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Tag Archives: Turkey

Syria -> Kurdistan <- Turkey — Ceding American Influence in Kurdish Syria and Permitting ISIS Resurgence

13 Sunday Oct 2019

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Kurdistan, Syria

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Kurdistan, PKK, post Cold War analysis, Syria, Turkey

Copy “CNN’s Clarissa Ward gained access to a USA base in Rojava, northern Syria” posted by YT channel “Crimes Against Kurds in Rojava Syria”, October 13, 2019.

CNN, “Fleeing civilians tell CNN they don’t know where to go as Turkey attacks”, October 10, 2019.

At least 750 people with suspected links to Islamic State have reportedly fled a displacement camp in north-east Syria, local officials have said, raising fears that the Turkish offensive against Kurdish forces in the area could lead Isis to regain strength amid the chaos.

The news came at the same time the US ordered all 1,000 US troops to withdraw “as safely and quickly as possible” from the region after learning that the Turkish operation was likely to extend further than Ankara’s proposed 20-mile (32km) “safe zone” on the border between the two countries.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/13/kurds-say-785-isis-affiliates-have-escaped-camp-after-turkish-shelling – 10/13/2019.

A telling video clip from about four years ago:

RT, “Putin, Abbas, Erdogan attend Moscow Grand Mosque opening ceremony.” Posted to YouTube on September 23, 2015.

Does the reader perhaps get the picture?

Yesterday’s “East-West Rivalry” had been framed as “Communism v Capitalism”, and at noon on December 25, 1991, the Soviet, which had been booted out of Afghanistan two years earlier, quietly folded its government. The Russian tricolor would be seen flying above the Kremlin the next morning. However, the Cold War Era appears to have ended only to be replaced (with a little bit of time) with Russia stating its bid to reestablish feudal absolute power and medieval thought as premier throughout EU / NATO.

In this blog’s opinion, Turkey fell first.

About six months after downing two MIGs overflying Turkish territory without permit, Erdogan relented in apologizing to Putin over the matter — and next thing you know, the “Turkish Stream” energy project, a matter of Russo-Turkish cooperation, was back in business.

For additional and perhaps “deep” background on how Russia has advanced its feudal agenda against the west, BackChannels recommends its post on “Reflexive Control” while noting that it has been today’s post-Soviet Moscow feeding arms and materiel (and doubtless misguidance) to the Taliban.


The PKK knows Moscow from the Soviet days, a drift that may be caught from Abdullah Ocalan’s writings, but times have changed, and for Russia’s elites — or just the most elite of them all, President Putin — Communism has been “out” for a while and replaced by MONEY as the most popular cause for existence.


Could President Trump have brokered a deal from Turkey to cease its aggression — and give up its culturally and politically genocidal ambitions long associated with its posture toward the Kurds? Such an agreement would have removed from the PKK and related active “Freedom Falcons” their cause for existence as Kurdish defense elements and U.S. State Department listed terrorist organizations.

Perhaps.


As regards recognition of Kurdish autonomy, Kurdish political incoherence has been perhaps the greatest challenge or “stumbling block” faced by the community. As one associate said to BC, “The KDP and PKK hate each other.”

The removal of western “assets” from the area now experiencing assault on the part of a powerful Turkish military has made way for the slaughter of noncombatants by the kind of leaders who love their own image — and wish to buff it up with “heroic” images from wars in part fashioned to that effect — without benefit of conscience and any associated internal boundaries or breaks.

The other motivation for Moscow’s enthusiasm for feudal perpetual war and any number of “frozen conflicts”: the plunder of states and the support of transnational crime.

Will Moscow and Syria in support of “old friends” in the PKK now come to the “rescue” of the Syrian Kurdish community from Turkish forces?

Kurdish fighters controlling the region would surrender the border towns of Manbij and Kobane to Damascus in a deal brokered by Russia, several officials said on Sunday night.

Syrian state media said units from President Bashar al-Assad’s army were moving north to “confront Turkish aggression on Syrian territory”. Unconfirmed reports said the deal between the Kurds and the regime would be extended to apply to the entirety of north-east Syria.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/13/kurds-reach-deal-with-damascus-in-face-of-turkish-offensive

–33–

“Hey, Martha!” — BackChannels Reading Page on Facebook

16 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, American Domestic Affairs, Anti-Semitism, Asides, BCND - BackChannels News Day, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Turkey

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Erdogan, Hamas, Islamism, medieval v modern, Militant Islam, NATO, Turkey

BC-ADV-HeyMartha

https://www.facebook.com/BackChannels/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/turkey-expels-israeli-consul-spat-gaza-violence-180516063533535.html

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2018/05/14/hamas-urges-palestinians-toward-injury-and-death/

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270149/12-reasons-turkey-should-be-expelled-nato-ari-lieberman#.WvWF-uvHLjY.twitter

–33–

Will the West Abandon Its Kurdish Allies in the Battle Against ISIS as Well as Their Efforts to Produce a Democratic Modern State?

12 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Kurdistan, North America, Politics, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

democracy, Erdogan, Kurdish community, Kurdish struggle, Kurdistan, PKK myth, Turkey, Turkish genocidal ambition, tyranny, United States of America

America: have you no dreams, faith, ideals, memories, values?

One cannot argue with the Soviet origins of the PKK — nor today it’s probable conflation with “TAK” terrorists operating occasionally in Turkey — and the long-term effects of the Kurdish-Russian relationship that is today being leveraged by a potentially genocidal (proven once — has the world to see it again proven?) Turkish and neo-Islamist authoritarian state.  However, modern Kurdistan and the “Rojava Experiment” with liberal democracy may be more “western” than commonly acknowledged.

Kurdish-PolitParties

Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kurdish_organisations

Credit Turkish President Erdogan with Soviet-style defamation when he frames all Kurds as action-producing PKK terrorists.

Credit American Revolutionary memory to with what had to be brought together to overcome an avaricious king and to mark its first steps on the road to becoming not only self-governing but uniquely so as the redoubt of freedom from all political and religious tyrannies.

The Kurdish Community may need to advance its own inter-tribal cooperation and perhaps temper the power of its own autocrats to achieve meaningful, responsible, and responsible authentic democratic governance; however, both Moscow-Damascus and “Moscow-Ankara” would seem to be working to squeeze the community back into political impotence and from there out of existence.


Followers and readers with timely information and insight into the Kurdish community’s political makeup, its arrangements with other powers — including Russia and related energy projects — and its desire for autonomy, dignity, and freedom are welcome to contact the editor through the contact page and form on this blog.


“Kurdish YPG Engages ISIS In / Near Raqqa, Syria”

Posted to YouTube Dec. 18, 2017.


Additional Reference

Adalian, Rouben Paul.  “Turkey, Republic of, and the Armenian Genocide.”  Armenian National Institute, n.d.


Dominique, Callimanopulos.  “Kurdish Represseion in Turkey.”  Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine, June 1982:

During Turkey’s war for independence, Turkish leaders, promised Kurds a Turkish-Kurdish federated state in return for their assistance in the war. After independence was achieved, however, they ignored the bargain they had made.

Months after the declaration of a Turkish republic, Ankara, under the pretext of creating an “indivisible nation,” adopted an ideology aimed at eliminating, both physically and culturally, non-Turkish elements within the Republic. These “elements” were primarily Kurdish and Armenian.


Letsch, Constanze.  “In Turkey, Repression of the Kurdish Language Is Back, With No End in Sight.”  The Nation, December 21, 2017:

On the night of December 31, 2016, 94 associations, including the institute, were shut down on allegations of “connections to terrorist organizations.” A month later, the authorities confiscated all documents, course materials, and hardware—computers, two projectors, a TV—as well as the school’s furniture. The institute’s website was taken down. In theory, the institute has the right to appeal the shutdown through a state-appointed commission, but human-rights organizations such as Amnesty International have criticized it as insufficient, as more than 100,000 cases are pending review by just seven commissioners within a two-year deadline.


Ismael, Yousif.  “Once again, Turkey Refuses Solutions in the Syrian Civil War.”  Washington Kurdish Institute, September 21, 2017.


Mohamad, Sinam.  “Once We Beat ISIS, Don’t Abandon Us.”  Op-Ed.  The New York Times, May 11, 2017.


Rice, Bill.  “America Must Live Up to Its Own Values and Support Kurdistan’s Independence.”  Washington Kurdish Institute, September 21, 2017.

Weiss, Stanley.  “It’s Time to Kick Erdogan’s Turkey Out of NATO.”  HuffPost, n.d.

For nearly seven decades, this combination of factors has been the potential Achilles heel of NATO: that one day, its members would be called to defend the actions of a rogue member who no longer shares the values of the alliance but whose behavior puts its “allies” in danger while creating a nightmare scenario for the global order.

After 67 years, that day has arrived: Turkey, which for half a century was a stalwart ally in the Middle East while proving that a Muslim-majority nation could be both secular and democratic, has moved so far away from its NATO allies that it is widely acknowledged to be defiantly supporting the Islamic State in Syria in its war against the West.


Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/23/moscows-rules-a-module/

–33–

 

Animus Kurdish and Turkish

09 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Asia, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Kurdistan, Middle East, Philology, Political Psychology, Religion, Turkey

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

capitalism, cultural annihilation, cultural defense, democracy, Kurdistan, PKK, secret wars, socialism, TEK, Turkey

The Kurds have also been persecuted by the Turkish government for decades. Gültan Kışanak and Fırat Anlı, the co-mayors of Diyarbakır, for example, were arrested on October 30, 2016 for “being members of a terrorist organization,” and Turkish authorities then appointed a custodian to run the city. In addition, there are currently 13 Kurdish MPs — including the leaders of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) — in Turkish jails.

Bulut, Uzay.  “Turkey’s Mass Persecution of Christians and Kurds in Diyarbakir.” Middle East Forum, September 4, 2017.

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Turk-TAK-Inci-171009-0717-sc-cap

START UMD.  “Search Results: 42 Incidents” – “TAK, Turkey”.  Global Terrorism Database, October 9, 2017.

While the Kurdish community garners western sympathy in its effort to survive both Arab and Turkish efforts to diminish and eventually destroy its existence, the fight between the two appears often to take place in the shadows and with fathomless ambiguity.

The “TAK” AKA “Kurdistan Freedom Hawks”, appear to operate autonomously from any Kurdish command structure, including the PKK’s, a U.S. Department of State listed terrorist organization.

Of course, one may suppose that for a secret war an intensely secretive military organization — there would seem no other option! — would fit with state adversary whose own aggression and transgressions were apparently masked off from general public view.  Then too, Turkey appears to have chosen to interpret rebel reactions to its own assaults in the most gross terms: in the state’s mind, all of the Kurdish community is PKK (just as all opposition to Assad must be ISIS or “The Terrorists”), and the community needs be sustained  bare for eventual cultural erasure beneath the Turkish banner of Islam.

Related in Wikipedia:

Certain academics[who?] have claimed that successive Turkish governments adopted a sustained genocide program against Kurds, aimed at their assimilation.[35] The genocide hypothesis remains, however, a minority view among historians, and is not endorsed by any nation or major organisation. Desmond Fernandes, a Senior Lecturer at De Montfort University, breaks the policy of the Turkish authorities into the following categories:[36]

  1. Forced assimilation program, which involved, among other things, a ban of the Kurdish language, and the forced relocation of Kurds to non-Kurdish areas of Turkey.

  2. The banning of any organizations opposed to category one.

  3. The violent repression of any Kurdish resistance.

Wikipedia.  “Human rights of Kurdish people in Turkey”.

As if the confusion accompanying a secretive lowest-intensity war between Kurdish rebels and a new autocratic and potentially fanatic Turkish state were not enough for the devil’s amusement, the rebel’s hero Abdullah Öcalan draws from the defunct Soviet perspective for his presentation of democracy as prelude to the popular soft “democratic communalism” that would preserve the Kurdish community and make way for a hypothetical cultural Eden:

That the solution to all national and social problems is linked to the nation-state represents the most tyrannical aspect of modernity. To expect a solution from the tool which is itself the source of problems can only lead to the growth of problems and societal chaos. Capitalism itself is the most crisis-ridden stage of civilisation. The nation-state, as the tool deployed in this crisis-ridden stage, is the most developed organisation of violence in social history.

 Öcalan, Abdullah.  Democratic Nation.  Cologne, Germany: International Initiative, 2016.

The short excerpt from the book may be considered an injustice given the lengthier reflections of the author; however, as well demonstrated in Syria by Moscow-Tehran (with baby Damascus between) if not elsewhere in the post-Soviet sphere of influence, deriding liberalism and the solutions produced by the west to ecological, economic, and humanist interests needs must come first: the conflation of unbridled capitalism with the nation-state is treated as unassailable and the very idea of nation-states (and their boundaries) needs must go.

With that in mind, have a look at where “Assad v The Terrorists” began in 2011 and how the state looks today.

Given the usefulness of what might be a binding ideological cause — and who would not be for Earth and her People? — there would seem in Ocalan’s latest book the persistence of dreadfully romantic ideas already long failed and left behind.

*

For the record, BackChannels may suggest that all successful polities pay mind to cultural, ecological, and social issues within their purview to construct in law and physical fact the distribution of capabilities and responsibilities that may then create healthy and productive regions — ask any urban or rural developer or planner you may know about who builds “infrastructure” and how that gets done, economically, politically, and physically.

Also worth noting of the post-Soviet sphere: the littering of the globe with kleptocratic dictatorships that appear to offer convincing and sweet-sounding programs to their people while in fact exploiting the same in the development of powerful systems of patronage .  

With the Soviet Union dissolved 26 years ago (Dec. 25, 1991), the true hearts of communism have perhaps turned — say as the Communist Party has done with Jacob Zuma in South Africa — to calling out the crooks among their own.

*

Still, must everyone wind up alienated and enslaved by by remote power?

Must all minority cultures — anywhere — assimilate themselves into disappearance becomes of some asshole’s fascist jones for one language, religion, or national purity, or political solidarity within or beyond his own area of influence and zone of control?

We should all hope not!

It would seem most natural for communities and person to seek for themselves good accommodations without reversion to criminal force where opportunity and respect may be considered as given.

🙂

BackChannels does not know how central the PKK, much less mysterious autonomous spin-offs like the TAK, are to Kurdish cultural integrity, but it appreciates for the communities representing the earth’s fewer than 7,000 living languages the idea of ethnolinguistic cultural survival and co-evolution.  From that perspective, the Turkish speakers would be noble to leave the Kurdish speakers with freedom and security on the land across which their language developed — and the Kurds would seem right to push back against the forces of their own cultural annihilation.


Reference

Bulut, Uzay.  “Turkey’s Mass Persecution of Christians and Kurds in Diyarbakir.” Middle East Forum, September 4, 2017.

Since 2015, the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been attacking Kurdish-majority areas in the country. … The clashes have taken their toll on Turkey’s Christian population, which is caught in the crossfire. According to a November 2016 report in The Armenian Weekly,

Entire neighborhoods have disappeared, reduced to rubble. The Surp Giragos Church in Diyarbakır has escaped the fighting relatively intact structurally… But the Turkish security forces have used it as an army base, desecrating the church, burning some of the pews as firewood, with garbage and smell of urine everywhere.


Collart, Rebecca.  “Why Turkey Sees the Kurdish People as a Bigger Threat than ISIS.”  Time, July 28, 2015.

Last week, the Turkish government announced it was joining the war against ISIS. Since then it has arrested more than 1,000 people in Turkey and carried out waves of air raids in neighboring Syria and Iraq. But most of those arrests and air strikes, say Kurdish leaders, have hit Kurdish and left wing groups, not ISIS.


Dominique, Callimanopulos.  “Kurdish Repression in Turkey.”  Cultural Survival, 1982.

During Turkey’s war for independence, Turkish leaders, promised Kurds a Turkish-Kurdish federated state in return for their assistance in the war. After independence was achieved, however, they ignored the bargain they had made.

Months after the declaration of a Turkish republic, Ankara, under the pretext of creating an “indivisible nation,” adopted an ideology aimed at eliminating, both physically and culturally, non-Turkish elements within the Republic. These “elements” were primarily Kurdish and Armenian.

A 1924 mandate forbade Kurdish schools, organizations and publications. Even the words “Kurd” and “Kurdistan” were outlawed, making any written or spoken acknowledgement of their existence illegal.

According to Association France-Kurdistan, between 1925 and 1939, 1.5 million Kurds, a third of the population, were deported and massacred.


Human Rights Watch.  “Ocalan Trial Monitor”. n.d. 

There are State Security Courts in eight cities in Turkey, dealing with thousands of cases brought under the Anti-Terror Law. The definition of “terror” contained in this law is so broadly drawn that alongside cases of political arson and murder, a State Security Court may try respected politicians, journalists, human rights campaigners, and schoolchildren. Defendants branded as terrorists by conviction in State Security Courts include Recep Tayyip Erdogan, mayor of Istanbul, currently serving a ten-month sentence for quoting a poem that had been approved by the Ministry of Education but was deemed as provocation to religious hatred by the court, and Yasar Kemal, Turkey’s most prominent novelist, arraigned for writing about the Kurdish minority in a German magazine.


Öcalan, Abdullah.  Democratic Nation.  Cologne, Germany: International Initiative, 2016.

The Kurds, as individuals and as a society, must conceive, internalise and implement the construction of a democratic nation as the synthesis of all expressions of truth and resistance throughout their history, including the most ancient goddess beliefs, Zoroastrianism and Islam. The truths that all the past mythological, religious and philosophical teachings as well as contemporary social sciences have tried to teach and that all resistance wars and rebellions have individually and collectively tried to voice are represented in the mind and body of constructing a democratic nation. It was this reality and its expression as truth that was my point of departure, not only when I re-created myself at times but especially arriving at the present as I tried to re-create myself almost at every instant. In this way, I freely socialised myself, and concretised this as a democratic nation (in a Kurdish context), and presented it as democratic modernity to all humanity, to the oppressed peoples and individuals of the Middle East.

 

The fine voice from the Left would seem laced with the last century’s intellectual poison.

From a different source:

The religion of ancient Persia as founded by Zoroaster; one of the world’s great faiths that bears the closest resemblance to Judaism and Christianity.

Kohler, Kaufmann and A. V. W. Jackson.  “Zoroastrianism”.  Jewish Encyclopedia. n.d.

The tiny world wide communities of Zoroastrians are no doubt pleased to get any mention in Cif belief – even if it is only to provide alphabetical balance to a list starting with the Bahá’ís. Even those who take a close interest in the more exotic or esoteric of religions tend to have a vague grasp on what the followers of the ancient Persian (or maybe Bactrian) prophet, Zarathustra (Zoroaster in Greek) – born around 800 BC – actually believed. This is a great pity since even a non-believer must be impressed with the evidence of how the religious ideas first expressed by Zoroaster were fundamental in shaping what emerged as Judaism after the 5th century BC and thus deeply influenced the other Abrahamic religions – Christianity and Islam.

Palmer, John.  “Zoroaster — forgotten prophet of the one God.”  The Guardian, July 13, 2010.

As conceived or delivered by Muhammad in the 7th Century, Islam may not be said to have been an ancient — much less practiced ancient — belief or belief system. To say or suggest so is to pander to the very egoism of the listener or reader for whom the Qur’an appears to have intended humility before God.

At stake — and so often mentioned in this blog — seems ever a contest between feudal absolute power plus medieval worldviews and modern checked and distributed  power accompanied by extraordinary pluralism and tolerance.

In the end, all of God’s children — our 7,000 living language cultures — are all on one Earth and together visible, all to all and to the All.

Wikipedia.  “Human rights of Kurdish people in Turkey”.

The use of Kurdish language, dress, folklore, and names were banned and the Kurdish-inhabited areas remained under martial law until 1946.[7] In an attempt to deny their existence, the Turkish government categorized Kurds as “Mountain Turks” until 1991.[8][9][10] The words “Kurds”, “Kurdistan”, or “Kurdish” were officially banned by the Turkish government.[11] Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life.[12] Many people who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned.[13] Since lifting of the ban in 1991, the Kurdish population of Turkey has long sought to have Kurdish included as a language of instruction in public schools as well as a subject. Currently, it’s illegal to use the Kurdish language as an instruction language in private and public schools.


–33–

 

 

FTAC: The Yankee Responds

23 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

21st Century Feudalism, 21st Century Neo-Feudalism, autocracy, dictatorship, freedom, kleptocracy, media, political malignance, press freedom, Russia, Turkey

Article of Interest: 

https://www.eu-foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/21/analysis-from-the-su-24-crisis-to-the-moscow-ankara-rapprochement-leadership-and-foreign-policy-doctrines/

Passage of Interest: 

From our comparative analysis, it emerges how both Russia and Turkey present astonishing similarities in their leaderships styles. It is important to outline such feature of the nations’ political life because, being both “leader-politics” countries, the style of their leaders influences greatly the shaping of the national political agenda and the strategies used by the states to pursue such agendas.

To sum up, one could say that all the facts taken into account here highlight the presence in both countries totalitarian democracy regime, centred on the figure of the all-powerful leader. None of the leaders actually ever rejected the principles of the pluralistic state. In the official national narrative, both of them could be overthrown by a democratic election. But why should this happen, when they embody the essence of their national identity. Just like Putin is THE Russian man, Erdogan image is moulded on THE Turkish one.


“In the official national narrative, both of them could be overthrown by a democratic election. But why should this happen, when they embody the essence of their national identity. Just like Putin is THE Russian man, Erdogan image is moulded on THE Turkish one.”

Perhaps if each were more secure with such an assertion, the press in each state would be free (it’s an easy look-up as to how they are not) and their political rivals less often inhibited, jailed, muzzled, or murdered.

The truth is each may be wrong about himself (there’s also an interesting psychology at play in their “malignant narcissism” and respective kleptocracies), and that’s why open and vibrant national conversations supported by “fair and free elections” matter in democracies — and not at all in dictatorships.


Additional Reference

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/russia

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/turkey

https://rsf.org/en/ranking

https://rsf.org/en/russia

https://rsf.org/en/turkey

–33–

Also in Media – “Russia-Iran-Turkey Alliance Could Change Energy Dynamics For Good” | OilPrice.com

23 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, International Development, Politics, Russia, Turkey

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

21st Century Neo-Feudalism, energy policy, Europe, international relations, Russia, Russo-Turkish, Turkey

Turkey’s resentment towards the European Union is nothing new. Erdogan has been vocal about his negative reactions to some requirements in Turkey’s EU accession process. He is also in a position to pull the strings on much of Europe’s migrant policy, and is making good use of this position. What Turkey’s President has made even better use of is the anti-Western rhetoric and the visions of a “great-again” Turkey. The former has been instrumental in diverting public attention away from a lawsuit in Italy against his son for money laundering.

Apparently, the Greater Turkey vision cannot be realized with the EU constantly demanding things from Ankara that Ankara does not want to do, such as synchronizing its anti-terrorism policies with the EU, for example. It can, however, be realized if Turkey gets on the anti-West bandwagon driven by Russia and Iran, both survivors from Western sanctions, and both having their own regional ambitions.

Source: Russia-Iran-Turkey Alliance Could Change Energy Dynamics For Good | OilPrice.com – 8/22/2016

Notes on Erdogan’s Emerging Regime

11 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Turkey

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

21st Century Neo-Feudalism, autocracy, Erdogan, Turkey

“This makes us sad. What more do Americans need? Their strategic ally is facing a coup and it takes them 45 days before sending anyone over? This is shocking.”

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/698387/Barack-Obama-world-President-Turkey-Erdogan-back-off-military-coup-US-accusations – 8/10/2016.

Former Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor Recep Tayyip Erdogan has entered prison to serve his four-month prison sentence. A convoy of 2,000 vehicles accompanied Erdogan to the prison HAKAN ASLANELI Istanbul – Turkish Daily News Istanbul’s former Islamist Mayor Recep Tayyip Erdogan has gone to prison to serve a conviction for “inciting hatred based on religious differences” in a speech he made in Siirt nearly a year and a half ago.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/erdogan-goes-to-prison.aspx?pageID=438&n=erdogan-goes-to-prison-1999-03-27 – 3/27/1999.

The now famous declaration from the 1997 speech delivered in Siirt:

Our minarets are our bayonets
Our domes are our helmets
Our mosques are our barracks

We will put a final end to ethnic segregation.  No one can ever intimidate us.

If the skies and the ground were to open against us
If floods and volcanoes were to burst
We will not turn from our mission.

My reference is Islam.

If I am not able to speak of this
What is the use of living?

(BackChannels has interpreted “, Cap” as a line break from the 1999 Hurriyet Daily News report).


As may be typical of the malignant, Erdogan, in his latest statement (at the top of this page), takes the spotlight to chide the United States for not shoring up his rapidly developing Islamist dictatorship.

States of affairs may be complicated, what with the “Kurdish Question” — Syria’s Kurds have been the best “boots on the ground” fighters against ISIS, but Erdogan has preferred to see and bomb them as Turkish rebels — numerous corruption scandals, from a massive AKP imbroglio that broke in 2013 to smuggling oil from ISIS, a claim generated by Moscow that may or may not be true — but not to worry: Assad, who incubated ISIS, has also received oil from his baby (the links section of this piece has a New Yorker piece on the matter as well), and Erdogan’s early patterns, with the persecution of journalists, for example, and latest actions in political repression, but viewed through the filter of political psychology, all becomes simple: Erdogan has transformed his NATO member state into a nascent Sunni dictatorship in business with like-minded personalities.

Different Talks – Same Walk

“He came into office with a promise of democracy and Turkey has historically been a country in which deep Islamic faith has lived side-by-side with modernity and an increasing openness, and that’s the legacy he should pursue,” Obama said. He warned Erdogan against the “repression of information and shutting down democratic debate.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-04-01/crackdowns-by-turkey-s-erdogan-are-troubling-obama-says – 4/1/2016.

Obama made the above observation a little more than five months ago.

Published last month in Politico:

“We basically have turned a blind eye to Erdogan’s drive towards an authoritarian, one-man system of rule in Turkey,” said Eric Edelman, a U.S. ambassador to Ankara from 2003 to 2005 and a deputy secretary of defense under George W. Bush. “The president has acknowledged it, but we haven’t really done much about it, if anything.”

That needs to change, Edelman said. “If there’s anything we’ve learned from the last six years in that part of the world, it’s that one-man rule isn’t very stable.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/obama-turkey-225659 – 7/16/2016.

Published in Medium this month, and the writer Blaise Misztal the director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Program.

Erdoğan wasted little time arresting those suspected of plotting against him. His purge, however, goes beyond the requirements of justice, removing thousands of military personnel not directly involved in the coup. Such “coup-proofing,” designed to instill fear and dissuade future putsches, is common in authoritarian states.

Misztal, Blaise.  “Erdoğan’s Purge in Turkey Leaves U.S. With Tough Choice.”  Medium, August 1, 2016.

While Bloomberg crows, “NATO Says Turkey is ‘Valued Ally’ After Erdogan Visit to Russia” (August 10, 2016), the interest in preventing the rise of “nationalist militarism” would seem now compromised by Turkey’s reversion toward authoritarian rule, the ousting of suspect top military leaders, and the greater allocation of authority to administrative officials and police in matters of state security.

Fast Links

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-13746679 – “Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Turkey’s Ruthless president.”  – 7/21/2016 – Article summarizes Erdogan’s rise to power and covers the signs and signals of his dictatorship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recep_Tayyip_Erdo%C4%9Fan

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/trouble-turkey-erdogan-isis-and-kurds – Fall 2015

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33690060 “Turkey v Syria’s Kurds v Islamic State – 2/19/2016.

http://observer.com/2016/02/deal-with-the-devil-turkey-props-up-isis-by-buying-its-stolen-oil/ – 2/4/2016.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/10/isis-is-the-con-ed-of-syria.html – 12/10/2015.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/opinion/free-speech-isnt-the-onlycasualty-of-erdogans-repression.html – 4/13/2016 – on repression of the Kurds.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/07/turkeys-failed-coup-hands-erdo-pretext-further-repression – 7/16/2016.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkey-coup-attempt-news-latest-number-of-people-detained-26000-gulen-hizmet-erdogan-crackdown-a7180256.html – 8/9/2016.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3715856/Erdogan-cancels-50-000-passports-latest-post-coup-crackdown-Turkey-tells-Western-leaders-criticise-Mind-business.html – 7/30/2016.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-isis-oil-trade-from-the-ground-up – 12/4/2015.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-andreasen-nuclear-weapons-turkey-20160811-snap-story.html – “Let’s get our nuclear weapons out of Turkey – 8/11/2016.”

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/02/turkey-security-package-threatens-security.html – 2/20/2015 – articles covers Turkey’s “Internal Security Package”, a raft of laws designed to circumvent due process by allocating greaterauthority to state administrators and police and minimizing judicial review.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-idUSKCN0ZX07S – “Erdogan announces army overhaul in latest post-coup shakeup” – 7/23/2016.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/turkeys-president-reforms-military-after-failed-coup/2016/07/31/766e3f26-56fe-11e6-8b48-0cb344221131_story.html

–33–

Also in Media: Erdogan’s Countercoup

21 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Religion, Turkey

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

coup, democracy, Erdogan, fascism, Turkey

Estimated number of “coup plotters” killed: 24.

Civil service firings and suspensions: 50,000.

Detained: 9,000

In BackChannels’ opinion, the coup — the real one — has been successful.

At the end of an interview (published July 15) with Slate contributor Isaac Chotiner, Jenny White, a professor at Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies, notes, “In previous coups the army took over because they thought institutions were not working properly or being populated with Islamists. But the institutions were still there. This time, the institutions themselves have been destroyed.”

Here follow a passel of factual and more recent reporting on the countercoup as President Erdogan consolidates his Putinesque domination (“different talks — same walk”) of Turkish politics.

BBC.  “Turkey coup attempt: Crackdown toll passes 50,000.”  July 20, 2016:

Before the vote, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that once emergency measures are invoked, the country would suspend its participation in the European Convention of Human Rights. He said the move was justified under a convention article allowing for such a suspension in times of emergency.

CBS/AP.  “More arrests as Turkish leader tightens the noose.”  July 21, 2016:

The detentions reported by Anadolu news agency come hours after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency that is expected to expand the crackdown.

Already, nearly 10,000 people have been arrested while hundreds of schools have been closed. And nearly 60,000 civil service employees have been dismissed from their posts since the failed coup Friday.

Newton, Jennifer.  “Now Turkey suspects 15,000 TEACHERS over ties to Fethullah Gulen as Erdogan demands US hand the cleric over.”  Daily Mail, July 19, 2016.

Pamuk, Humeyra, and Ece Toksabay.  “Turkey says no return to past repression despite state of emergency.”  Reuters, July 21, 2016: “Governments can impose curfews and declare certain public and private areas off limits, and it can ban or restrict meetings, gatherings and rallies.”  Add to the elimination of freedom of assembly the possibility of warrantless searches and extralegal — or capriciously approved — murder, torture, and press censorship.

RFE/RL.  “More Arrests In Turkey As State Of Emergency Takes Effect.”  July 21, 2016:

Nearly one-third of Turkey’s roughly 360 serving generals have been detained. The Defense Ministry is investigating all military judges and prosecutors and has suspended 262 of them, broadcaster NTV reported, while 900 police officers in Ankara were also suspended on July 20.

Turkey’s education system has been hit particularly hard during the ongoing crackdown. The Education Ministry on July 20 added more than 6,500 new names to the list of 15,200 school employees suspended, state media reported.

Sarlyuce, Isll, Angela Dewan.  “Turkey coup: What does the state of emergency mean for democracy?”  CNN, July 21, 2016.

Withnall, Adam.  “Turkey suspends European Convention on Human Rights in wake of coup.”  Independent, July 21, 2016.

Earlier, from the coup period

Chotiner, Isaac.  “How Turkey Came to This:  The attempted military coup isn’t the country’s first.  but this time is different.”  Slate, July 15, 2016:

They think of it as recalibrating democracy, but they can’t get rid of pandering to religion because people are conservative. And Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) managed to pull that off to such an extent that they now have half the population, in part because that part of the population has been constantly pushed back and disrespected.

Koplow, Michael J.  “The Coup Attempt Will Leave Him Stronger.”  Foreign Affairs, July 18, 2016:

The 1997 “postmodern” coup that deposed Erdogan’s political mentor, Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, and led to Erdogan’s subsequent imprisonment and suspension from politics for religious incitement only reinforced the notion among non-elite Turks that the old secular establishment, of which the army was the cornerstone, would never fully cede power.

It was only when Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) co-founder Abdullah Gül won their 2007 stare-down with the military over Gül’s candidacy for president (which the army opposed because Gül’s wife wore a headscarf), that Erdogan seemed to gain the upper hand and be in position to alter the balance of power with the army for good.

Pipes, Daniel.  “Why I Rooted for the Turkish Coup Attempt”.  Middle East Forum, July 18, 2016.

Before the “Coup”

The Economist.  “Erdogan and his generals: The once all-powerful Turkish armed forces are cowed, if not quite impotent.” February 2, 2013.

After the Coup — Rapidly Shared Links

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36868230 – Turkey coup attempt: Detentions ‘tip of the iceberg’ – 7/22/2016

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/07/turkey-crackdown-by-the-numbers-statistics-on-brutal-backlash-after-failed-coup/ – 7/26/2016

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-idUSKCN1061DK – 7/26/2016:

The religious affairs directorate removed another 620 staff including preachers and instructors in the Koran on Tuesday, bringing to more than 1,100 the number of people it has purged since the July 15 coup attempt.

http://www.voanews.com/content/gulen-accuses-edrogan-of-slow-motion-coup-in-turkey/3435542.html – 7/26/2016:

“My philosophy, inclusive and pluralist Islam dedicated to serve to human beings from every faith is antithetical to armed rebellion,” wrote the 75-year-old cleric, a former Erdogan ally who has been living in self-imposed exile in the eastern U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999.

http://www.npr.org/2016/07/27/487577923/despite-turkeys-crackdown-some-critics-are-still-speaking-out – 7/27/2017:

Earlier this year some 2,000 academics signed a petition calling for an end to the conflict with Kurdish militants in Turkey’s southeast. Dozens of signatories were sacked and many were investigated for spreading what the government called terrorist propaganda.

Odman says in a militarized society, no one is safe from eruptions of violence.

http://www.voanews.com/content/turkey-issues-arrest-warrants-for-dozens-more-journalists/3436603.html – 7/27/2016

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-journalists-idUSKCN1070NO – 7/28/2016 – “Turkey dismisses military, shuts media outlets as crackdown deepens.”

Turkey on Wednesday deepened a crackdown on suspected followers of a U.S.-based cleric it blames for a failed coup, dismissing nearly 1,700 military personnel and shutting 131 media outlets, moves that may spark more concern among its Western allies.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37003819 – “Turkey coup attempt: Istanbul rally against plot” – 8/7/2016.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37009931 – “Turkey’s Erdogan unnerves West with Putin visit.” – 8/9/2016.

-33-

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Hillel the Elder

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Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

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Heinrich Heine
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Simon Wiesenthal
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One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

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