as, “Is it true that a camp or camps have been allocated to an affiliate of ISIS in Istanbul? What is this affiliate? Who is it made up of? Is the rumor true that the same area allocated for the camp is also used for military exercises?”
• Kemal Kiliçdaroglu warned the AKP government not to provide money and training to terror groups on October 14, 2014. He said, “It isn’t right for armed groups to be trained on Turkish soil. You bring foreign fighters to Turkey, put money in their pockets, guns in their hands, and you ask them to kill Muslims in Syria. We told them to stop helping ISIS. Ahmet Davutoglu asked us to show proof. Everyone knows that they’re helping ISIS.” (See HERE and HERE.)
• According to Jordanian intelligence, Turkey trained ISIS militants for special operations.
Turkey Offers Medical Care to ISIS Fighters
• An ISIS commander told the Washington Post on August 12, 2014, “We used to have some fighters — even high-level members of the Islamic State — getting treated in Turkish hospitals.”
• Taraf reported on October 12, 2014 that Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat, a founder of the AKP, said that Turkey supported terrorist groups and still supports them and treats them in hospitals. “In order to weaken the developments in Rojova (Syrian Kurdistan), the government gave concessions and arms to extreme religious groups… the government was helping the wounded. The Minister of Health said something such as, it’s a human obligation to care for the ISIS wounded.”
• According to Taraf, Ahmet El H, one of the top commanders at ISIS and Al Baghdadi’s right hand man, was treated at a hospital in Sanliurfa, Turkey, along with other ISIS militants. The Turkish state paid for their treatment. According to Taraf’s sources, ISIS militants are being treated in hospitals all across southeastern Turkey. More and more militants have been coming in to be treated since the start of airstrikes in August. To be more specific, eight ISIS militants were transported through the Sanliurfa border crossing; these are their names: “Mustafa A., Yusuf El R., Mustafa H., Halil El M., Muhammet El H., Ahmet El S., Hasan H., [and] Salim El D.”
Turkey Supports ISIS Financially Through Purchase of Oil
• On September 13, 2014, The New York Times reported on the Obama administration’s efforts to pressure Turkey to crack down on ISIS extensive sales network for oil. James Phillips, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, argues that Turkey has not fully cracked down on ISIS’s sales network because it benefits from a lower price for oil, and that there might even be Turks and government officials who benefit from the trade.
• Fehim Taştekin wrote in Radikal on September 13, 2014 about illegal pipelines transporting oil from Syria to nearby border towns in Turkey. The oil is sold for as little as 1.25 liras per liter. Taştekin indicated that many of these illegal pipelines were dismantled after operating for 3 years, once his article was published.
• According to Diken and OdaTV, David Cohen, a Justice Department official, says that there are Turkish individuals acting as middlemen to help sell ISIS’s oil through Turkey.
• On October 14, 2014, a German Parliamentarian from the Green Party accused Turkey of allowing the transportation of arms to ISIS over its territory, as well as the sale of oil.
Turkey Assists ISIS Recruitment
• Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu claimed on October 14, 2014 that ISIS offices in Istanbul and Gaziantep are used to recruit fighters. On October 10, 2014, the mufti of Konya said that 100 people from Konya joined ISIS 4 days ago. (See HERE and HERE.)
• OdaTV reports that Takva Haber serves as a propaganda outlet for ISIS to recruit Turkish-speaking individuals in Turkey and Germany. The address where this propaganda website is registered corresponds to the address of a school called Irfan Koleji, which was established by Ilim Yayma Vakfi, a foundation that was created by Erdogan and Davutoglu, among others. It is thus claimed that the propaganda site is operated from the school of the foundation started by AKP members.
• Minister of Sports, Suat Kilic, an AKP member, visited Salafi jihadists who are ISIS supporters in Germany. The group is known for reaching out to supporters via free Quran distributions and raising funds to sponsor suicide attacks in Syria and Iraq by raising money.
• OdaTV released a video allegedly showing ISIS militants riding a bus in Istanbul.
Turkish Forces Are Fighting Alongside ISIS
• On October 7, 2014, IBDA-C, a militant Islamic organization in Turkey, pledged support to ISIS. A Turkish friend who is a commander in ISIS suggests that Turkey is “involved in all of this” and that “10,000 ISIS members will come to Turkey.” A Huda-Par member at the meeting claims that officials criticize ISIS but in fact sympathize with the group (Huda-Par, the “Free Cause Party”, is a Kurdish Sunni fundamentalist political party). BBP member claims that National Action Party (MHP) officials are close to embracing ISIS. In the meeting, it is asserted that ISIS militants come to Turkey frequently to rest, as though they are taking a break from military service. They claim that Turkey will experience an Islamic revolution, and Turks should be ready for jihad. (See HERE and HERE.)
• Seymour Hersh maintains in the London Review of Books that ISIS conducted sarin attacks in Syria, and that Turkey was informed. “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 al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. ‘We knew 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 attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.”
• On September 20, 2014, Demir Celik, a Member of Parliament with the people’s democratic party (HDP) claimed that Turkish Special Forces fight with ISIS.
Turkey Helped ISIS in Battle for Kobani
• Anwar Moslem, Mayor of Kobani, said on September 19, 2014: “Based on the intelligence we got two days before the breakout of the current war, trains full of forces and ammunition, which were passing by north of Kobane, had an-hour-and-ten-to-twenty-minute-long stops in these villages: Salib Qaran, Gire Sor, Moshrefat Ezzo. There are evidences, witnesses, and videos about this. Why is ISIS strong only in Kobane’s east? Why is it not strong either in its south or west? Since these trains stopped in villages located in the east of Kobane, we guess they had brought ammunition and additional force for the ISIS.” In the second article on September 30, 2014, a CHP delegation visited Kobani, where locals claimed that everything from the clothes ISIS militants wear to their guns comes from Turkey. (See HERE and HERE.)
• Released by Nuhaber, a video shows Turkish military convoys carrying tanks and ammunition moving freely under ISIS flags in the Cerablus region and Karkamis border crossing (September 25, 2014). There are writings in Turkish on the trucks.
• Salih Muslim, PYD head, claims that 120 militants crossed into Syria from Turkey between October 20th and 24th, 2014.
• According to an op-ed written by a YPG commander in The New York Times on October 29, 2014, Turkey allows ISIS militants and their equipment to pass freely over the border.
• Diken reported, “ISIS fighters crossed the border from Turkey into Syria, over the Turkish train tracks that delineate the border, in full view of Turkish soldiers. They were met there by PYD fighters and stopped.”
• A Kurdish commander in Kobani claims that ISIS militants have Turkish entry stamps on their passports.
• Kurds trying to join the battle in Kobani are turned away by Turkish police at the Turkey-Syrian border.
• OdaTV released a photograph of a Turkish soldier befriending ISIS militants.
Turkey and ISIS Share a Worldview
• RT reports on Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks detailing Turkish support to ISIS.
• According to the Hurriyet Daily News on September 26, 2014, “The feelings of the AKP’s heavyweights are not limited to Ankara. I was shocked to hear words of admiration for ISIL from some high-level civil servants even in Şanliurfa. ‘They are like us, fighting against seven great powers in the War of Independence,’ one said.” “Rather than the [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] PKK on the other side, I would rather have ISIL as a neighbor,” said another.”
• Cengiz Candar, a well-respected Turkish journalist, maintained that MIT helped “midwife” the Islamic state in Iraq and Syria, as well as other Jihadi groups.
• An AKP council member posted on his Facebook page: “Thankfully ISIS exists… May you never run out of ammunition…”
• A Turkish Social Security Institution supervisor uses the ISIS logo in internal correspondences.
• Bilal Erdogan and Turkish officials meet alleged ISIS fighters.
Mr. Phillips is Director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights. He served as a Senior Adviser and Foreign Affairs Expert for the U.S. Department of State.
December 5, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | al-Qaeda, Erdogan, Iraq, ISIS, Syria, Turkey |
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Baghdad expects Ankara to explain the deployment of Turkish troops in Iraqi territory, Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Nasir Nouri told Sputnik Saturday.
On Friday, various media reports said that about 130 Turkish military personnel had been deployed to the Mosul area in Iraq allegedly to provide training to Kurdish Peshmerga militia fighting against the Islamic State jihadist group (IS, or Daesh in the Arab world).
“Iraq is waiting for an explanation from Turkey. Even if the troops were deployed to help and support the forces fighting against Daesh, why was it done without prior coordination with Iraq?” he said.
The spokesman added that Iraq adheres to the principles of peaceful co-operation and good neighborly relations, so its answer to the Turkish move would follow only through diplomatic channels.
“Iraqi measures will follow through the diplomatic channel. I do not think that Iraq will opt for escalation of the situation,” Nuri said.
December 5, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Militarism | Iraq, Turkey |
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Multiple reports claim that Israel is the top purchaser of smuggled ISIS oil
Citing multiple sources, the Israeli business press are now reporting that Israel is the main recipient of ISIS oil:
Kurdish and Turkish smugglers are transporting oil from ISIS controlled territory in Syria and Iraq and selling it to Israel, according to several reports in the Arab and Russian media. An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit for the terrorist organization.
The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.
In August, the Financial Times reported that Israel obtained 75% of its oil supplies from Iraqi Kurdistan. More than a third of such exports go through the port of Ceyhan, which the FT describe as a “potential gateway for ISIS-smuggled crude.”
It’s been well-established that Turkey is a major transportation hub for ISIS oil smuggling operations. But where is the oil sent? Someone has to buy it. The answer, apparently, is: Israel.
Al-Araby published an extensive investigation which lays out in detail how oil is transported from ISIS-controlled wells to Israel via Turkey.
December 4, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception | ISIS, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Zionism |
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On Tuesday and Wednesday, NATO foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels on the pretext of “work(ing) on further measures to assure Turkey’s security,” and related issues, based on a nonexistent Russian threat.
It sounds like a bad joke, except issues at stake are deadly serious, Russia-bashing featured in all NATO meetings, Erdogan’s well-planned act of aggression complicit with Washington called self-defense, Secretary-General Stoltenberg saying:
NATO has “standing defense plans for (member country) Turkey (including) augmented… air defenses, (part of its) long-term commitment to an ally” – despite no nation threatening its security.
Washington “deployed aircraft to support Turkey’s air defenses” – Britain to follow suit along with Germany and Denmark. “(W)e have decided to address the need to support Turkey before the incident last week.”
Were NATO officials briefed about plans to down a Russian aircraft before the incident? All the fuss about Turkey reflects the latest way of bashing Russia. US-dominated NATO countries partnered with Israel and rogue Arab states alone threaten world peace and stability. Russia is the world’s leading anti-war nation – committed with its non-Western allies against the scourge of terrorism, what America fosters globally to serve its imperial interests.
False accusations of Russian aggression wore thin long ago, US state terrorism allied with its rogue allies entirely ignored.
Are plans to defend Turkish airspace code language for more anti-Russian provocations? Put nothing past neocon US policymakers, risking the unthinkable to further their agenda, possible nuclear war with Russia.
Turkey already has one of the world’s strongest militaries, waging terror war against regional Kurds, entering Syrian and Iraqi airspace lawlessly, killing its fighters battling ISIS, Erdogan lying about combating terrorism.
Aiding its military with US and other NATO member countries’ firepower increases the chance of direct confrontation with Russia. Is this what Washington intends, Erdogan recklessly going along, possibly getting embroiled with something way over his head, gravely risking Turkey’s security by playing America’s dirty game?
His heedless downing of Russia’s aircraft, compounded by Big Lies justifying the unjustifiable, forced Putin to deploy S-400s and air-to-air missiles to protect his nation’s aircraft and anti-terrorist operations throughout Syria.
Stoltenberg called enhanced Russian eastern Mediterranean and Baltic Sea region military capability a matter of “concern” – ignoring NATO’s hostile buildup and provocative military exercises near its borders, Russia responding responsibly to a confrontational US-led threat.
December 2, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, War Crimes | NATO, Russia, Turkey, United States |
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Tahir Elçi, the president of the bar association in southeastern Diyarbakır province and a determined Kurdish human rights lawyer, was shot dead on Saturday, 28 November, during a press statement he had delivered in Diyarbakır. Photos of Elçi’s dead body lying on the ground quickly overwhelmed social media accounts, symbolizing the deadly difficulty of talking about and fighting for peace at this critical juncture that Turkey, and the region at large, are going through. Despite the fact that Turkey is known for its long history of unsolved political crimes and political violence, Elçi’s assassination is an alarming turning point in the final phase, after the electoral victory of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) in the 1 November elections, of consolidating an authoritarian and sectarian police state.
In this essay, I argue that the “new Turkey” the AKP government is forcefully imposing on its citizens goes beyond a mere ideological transformation. It includes a full reorganization of the state’s security apparatus to consolidate an authoritarian and sectarian police state, thoroughly controlled by the AKP government under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The institutionalization of this police state is made possible through a physical war against Kurds that is legitimized by a war of discourse, the complete suppression of dissidence, and the manipulation of regional dynamics. In the rest of the essay, I will elaborate this argument by focusing on three disparate events that happened last week: the assassination of Tahir Elçi; the arrest of Can Dündar and Erdem Gül, two journalists at Cumhuriyet daily; and Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian military jet with the claim that it violated Turkish airspace. Although these events are independent of one another and thus there is seemingly no causal relationship among them, they come together as pieces of a rather discomforting, and even alarming, puzzle, indicating the deeper transformation toward building the “new Turkey.”
The Physical War against Kurds and the War of Discourse
The country is at war. It is a war of discourse through the constant and willful reproduction by state elites of the infamous friend-enemy binary. But also, it is an actual physical war brutally carried out through a state of emergency in the Kurdish southeastern and eastern Anatolia. The AKP government legitimizes this physical war against its Kurdish citizens through expansively launching a war of discourse against any form of dissidence. In other words, the AKP government has been strategically manipulating, since the 7 June elections, ethnic cleavages and societal fears, leading up to its electoral victory in the re-elections on 1 November.[1]
Following the suicide bombing in Suruç on 20 July that killed thirty-three and injured 104 people, and the killing of two policemen in Șanlıurfa (which was at first claimed by the PKK, although the group then denied responsibility for it), the ceasefire between the Turkish army and the PKK came to an abrupt end. Extensive and intensive securitization policies in what are defined as “special security zones” were quickly put to work in most of the cities and towns of the Kurdish southeast and east, directly targeting life itself. It is important to emphasize here that the state of emergency and curfews continue today.
The death toll increased rapidly during the period between 7 June and 1 November. A total of 229 civilians died and about 595 were injured in incidents not related to the armed struggle. Among these, 101 died and about four hundred were injured in the Ankara suicide bombing. A total of 150 soldiers, policemen, and village guards died and forty-two were injured during the armed struggle, while at the same time, 181 armed guerrilla members died and nineteen were injured. In addition, nine civilians died and 101 were injured as a result of the armed struggle.[2]
Despite the fact that state violence has been a common practice in Turkey since the establishment of the republic in 1923 (and even preceding the founding of the republic), this particular moment is distinctively different, mainly because of the changes made to the security apparatus of the state. Among these are the reorganization of the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) under the Council of Ministers and the expansion of the MIT’s access to personal and private information; the expansion of power given to government-appointed mayors over the deployment of security measures, particularly at the local level; and the reorganization of the police force. In other words, the governance of violence has been reorganized in ways toward institutionalizing a police state.
The war of discourse around the constant re-evocation of the friend-enemy binary that has brutally accompanied this physical war against Kurds since 7 June is only possible in this context of hyper-securitization. Such a war of discourse significantly confines the contours of any conversation about, and any political action for, peace, by effectively de-sanctifying any attempt to reason and mobilize. As such, the war of discourse has the ideological capacity to turn anything and everything that is considered a threat to the status quo of the party into an enemy of national unity and security, into a spy against the state. As loyalty to the party—and thus the state—has now become the overt doctrine of the AKP government in the name of assembling the nation together, the search for truth and justice is under severe attack.
Suppression of Dissidence
It is exactly in this context that Elçi became a prominent target, as someone who violated this desired and imagined state of loyalty of the citizen/subject to the party/state. In the aftermath of his remarks as part of a television discussion about the PKK not being a terrorist organization but rather an organization of Kurdish resistance, he became the target of a public verbal lynching and death threats. There was also a court order banning Elçi from international travel. As a symbol of “out-of-the-box” thinking who had the political ability to mediate between different positions through reason and a powerful language of peace, Elçi was systematically turned into a public enemy. His assassination therefore came as no surprise to many, as was painstakingly expressed by Selahattin Demirtaş, the co-leader of the HDP, at Elçi’s funeral.
A total of 5,713 people, the majority of whom are supporters of the Kurdish resistance movement, were taken into custody during the period between 7 June and 9 November. Of these, 1,004 were arrested. There were also attacks on party buildings of the HDP (People’s Democratic Party), as well as lynchings of HDP supporters and Kurdish citizens.[3] In other words, as the most vocal oppositional fraction and the most adamant supporter of freedoms in the Turkish public sphere today, the Kurdish movement and its supporters, Kurdish and Turkish alike, were at the center of this full-fledged attack on dissidence since the 7 June elections.
The arrest of Can Dündar, the editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet daily, and Erdem Gül, the paper’s Ankara bureau chief, on 27 November came within this larger context of suppressing dissidence. The two journalists were charged with “spying” and “helping a terrorist organization without being active members of it” after alleging, through photos and video footage published at the newspaper, that Turkey’s intelligence agency sent arms to Islamist rebels in Syria. President Erdoğan personally filed charges against the newspaper, also threatening Dündar in an interview aired on the national television channel right before the November elections.
Regional Dynamics: Rojava and Re-Mapping the Borders
The charges filed against Dündar and Gül—that is, “spying” and “helping a terrorist organization”—demonstrate the highly expansive reach that the war of discourse has over dissidence in Turkey today. These terms have now become the legitimizing grounds for any (arbitrary) attack on freedom of expression. Turkey is ranked number 149 in press freedom out of 180 countries, according to Reporters Without Borders’ 2015 Press Freedom Index. The state of exception that was confined to the Kurdish southeastern and eastern Anatolia during the 1990s has now extended into the entire country.
Besides the actual physical war that the government has launched against its Kurdish citizens, the civil war taking place in Syria, which involves myriad international and regional actors with competing and conflicting interests, contributes to the government’s excessive suppression of dissidence. In fact, the government’s response to the allegations made by the daily Cumhuriyet was that the ammunition had been sent to Turkmens, instead of Islamist groups, fighting in Northern Syria.
There are two important factors that raise the AKP government’s stakes in the war in Syria. One is driven by the sectarian concern to establish a strong Sunni hand in the changing power order in Syria. The second is the government’s discomfort with the rising Kurdish power in Northern Syria, especially following the Rojava revolution. The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) is one of the most prominent factions powerfully fighting on the ground against the Islamist rebels, and particularly ISIS. The shooting down of a Russian jet by the Turkish army on 24 November should be interpreted in this context. Although the dynamics and factors behind Turkey’s decision to shoot down the plane are likely to be much more complicated than what appears in public, there are two implications of the decision.
First, it is a declaration—a rather too ambitious one—meant to re-position Turkey in the politico-military field beside the West as an imperial/powerful actor along the Cold War nexus. Bashar Al-Assad still remains in power despite Turkey’s staunch criticism of him since the beginning of the uprising in Syria, and the support Turkey has been giving to the quite heterogeneous and ambiguous mix of Syrian opposition groups that includes Islamist rebels of all factions. Moreover, Russia’s actual military involvement in Syria since September 2015 came as a significant challenge to Turkey’s attempt to limit the rising Kurdish power in Northern Syria, on one hand, and its support to Islamist rebels, on the other. Therefore, Turkey’s decision to shoot down the Russian military jet was part of an attempt to regain power in Syria.[4]
Second, it is also a subtle declaration aimed to position Turkey in the politico-religious field as the legitimate hegemonic actor vis-à-vis the Islamist rebels fighting in Syria. Putin immediately said that the shooting down of the plane “represents a stab in the back by the terrorists,” implying Turkey’s relationship with ISIS. Since then, allegations of Turkey’s relations with ISIS have been at the center of the cat-fight between Turkey and Russia. It would be naïve to think that Turkey acted without knowing that this action would heat up such a discussion. The dangerous pragmatism of the West (the most recent example of which is the agreement between Turkey and the EU to control the migrant and refugee flow) and the rise of Salafi jihadism across the world provide the AKP government the opportunity to attempt to position itself as the legitimate Sunni actor in the politico-religious field.
What Is Our Political Imaginary for the Future?
We are living through dark times, not only in Turkey, but also across the world. In the particular case of Turkey, what makes this juncture critical is that it underlines a deeper transformation of the state, but also of the nation. The state is being consolidated as an authoritarian police state, while at the same time the nation is re-engineered based on a sectarian imagination.
At this critical juncture, we should all earnestly ask ourselves the following questions: What is our political imaginary for the future? What kind of a country do we want to live in? What do we need to do to build such a future? Debating and answering these questions is much more pressing than ever. It is a time that urgently calls for an honest self-reflection about our societal fears. This requires a confrontation with historical injustices.
If the state is significantly failing to protect its citizens’ right to have rights—and thus the right to have a life—as equals, we are left with the political and moral responsibility of demanding it begin to do so, in full solidarity with one another despite our differences. Politics is not a kind of magic that happens to us tomorrow by some visible hand or power. Politics happens today through our deliberate choices to act or not to. Through silence and dismissal, we contribute to every death, to every bit of suffering, and to every other catastrophe.
NOTES
I would like to thank the Turkey Page editors for their useful comments in revising this essay.
[1] For a discussion of political parties’ strategic deployment of ethnic, racial, and religious cleavages toward political articulation, see Cihan Tugal, Cedric de Leon, and Manali Desai, “Political Articulation: Parties and the Constitution of Cleavages in the United States, India, and Turkey,” Sociological Theory 27:3 (2009): 193-219.
[2] See this report by the Human Rights Association (IHD).
[3] See this report by the Human Rights Association (IHD).
[4] See this essay by Metin Gurcan for an analysis of the incident.
December 2, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, ISIS, PKK, Turkey, YPG |
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The horrible Paris massacre allegedly committed by the Islamic State (IS) militants immediately rose to the top of the international agenda. Western powers, particularly the U.S. and France, declared that restriction of the Islamic State’s domain of operation and, subsequently, its overall destruction were their primary objects. Thus, immediately after the Paris massacre French warplanes bombed Al-Raqqah, the so-called capital of IS in Syria.
The first point of discussion, which came forward in the mainstream media concerning the war against IS was the following: “Is there a possibility that the international coalition against IS led by the U.S. could inflict serious blows to the terrorist organization merely by means of air raids?” Many commentators disagreed: The coalition members were not able to effectively harm IS in such residential areas as Al-Raqqah just by air bombardment unless they risk heavy civilian causalities.
I think that this line of discussion serves to cover up more fundamental realities on the ground by reducing the issue of the fight against IS to merely military tactics. Western powers, notably the U.S., have two “important” allies, which have been supporting IS since the beginning of the Syrian civil war: Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Strangely enough the indirect roles of these two countries in the massacres of Lebanon and Paris have not been questioned.
Saudi Arabia has assumed a major role in the promotion and popularization of Salafism throughout the Mideast and in sponsoring the Jihadist terrorist organizations. The fact that Saudi Arabia has been tolerated by the West despite its support for Salafism is because Saudi Arabia acted as a sort of “shield” in line with the Western interests against the proliferation of Iran-Shia influence in the region and has been one of the major customers of the U.S. arms industry.
Turkey is a perfect match for Saudi Arabia. The Turkish government has shown its best efforts to have the PYD/YPG included in the list of terrorist organizations before Paris massacre. One of the first moves of Turkey was to prevent YPG from extending its operations to the west of Euphrates River, when war policy was restored with an aim to limit the gains of Kurds. Thus Turkey prevented YPG/YPJ to repel ISIS out of Jarabulus. While the PYD controls most of the Turkish-Syrian border, Turkey supported IS to keep the 90-kilometer section of the border extending from Jarabulus to Afrin Canton under its control. Why? Of course, it aimed to help IS with maintaining its relationship with the world, allowing militant candidates to participate in IS, and probably for continuing ammunition supplies.
What is the meaning of the so-called ‘cleaning’ operation by US-Turkey to remove ISIS from the Jarabulus-Azez line?
Turkey’s pro-IS policy became unsustainable after the West established the anti-IS coalition and started to bomb IS targets. Shortly after the June 7 elections, the Turkish government aimed to kill two birds with one stone by participating in the anti-IS coalition. As a result, Turkey both secured Western support in ending the ceasefire period in the country, and gained a ‘legitimate’ ground for negotiating its plans to overthrow Assad and restrict Rojava by means of Salafist organizations.
Turkey’s plan as offered to the U.S. and other Western allies was as follows: Establishment of a 90-kilometer wide and 50-kilometer deep ‘safe zone’ between Jarabulus and Azez, very close to the Afrin Canton, as secured by the warplanes of Turkey and allies; removal of IS from the zone by occupation of the Turkish Armed Forces either or not in cooperation with allied powers; and settlement of migrants that are currently located in the camps in Turkey or that would flee from Syria in the future. Therefore, Turkey would be liberated from the European pressure on the migration issue, prevent the physical connection between the Kurdish Cantons, and the demographics of the region would become Sunni-Arab dominated thanks to the migrants. There also was a more strategic goal: The Jaish al-Fatah coalition, which was promoted by Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, proved to be successful in Aleppo and surroundings. Upon imposition of the safe zone, the Turkey-Aleppo line would be secured and the coalition, basically composed of al-Nusra Front, an associate of al-Qaeda, and Ahrar ash-Sham, would be allowed to further constrict the Assad government.
Russian military operations in Syria that started on September 30 substantially complicated the above plan. As a matter of fact, Russia was involved in the war to eliminate the threat on Latakia, the heart of the Assad government, and prevent the total loss of Aleppo. Idlib city, under control of the opponents, located in northern Syria has strategic importance for the control of Aleppo. Therefore, Russia shifted a part of its operations to Northern Syria and started to harass Turkish jets by occasionally entering the Turkish airspace. This was then described as establishment of the safe zone, yet it was now considered against Turkey.
It is safe to suggest that Obama’s clear rejection of Turkey’s ‘safe zone’ proposal during the G-20 summit was based among other things on refraining from any confrontation with Russia to the north of Aleppo.
The Paris massacre allowed a Russian-U.S. rapprochement as regards Syrian policies. Parties declared that their primary objective was to weaken IS, but not to overthrow the Assad government. These developments fostered hopes for the Geneva negotiations, which aimed to end the civil war in Syria.
Nevertheless, U.S. secretary of state Kerry announced immediately after the G-20 Summit that Turkey and the U.S. would take a joint operation to clean the Jarabulus-Azez line of IS.
What does this operation plan, which was announced after the ‘safe zone’ proposal was shelved, mean?
It means implementation of the ‘safe zone’ project at a more modest level. Ground forces will not be involved in the operation. Instead, Syrian opponents with the support of Turkish and U.S. jets would clean the said part of the Turkish border from IS. On the grounds that the Free Syrian Army ceases to exist in the field, the pro-al-Qaeda al-Nusra Front and its associate Ahrar ash-Sham would assume the ground operations, accompanied by the Syrian Turcoman forces.
In other words, IS would be replaced by other Salafist organizations. The involvement of YPG, the only secular force fighting against ISIS, and connection between the Kurdish Cantons would be prevented. Lastly, by leaving the Jarabulus-Azez line in the hands of such organizations as al-Nusra Front and Ahrar ash-Sham, which have a comparable record of civilian massacres, the pressure of the said Salafist organizations on the regime over northern Syria would be reinforced given that these organizations have Idlib and a large part of Aleppo under their control.
***
It seems very unlikely that IS is to be weakened and peace is to be restored in Syria, given that the U.S. continues to protect its allies, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which deal with dirty business in Syria. Furthermore, the available data suggests that the West did not give up its goal to maintain continuous pressure on the Assad government and sustain controlled chaos in Syria, albeit the same has currently receded into background. The controlled chaos policy ultimately means protection of the power of IS and paving the way for likely massacres in the future.
December 1, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda, Human rights, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United States, YPG |
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In the wake of Turkey’s shoot down of the Russian Su-24, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the attack a planned provocation. He went further on to suggest the U.S. had given Turkey permission to shoot down the Jet. He explained that countries using US manufactured weapons must ask the U.S. for permission before using them in operations. The aircraft used to shoot down the Su-24 was a U.S.-made F-16. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that not only did the U.S. give Turkey permission, but that it was moving the strings behind the entire operation.
Two Russian aircraft were attacked that day, but the second was a far less publicized incident. A Russian helicopter was destroyed by the CIA backed FSA using U.S. provided Anti-Tank TOW missiles. The helicopter was on a rescue mission to find the missing Su-24 pilots and the attack resulted in the death of a Russian Marine. Since the U.S. backs the FSA and provided the TOW missiles which were used in the attack, they are at least indirectly responsible, if not outright complicit in it. But instead of apologizing to Russia, U.S. state department spokesman Mark Toner defended the actions of the FSA. He also defended the actions of the Turkmen insurgents who shot at the parachuting Russian pilots, a war crime under the first Geneva convention. Such an antagonistic position reveals that the U.S. was not displeased by the attacks on Russia.
In the months leading up to the attack, there were several indicators the U.S. knew it would take place. On September 3rd, the families of U.S. staff members were urged to evacuated out of Incirlik air base in Turkey and were given until October 1st to do so. On November 3rd, the US deployed F-15 fighter Jets to Turkey which are specifically designed for air-to-air combat. Since ISIS has no planes, the target could only have been Russian aircraft. Most significantly, on October 21st, the U.S. and Russia signed a deconfliction protocol, in order to ‘avoid clashes in Syria’s skies’. This entailed giving the US information about where and when Russia will conduct sorties. Russian president Putin suggested this information was passed on to Turkey by the U.S. and used to shoot down the Sukhoi-24.
During the months leading up to the attack, US War hawks were increasingly calling for a direct confrontation with Russia, an act that could lead to a third world War. Several US Presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, were effectively calling for a shoot down of a Russian Jet. Some of the more direct comments included,
Chris Christie: “My first phone call would be to Vladimir, and I’d say to him, listen, we’re enforcing this no-fly zone,” adding that he would shoot down Russian warplanes that violate the no-fly zone.
Jeb Bush: “We need to have no fly zones. The argument is, well we’ll get into the conflict with Russia, maybe Russia shouldn’t want to be in conflict with us. I mean, this is a place where American leadership is desperately needed.”
The spokesman for the Zionist Israeli lobbying group AIPAC, Senator John McCain, suggested arming Al Qaeda Linked Rebels with Anti-Aircraft weapons to shoot down a Russian Jet. An idea which he himself admits was “what we did in Afghanistan many years ago”. The policy which resulted in the birth of Al Qaeda and the rise of the Taliban. Indeed Qatar had been making an effort towards this end. Documents leaked by Russian hackers ‘Cyber Berkut”, revealed that Qatar was negotiating with Ukraine to purchase Anti-Air weapons to help ISIS shoot down a Russian Jet over Syria. It is likely Ukraine refused to sell these weapons, since arming assets which are difficult to control could backfire. After all, US Jets are also using those skies. Flooding the region with hand held Anti-Air weapons could pose a threat to them in future. Turkey is a far more reliable and controllable proxy which is capable of shooting down Russian Jets.
Perhaps one of the most significant War hawk statements comes from the Former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. In an Op-ed for the Financial Times Brzezinski suggested that Obama should retaliate if Russia continues to attack U.S. assets in Syria, i.e the Al Qaeda linked rebels. Brzezinski, has experience using Al Qaeda as an asset, having been one of the masterminds behind its creation in Afghanistan. He maintains a great deal of influence and respect in US politics.
It is likely Brzezinski’s dangerous advice to attack Russia was taken on board by US decision makers. But instead of risking a direct conflict with two nuclear powers, Turkey was used as a proxy. Turkey has its own agenda in attacking Russian jets outside of the U.S.’s interests. Turkish president Erdogan has already committed himself to an anti-Assad position far beyond the point of no return. This was over a gas pipeline deal with Qatar that is now looking more like a pipe dream. Russia has been actively fighting not only ISIS, but Al Qaeda and its affiliates who are crucial for Turkey’s plans to overthrow the Syrian government. The Su-24 was bombing the Al Qaeda-linked Turkmen insurgents, before it was shot down.
On October 8, NATO made a statement that it would defend Turkey against Russia, after a Russian jet briefly passed through Turkish airspace on its way to bomb targets in Syria. Such statements may have encouraged Erdogan to take the exceptional risk of shooting down a Russian jet under the assumption that Turkey would be protected by NATO. On November 12th, EU countries committed to pay Turkey 3 billion dollars. Interestingly this is the same amount Turkey is estimated to lose, as a result of Russian sanctions put in place in the wake of the attack. This could have been Part of NATO’s assurance to Erdogan that he would lose nothing by going ahead with the attack.
Erdogan has become increasingly frustrated, even after four years of war, the Syrian state shows no sign of collapse. It might not have been too difficult for the U.S. to convince the desperate Turkish leader that attacking a super power was in his best interest.
Maram Susli also known as “Syrian Girl,” is an activist-journalist and social commentator covering Syria and the wider topic of geopolitics.
December 1, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, War Crimes | AIPAC, al-Qaeda, NATO, Qatar, Russia, Syria, Turkey, United States, Zionism |
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Dozens of Russian ships have reportedly been waiting for hours near the Bosphorus Strait to get the go-ahead from Turkey to be able to pass through the waterway.
In a clear violation of international norms, Turkish authorities have created hurdles for Russian vessels passing through the Bosphorus Strait; as a result, dozens of Russian ships have been waiting for hours to obtain the green light from Turkey for passage, media reports said.
RIA Novosti quoted Viktor Kravchenko, former chief of staff of the Russian Navy, as saying that a possible unilateral closure by Turkey of the Bosphorus Strait for Russian ships would be out of line with international law.
“Turkey will not close the strait to Russian vessels en route to Syria because it would be a violation of international law and the Montreux Convention, in particular, — a document that was signed by most counties at the time”, he said.
The 1936 Montreux Convention on the Regime of the Straits regulates the passage of civilian and naval ships through the Bosphorus Strait and the Dardanelles. According to Article 2, “merchant vessels shall enjoy complete freedom of transit and navigation in the Straits, by day and by night, under any flag and with any kind of cargo, without any formalities.”
As for naval warships, in times of peace Turkey must permit the passage of small and medium-sized vessels belonging to all nations. The Black Sea powers (formerly including the USSR and now Russia) can navigate warships of any class through the Straits, “on condition that these vessels pass through the Straits singly, escorted by not more than two destroyers.”
In times of war, the passage of warships shall be left entirely to the discretion of the Turkish government, according to the document.
In December 1982, the UN elaborated the Convention on the Law of the Sea, but Turkey refused to join it and the Montreux convention remained in force. In 1994, Turkey unilaterally adopted new Maritime Traffic Regulations for the Straits, and included a number of restrictions for the passage of foreign vessels.
Meanwhile, it was reported that French fighter jets will use the Incirlik military base and that the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle will receive logistical support in the Turkish port of Mersin.
UPDATE:
Sputnik – 01.12.2015
At the moment, Russian naval vessels are experiencing no problems passing through the Bosphorus Strait or the Dardanelles, RIA Novosti quoted a military-diplomatic source as saying on Tuesday. […]
Earlier on Monday, it was reported that dozens of Russian ships had reportedly been waiting for hours near the Bosphorus Strait to get the go-ahead from Turkey to be able to pass through the waterway. Meanwhile, a Russian naval transport ship had encountered a Turkish submarine in the Dardanelles. … Full article
December 1, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Montreux Convention, Russia, Turkey |
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By John Chuckman | Aletho News | November 30, 2015
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the British Labour Party, is a man of genuine integrity and honesty in his opposition to British bombing of Syria.
Indeed, he is everything the Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron, is not.
I think we see from the storm in the British press against Corbyn just how much the establishment values integrity and honesty, which is to say, not at all.
Almost every word of Cameron’s on the subject of bombing is deliberately deceptive.
He is in fact an intimate part of “the club” which privately regards ISIS and other murdering rogues as tools to an end, and that end is to destroy Assad and turn Syria into a rump state. The club’s members always falsely describe the situation in Syria as a civil war rather than what it truly is, an invasion of a peaceful land by the creatures of outside powers.
They freely admit ISIS is horrible, innumerable propaganda videos having established the fact for the public, but they make no move to do something genuine about it. They portray the only man who is doing something to help Syria’s brave army, Vladimir Putin, as some kind of evil figure with dreams of empire. There is a stream of propaganda and lies about everything Russia does, from its cruise missiles hitting Iran to its planes bombing hospitals, all offered with zero evidence.
Cameron’s every word on Syria is inappropriate. A British Prime Minister has no business pronouncing on the legitimacy of this or that government, especially one supported by the majority of the country’s people, clans, and armed forces. Cameron himself, posing as some cheap knock-off defender of democracy, positively Churchillian in his own eyes, enjoys the support of about 35% of British voters.
Assad’s government has fought bravely against monsters shipped in by Turkey and supplied by Saudi Arabia, Israel, and America for years now, while David Cameron sat back and pontificated.
Assad is not an angel, but he runs a state with tolerance for all religious groups in a region where that is not common, and he has often been generous in helping those badly hurt by the likes of David Cameron – for example, the millions of refugees created by the criminal invasion of Iraq. The reason Assad is hated by Cameron and his associates in “the club” is his independent-mindedness in not following Washington’s dictates. Cameron functions as a noisy little lap dog yapping and snapping at anyone ignoring his master, always in expectation of another approving stroke on the head. It truly is that simple, and all the rest we read and hear is just noisy propaganda.
Washington and Tel Aviv are determined to see Assad gone. And you must ask yourself why that should be a shared goal of the two most violent societies on earth today, each of them in a state of perpetual war and oppression of millions.
Yes, Turkey and Saudi Arabia hate Assad, too, but they mostly do as they are told by Washington.
And remember, one of those countries, Turkey, is run by a lunatic who assassinates journalists and any Kurdish person he can get his hands on, and the other, Saudi Arabia, is run by a senile absolute monarch who regularly cuts off heads and crucifies people and is conducting an illegal war in Yemen, killing civilians daily.
Those are the characters with which David Cameron shares his bed.
What is really at stake here is virtually never discussed in public: the right of countries to exist in peace without outside interference from aggressive states like America and Israel. The United Nations should be in the forefront of demanding just that, but it has been reduced to servility through internal manipulations and threats, especially threats of withholding American financial support as was done some years back. Ban Ki-moon is perhaps the most ineffectual Secretary General in memory, sometimes sounding like a pope enjoining peace with no one listening.
Britain’s bombing in Syria would be just plain old-fashioned aggression adding to that already being done by ISIS, al-Nusra, and other cutthroats. We don’t know what targets Cameron has in mind, but he simply has no business in the country, and we can be sure that if he were sincere about only attacking terrorists, Syria would have welcomed him in its desperate fight. Cameron just keeps repeating, like an unpleasant child who thinks repetition makes something so, that the government of Syria must go.
The government of Syria has not sought Britain’s help, and contrary to arrogant people like David Cameron, Syria does indeed have a government, as legitimate as most in the world.
The only people doing any bombing with the permission of the government are the Russians, and they are supporting the only people doing any real fighting, the Syrian army.
This is not a small point for all those concerned about the rule of law, which you might think would be a prime concern for those who claim they oppose terror.
It took centuries to establish some rule of law in international affairs, and today states like America and Israel and Turkey ignore it completely.
Good old David Cameron wants to join the mob, getting his bit of attention.
And it can’t have escaped Cameron’s attention how handsomely the war criminal, Tony Blair, has been rewarded for doing his dirty part in tearing apart Iraq. He has been showered with gold and sinecures.
Wouldn’t it be natural for Cameron to expect a bit of that for dropping bombs on Syria?
November 30, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Da’esh, David Cameron, Israel, Jeremy Corbyn, Syria, Turkey, UK, United States |
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Aletho News 