H/t Dry Bones
H/t Dry Bones
No, the Islamic State Will Not Be Defeated — and if It Is, We Still Lose, Breitbart, Ben Shapiro, November 24, 2015
Barack Obama has now created an unwinnable war.
While all of the 2016 candidates declare their strategies for victory against ISIS, President Obama’s leading from behind has now entered the Middle East and the West into a free-for-all that cannot end any way but poorly.
The best way to understand the situation in Syria is to look at the situation and motivation of the various players. All of them have varying agendas; all of them have different preferred outcomes. Few of them are on anything approaching the same page. And Barack Obama’s failure of leadership means that there is no global power around which to center.
ISIS. ISIS has gained tremendous strength since Barack Obama’s entry to power and pullout from Iraq. They currently control northern Syria, bordering Turkey, as well as large portions of northern Iraq. Their goal: to consolidate their territorial stranglehold, and to demonstrate to their followers that they, and not other competing terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, represent the new Islamic wave. They have little interest in toppling Syrian dictator Bashar Assad for the moment. They do serve as a regional counterweight to the increasingly powerful Iranians – increasingly powerful because of President Obama’s big nuclear deal, as well as his complete abdication of responsibility in Iraq.
Iran. Iran wants to maximize its regional power. The rise of ISIS has allowed it to masquerade as a benevolent force in Iraq and Syria, even as it supports Assad’s now-routine use of chemical weapons against his adversaries, including the remnants of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Iran has already expanded its horizons beyond Iraq and Syria and Lebanon; now it wants to make moves into heretofore non-friendly regions like Afghanistan. Their goal in Syria: keep Bashar Assad in power. Their goal in Iraq: pushing ISIS out of any resource-rich territories, but not finishing ISIS off, because that would then get rid of the global villain against which they fight.
Assad. The growth of ISIS has allowed Assad to play the wronged victim. While the FSA could provide a possible replacement for him, ISIS can’t credibly do so on the international stage. Assad knows that, and thus has little interest in completely ousting them. His main interest is in continuing to devastate the remaining FSA while pretending to fight ISIS.
Egypt/Saudi Arabia/Jordan. As you can see, ISIS, Iran, and Assad all have one shared interest: the continued existence of ISIS. The same is not true with regard to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, all of whom fear the rise of radical Sunni terrorist groups in their home countries. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place, however, because openly destroying ISIS on behalf of Alaouite Assad, they embolden the Shia, their enemies. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan would all join an anti-ISIS coalition in the same way they did against Saddam Hussein in 1991, but just like Hussein in 1991, they won’t do it if there are no Sunni alternatives available. Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan are the top three sources of foreign fighters for ISIS.
Turkey. The Turks have several goals: to stop the Syrian exodus across their borders, to prevent the rise of the Iranians, and to stop the rise of the Kurds. None of these goals involves the destruction of ISIS. Turkey is Sunni; so is ISIS. ISIS provides a regional counterweight against Iran, so long as it remains viable. It also keeps the Kurds occupied in northern Iraq, preventing any threat of Kurdish consolidation across the Iraq-Turkey border. They will accept Syrian refugees so long as those other two goals remain primary – and they’ll certainly do it if they can ship a hefty portion of those refugees into Europe and off their hands.
Russia. Russia wants to consolidate its power in the Middle East. It has done so by wooing all the players to fight against one another. Russia’s involvement in the Middle East now looks a good deal like American involvement circa the Iran-Iraq War: they’re playing both sides. Russia is building nuclear reactors in Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Iran. They’re Bashar Assad’s air force against both the FSA and ISIS. Russia’s Vladimir Putin doesn’t have a problem with destroying ISIS so long as doing so achieves his other goal: putting everyone else in his debt. He has a secondary goal he thought he could chiefly pursue in Eastern Europe, and attempted with Ukraine: he wants to split apart the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which he rightly sees as a counterbalance to check Russian aggression. Thanks to today’s Turkish attack on a Russian plane, and thanks to the West’s hands-off policy with regard to the conflict, Putin could theoretically use his war against ISIS as cover to bombard Turkish military targets, daring the West to get involved against him. Were he to do so, he’d set the precedent that NATO is no longer functional. Two birds, one war.
Israel. Israel’s position is the same it has always been: Israel is surrounded by radical Islamic enemies on every side. Whether Iranian-backed Hezbollah or Sunni Hamas and ISIS, Israel is the focus of hate for all of these groups. Ironically, the rise of Iran has unified Israel with its neighbors in Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. All three of those countries, however, can’t stand firmly against ISIS.
All of which means that the only country capable of filling the vacuum would be the United States. Just as in 1991, a major Sunni power is on the move against American interests – but unlike in 1991, no viable option existed for leaving the current regime in power. And the US’ insistence upon the help of ground allies is far too vague. Who should those allies be, occupying ISIS-free ISISland?
The Kurds have no interest in a Syrian incursion. Turkish troops movements into ISIS-land will prompt Iranian intervention. Iranian intervention into ISIS-land would prompt higher levels of support for Sunni resistance. ISIS-land without ISIS is like Iraq without Saddam Hussein: in the absence of solidifying force, chaos breaks out. From that chaos, the most organized force takes power. Russia hopes that should it destroy ISIS, Assad will simply retain power; that may be the simplest solution, although it certainly will not end the war within the country. There are no good answers.
Barack Obama’s dithering for years led to this. Had he lent his support in any strong way to one side, a solution might be possible. Now, it’s not.
A handy guide for progressives trying to choose between Russia and Turkey, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, November 24, 2015
Hello progressives,
This morning you’re probably wondering why there’s something about Turkey shooting down a Russian plane in the news. Why is this story taking up valuable space in your news feed and taking away time from reading about how stupid Donald Trump and Ben Carson are, or how yoga is cultural genocide or how oppressed Yale students are? And didn’t Obama already fix the Syrian Civil War with a hashtag?
You’re probably worrying over which side is the progressive one in the Turkey-Russia spat. So I’ve written this helpful guide just for you.
1. Progressive rating
Russia – Ex-Communist dictatorship run by KGB operatives like Putin and has jails full of political prisoners.
Turkey – Islamist dictatorship run by “moderate” Islamists like Erdogan with jails full of political prisoners.
So both Russia and Turkey are both pretty progressive. But since Islam is now officially at the top of the victim list, Turkey is more progressive.
2. Gay rights
Putin – Anti-Gay
Erdogan – “Their biggest ally is Doğan Media. The Armenian lobby, homosexuals” – Anti-Gay and Anti-Armenian
Split decision?
3. Socialist
Erdogan – “Let’s earn a little less than you currently do. Share your wealth with the low-income group.”
Putin – “Income inequality is unacceptable, outrageous.”
Can’t we get Bernie Sanders to replace them both?
4. Abortion
Erdogan – Abortion is murder and a plot against Turkey
Putin – Abortion is murder and a plot against Russia
5. Islam
Putin – “Some scholars of (Eastern) Christianity say it is much closer to Islam”
Erdogan – “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers”
6. Racism
Erdogan – “Kilicdaroglu is striving every bit he can to raise himself from the level of a black person to the level of a white man.”
Putin – “What?”
7. The Kardashians
Putin – In favor
Erdogan – “In my country there are 170,000 Armenians. Seventy thousand of them are citizens. We tolerate 100,000 more. So, what am I going to do tomorrow? If necessary I will tell the 100,000: OK, time to go back to your country.”
There you have it. Now you can decide which side to cheer for and which side to hate based on all the compelling issues that progressives care about.
8 ISIS terrorists arrested plotting to pose as refugees, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, November 18, 2015
(Please see also, Obama in Manilla: Republicans Are Afraid of Widows and Three Year-Old Children. — DM)
Nothing to worry about. If you’re at all concerned about terrorists posing as refugees, you’re probably some sort of orphan-hating Islamophobe.
Either that or the director of the FBI. Or the Director of National Intelligence.
But Obama knows that only bigots worry about terrorists posing as refugees. So it’s unfortunate that the Islamophobic Muslim government of Turkey just arrested 8 ISIS members who were plotting to pose as refugees to penetrate Europe.
Turkish police have detained eight suspected members of ISIS who were planning to sneak into Europe posing as refugees, state media said today.
Counter-terror police detained the suspects in Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport after they flew in from the Moroccan city of Casablanca on Tuesday, the official Anatolia news agency reported.
The police found a hand-written note on one of the suspects detailing a migration route from Istanbul to Germany via Greece, Serbia and Hungary, including smuggler boats across the Mediterranean Sea, as well as several train and bus journeys.
It comes just a day after it was revealed eight migrants have reached the EU using passports identical to the fake one found on one of the Paris suicide bombers.
We were told over and over again by the refugeecrats that ISIS terrorists would never want to pose as refugees because it’s just too slow and there are so many security checks. Apparently ISIS isn’t aware that it isn’t supposed to infiltrate countries as refugees.
Let’s swiftly ignore this news and take in huge numbers of Syrian migrants the way that Obama and Hillary want us to while completely ignoring the terror risks until an actual attack happens.
Hollande, Obama lack the troops and will for total war on ISIS. Mid East rulers are even more reluctant, DEBKAfile, November 16, 2015
French anti-terror police
When French President Francois Hollande declared war on ISIS and called the attack in Paris an “act of war,” he gave the terrorist organization’s leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi an unexpected boost. He upgraded the Muslim caliphate to a fully-fledged state against which France is now at war. US President Barack Obama was more cautious, declaring at the G-20 summit in Antalya that his country and France would fight together against terror, without specifying how.
Obama has problems of his own. The attempt to portray the Kurdish conquest of the city of Sinjar in northern Iraq as an important achievement in the war against ISIS dissipated quickly after Peshmerga troops were shown on TV moving into a city that was empty and lying in ruins, after it was abandoned by Islamic State forces. There was no battle there either.
Also, the US and Kurdish claims that they had severed the main road link between the ISIS capitals in Iraq and Syria, Mosul and Raqqa, proved hollow as ISIS had stopped using that route months ago after it became vulnerable to American air strikes.
If that wasn’t enough, Obama ran into an obstacle in Antalya.
The summit’s host, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who is consumed by an overriding aversion to an independent Kurdish state rising on his country’s border, demanded a declaration that all Kurdish forces, including the Peshmerga, the PKK and the YPG, on which the US depends heavily for fighting the war against ISIS, be classified as terrorists and targeted by the West just like ISIS.
Therefore, before broaching any decisions about intensifying the war on the Islamist terrorists, Western and Muslim countries were already at odds on targets.
It therefore makes no sense for President Hollande to try and invoke Article 5 of the NATO charter under which an act of war against one member of the alliance is tantamount to a war on all. Furthermore, making this a NATO operation would rule out a priori any collaboration with Russia in the campaign against ISIS, despite their common objective. Vladimir Putin was already vexed over the feeble Western response to the bombing of a Russian airliner killing 224 people, compared to the global outcry over the Paris outrage.
In their responses and commentaries on what to do after the Paris assault, Western politicians and security experts seemed to agree that putting their own boots on the ground for finally getting to grips with ISIS was not on the cards – there would just be “more of the same,’ as one American security expert put it.
Others advised assigning the ground battle to the Egyptian, Jordanian, Kurdish, Iraqi, Saudi and other Gulf Arab states.
Who were they kidding? None of those Arab governments or armies is capable or willing to declare full-scale war on the Islamic State. The Kurds alone have stepped into the breach and are confronting the Islamists face to face, but they have sought in vain for the weapons they need, which the US refuses to supply.
Egypt, for instance, even after an ISIS network was able to breach its security system in Sharm El-Sheikh to plant a bomb on the Russian airliner on Oct. 31, has held back from a major military assault on the strongholds of the Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, otherwise known as ISIS-Sinai. Egypt’s President Fattah Al-Sisi has not uttered a word on the Islamist threat since then.
French security and intelligence services demonstrated that they were unprepared for war on ISIS, and are pretty much in the same boat as other Western powers.
Since the outrage in Paris, French and Belgian security forces have conducted raid after raid to pick up Islamists, claiming to be rounding up the masterminds and confederates of the nine bombers and shooters who attacked Paris and murdered 132 people In fact, they are acting more to calm a jittery public than in the expectation of achieving meaningful results in the war on terror. Till now, neither France nor any Western government knows exactly how many people were involved in the attack on Paris, or the numbers and locations of the Islamic Caliphate’s worldwide terror networks.
Turkey’s Stockholm Syndrome, The Gatestone Institute, Burak Bekdil, November 8, 2015
(Please see also, Obama’s favorite Muslim dictatorships. — DM)
Once again, after a brief pause, political Islam has won in Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), earned nearly one out of every two votes in the renewed parliamentary elections on November 1. The AKP won more than 4.8 million new votes since the June 7 elections, in which it had lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since it came to power in 2002. The November 1 election gave the AKP a mandate to rule until 2019; by then Turkey’s Islamists will have been in power uninterruptedly for 17 years. There are happy smiles on the faces of half the Turks.
The AKP’s unexpected landslide victory can be explained in numbers. The party won by 9 percentage points more on Nov. 1 than on June 7, just five months before. How did this happen?
All of this makes exactly 9 percentage points: the difference between what the Islamists got in June and November. That is worrying for everyone in the civilized (and shrinking) parts of Turkey — and the world. AKP fans celebrated their victory on November 1 with chants of “Allahu Akbar” [“Allah is the greatest”], an Islamist slogan, indicating that for them the political race in Turkey is in fact a “religious war.” The only non-Turkish flags at the celebrations were the Palestinian and Ottoman. It is worrying that the party that won half of the national vote celebrates with religious slogans and Palestinian and Ottoman flags.
True, even if there is not yet credible evidence of vote-rigging, the election campaign was totally unfair to the opposition. Erdogan and the AKP massively used a powerful pro-government media machine, including the state broadcaster and a semi-official news agency.
“While Turkish citizens could choose between genuine and strong political alternatives in this highly polarized election, the rapidly diminishing choice of media outlets and restrictions on freedom of expression in general impacted the process and remain serious concerns,” said Ignacio Sanchez Amor, the special coordinator and leader of the short-term observer mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
The head of the delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Andreas Gross, said: “Unfortunately, the campaign for these elections was characterized by unfairness and, to a serious degree, fear.”
In fact, one could easily understand how democratic and fair the Turkish election campaign was from the words of Khaled Mashaal, head of Hamas’s political bureau. He called both Erdogan and his prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, to convey the Palestinian group’s congratulations on Turkey’s “democratic electoral environment.”
Turkish President (then Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, meeting with Hamas leaders Khaled Mashaal (center) and Ismail Haniyeh on June 18, 2013, in Ankara, Turkey. Mashaal, last week called Erdogan to convey Hamas’s congratulations on Turkey’s “democratic electoral environment.” (Image source: Turkey Prime Minister’s Press Office)
In a way, this is Turkey’s Stockholm Syndrome. A recent study found that only a quarter of Turks were NOT afraid of President Erdogan. As many as 68.5% said they were afraid of the president. It is interesting to note that according to the findings of this research, even some of his own supporters are afraid of him: If Erdogan’s supporters make up 50% of Turkey and those who say they are afraid of him stand at 68.5%, this means a good 18.5% of his own supporters are also afraid of him.
The Turkish “Sultan wannabe” runs an empire of fear. The November 1 vote will only help make him even more despotic.
Obama’s favorite Muslim dictatorships, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, November 5, 2015
(Please see also, US senior commander says US will not provide arms ‘as of now’ to YPG units. And why isn’t Iran on the list? — DM)
Obama’s favorite Muslim dictatorships are the opposite of everything that America stands for. They are places where human rights are a myth and terrorism a virtue. They are everything that we should reject. But instead their tyrants and terrorists are the good friends of their man in the White House.
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Michelle Obama is heading to Qatar, a state sponsor of just about every Islamic terrorist group you can name, on a mission of “gender parity” accompanied by late night comedian Conan O’Brien.
That makes sense since the idea of equal rights for women in Qatar is a joke.
Qatar charges rape victims with adultery, has no law against domestic violence and women need permission from their male guardian to get an education, a driver’s license, a job or to leave the country.
Women aren’t equal in Qatar. They’re property.
But Qatar is one of Obama’s favorite Muslim dictatorships. Secretary of State John Kerry recently launched an economic dialogue with Qatar. Qatar got a free pass to smuggle weapons past the NATO blockade of Libya even though the administration knew the weapons were going to terrorists.
While Qatar was buying weapons from Sudan, a country whose leader is wanted for crimes against humanity, to pass along to Islamic terrorists in Syria, the State Department was clearing Qatar to buy American weapons. Qatar was, of course, a Clinton Foundation donor.
The Reagan administration had cracked down on Qatar for illegally getting its hands on Stinger missiles. The first Bush administration had forced Qatar to destroy them. But these days we are the arms dealer for a nasty tyranny that has ties to terrorists. Or as the State Department report politely stated, “U.S officials are aware of the presence of Hamas leaders, Taliban members, and designated Al Qaeda and Islamic State financiers in Qatar.” These nice folks share a country with U.S. Central Command.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda bigwig who planned 9/11, was tipped off by a member of the Qatari royal family and the former Minister of the Interior which allowed him to escape.
That made it the perfect place to host the “moderate” Taliban for negotiations that went nowhere. It was also where Obama sent the 5 Taliban commanders after their release.
When meeting with the Emir, Obama claimed that “Qatar is a strong partner in our coalition to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL.” But Qatar has allegedly funded and armed ISIS and other Al Qaeda groups. Islamic State financiers and supporters comfortably move around Qatar flying their ISIS freak flag.
Vice President Biden and Germany’s Development Aid Minister Gerd Mueller were forced to apologize for accusing Qatar of financing terrorists because some truths about our “ally” simply could not be spoken. Meanwhile an Egyptian intelligence document reportedly claimed that Qatar had provided anti-aircraft missiles to ISIS.
But Qatar is only Obama’s second favorite Muslim dictatorship and state sponsor of terror. Topping the list is Turkey, which just underwent another ugly Islamist election defined by accusations of fraud.
Obama had spoken of building a “model partnership” with Turkey between “a predominantly Christian nation and a predominantly Muslim nation”. The United States, Obama said, is not “a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation”. He suggested that “modern Turkey was founded with a similar set of principles.” But the Turkish Republic has long since been ground under the wheels of Erdogan’s Islamist Turkey whose model is the Ottoman Empire and whose ruler lives in a billion dollar palace.
A little insight into Erdogan’s view of Islam can be gained from the fact that Turkey’s tyrant was once sent to prison for reciting an Islamic poem with the infamous lines, “The mosques are our barracks, the minarets our bayonets, the domes our helmets and the believers our soldiers.” It’s not surprising that Erdogan’s Turkey supports most of the same Islamic terrorist groups as Qatar including Hamas.
While Turkey still has elections, it is increasingly an Islamist one-party state where the political opposition, journalists, prosecutors and even police can be locked up by the forces of the regime.
And much of that controversy stems from a criminal investigation into arms smuggling to terrorists.
Having helped create the mess in Syria, Turkey has become a waypoint for Syrian Muslims invading Europe. Once shunned by Germany, whose Turkish Muslim settlers are his strongest base of support, the refugee crisis sent Merkel and the Europeans with hat in hand to beg Erdogan to stop the invasion.
But Obama has always been Erdogan’s faithful friend. When the Islamist wanted to build mosques in this part of the world, Communist Cuba turned him down, but he got his $100 million mega mosque in Maryland. Millions calls Erdogan another Hitler, but Obama calls him “my friend.”
Another friend of Obama is the Sultan of Brunei. Obama called the Sultan, “My good friend” and rolled out a $6 billion green energy financing scheme for Brunei and Indonesia; two Muslim countries that violate human rights like it’s a spectator sport.
While Obama was palling around with the Sultan of Brunei, his “good friend” was bringing back Sharia law complete with stoning gays. The Sultan also banned Christmas and the Chinese New Year while urging “all races” to unite under Islamic law.
African Christian countries that outlawed homosexuality had faced pressure and criticism from the White House, but Obama had no lectures on human rights to offer his good Islamist friend.
Neither did Hillary Clinton whose Clinton Foundation had received millions of dollars from the regime.
But the most explosive allegations about Brunei, like those about Qatar and Turkey, involve Al Qaeda. In one of the more controversial uses of the “super-injunction” in UK law, the ex-wife of the Sultan had filed a gag order against a British businessman involving allegations that the Sultan of Brunei had met with a senior member of Al Qaeda, funded the terror group and even that “the claimant knew or suspected from conversations with her ex–husband that there would be major terrorist attacks on the UK (7/7) and Israel.” There is of course no way to verify the truth of these allegations. But the Islamization of Brunei parallels the goals of groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS.
Obama has many “good friends” among the tyrants and terrorists of the Muslim world. But one of them is both a tyrant and a terrorist whose illegal regime is heavily subsidized by American taxpayers.
Muslim terrorists in Israel stabbed an 80-year-old woman and a 71-year-old man just this week. They did it because the PLO’s media operation, under President Abbas, told them it was their way to paradise.
Or as Abbas, the dictator whom Obama described as “someone who has consistently renounced violence”, said, “We bless every drop of blood, that has been spilled for Jerusalem…blood spilled for Allah…Every Martyr will reach Paradise.”
The blood includes the blood of elderly women and children, and the blood of families murdered together. Every murder is funded by US foreign aid because every terrorist knows that he can count on a lifetime salary from the PLO. The PLO paid out $144 million to terrorists last year alone.
Some terrorists have even confessed that they tried to kill Israelis to be able to pay off their debts.
Hillary Clinton and the State Department were sued by terror victims for funding terrorism in Israel. But nothing has changed. And when American terror victims won a lawsuit against the PLO in America, Obama’s people stepped in to protect the interests of the PLO against its victims.
The PLO is funded by hundreds of millions in American foreign aid. Over the years, $4.5 billion was spent on promoting “Palestinian democracy”. There is now less democracy than ever because Obama’s PLO pal doesn’t bother with elections. He just takes the money and runs a totalitarian terror state.
Obama’s favorite Muslim dictatorships are the opposite of everything that America stands for. They are places where human rights are a myth and terrorism a virtue. They are everything that we should reject. But instead their tyrants and terrorists are the good friends of their man in the White House.
US senior commander says US will not provide arms ‘as of now’ to YPG units, Hurrinet Daily News, November 5, 2015
(Certainly not! The Kurds are the best, if not the only, local forces serious about fighting the Islamic State, et al. Besides, our delightful democratic ally, Turkey — a bastion of human rights and freedom — doesn’t want us to. — DM)
AFP photo
“Obviously the Turks have concerns. You know, they’re our partners and allies. We’re going to address those concerns. We’re going to work with them to achieve our common goal, which is to defeat ISIL,” Warren said.
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A senior U.S. commander based in Baghdad, Iraq, for the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) said his country, as of now, was not providing arms to the People’s Protection Units (YPG).
“As of now, we are not providing weapons or ammunition to the YPG. The weapons that we’ve provided thus far, with the ammunition that we’ve provided in our one airdrop executed, was for the Syrian-Arab coalition,” Colonel Steve Warren, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition against ISIL, told reporters via teleconference from Baghdad.
“As of now, future resupplies will also go to Arab-vetted Syrian opposition members,” he added, after a reporter said a senior defense official had recently said the YPG would not be getting any ammunition or weapons. “So, you know, as of now, that’s where our policy stands.”
Turkey regards Syrian Kurdish YPG units in the same category as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with which the state has been in an armed fight for over 30 years, with a death toll of over 40,000 from both the camps. The state had launched a peace process to solve the Kurdish problem in the country in the early 2010s, which was later halted by the state during the run to Turkey’s general elections on June 7.
Responding a question on whether or not the U.S. would talk to Turkey about the issue, Warren said they were in “very close contact” with Turkey.
“Obviously the Turks have concerns. You know, they’re our partners and allies. We’re going to address those concerns. We’re going to work with them to achieve our common goal, which is to defeat ISIL,” Warren said.
Kurds Ask for Peace, Turkey Attacks, Gatestone Institute, Uzay Bulut, October 18, 2015
On October 10, the Kurds in Turkey were exposed to yet another massacre – this time a double suicide bombing in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, in the center of town.
This time, two explosions ripped through a peaceful crowd that had gathered outside the entrance to Ankara’s central railway station to proclaim an end to violence in a “Labor, Peace and Democracy” rally.
Together with the Kurds were officials from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP); supporters of left-wing parties, and members of trade unions in Turkey — all calling for peace and democracy.[1]
At least 105 people were killed, according to the Turkish Medical Association, and more than 400 injured.[2]
One victim, Meryem Bulut, was a 70-year-old member of the “Saturday Mothers” group, who have protested about their missing sons and daughters since the 1990s. Her grandchild died last year fighting against ISIS in the Yazidi town of Sinjar, Iraq.
Nine-year old Veysel Atilgan participated in the rally with his father, Ibrahim Atilgan; both were killed in the blasts.
The aftermath of the explosion was almost as horrific. The police delayed medical help, and instead attacked with tear gas and pepper spray the people that were helping the wounded, in an effort to disperse them. The government, after attacking even the wounded, unleashed the military and police apparatus against Kurds who came to mourn their dead.
Orhan Antepli, the legal secretary of the Bursa branch of the Trade Union of Public Employees in Health and Social Services (SES), witnessed the explosion. The police used tear gas against the wounded, he said, and did not allow ambulances to enter the area:
“On the road, for two kilometers, we did not see a single police officer. I was facing where the second explosion took place. After it, there were about 100 pieces of flesh of 1cm each on the coat of the person beside me.”
Antepli said that he ran to help the wounded, but the police did not allow ambulances to enter the area: “While I was treating a wounded man, the police started using tear gas. They blocked the road. Two or three gas bombs were thrown at the people.”
At least 105 people were killed and more than 400 wounded in the Oct. 10 Ankara suicide bombings. For a long time after the explosions, neither police nor ambulances came to the scene — victims were left to fend for themselves. When police arrived, they fired tear gas at the wounded and those helping them.
In the meantime, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, incredibly,
“An utterly successful operation against terror was carried out. Similarly, due to our vigorous efforts since 23 July, the most important cadres of ISIS have been arrested or their contacts have been broken. … But when you step out of routine, this has a limit in a democratic state of law. You cannot arrest someone without a reason. There is even a list of people who might engage in suicide bombing in Turkey. You follow them, but when you do something before they carry out that act, you are exposed to another protest.”
So, Turkey keeps a list of potential suicide bombers, while Davutoglu is saying with a straight face that the government — which has attacked and even arrested many journalists simply for doing their job, and even high-school students for tweets critical of the government — should not arrest a potential suicide bomber “without a reason.” The AKP is the last government that should be talking about a “democratic state of law.”
Just after the blasts, some Turkish authorities said that the Islamic State (ISIS) had caused them. Yet in response, Turkish jets did not bomb ISIS; they bombed the Kurdish PKK, who are fighting ISIS. After the government rejected a new ceasefire announced by the PKK on Saturday, the Turkish air force attacked.
The PKK had declared in a written statement that “they reached the decision to stop military action against Turkish state forces as long as there were no attacks.”
The Turkish government, however, seems determined to continue killing Kurds no matter what. “The PKK ceasefire means nothing for us,” one senior Turkish security official told Reuters. “The operations will continue without a break.”
While the Turkish army is bombing the PKK headquarters (again), the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has issued a gag order on the Ankara massacre investigation.
In addition, the state media watchdog, the Turkish Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK), imposed a ban on broadcasting images of the bombings. After the temporary ban, Twitter, Facebook, and several other social media sites were also inaccessible throughout Turkey. That is what a repressive state does to keep facts from coming out.
Later, when many people in Ankara, including Kurdish MPs and mayors, took to the streets to protest the massacre, police used water cannons and tear gas against them. Some protesters were wounded and taken to hospital; four were arrested.
Across Turkish Kurdistan, countless protesters were also exposed to police violence. The police in Diyarbakir used real bullets with the tear gas. An ambulance was reportedly prevented from entering the area where Ahmet Taruk, 63, was overcome by the tear gas; he lost his life on the way to the hospital. During a police crackdown in Izmir, 66 people were arrested.
Eventually, the Turkish media reported that both perpetrators of the Ankara suicide bombing attack had indeed been identified as members of ISIS. One of them, Omer Deniz Dundar, had gone to Syria in 2013 and came back to Turkey in 2014. Eight months later, he went back to Syria again. His father said in an interview that he had sought the help of the police many times to bring his son back home, but could do nothing.
The other suspect, Yunus Emre Alagoz, in his latest telephone conversation in May 2015, said, “This is the last time we are speaking.” The call was recorded by the police. They interrogated Alagoz as a “suspect” but then released him.
His brother, Yusuf Alagoz, said that Yunus Emre Alagoz had attended school in Afghanistan in 2009, followed by a religious education at a madrassah [Muslim theological school] in Iran.
Still another brother, Seyh Abdurrahman Alagoz, had carried out the deadly suicide bomb attack in Suruc on July 20, in which 33 people were killed.
But just imagine for a moment that it really was two terrorists who committed the massacre, without the knowledge of the Turkish government, and that the state institutions were completely innocent. Where, then, were the security forces to help people after the blast? Where were the medics to help with the wounded? Where were the ambulances? Where were the special forces and the police, so quick to shoot Kurds but not protect them?
The pro-government media in Turkey has been claiming that the PKK was the perpetrator and that the HDP party should be held responsible. They only criticize the public’s response to the attacks; never the attacks themselves.
In Turkey, at other gatherings, not even a mosquito can fly without the Turkish police interrupting it. Yet for this demonstration, there was no security; no medical personnel, no protection for the demonstrators. After the blasts, people were covering the dead with the banners they brought to the rally. People were trying to resuscitate the wounded and making splints for their broken bones by themselves.
Who knows how many people would have survived had it not been for the tear gas that prevented them from breathing? So severe were the wounds that people could not even leave the area; and police were firing tear gas.
After the massacre, Selahattin Demirtas, the co-chairman of the HDP party, said:
“They are trying to convey the message that ‘we can come and rip you to pieces in the middle of Ankara’. They are on the brink of saying ‘the HDP blew up its own rally.’ The prime minister spoke for half an hour; he spent 20 minutes insulting and threatening us. Did you hear him make a single statement condemning ISIS? No. He is still threatening us. Ankara is the capital of Turkey. If a bird flies here, the state knows about it. This is the city where the intelligence unit is the strongest. There was a rally of 100,000 people but no security precautions were taken. Look at their own rallies: the security precautions start 10 streets away. There were 100 corpses; 500 wounded. But they had also had to deal with the water cannons fired by police. Is that what your justice is?”
During the rule of the AKP government, similar massacres against Kurds in Roboski, Diyarbakir and Suruc have also taken place. Before that, since 1920s, there were many massacres against Kurds. None of the perpetrators has ever been punished: in those massacres, the planners and organizers were state authorities themselves.
On October 10, the Kurds and their friends tried to call for an end to war. The Kurds proclaimed peace and brotherhood — Turkey as usual, responded with murder.
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[1] The rally was organized by the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DISK), the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB), the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) and the Confederation of Public Workers’ Unions (KESK). The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) was one of the major participants.
[2] The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said in a written statement that the Ministry of Health does not share the data at hand about the dead and wounded and the chief physicians of hospitals have been given certain instructions not to share the data with the public.
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