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Sunday, January 27, 2008

911 - strategy of tension - Gladio - Tell

Gladio, Turkish Counter-Guerilla and Ergenekon, a devilish trio
KRISTINA KAMP İSTANBUL -- 01.02.2008

In August 1990 Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti openly admitted for the first time what had long been denied: the existence of a secret army inside the Italian Secret Service (SIFAR) codenamed “Gladio,” Latin for “double-edged sword.”


Moreover, Andreotti also claimed that a network of secret, unofficial armies controlled by NATO and the US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been set up all across Europe. The British secret service, MI6, as Andreotti revealed, was also involved.

Up until today, a full investigation into these secret NATO armies, some of which also seem to have been linked to terrorism and crime, has not been carried out -- and Swiss historian and security expert Daniele Ganser says this is neglect with serious consequences. “Ergenekon could be an outcome of the old Turkish Counter-Guerilla,” he says. In an exclusive interview with Today’s Zaman, he explains the structure of these secret armies, what the “tension strategy” was during the Cold War and what it could be today.

“What we can definitely prove nowadays is the existence of these secret armies. And we have a good amount of knowledge on how they were structured,” Ganser says.

Facing an increase in the popularity and strength of communist and socialist parties in some countries, like Italy and France, worries emerged in Washington and London that these countries’ inner security could no longer be ensured. Secret, unofficial armies were then set up, Ganser says and adds: “NATO was simply afraid of being weakened from within.”

Secret armies all across Europe

The network of secret armies, he says, spread across Western Europe in its entirety, including Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Luxemburg, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Greece -- and Turkey.

According to Ganser, in the event of a Soviet invasion, these secret, anti-communist soldiers would have operated behind enemy lines, strengthening and setting up local resistance movements in enemy-held territory, evacuating shot-down pilots and sabotaging occupying forces’ supply lines and production centers.

The strategic planning came from London and Washington. NATO assumed the general coordination of all such behind-the-scenes organizations on an international level under the Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) and the Clandestine Planning Committee (CPC), linked to NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), which is always commanded by an American general, Ganser asserts, adding, “It is absolutely obvious that there were these meetings, even if NATO refuses to comment on Gladio today.”

The secret armies were trained by British and US special forces. To ensure their anti-communist commitment, some members of the secret armies were recruited from the extreme-right margins of society. In Germany, former Nazis were active in the unofficial armies. The codenames for the armies varied from country to country; “Absalon” in Denmark, “Gladio” in Italy, “P26” in Switzerland, “ROC” in Norway and “SDRA8” in Belgium.

Gladio-like structures in Turkey

In Turkey a secret army was set up and codenamed “Counter-Guerrilla.” “Today we definitely know about its existence,” says Ganser.

Gen. Kemal Yılmaz, the chief of the special forces in Turkey at the time, officially confirmed on Dec. 3, 1990 the existence of Counter-Guerilla. He explained that the “stay-behind” army was under the command of the Turkish Special Forces and had the task “to organize resistance in the event of a communist occupation.”

“But though we know a lot of things, many of this secret army’s activities and involvements remain in darkness,” Ganser says. How strongly NATO and US intelligence backed and supported the use of terror in the countries in order to discredit the political left during the Cold War remains a subject of ongoing research. “Nonetheless, it is certain that at least some massacres ... [and] military actions had been organized, promoted or supported by men inside state institutions,” Ganser states.

An “important source of evidence” supporting the theory that Counter-Guerrilla also engaged in torture, he points out, comes from Talat Turhan, a former Turkish general who said he had been tortured in a villa in Istanbul’s Erenköy district by a team led by retired officer Eyüp Ozalkus, chief of the National Intelligence Organization’s (MİT) interrogation team for the combat of communism. “They blindfolded me and bound my arms and feet. Then they told me that I was ‘in the hands of the Counter-Guerrilla unit operating under the high command of the army outside the Constitution and the law.’ They told me that they ‘considered me their prisoner of war’ and that I was ‘sentenced to death’,” Turhan later revealed.

However when Bülent Ecevit, after the Italian revelations of 1990, implied to the press that Counter-Guerrilla units might have been involved in domestic terror and announced he suspected Counter-Guerrilla involvement in the Taksim Square massacre in Istanbul in 1977 -- where half a million citizens had been fired upon by snipers during a protest rally on May 1, leaving 38 dead and hundreds injured -- acting Turkish Defense Minister Safa Giray snapped, “Ecevit had better keep his ... mouth shut!”

Terrorist attacks were backed by state authorities

“Terror is an unbelievably strong means to manipulate and frighten the population,” Ganser underlines. “The real victims of a terrorist attack are not those left dead -- the real victims are those people who are affected by becoming afraid. The public [will then] ... turn to the state to ask for greater security.” Several Italian sources have confirmed this, among them Vincenzo Vinciguerra, a convicted right-wing terrorist who himself took part in this so-called “tension strategy” in which terror was manipulated to influence the political climate. “This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened,” Vinciguerra says.

It can be the state itself or a private group of people who try to force the government to act according to their will, to legitimize a war, for example, Ganser explains, adding that he “could well imagine” that Ergenekon is a kind of successor organization of the Turkish Counter-Guerilla of those days. “We know that these groups recruited heavily among the Turkish Grey Wolves [a youth group linked to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP)],” he states. “As long as this original phenomenon is not fully examined, its subsequent structures will remain [a mystery], too.”

He also says he would “not be surprised” if some of the attacks allegedly perpetrated by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are later revealed to have been the work of some clandestine Turkish organizations to legitimize Turkish military intervention. “Terror is a very powerful weapon for constructing enemies,” Ganser emphasizes.

However, he says, these are assumptions that need further investigation and what is really missing to that end is a parliamentary fact-finding commission. “Neither journalists nor scientists can do this work properly; what is really needed is the state’s engagement in the investigations. It is the legislature that must investigate the executive, it’s the job of the parliamentarians to shed light on this,” he concludes, saying that examining these kinds of secret armies is therefore the natural first step in approaching the problem of the “deep state.”

Who is Daniele Ganser?

Swiss historian Daniele Ganser currently teaches in Basel University’s history department and in previous years researched foreign and security policy at the renowned Swiss Federal Institute of Technology’s (ETH) Center for Security Studies and Military Academy. His important book “NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and terrorism in Western Europe” was recently translated into Turkish. www.danieleganser.ch

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Terrorists: Assassins Or Freedom Fighters?
By Gaither Stewart 27 January, 2008 Countercurrents.org

“When the oppressed man can find justice in no other way, then he calmly reaches up into the sky and pulls down his eternal rights that hang there, inalienable and, like the stars, imperishable. When no other means remains, then he must needs take up the sword.”
(Friedrich Schiller, William Tell)


Daggers flashing under moonlit Middle Eastern nights. Secret societies conspiring against religious oppressors. Justice! Assassins sent from paradisiacal gardens to roam over Arabian deserts to kill in the name of the Prophet. Revenge! The skill of the kill! The contagious frenzy of killing! Kill, kill, kill! Armageddon! Oh, the fear! The terror! Stop your evil ways or in the quiet of the night the Hashshashin will exact justice.

In the year 1090, followers of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam occupied the mountain fortress of Alamut in the mountains south of the Caspian Sea and 100 kilometers from today’s Tehran. Under their leader Hasan I Sabbah they quickly refined killing to an art. In the West the violent sect became known by the name of Hashshashin because of their fanatical dedication to their religion. Persecuted by the Sunni branch of Islam, the Assassins left their gardens to murder leaders of their oppressors. Perhaps the name Hashshashin derived from “hashish users,” the drug they ingested before their deadly attacks. When Marco Polo on his way to China he too visited the mountain fortress and called them Ashishin. Assassins!



The Hashshashin referred to themselves as Fedayeen, which means something quite different. The now familiar word means no less than “freedom fighters.” The term Fedayeen has been used by Arab militant groups throughout history: volunteers dedicated to causes in which the government fails to act. A lonely business from the start!



For our purposes here, the Assassins of then were associated with resistance against foreign occupation or tyranny. And as a rule resistance is not a joyful affair. The Fedayeen made of murder a meticulous system for killing targeted individuals in public, without however, as historians note, the loss of innocent life … and they never considered suicide.



I just read an article by T.E. Lawrence about British occupation of today’s Iraq and the resistance it caused, published in the London Sunday Times of August 2, 1920. The letter could have been written today. History repeating itself. The eternal return. Lawrence of Arabia accused the British government whose 92,000 soldiers in Iraq couldn’t control three million Arabs in “revolt” against the invader. He spoke of the British “assassination” of tens of thousands of Arabs sacrificed in the name of colonialism and the popular insurrection it had caused. Terrorism was never mentioned: only colonialist oppression and the popular insurrection of the Arabs.



A thousand years ago and one hundred years ago and again today, there has always been confusion between terrorism and resistance. As it was for mainstream Islam, it is a point of view for today’s US administration that sees terrorists under every rock, that blames every failure on largely unidentified terrorists, and justifies each of its own nefarious crimes on generic terrorism.

Since terrorism is most often a point of view, perhaps literature can actually deal better with that slippery terrain. Still, what Power so unceremoniously, so handily labels terrorism, has become fixed and omnipresent in our day-to-day lives. But since it is no joking matter either, we have to treat it seriously, severely … also somewhat terroristically.

As Schiller wrote in his 1804 play, William Tell, (written in the aftermath of the French Revolution to justify tyrannicide), that which for Power anywhere and at any time is terrorism, for the oppressed will always be resistance, revolt and rebellion. RESISTANCE! Neocon America instead simplifies a complex matter. It applies the label “terrorism” to any and every form of resistance to American imperialism abroad and today, at home, Power attaches the label to dissidents and anti-globalists and anti-war protesters and no-sayers under convenient provisions of the Patriot’s Act and other such illegal and anti-Constitutional legislation. Unfortunately, history is not an American forte.

In certain times and certain places genuine terrorism is so complex as to be an almost taboo subject. Paradoxically official USA stutters and stammers at finding a proper name for American rightwing militias, Christian fundamentalist subversives, abortion clinic bombers or Ku Klux Klan lynchers. For such groups, “terrorists” would work quite well. Yet, the streams and rivulets and byways of terrorism are so shady and labyrinthine, and government propaganda so intense, that the observer searching for truth tends to lose his way among definitions and distinctions and political correctness.

Such built-in complications are then intensified by the difficulty of recognizing “institutional terrorism”, i.e. terrorist acts organized by the state in order to justify harsh restrictive measures and laws, authoritarianism and in the most extreme cases, war. September 11 is the clearest example of institutional terrorism, though that historic date is far from the only one. We remember sinking of the US warship Maine in the Havana harbor that justified the Spanish-American War. What about Pearl Harbor to ignite World War II? And the Bay of Tonkin for Vietnam?

About Legitimate Resistance, the Strategy of Tension and Agents Provocateurs



The strategy of tension is an old story; yet, after all this time, agents provocateurs continue to be strange words to the untuned American ear. Italian “terrorism” of the 1970s and 80s, coming on the heels of the youth, student and worker uprisings in revolutionary 1968, illustrate the meanings quite well.

Terrorism is first of all defined as a method of political struggle based on the systematic use of violence—assassination, sabotage, kidnapping, and today human suicidal bombers—practiced by political extremists or by secret organizations of a nationalistic nature.

The second aspect of the definition is less recognized: terrorism—according to my encyclopedia—is also the instrument used by a political regime to grasp and to retain power.



A terrorist is thus a member of an organization that uses terrorism and who executes terrorist acts.
Or, he is a member of a regime whose existence is based on terror. Nazi Germany was a terrorist regime. Ditto Stalinist Russia. Resistance to them was sacred. Now we have the entire Neocon structure and strategy that has attacked aggressively the entire world in the name of US imperialism. By definition, it is a terrorist regime.



By extension, terrorist crimes are both those committed in revolt against a state to damage the collective and not specific individuals and they are violent acts against an oppressive regime.
Again by extension, terrorist crimes are likewise the criminal acts of an oppressive regime against the oppressed. This is the key: institutional terrorism is the catalyst for “insurgency” and “resistance” throughout the world today. The short geographical list is easy to pinpoint: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine.

Thus terrorism is the story of relationships between power/authority and its subjects, and between oppressors and oppressed. We are used to the words, power and authority, often used synonymously, as if they were equivalent. But that’s not the case at all. Power and authority are not the same thing, and the distinction between the two concepts is significant.
Power [pouvoir, potere, Macht] implies the faculty to act, and in our minds is related to force, coercion and violence, in the sense of “authoritarian.” That is why I like to capitalize the word Power used in that sense. When one hears the word “terrorism”, the responsibility of Power must always be in front of your eyes; otherwise you will miss the point.



Authority instead implies legitimacy, in the sense of “legitimate authority,” or the legitimate faculty to act or perform. The distinction is between legitimate authority on one hand and crude naked power on the other. Authority can be good or evil; naked Power will never be good. As we all know, authority too, like democracy itself, is a shaky business because the criteria for who establishes and who legitimizes authority, varies from time to time and place to place. Authority and democracy stand on the edge of an abyss, perpetually menaced by power, easily transformed into authoritarianism.



In the same way, opposition to legitimate authority and opposition to naked power/authoritarianism differ: democratic opposition to legitimate authority should suffice in a democratic setting. But when the democratic process is inhibited, more violent means become necessary. In an article “Is There A Good Terrorist” in the New York Review of Books, Timothy Garton Ash cites Schiller’s for Power pertinent lines from Wilhelm Tell:
“When the oppressed man can find justice in no other way, then he calmly reaches up into the sky and pulls down his eternal rights that hang there, inalienable and, like the stars, imperishable. When no other means remains, then he must needs take up the sword.”

The reality is that you can feel horror at indiscriminate killing and bombs and kamikaze attacks and still hold to and even encourage the use of “legitimate terrorism”, that is, resistance and armed rebellion, against naked illegitimate Power. As Hezbollah learned easily in south Lebanon, armed resistance pays: it permitted the clearing of their land of Israeli occupiers. Resistance always pays!

Some years ago, at the end of a daylong interview with me in Paris—where he was a political refugee—the former Italian terrorist theoretician, Lanfranco Pace, defined himself as “living testimony to the limits of western democracy that is a precious possession that must be constantly enriched. Democracy,” he said, “is a mobile frontier. At times there is less of it, and one must fight for it.”



The result is that golden rule: what for the oppressed is resistance, resistance to naked power—as we see today at all latitudes peoples of the world oppressed by the tentacles of the global octopus-like market economy, by poverty and hopelessness—for the oppressor smacks of conspiracy and terrorism. Like Iraqis in 1920 and today, nationalistic Hungarians in 1956 considered themselves freedom fighters; for their Soviet oppressors they were terrorists in a conspiracy against the New Order. Like the Jewish Stern Gang in British occupied mandatory Palestine were terrorists for the occupiers, but for the Zionists were “Freedom Fighters For the Freedom of Israel.” Lack of true information still makes evaluation of the nature of Afghan resistance impossible but instinct suggests that also Taliban insurgents against the foreign invader consider themselves freedom fighters, Fedayeen, just as they were called when they were armed by the USA to fight against the Soviet invader.

Since oppression today is global, no one should be scandalized that resistance to that power is also global. It is no surprise that three-quarters of the world is up in arms against US power—either naked military power or disguised by the misnomer, globalization. A good rule is to substitute the word globalization with imperialism. It usually works.

The argument that problems of ethnic, religious, economic and political opposition have emerged precisely from the liberalization of political freedoms in third- and fourth-world countries brought by golden globalization rings hollow and hypocritical in the face of the testimony to the growing poverty of 4/5ths of that world. Wider political freedoms might create more spaces for rebellion and unleash wider resistance and violence, but evidently the near universal rebellion today is the effect of pervasive poverty and hopelessness, not of newly acquired freedoms.
Moreover, for the hungry the risks of rebellion and terrorism will always be thousands of times better than sitting in apathy and waiting.

The origins of modern terrorism are problematic. They have been since the French Revolution. As justified as the French were to rise up against oppressive aristocratic rule and ugly poverty, Robespierre was one of the first in the modern era to up continually the ante of revolutionary goals precisely in order to increase the obstacles to their achievement and to create the necessary tensions in order to justify crushing the enemies of his power. Robespierre’s terror was transformed into naked power at work against peoples’ natural tendency toward reaction. Throughout modern times his trick of tension strategy has been used over and over by authoritarian power—used to crush opposition.

Tension strategy is always and always a tactic of oppressors. It refers to first permitting, stimulating, organizing, or even committing terrorist acts, in order to turn around and crush all opposition to the regime.



The use of agents provocateurs is an old story with which Americans should familiarize themselves. Old as Adam! Go out into the world and sow discord! Make the people rise up, then crush them. On an international level we are familiar with the Gulf of Tonkin as first the provocation, then the subject of “false consciousness” inculcated in the American public, and the catalyst for the Vietnam War. In recent days, the US fleet, just barely in international waters along the coast of Iran, is playing the role of provocateurs to incite Iranians to react so as to undertake the stratospheric bombing the Neocons are itching for.

It’s an old story. Every place in the world peace movements are anti-government. Washington hates peace movements. Protesters are reviled as troublemakers, evildoers. Anyone against the war is a potential terrorist. Protest equals terrorism. The FBI infiltrates and tries to cripple the protest movement from within. It’s an old strategy—enticing protesters to criminal behavior—then arresting them. The agents provocateurs join the protesters and break store windows. It’s against the law to break store windows. So the cops beat up the demonstrators and arrest them. Sometimes agitators are police agents. They run wild in the streets. They pretend to be demonstrators. They attack the police and throw bombs. The infiltrators create tension between police and demonstrators. Anti-war marches become a kind of war. The government and its police and its press then blame the demonstrators for the violence. The best way to defame pacifists is to link them to terrorism. The public will call for law and order. And the government will crack down on all its political opponents … and go ahead with its wars.
(Extracted from the novel, Asheville, by Gaither Stewart)



In most circumstances, terrorism is too weak to overcome the power of the modern state/regime. Terrorists of Italy’s Red Brigades naively believed that the state had a heart that could be attacked. They lost. As a rule, terrorists lose. Most of the European terrorist organizations that mushroomed after the world-wide student protests of 1968 were defeated, though those based on nationalistic aspirations such as ETA in Spain and IRA in Ireland, that is, resistance movements, hang on and still today raise their heads from time to time. Now, US imperialism has created an entirely new field, a new wave, a new historical framework, for resistance: across most of Latin America, the entire Middle East and Asia from Iraq to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Resistance has been born. And it will not be defeated by military force. It will not go away



In the 1970s and 80s European secret services infiltrated and crushed the Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse) in Italy, the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion) in Germany, and Direct Action (Action Directe) in France. In the process and in application of the strategy of tension they exploited the same terrorist organizations, keeping them alive in name in order to blame them, in the name of freedom, for the limitations placed on personal liberties. Today the name Al Qaida, the real existence of which is dubious, is used precisely in the same manner. Al Qaida is omnipresent, forever available to be blamed for institutional terrorism in order to justify all the patriot acts and no-fly lists and house searches and arbitrary arrests and detentions and tortures and concentration camps.



BRIGATE ROSSE

Italy’s Red Brigades [Brigate Rosse-BR] formed Europe’s biggest, best-organized and most powerful “terrorist” organization. An elitist organization emerging from the 1968 protest movement, its rank and file came from the universities and factories. It comprised the most idealistic, the best part of the nation’s youth— la miglior gioventú, according to the title of a recent film depicting that generation sparked by resistance. The BR at one time claimed the admiration and moral support of millions of Italians.

Its organizational structure is of interest because the organizers of Al Qaida (Pakistani and US intelligence services) seem to have borrowed from it since US Special Forces just can’t seem to locate that bearded man in a cave or his cohort riding his mule over remote Afghan mountain paths. At the BR base was a brigade of up to five persons, who provided arms and logistics; the brigades formed poles, which in turn formed a city column. The columns made up fronts that directed national political operations, controlled by an eight-man strategic directorate. The supreme level was a 4-5 man executive committee that conducted international relations and made major decisions culminating in the abduction and eventual murder of ex-Prime Minister Aldo Moro.
The co-founder of the Red Brigades, Alberto Franceschini, told me that the Brigadists never considered themselves terrorists. They “resisted” US power in Italy and the one-party system governing the nation. Franceschini pointed out that the chance of armed rebellion inevitably increases to the degree that political power is insufficient and incapable of mediation. The first, the real Red Brigades, were the resistance born on the Left. It aimed at splitting the big Italian Communist Party vertically, recruiting its left wing, and then overturning the authoritarian state. It aimed at revolution. Yet, when police finally decided to crack down, 5000 terrorists flowed into Italy’s jails, while 500 escaped abroad, the majority to France.




What does that very Italian story mean?

It means that Power wanted and needed the BR.



It means also that Power knew that the Resistance understood it.



No wonder that as time passed former leftwing terrorists came to call themselves “West European guerilla” to combat imperialist efforts to weld European countries into the homogeneous structure it has assumed today, integrated in the instrument of imperialist power, NATO.

On a practical level, the Europe’s terrorists-guerilla lost. That partially accounts for European military forces involved today in America’s madness in Afghanistan, where Italian soldiers have fallen and only yesterday two Dutch soldiers died for neocon illusions of grandeur.

I offer this brief look at the Red Brigades in order to show another example of tension strategy. Franceschini told me that police could have crushed them quickly; however, their existence was convenient to the corrupt, anti-Communist, anti-Soviet regime of Christian Democracy, and to its ally, the United States of America. Red terrorists everywhere were the excuse for reactionary anti-Communism during the Cold War in Europe, Asia, Africa and even more brutally in Latin America, in Chile, Uruguay and Argentina. Fantomatic red subversives, and, in the name of the defense of democracy, for a mass of anti-democratic emergency laws, high security prisons and questionable justice as has happened in the USA today. Terrorism was the excuse. Italy, in close collaboration with the CIA, became in fact a bulwark against the Soviet Union, and its government managed to keep a firm hand on the Italian Communist Party, Europe’s biggest CP. “Red” terrorism was the weapon with which authoritarian power held at bay the Communist Party, which by the 1980s had become in practice a social democratic force.



The real Red Brigades died in the late 1970s. After their Executive Committee and/or Strategic Directorate were infiltrated by Italian and American secret services, the Red Brigades became a riddle. After reporting for many years on European terrorism and after many meetings with terrorist leaders, my guess is that it became an empty name in the service of governments and secret services.



EPILOGUE: In this mid January, the Rome Daily, La Repubblica, got its hands on heretofore top secret documents of the British Foreign Office revealing that in 1976, the election year in which the Italian Communist Party (PCI) garnered 34% of the vote, NATO weighed a “coup d’état” in Rome to keep the Communists out of the government. One released document states verbally: “An authoritarian regime in Italy would be more acceptable than a government including Communists.”
According to the documentation the plan was eventually discarded for fear that the powerful workers movement in Italy would bring about a Civil War and/or fear of Soviet intervention. The coup didn’t happen, though US-backed Fascists made several weak attempts. The “Italian question” continued to be the subject of NATO, of frantic communications and secret high-level meetings. Because the NATO role was crucial in the Cold War, the mere thought of the Trojan Horse of Italian Communists in a member government made Washington shiver in horror.

Though the coup was ruled out, US subversive intervention in its vassal state of Italy were intensified. Terrorism was always a chief avenue for US control of Italy. After the real Brigadists were arrested the CIA infiltrated and turned some leaders of the second wave of Red Brigades. Fascist terrorists meanwhile bombed trains and assassinated NATO leaders; often the Left was blamed. The US meanwhile supported the organization of the secret Gladio army that would have been Italy’s military arm after the coup. Fascist militants described to me their military training camps in Sardinia and in the Abruzzi Mountains near Rome. New prisons were pinpointed while lists were drawn up of dangerous subversives to be arrested.



For NATO planners the recruitment of some BR leaders was the culmination of the refinement of the instruments of tension strategy. It was that late version of the Red Brigades, which in 1978 abducted and assassinated the Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro whose strategic plan of so-called “historic compromise” foresaw Italian Communists in the national government. The Red Brigades took the full blame.



Today, G-8 leaders label anti-globals and peace protesters “terrorists” and “enemies of democracy” and call for emergency measures against them. They arrest anti-globals right in front of the White House. Anti-globals on the other hand consider themselves non-violent freedom fighters for a better world. As a rule, police and/or police-guided, infiltrated or stimulated “terrorists” such as the Black Bloc are the aggressors against the anti-global peace movements.
No sane person believes that terrorism can be eradicated with military might. It is now a truism that every bomb that falls in the poor world spawns another terrorist, many of whom, unlike the Assassins of a millennium earlier, are eager to strap explosives around their bodies and blow themselves to pieces on a crowded square, place, piazza, or Platz of the rich world against the naked power that impoverishes them. If one accepts with Schiller that the oppressed will reach to the heavens to grasp their rights and resist their oppressors, then the dire warnings from Washington of more and more terrorism ring grim.

While America-Empire allegedly searches for efficacious measures to combat terrorism, more sincere American leaders are advised to examine aspects of European experience as a guide to both what not to do, and to what can be effective. They should not be deluded: No security measures, no no-fly laws, Patriot Act measures, secret concentration camps and torture can eradicate what Power defines as terrorism and the oppressed define as resistance until America unites with the rest of the world.

Here is more info on the current events in Turkey, DEEP STATE as it becomes available!




Insights of a Canadian Lawyer: Was 9/11 an Inside Job?

by Hal. C. Sisson, QC

In mid January 2008 united 9/11 Truth Movements across Canada, spearheaded by Victoria and Vancouver branches, sent a petition letter to the heads of all Canadian political parties and to every Member of Parliament. The letter requested two things:

a. A call for a new investigation into the events of September 11, 2001 by an independent and impartial tribunal, plus

b. Open discussion in Parliament of, or a national referendum on, the proposed integration of Canada, the United States and Mexico into a North American Union, under the Security and Prosperity Partnership agreement, (originally signed in 2005 in Waco Texas by then Prime Minister Paul Martin); an Agreement that has never been discussed outside of a cabal of senior government officials and military and corporate leaders.

The first request (a) follows in the wake of questioning in the Japanese Parliament (Diet) by Yukihisa Fujita of the Japan Democratic Party, as to the conspiracy theory of 9/11 presented by the U.S. Bush Administration. He asked just how terrorists could possibly have attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

Six years ago the U.S. Administration and their intelligence agencies stated they would present convincing evidence that foreigners of a Muslim Arab persuasion were the perpetrators of the tragic crime of 9/11. This evidence has never yet been forthcoming. People ask why? Can’t the United States prove their allegations in court? And why does the FBI say they have no hard evidence of the involvement of Osama bin Laden?

On the other hand, millions of people around the world have amassed a great deal of solid evidence of incomplete investigation, missing evidence, unsubstantiated conclusions and outright lies as to the facts and the full story of 9/11. So much so that it is impossible not to conclude that at the very least the events were in some measure allowed to happen - the motive being the persuasion of the American public to condone the wars with Afghanistan and Iraq -- and is Iran next?

The Japanese queries were presented at about the same time as former Italian President Francesco Cossiga told Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper, the Corriere della Sera, that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job and that all the intelligence services in America and Europe know it was an inside job of a false flag nature.

Who else is of the same opinion? Twenty-five former U.S. military officers have severely criticized the official account of 9/11 and called for a new investigation. They are among the rapidly growing number of military and intelligence service veterans, scientists, lawyers, university professors, engineers and architects challenging the Bush government’s story. Former German Secretary of Defence Andreas von Bulow said, “The official story is so inadequate and far-fetched that there must be another one.”

Every action the U.S. government or its intelligence services take, good, bad or indifferent, is now prefaced by the words “since 9/11 we have to do this, we have to do that, we have to do the other” -- every atrocity anywhere in the middle east or in the world is immediately attributed to a vague group called al Qaeda and the concept of a perpetual but profitable to some ‘War on Terror’.

The Canadian Government can no longer deny that the official story told by the Bush Administration is complete nonsense. This discredited version of 9/11 events as promulgated by the Bush Administration is the justification for Canada’s bloody involvement. If Bush’s version of 9/11 is a lie, like his story on “weapons of mass destruction”, then Canada must ask why it should continue to sacrifice its sons and daughters and spend its resources in a distant country that never attacked or threatened Canada’s security.

Truthers think that the Canadian Parliament should seriously and openly discuss and investigate these matters before they continue their present course of action or run the risk of being drawn into wider conflicts in Iran and Pakistan That is why they are calling on the Canadian Government to launch its own independent investigation and Official Enquiry into 9/11

Addressing point (b) - the request that there be an open parliamentary discussion of the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) agreement (a grandiose extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)). The most recent meeting was August 20, 2007 when Stephen Harper, President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon went to Montebello, Quebec for a secret meeting of the SPP, more transparently described as the North American Union, part of the larger Globalization agenda called the New World Order. Many organizations including 9/11 Truth tried and are trying to inform Canadians what was and is being discussed in a veil of secrecy and a deafening wave of silence from the Canadian and American media. Big decisions at committee level are being made behind closed doors while publicly masking the true intention.

This writer proposes to use a cautionary tale to illustrate the approach that should be taken before entering any Agreement whose implementation involves the dismantling of Canadian sovereignty, and which seeks, in the words of MP Denise Savoie, ‘to merge our security policies and practices with those of the United States, leaving Canada with a government with less authority, less control over our natural resources and less autonomous and sustainable economic, social, cultural and environmental policies’.

Warning -- the anecdote I am about to relate contains a scene involving sex and therefore may not be acceptable to the sensibilities of those who wish to remain unaware that such an activity may be rampant in our society. Reader discretion is therefor strongly advised:

“Fast Eddy wanted desperately to have sex with this really cute, really hot girl in his office… but she was dating someone else. One day Eddie was so frustrated that he went to her and said, “I’ll give you $100 if you let me have sex with you…“

The girl looked at him, and then said, “NO!”

Eddie said, “I’ll be real fast. I’ll throw the money on the floor, you bend down and I’ll finish by the time you’ve picked it up.”

She thought for a moment and said that she would consult with her boyfriend… so she called him and explained the situation. Her boyfriend says, “Ask him for $200, and pick it up the money real fast. He won’t even be able to get his pants down.”

She agreed and accepts Fast Eddy’s proposal. Over half an hour goes by and the boyfriend is still waiting for his girlfriend’s call. Finally, after 45 minutes the boyfriend calls and asks, “What happened…?”

Still breathing hard, she managed to reply, “The bastard had all quarters!” …

The lesson to be learned here is one of business management, and certainly is one that should be adopted by the Canadian Parliament in relation to the SPP -- “Always consider a business proposition in its entirety before agreeing to it. Otherwise you are likely to get screwed!”

And if the Canadian public doesn’t want to be forever picking up Fast Eddy’s American quarters they had better figure out how to stop the SPP, now, before it is too late.

About the writer:

Hal Sisson, Q.C., R.C.A.F. armourer in World War II, is a reformed lawyer who practiced law in Peace River, Alberta for thirty-five years and has been resident in Victoria, B.C. since 1985. Author of ten published books including the best selling Coots, Codgers and Curmudgeons (with his partner Justice Dwayne Rowe); and his latest Modus Operandi 9/11 that exposes the White House lies about 9/11, the machinations of the New World Order and the "War on Terror", and does so featuring salty humour in the form of a novel. International croquet and marble player and collector, his major hobby was stand-up comedy and writing and performing in Western Canada's longest running (25 years) burlesque revue, Sorry 'Bout That.
http://www.halsisson.ca/

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/01/26/02161.html

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Will Turkey be complicit in another war against another neighbour?

by Cem Ertür, CASMII, 24 February 2008

http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/4153


Despite the latest positive report of the IAEA on Iran' nuclear programme [1], efforts to launch a war against Iran are gathering pace [2]. Given the unpopularity of such a war, the big powers are keeping very quiet about it whilst using highly sophisticated methods to psychologically prepare their citizens. At the same time, all we hear about Turkey in the Western European and North American mainstream media is the accession talks with the European Union, the conflict between the religious AKP government and the country’s secular establishment (including the military) and the cross-border operations into Northern Iraq. Is there no connection between Turkey and this new threat of war? How does psychological preparation work in the case of Turkey? What pressure are the leading NATO countries putting on the Turkish Government? How is the extra-parliamentary opposition reacting to the prospective next stage of the ‘Global War on Terror’?

THE ‘TRIPLE ALLIANCE’

In 2006, researcher Michel Chossudovsky commented on an alliance that was described earlier by the Middle East Report as ‘probably the greatest strategic move in the Clinton post-Cold War years’:

“Already during the Clinton Administration, a triangular military alliance between the US, Israel and Turkey had unfolded. This ‘triple alliance’ is … coupled with a strong bilateral military relationship between Tel Aviv and Ankara. Amply documented, Israel and Turkey are partners in the planned US aerial attacks on Iran, which have been in an advanced state of readiness since mid-2005.” [3]

The recent state visits by the Israeli President Shimon Peres and the Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak to Turkey were the clearest indication yet of this alliance against Iran.

STATE VISITS BY ISRAELI DEFENCE MINISTER BARAK AND PRESIDENT PERES

On board his plane on the way to Ankara on February 11, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said that he would present Turkey's top leadership with Israeli intelligence reports on Iran’s nuclear plans:

“It is important to … try to convince [Turkey] of the facts.” [4]

In the wake of this visit, the Israeli defence officials have given the following statements:

“Turkey was interested in acquiring a missile defense system in the face of Iran's continued race toward nuclear power.” [5]

“All of the countries in the region understand that the Iranian threat is not just against Israel. Iran's long-range missiles can reach well beyond Israel.” [6]

However, Barak had a different attitude towards Syria:

“Turkey has a natural role in certain mediation and has found a proper way to dialogue with Syria. There is respect for Turkey in both Syria and Lebanon. This respect should be used for blocking the flow of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah through Syria. We respect Syria but we also expect Syria to have respect for Israel's identity as well. You cannot impose peace. … It takes two willing parties.” [7]

This statement should be seen as part of the divide-and-rule strategy of isolating Iran. As the leading NATO allies will not be able to attack Iran and Syria simultaneously, they need to break the strategic alliance between these two countries and go one step at a time.

Barak’s statements echoed those by the Israeli President Shimon Peres during his visit to Ankara in November last year.
Writer Kemal Camurcu analyses Peres’ speech at the Turkish Parliament to a committee with majority from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) parliamentarians:

“Peres was applauded by the AKP parliamentarians for saying ‘You don't realize and you don't understand, your real enemy is your next-door neighbour Iran!’. The purpose of his visit was to declare to the whole region that ‘There are the two trends in the region: Iran as a sponsor of terrorism and pro-peace Turkey’. He declared it and received applause! Given his interviews, his speech in the Turkish Parliament and the news items on ‘intelligence-sharing’, it is plausible to argue that the sole purpose of Peres' visit was to explain to Ankara the ‘Iranian threat’.” [8]

These statements were all the more significant considering that they were made at a time when the US, Israel and their European allies were desperate to get support for the Annapolis Conference in the face of widespread opposition to this initiative across the Arab World. However, this went largely unreported in the mainstream Turkish media. The Deputy Head of the Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi) Mr Sevket Kazan explains the real agenda behind this conference:

“This war against Iran will be launched by the US and Israel with the support of Turkey. Once the power of these two has proved insufficient, the UK, France and finally NATO forces –including Turkey- will also get involved.” [9]

US AND ISRAELI SUPPORT AGAINST THE KURDISH SEPARATIST PKK

At a joint press conference with his visiting Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak, Defence Minister Vecdi Gonul said:

“We thank Israel for its support to Turkey in the defense industry. We thank Mr. Barak for sending equipment and devices that Turkey uses in the south-east and in cross border operations [against the PKK].” [10]

In the run-up to this visit, alternative website Fikritakip made the following remark:

“For some time it has been striking that every evening Show TV has introduced at great length the ‘high-tech’ arms and defence systems provided by Israel to Turkey in the latter’s struggle with the PKK... This shows that the nationalist circles, which are thought to be anti-Israel, are in reality grateful to this country for its support against the PKK.” [11]

The Turkish media reporting on the US support against the PKK was along the same lines and proved to be instrumental in dissipating the anti-American feelings across the Turkish population. In fact, until the US support began late last year, they were being accused by the Turkish mainstream media and politicians of not only turning a blind eye to the PKK’s use of violence, but also of providing covert support to it.

In a newspaper article, former parliamentarian Mehmet Bekaroglu asks the following question:

“Isn’t it strange that the US declares the PKK ‘a common enemy of Turkey, the United States and Iraq’, while also encouraging, or even arming, training and providing intelligence support to the same PKK under the name of PJAK, against another country in the region, namely Iran?” [12]

Actually, this is not all that strange considering the divide-and-rule strategy of the US, the EU and Israel across the Muslim world based on the exploitation of all the existing hostilities and divisions. Until recently, they were simultaneously supporting the Turkish Armed Forces, the PKK and its sister organisation PJAK as well as the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq. According to the Firat News Agency, the reason behind the US support is:

“An agreement made between the US, Turkey and the Federal Administration of South Kurdistan for the construction in South and North Kurdistan [i.e. Northern Iraq and South-eastern Turkey respectively] of two strategic US military bases targeting Iran.” [13]

The base in Turkey is reportedly located in the Yuksekova district at the Iranian border. Needless to say, in the event of a war on Iran, the US and its leading NATO allies will be using all the bases on the Turkish territory at their disposal, including the secret ones. It is important to bear in mind that the notorious US military base in Incirlik (Southern Turkey), which has played a crucial role in all the Anglo-American invasions in the Middle East in the post-cold war period, contains 90 nuclear warheads.

In retrospect, the rejection of the March 2003 parliamentary motion to allow US troops to use Turkish soil as a staging ground for an invasion of Iraq didn’t seem to have much of an impact as the US army clandestinely went ahead with its plans anyway.

THE MISSILE DEFENCE SYSTEM

“Turkey is playing a regional leadership role in the Middle East. Turkey's common borders with Iraq, Iran, and Syria provide an opportunity to advance peace and stability, fight proliferation of nuclear weapons, and defeat terrorists in a region that is now the epicenter of U.S. foreign policy.” [14]

(US Under Secretary for Political Affairs Richard Burns, in the wake of his visit to Turkey in September 2007)

The Head of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency General Henry Obering recently said:

“The United States hopes to put a third major antimissile component in Europe along with those under negotiation with Poland and the Czech Republic to counter Iran… The previously unannounced third leg in Europe … would be placed closer to Iran, which is speeding efforts to build ballistic missiles capable of delivering deadly weapons beyond the Middle East… The powerful, ‘forward based’ radar system would go in south-eastern Europe, possibly in Turkey, the Caucasus or the Caspian Sea region.” [15]

Actually, ‘the previously unannounced third leg in Europe’ was announced back in March 2007 by the US Ambassador to NATO, Victoria Nuland:

“The defence system against long-range missiles of Iran and other countries … will cover most of the territories of the NATO members and there will be no need for a second system within NATO. But the threat of Iran’s short- and medium-range missiles is still present for countries like Turkey. In order to counter that, as USA and Turkey, we are working bilaterally as well as within the NATO framework.” [16]

PRESSURE TO CUT ECONOMIC TIES WITH IRAN

Like Iran’s main trading partners in the EU, Turkey has been under heavy and ongoing US pressure to cut its economic ties with Iran:

“Turkey's recent conclusion of a memorandum on energy co-operation with Iran is troubling. Now is not the time for business as usual with Iran. We urge all of our friends and allies, including Turkey, to not reward Iran by investing in its oil and gas sector, while Iran continues to defy the United Nations Security Council by continuing its nuclear research for a weapons capability.” [14]

In January this year, Stuart Levey, US Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, urged Turkey to be vigilant in its financial dealings with Iran:

“It is essential to share information to discuss risks ... and vigilance that is required in order to make sure that Turkey's financial institutions are not abused by Iranian financial institutions and Iranian state-owned banks.” [17]

THE EUROPEAN UNION’S ‘SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP’ WITH TURKEY

The former German Foreign Affairs Minister Joschka Fischer made the following statement in October 2006:

“Turkey should be a security pillar for the European community, and the efforts to derail that relationship are impossibly short-sighted.” [18]

Researcher Darius Mahdi Nazemroaya argues that:

”[The German] Chancellor Angela Merkel intensified her calls for the inclusion of Turkey within the framework of the E.U. through a ‘special relationship,’ but not as part of the actual European bloc. This also foreshadowed what Nicolas Sarkozy would later propose to the Turks.” [18]

Columnist Umur Talu explains what this ‘special relationship’ entails:

“French Prime Minister Sarkozy, who ‘doesn't want Turkey in the EU’, but clings to the USA and Israel and ‘wants an attack on Iran’ will adopt a ‘carrots and sticks policy’ towards Turkey. In other words, he will use the EU as bait for our territory, airspace and bases.” [19]

In fact, that Turkey became a NATO member in 1952, yet has been denied E.U. membership since the creation of the European Union is quite telling. The US and the leading EU countries have a common policy towards Turkey: They are using the PKK, accession to the EU, resolutions on the 1915 Armenian Genocide as trump cards to bring Turkish public opinion into line with the US and EU foreign policy goals.

The following statement by US Democrat Brad Sherman is rather odd given the joint US-Turkish complicity in the ongoing Afghan and Iraq genocides as well as the prospect of another genocide in Iran:

“For if we hope to stop future genocides we need to admit to those horrific acts of the past.” [20]

After all, the world’s leading powers are quite adept at using past genocides/mass murders as an excuse to carry out their own genocides. [21]

‘TURKISH GLADIO’ STILL AT WORK

Daniele Ganser, the author of ‘NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe’ (I) , explains an ongoing pattern across the NATO member countries:

“During the last 50 years the United States have organized bombings in Western Europe, [Greece and Turkey] that they have falsely been attributed to the left and the extreme left with the purpose of discrediting them in the eyes of their voters. This strategy is still present today, inspiring fear of Islam and justifying wars over oil.” [22]

Since the beginning of 2007, bombings, assassinations, murders, foiled plots, ultimatums to the government by the armed forces, constant speculation of an imminent coup, inland and cross-border warfare with the PKK, ‘colour revolutions’ (II) style staged democracy demonstrations, high-profile police operations, new anti-terror legislation have dominated Turkish public opinion.

“The detention in Istanbul [in late January] of alleged members of a shadowy Turkish ultranationalist group has revived charges that elements within the Turkish security apparatus have long tried to destabilize the country through a campaign of bombings and assassinations. These allegedly include false flag operations [III] that have been attributed to Kurdish separatists and violent Islamists [sic] .” [23]

The assassination of the leftist investigative journalist and columnist Ugur Mumcu in 1993 was seen by Turkey's secular establishment, media and armed forces as an opportunity to galvanize anti-Islamic feelings in general and anti-Iranian feelings in particular. The assassination was blamed on Iran, who allegedly used the (Turkish) Hezbollah as a pawn.

In reality, the (Turkish) Sunni Hezbollah has very little in common with its namesake in Lebanon and it is an established fact that this group was created and used by Turkey's paramilitary establishment against the PKK during the 1990s. In fact, on the 15th anniversary of the assassination last month, Mumcu’s solicitor brother Ceyhan Mumcu made the following call to the public:

“Let's be careful from now on and do not claim that Ugur Mumcu was murdered by Iran. Although I've been reiterating this point frequently, unfortunately some people are still giving statements to the contrary to the press. According to my research, US took the decision to murder him in May 1992.” [24]

Recently, news items on (Turkish) Hezbollah have once again started appearing in the Turkish media. There are grounds to interpret this as part of a subtle psychological operation to set Turkish public opinion against Iran.

AL QAEDA-MONGERING

In the last two months there has also been an increase in Al Qaeda related news reports:

“The security establishment has received specific intelligence information according to which al-Qaeda cells that have infiltrated Turkey and are planning to carry out terror attacks on Israeli targets and sites affiliated with the United States… Fresh security guidelines have been relayed to Israeli government agencies and businesses operating throughout Turkey in light of the threat.” [25]

These were followed by anti-terror operations throughout the country. [26] The threat was echoed by US Attorney General Michael Mukasey in the wake of his visit to Ankara this month:

“We are watching Al Qaeda closely. And we have seen in the recent period that they have increased their activities in Turkey… It appeared as though Al Qaeda may have chosen Turkey as a base.” [27]

Back in November 2003, researcher Michel Chossudovsky wrote that the bomb attacks on the British consulate and the HSBC bank headquarters in Istanbul coincided with President George Bush’s visit to London, which took place the day following the completion of the annual Turkish-US Joint Defense Group meeting in Williamsburg, US :

”The attacks have created conditions for a more active role of Turkey in the Iraqi war theatre… The Istanbul bombings also serve to uphold the shaky legitimacy of Prime Minister Tony Blair in the face of mounting political opposition to Britain's' participation in the US led war.” [28]

It looks like a similar strategy is at work in the face of another threat of war. As in the case of (Turkish) Hezbollah, it doesn’t really matter whether Al Qaeda has any connection whatsoever with Iran. This is all conflated Islamophobia and racism stoking the fire for war.

IRANOPHOBIA OF THE TURKISH MEDIA

Titled PKK’s tank or Iran’s atomic bomb?’, Kadri Gursel’s article gives a perfect example of the anti-Iranian propaganda of the Turkish media:

“Iran provided the PKK with shelter and logistical support in the 1990's, which was a period when Turkey had a close regional cooperation with the US; it fomented terrorism by using a wing of Hezbollah and openly supported Islamic movements through its diplomatic representatives. Murderers trained by Iran killed our intellectuals. Iran did all that to destabilize Turkey, whom it sees as a natural opponent.

Once Iran conducts its first nuclear test, it will become a super-power on the scale of the range of its missiles. Then it is expected to behave even more recklessly as it will have the ability to back its aggressive foreign policy with a shield of nuclear deterrence.” [29]

It is worth bearing in mind that there has been no war between the two countries since the signing of the Qasr-e-Shirin Peace Treaty in 1639.

In a recent newspaper interview, former Turkish President Suleyman Demirel mentions another typical argument against Iran:

“They keep asking me: What is happening to us? Are we becoming like Iran? Where are we heading towards? Will these individual changes eventually turn us into an Iran? That’s the concern. The nation is anxious and frightened of the prospect of a counter-revolution.” [30]

In her open letter published in the Turkish daily Milliyet, Handan Haktanir, wife of Turkey’s ambassador to Tehran in 1991-94, gives a dire warning to Turkish women:

“against certain regulations adopted in the name of freedom in an extremely innocent manner, but then pave the way for a much more repressive regime. According to my Iranian female friends, starting with the introduction of a compulsory wearing of hijab in schools, it took three years for this insidious and gradual process to be completed and then it was too late.” [31]

The ad-nauseam debate on the wearing of head-scarves in public and the secular nature of the Turkish state seem to have an underlying motive of stoking hostility against Iran. In fact, barring some exceptions, even the religious extra-parliamentary opposition and media are at best ignoring the threat against Iran and at worst raising concern about Iran’s increasing sphere of influence in Iraq/the Middle East and its threat against Turkey’s national interests. Sunni prejudices against the predominantly Shia Iran certainly play a role too. As for the various shades of the left-wing extra-parliamentary opposition and media, exceptions apart, they don’t do much other than paying lip service to Iraq, Palestine and Guantanamo Bay.

So, what is the impact of all these manipulations of Turkish citizens? The whole society is extremely polarised along ethnic, sectarian and class identities, showing excessive intolerance and mistrust to each other, in a state of fear and confusion, largely desensitised to the ongoing wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan (let alone anywhere else) and oblivious to the approaching threat against its two other neighbours, namely Iran and Syria. In short, Operation Gladio’s age-old ‘strategy of tension’ (IV) has proved to be quite effective.

NEXT BIG STEP TOWARDS THE WAR: CHENEY’S VISIT IN MARCH

The Turkish daily Hurriyet reported Dick Cheney’s forthcoming visit with the title ‘Cheney will come for the Mullahs’:

“Iran’s ‘nuclear’ threat is the reason behind the US Vice President Dick Cheney’s plans to visit Turkey … During his visit in March, Dick Cheney will be giving ‘serious’ messages on Iran… He will say: ‘Iran is a very serious threat. Help us and support us’.” [32]

The Turkish daily Aksam’s columnist Nagehan Alci expresses concern about this visit:

“Cheney’s last visit was in 2002 in the run up to the Iraq war to ask support from Turkish Prime Minister Ecevit for the war. He was on a big tour in the Middle East to test the mood about the war… If this visit materialises, then Cheney will be discussing the support provided by Turkish troops in Afghanistan and the situation in Iraq.

But the main issue will be Iran. Cheney might give the signal that the option of a military intervention in Iran is on the table, but will not be talking openly about these plans. Instead, he will mention the sanctions that they want to pass at the UN Security Council. He will emphasize the need to isolate Iran and warn that Iran’s nuclear power threatens Turkey as well. (He gave a similar warning [against Iraq] in 2002).” [33]

In the run up to the Iraq war, there was overwhelming unity in Turkey against the war, estimated to encompass 90-95 % of Turkish citizens. A war against Iran will probably be very unpopular as well, but this time it appears that the Turkish citizens appear to be too distracted and divided to take the threat seriously until the last minute, while the parliament indulges in a conspiracy of silence. Hence this paper is an attempt to redress the information deficit and highlight especially the psychological operations being directed at Turkey to pave the way for conflict with Iran, so that the Turkish and world public perceive the danger and act in time to avert it. Circulation to all interested and concerned parties is encouraged.


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GLOSSARY


(I) Operation Gladio: Originally set up as a network of clandestine cells to be activated behind the lines in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, Gladio quickly expanded into a tool for political repression and manipulation, directed by NATO and Washington. Using right-wing militias, underworld figures, government provocateurs and secret military units, Gladio not only carried out widespread terrorism, assassinations and electoral subversion in democratic states such as Italy, France and West Germany, but also bolstered fascist tyrannies in Spain and Portugal, abetted the military coup in Greece and aided Turkey's repression of the Kurds.

(II) colour revolutions: Burma’s “Saffron Revolution,” like the Ukraine “Orange Revolution” or the Georgia “Rose Revolution” and the various colour revolutions instigated in recent years against strategic states surrounding Russia, is a well-orchestrated exercise in Washington-run regime change, down to the details of “hit-and-run” protests with “swarming” mobs of Buddhists in saffron, internet blogs, mobile SMS links between protest groups, well-organized protest cells which disperse and reform.

(III) false flag operations: Covert opeartions conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colours; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one's own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and have been used in peace-time; for example, during Italy’s strategy of tension.

(IV) strategy of tension: A way to control and manipulate public opinion by using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs, as well as false flag terrorist actions. According to historian Daniele Ganser, “It is a tactic which consists in committing bombings and attributing them to others. By the term 'tension' one refers to emotional tension, to what creates a sentiment of fear. By the term 'strategy' one refers to what feeds the fear of the people towards one particular group".



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REFERENCES


[1] IAEA's report on Iran

IAEA, 22 February 2008

http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/4134

[2] The US-NATO Pre-emptive Nuclear Doctrine: Trigger a Middle East Nuclear Holocaust to Defend "The Western Way of Life"

by Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 11 February 2008

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8048

[3] "Triple Alliance": The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon

by Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 6 August 2006

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20060806&articleId=2906

[4] Israel's Barak in Turkey to discuss defense cooperation

AFP, 12 February 2008

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jRHa0Cve1T-cBQuQXyCfxsP6dxjg

[5] Barak hoping for Turkish satellite sale

by Jacob Katz, Jerusalem Post, 11 February 2008

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1202742131202

[6] Israel's Barak To Visit Turkey For Talks On Iran

Dow Jones Newswires, 11 February 2008

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20080211%5cACQDJON200802111018DOWJONESDJONLINE000337.htm&

[7] Barak says he’s lobbying for Turkey’s EU bid

by Emine Kart, Today’s Zaman, 14 February 2008

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=134011

[8] AKP iktidarinin bolgesel etkin rolu nedense hep Washington-Tel Aviv'e ayarli gerceklesiyor!

Kenan Camurcu, Fikritakip, 15 November 2007

http://www.fikritakip.com/news.asp?pg=3&yazi=193

[9] Turkish Party Issues Warning on a War on Iran

Milli Gazete, 28 November 2007

http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/3440

[10] Cooperation between Turkey, Israel Contributes to Mideast Peace: Turkish Defense Minister

Xinhua News, 13 February 2008

http://english.cri.cn/2947/2008/02/13/1321@322582.htm

[11] Ali Kirca uygun ortam hazirlama telasindayken!

Fikritakip, 5 February 2008

http://www.fikritakip.com/news.asp?pg=1&yazi=2289

[12] 'Ortak dusman' emperyalizmdir!

Mehmet Bekaroglu, Radikal Iki, 8 February 2008

http://www.radikal.com.tr/ek_haber.php?ek=r2&haberno=7852

[13] Blood price for the US support to Turkey’s PKK operation: A military base against Iran

by Mehmet Yaman, Firat News Agency, 14 January 2008

http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/3814

[14] The Future of the U.S.-Turkey Relationship

by R. Nicholas Burns, Remarks at the Atlantic Council of the United States (ACUS), 13 September 2007

http://www.state.gov/p/us/rm/2007/92066.htm

[15] U.S. says will seek 3rd missile-defense site in Europe

by Jim Wolf, Reuters, 12 February 2008

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1225015020080212?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true

[16] ‘Turkey is under the threat of Iran’s short and medium range missiles’ claims US Ambassador to NATO

by Utku Cakirozer, Milliyet, 5 March 2007

http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/1550

[17] Turkey Warned Over Iranian Banks

Associated Press, 28 January 2008

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080128/turkey_us_terror_finance.html?.v=1

[18] The Mediterranean Union: Dividing the Middle East and North Africa

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Research, 10 February 2008

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6879

[19] Who allies with whom against Iran?

by Umur Talu, Sabah, 20 September 2007

http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/2947/print

[20] House Panel Votes to Condemn Armenian Killings as Genocide

by Steven Lee Myers and Carl Hulse, New York Times, 10 October 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/washington/10cnd-armenia.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp

[21] The Hidden Holocaust: Our Civilizational Crisis

by Nafeez Ahmed, The Cutting Edge

Part 1: The Holocaust in History, 25 November 2007

http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html

Part 2: Exporting Democracy, 3 December 2007

http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2007/12/hidden-holocaust-our-civilizational.html

[22] NATO’s Hidden Terrorism

Daniele Ganser interviewed by Silvia Cattori, Voltaire Network, 22 January 2007

http://www.voltairenet.org/article144748.html

[23] Mass Arrests Expose Operations of Turkey’s “Deep State”

by Gareth Jenkins, Terrorism Focus, Vol. 5, Issue 4, 29 January 2008

http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2373933

[24] Ugur Mumcu was assassinated by the US, claims his brother

Tevhid Haber, 26 January 2008

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2008/01/brother-of-murdered-turkish-journalist.html

[25] Warning: Al-Qaeda planning attacks on Israeli targets in Turkey

Ynetnews, 31 December 2007

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3488536,00.html

[26] Five die in raids on al Qaeda cells in Turkey

Reuters, 24 January 2007

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL24120943

[27] Mukasey warns Turkey on recent expansion of Al Qaeda presence

Zeynep Gurcanli, Hurriyet Online, 15 February 2008

http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/8241646.asp?gid=74&sz=44679

[28] Turkish Top Military Brass meets Wolfowitz one day before Istanbul Attacks

by Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 21 November 2003

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CRG311A.html

[29] PKK'nin tanki mi? Iran'in atom bombasi mi?

by Kadri Gursel, Milliyet, 7 October 2007

http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2007/10/07/dunya/dunz1.html

[30] Karsi devrim endisesi

by Fatih Cekirge, Hurriyet, 14 February 2008

http://arama.hurriyet.com.tr/arsivnews.aspx?id=8228121

[31] “Iran'da ortu okula sinsice girdi; 3 yilda herkes ortundu”

by Can Dundar, Milliyet, 7 February 2008

http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2008/02/07/yazar/dundar.html

[32] Cheney molla icin geliyor

by Kasim Cindemir, Hurriyet, 17 February 2008

http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/dunya/8248131.asp

[33] Cheney Turkiye’ye neden gelir?

by Nagehan Alci, Aksam, 20 February 2008

http://www.aksam.com.tr/yazar.asp?a=109310,10,194