In the Caucasian mountains people like tradition, no matter how violent it may be. In the 1990s public executions were common in Chechnya and Ingushetia. They have their own concept of justice and their own methods to carry it out. But times are changing, as people seek forgiveness rather than revenge. But it’s not always easy to forgive a murderer, as the echo of one shot reverberates through the centuries.
War against Iran, Iraq AND Syria?
By Pepe Escobar
Amidst the incessant rumble in the (Washington) jungle about a possible Obama administration military adventure in Syria, new information has come to light. And what a piece of Pipelineistan information that is.
Picture Iraqi Oil Minister Abdelkarim al-Luaybi, Syrian Oil Minister Sufian Allaw, and the current Iranian caretaker Oil Minister Mohammad Aliabadi getting together in the port of Assalouyeh, southern Iran, to sign a memorandum of understanding for the construction of the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline, no less.
At Asia Times Online and also elsewhere I have been arguing that this prospective Pipelinestan node is one of the fundamental reasons for the proxy war in Syria. Against the interests of Washington, for whom integrating Iran is anathema, the pipeline bypasses two crucial foreign actors in Syria – prime “rebel” weaponizer Qatar (as a gas producer) and logistical “rebel” supporter Turkey (as the self-described privileged energy crossroads between East and West).
The US$10 billion, 6,000 kilometer pipeline is set to start in Iran’s South Pars gas field (the largest in the world, shared with Qatar), and run via Iraq, Syria and ultimately to Lebanon. Then it could go under the Mediterranean to Greece and beyond; be linked to the Arab gas pipeline; or both.
Before the end of August, three working groups will be discussing the complex technical, financial and legal aspects involved. Once finance is secured – and that’s far from certain, considering the proxy war in Syria – the pipeline could be online by 2018. Tehran hopes that the final agreement will be signed before the end of the year.
Tehran’s working assumption is that it will be able to export 250 million cubic meters of gas a day by 2016. When finished, the pipeline will be able to pump 100 million cubic meters a day. For the moment, Iraq needs up to 15 million cubic meters a day. By 2020, Syria will need up to 20 million cubic meters, and Lebanon up to 7 million cubic meters. That still leaves a lot of gas to be exported to European customers.
Europeans – who endlessly carp about being hostages of Gazprom – should be rejoicing. Instead, once again they shot themselves in their Bally-clad feet.
Want war? Here’s the bill
Before we get to the latest European fiasco, let’s mix this Pipelineistan development with the new Pentagon “discovery” – via the deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), David Shedd, according to whom the proxy war in Syria may last for “multiple years”. If that happens, bye-bye pipeline.
One wonders what those Pentagon intel wizards have really been doing since early 2011, considering they had been predicting Bashar al-Assad’s fall every other week. Now they have also “discovered” that jihadis in the Syrian theater of the Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) mould are actually running the (ghastly) show. Shedd admitted there are “at least 1,200” disparate “rebel” factions/gangs in Syria, most of them irrelevant.
Attesting to the appalling average IQ involved in foreign policy debate in the Beltway, still this information had to be spun to justify yet another military adventure on the horizon – especially after President Barack “Assad must go” Obama declared he would authorize the “light” weaponizing of “good” rebels only. As if the harsh rules of war obeyed some Weapon Fairy Godmother high up in the sky.
Into the ring steps General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On the same day that Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus were talking seriously about the business of energy, Dempsey wrote to US senators of the John McCain warmongering variety that the US getting into yet another war would lead to “unintended consequences”.
Dempsey wrote that weaponizing and training the “good” rebels (assuming the CIA has a clue who they are) would cost “$500 million per year initially”, require “several hundred to several thousand troops” and risk weaponizing al-Qaeda-style jihadis, as well as plunging Washington, according to Dempsey’s Pentagonese, into “inadvertent association with war crimes due to vetting difficulties.”
In case the Obama administration caved in to the warmongers’ favorite option – a no-fly zone – Dempsey also said “limited” air strikes would require “hundreds of aircraft, ships, submarines, and other enablers”, to a cost “in the billions”, and all that to achieve little else than a “significant degradation of regime capabilities and an increase in regime desertions”.
Dempsey at least was frank; unlike Gaddafi in Libya, Bashar al-Assad’s forces would not fold because of a no-fly zone. And nothing substantially would change because the Syrian government “relies overwhelmingly on surface fires – mortars, artillery, and missiles”. And even a limited no-fly zone – what former State Department star Anne-Marie Slaughter euphemistically defined as a “no-kill zone” – would cost “over $1 billion a month”. And who will be paying for all this? China?
Even with Dempsey playing god cop and sporting the voice of reason – something quite astonishing in itself; but anyway he’s been to Iraq, and saw first hand the ass-kicking by a bunch of towelheads with second-hand Kalashnikovs – US pundits are still relishing the internal debate in the Obama administration over the “wisdom” of yet another war.
Round up all the Prada jihadis
And while the “wisdom” debate is slated to go on, the European Union decided to act; meekly bowing to US and Israel pressure, the EU – itself pressured by the UK and the Netherlands – blacklisted the armed wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
The pretext was the bombing of a bus carrying Israelis in Bulgaria in 2012. Hezbollah said it had nothing to do with it. Bulgarian investigators said positively yes; then maybe; and now they admit even circumstantial evidence is shaky.
So the pretext is bogus. This is the EU – after the despicable denying of overflying rights to the Bolivian presidential plane – once again meekly playing poodle, with the Brits and the Dutch trying to weaken Hezbollah just as it has staked its ground in the Syrian/Lebanese border and has actually fought those jihadis of the Jabhat al-Nusra and AQI kind.
As a graphic illustration of utter EU cluelessness – some might say stupidity – Britain, the Netherlands and France, especially, followed by the others, have just branded the organization that is fighting jihadis on the ground in Syria/Lebanon “terrorists”, while the jihadis themselves get away with it. So much for European ignorance/arrogance.
So what’s next? It’s not far-fetched to imagine the EU totally forgetting about a pipeline that will ultimately benefit its citizens and issuing – under US pressure – a directive branding Iran-Iraq-Syria as a terrorist axis; lobbying for a no-fly zone applying to all; and recruiting jihadis all over for a Holy War against the axis, supported by a fatwa issued by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. But first they would need Washington’s approval. As a matter of fact, they might even get it.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
Bradley Manning Verdict Convicts Washington
BY: Paul Craig Roberts, Boiling Frogs Post contributing author,
“Willingness to corrupt the law has become the highest qualification for appointment to a judgeship or as a US Attorney.
Bradley Manning’s conviction is more conclusive evidence that the US government is illegitimate. Manning’s “trial” was equivalent to Joseph Stalin’s “trial” of Nikolai Bukharin. It did not take place in a real court with a real jury. The military officer who served as a “judge” was not impartial. Manning was convicted for obeying the US Military Code and doing his sworn duty to report war crimes. There is no difference between Manning’s “conviction” and the “conviction” of Bukharin as a capitalist spy. Both trials were political trials.
The absurdity and injustice of these two convictions tells you all you need to know about the governments behind the convictions. The governments are tyrannical. Imagine the US government accusing Manning of aiding the enemy when the US government itself is supporting al Qaeda’s attempt to overthrow the Syrian government! And Bloomberg reports that al Qaeda backers in Afghanistan are receiving US military contracts!
Americans are a gullible people. They do not understand that the “justice system” is corrupted. Prosecutors and judges have no interest in innocence or guilt. For them conviction alone is the mark of career success. The more people a prosecutor can put in prison, the more successful his career. The more judges bend justice to serve the success of the government’s case, the greater the probability of promotion to higher judicial office. American “justice” has degenerated. Willingness to corrupt the law has become the highest qualification for appointment to a judgeship or as a US Attorney.
If Manning had been permitted a real trial, possibly jurors might have weighed the evidence. Did Manning obey the Military Code or disobey it? Did Manning serve the public interest or harm it? But, of course, nothing relevant was part of the trial. In American courts today, exculpatory evidence is not allowed into the courtroom. If a poor person steals a loaf of bread, the government can turn the case into an act of terrorist sabotage. That’s more or less what the government did to Bradley Manning.
# # # #
Paul Craig Roberts, Boiling Frogs Post contributing author, is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has been reporting on executive branch and cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. He has written or co-written eight books, contributed chapters to numerous books, and has published many articles in journals of scholarship. Mr. Roberts has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy, and has been a critic of both Democratic and Republican administrations. You can visit his website here. ©
PaulCraigRoberts.org
Greece: Construction firms stay away from city mosque
A fourth attempt to find a construction company to build Athens’s first mosque will be made next month after three failed tenders have led to some firms claiming they withdrew because of fears of intimidation.
The Infrastructure Ministry’s general secretary, Stratos Simopoulos, told Kathimerini that the new tender for the 946,000-euro project in the Votanikos area would only be aimed at big companies.
Kathimerini spoke to representatives of several smaller companies that had expressed an interest in the scheme in the past, who admitted to concerns about the popular opposition to the construction of a mosque in Athens. One person spoke of fears of “being targeted by extremist groups,” while another said that he had been unable to physically submit the bid due to a protest against the mosque by residents and other groups.
Far-right Golden Dawn is opposed to the mosque’s construction but the project is also being fought by Bishop of Piraeus Seraphim and a residents’ group in Votanikos.
Government sources speculated that the lack of interest from construction firms might be an attempt to force the government to offer more money. Athens is one of the few European Union capitals without a mosque, so Muslims use some 100 makeshift praying areas in the basements of apartment blocks
Souce ekathimerini.com
Iran grants Syria a $3.6 billion line of credit for oil
NICOSIA — Iran has approved a plan to supply billions of dollars
worth of oil to Syria
Syria’s official state news agency said Teheran agreed to deliver $3.6 billion in oil over the next year.
In exchange, the regime of President Bashar Assad, which is fighting a more than two-year civil war, has allowed Iran to invest in Syria.
“An agreement was signed in Teheran by the Iranian and Syrian central banks, granting Syria a credit line worth $3.6 billion,” Sana said on July 30.
Sana said the agreement, signed on July 29, would help relieve the fuel shortage in Syria. The news agency did not identify the targets of Iranian investment.
Erdogan Seeks Informers
By: Tulin Daloglu for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse
Let me draw your attention to two recent developments in an attempt to question the understanding of what democracy means for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, since both cases are nothing but an encouragement for people to be informers.
As to the first development, Erdogan said on July 19, referring to Gezi Park protesters, “It’s a crime to disturb neighbors. I’m telling you that such acts require punishment. It’s a crime. And I am not the one to tell it, but the laws. Therefore, you will sue those people who clanged pans and pots without any hesitation. Because no one has the right to disturb the peace of this nation.”
As to the second development, the daily Zaman reported on July 28 that the National Police Department has launched a new project where boxes will be installed in various neighborhoods so that people can secretly inform the police about suspicious or potential illegal activities without revealing their identities. “With this system, people will be able to inform [the police] in writing or in audio,” the daily reported. “The tips will certainly be kept confidential. It’s expected that this project will start soon.”
No doubt that the police cannot solve any crimes without the help of the public, and it is wrong to consider the security officials and the people as adversaries. But, it’s impossible to guarantee that authorities won’t ever abuse the power. Therefore, such neighborhood reporting boxes could take away any trust for the security system.
It may be wrong to prejudge as to how this tip box-style secret informant system will work in Turkey, but the concern is real. And it’s simply this: The rule of law in this country has never been the strength of its democracy. There are fewer and fewer checks and balances while Erdogan rules as a one-man show, and it’s becoming difficult to define what could trigger people to inform the police against their neighbors.
Since Erdogan called people to sue their neighbors, no one has yet gone to court. But with these tip boxes, people will be used as informants by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to determine who opposes their policies. This act will likely peel away the trust bond among people, and people will share fewer and fewer conversations about politics or important subjects.
Such informants have been used in Arab countries, making people distrust each other and pushing others into silence. Why is it that Turkey has to adopt this practice?
Tulin Daloglu is a contributor to Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse. She has also written extensively for various Turkish and American publications, including The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, The Middle East Times, Foreign Policy, The Daily Star (Lebanon) and the SAIS Turkey Analyst Report.
More Troubling News For Turkish Media’s Independence (another veteran journalis Can Dundar of Milliyet)
A riot police officer orders a news photographer to move away during an anti-government protest in central Istanbul, July 28, 2013. (photo by REUTERS/Osman Orsal)
By: Tulin Daloglu for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse Posted on August 2.
It’s getting more depressing every day writing about yet another veteran journalist, this time Can Dundar of Milliyet daily, getting fired because of his critical approach to government handling the Gezi Park protests in June, and being personally warned to be cautious by family, friends and colleagues in this new political environment before commenting on anything about the Justice and Development Party (AKP). As someone who lost her contract in May 2010 with Haberturk, allegedly by a request from the prime minister’s office, I empathize with those caring voices around me.
But what happens if all our voices are silenced one by one? While I privately feel grateful not to be working for a Turkish media organization, I strongly urge everyone to include George Orwell’s 1984 in their summer reading list as I keep finding myself referencing that novel in my articles because it feels like it’s reflecting the atmosphere here well.
There is undoubtedly a heavy cloud over the Turkish media’s freedom and independence moving forward — not that it was perfect in the past. As the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) writes, “Covering the news in Turkey is more dangerous than it has been in two decades. CPJ has documented dozens of anti-press attacks since the [Gezi Park] protests began, including vandalism and assaults, with police posing the biggest threat.”
In his initial remarks after the news broke, Dundar said he is neither the first victim nor will be the last of the country’s new political atmosphere. “I learned in a telephone call I received from Erdogan Demiroren [Milliyet’s owner] that my job is terminated. … I was expecting this for a long time; there was no surprise,” he said yesterday, Aug. 1. “What’s important is it’s not only about losing a job, we’re on the verge of losing a profession. Until we get together again, there will be more victims.”
“There is no Abdi Ipekci [the legendary editor-in-chief of Milliyet from 1959 until his assassination in 1979] journalism at Milliyet for a long time, but there is, ‘Let not the Master be disturbed’ journalism,” wrote Hasan Cemal, who was forced to resign in March after 35 years at Milliyet when the daily broke the biggest scoop about the negotiations between the AKP and the imprisoned Kurdistan Workers Party leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Looking back at that time, Dundar wrote yesterday: “It was clear what was happening to those who do not bend down before all [AKP] policies. … When Erdogan said from the platform [days before Cemal’s contract was suspended] that ‘damn your journalism’ was not an expectation, but an order. The boss’ floor was flooded by those telephone calls from the ministers/advisers to indeed accomplish that.”
Aysenur Arslan, another veteran journalist who was fired from CNNTurk due to her strong opposing views of the AKP government, wrote about the Dundar case on July 28. “The Gezi protests have become a real turning point for Erdogan. Erdogan’s fear and anger as result of these events are so huge that he and his team could do anything.” Indeed, the AKP was so troubled by the Gezi Park protests that Mehmet Ali Sahin, deputy chairman of the ruling AKP, said the protesters should be legally evaluated under a section of the Turkish penal code that “requires life sentence.” “Because I believe the protesters were trying to bring down the government,” Sahin said.
Arslan’s point about the mounting pressure regarding Dundar was this, though: “The AKP came to such a point that they can even discard the Demiroren group, which has been supporting [the ruling party] for years. Surely, if what they want does not happen!” she wrote. “They want Can Dundar’s contract to be terminated. Can is on leave for a while. I knew this even before he was forced to go to vacation. Here is what I know. After the most heated days of the Gezi Park protests, Yalcin Akdogan [the most prominent adviser to Erdogan] screamed the place down in Ankara. In fact, by giving names: What are these Demiroren doing? Are they trying to stab us from the back? If they don’t do what’s required, we will immediately sacrifice them. We know who does what one by one. Starting from Can Dundar, all will go. Whoever sides with those Gezi Park protesters stands against us. Maybe his words were not verbatim exactly like this, but I know Yalcin Akdogan’s rhetoric well.”
On July 30, Akdogan responded to Arslan from his column at the Star daily. “The negative image that is trying to be established against Prime Minister Erdogan is being done by accusations such as silencing the media, intolerance to criticism, and clearing the media from contrarian columnists,” wrote Akdogan under the headline, “Are we on the hook for media engineering?”
“The AKP government certainly does not have any policy or taken any step in an attempt to create partisan media, silencing the press, or discharging the opposition. … For some time, Aysenur Arslan has been writing wrong facts about me. … First of all, she claims we screamed down the place during Gezi events. But the media’s approach and coverage of the protests are so open out there that no explanation is needed. I even did not talk to any friends in the media at that time — let alone scream down the place.”
Nevertheless, for Dundar and others to lose their jobs due to government pressure at privately owned media networks, one needs to spotlight the relationship between the government and media owners, and how the media ownerships continue to increase their wealth through this privileged access to the highest authorities of the state. Mehmet Baransu of Taraf daily, for example, provided quite a controversial account about the Demiroren group’s background nine days before the Gezi Park protests started.
“It was discovered that the owner of Milliyet and Vatan dailies, Erdogan Demiroren, is being accused of murder and seizing the victim’s wealth,” Baransu wrote on May 20 as if it was a sign of a mounting pressure on the Demiroren group. “According to the records of General Staff, the investigation about the murder is an ongoing one since 1982. According to the document that Taraf had found, Erdogan Demiroren has unjustly appropriated the properties of Arsimidis company and has a role in the murder of a businessman owning a brick factory.” Baransu went on to write: “The date is prior to 1980. One of the owners of the Greek-origin Arsimidis Co. was murdered and his corpse was burned somewhere around Halkali, Istanbul. The representatives of this company sued [Demiroren] for illegally seizing the assets of this company. This trial went on for many years.”
Once the government discovers such a suspicious element, the general perception is that that is how power is being used to clamp down all those divergent views in the media. Therefore, the media ownership needs to be clean and free of being dependent on the government work or bids to sustain their wealth and investments. Although this is nothing new about the loose ends of the fourth estate and it is one of the reasons why it fails to stand to the highest standards of contributing to the advancement of democracy in this country, the Erdogan government is probably the most wise and the talented in knowing how to use these pitfalls to their benefit.
In Cemal’s words, “During Erdogan’s period, the media’s livelihood is getting encircled more and more every day.”
Tulin Daloglu is a contributor to Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse. She has also written extensively for various Turkish and American publications, including The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, The Middle East Times, Foreign Policy, The Daily Star (Lebanon) and the SAIS Turkey Analyst Report.
Greek police arrest 72-year-old German suspected of spying for Turks
ATHENS – Agence France-Presse
A 72-year-old German was arrested on the Greek island of Chios in the eastern Aegean suspected of spying on behalf of unknown Turkish nationals, police said Aug. 2.
“For at least three years, he photographed camps and other infrastructure of the (Greek) armed forces in Chios and was paid to give the material to Turkish nationals,” the police said in a statement.
Hired in 2010
At the time of the German’s arrest, he was carrying two cameras containing photographs of military camps on the island, police said.
During a search at his house in Chios, where he has been living for four years, police further found laptops, maps, mobile phones and a pair of glasses with a built-in camera.
A search in his email account revealed a message describing the coastguard’s arrest of the four men last week.
According to police, the suspect claims he was first hired in the summer of 2010 to provide photographic material and his payments ranged between 500 and 1,500 euros ($665 to $1990) for each mission.
Turkey: Erdegon terrifying of Egypt Copycat Military takeover a Major sweep of Turkish top brass by the government.
The Turkish government has removed from office all four force commanders of the army, including the Chief of Gendarmerie Forces
ANKARA hurriyet daily news report:
The Turkish government has removed from office all four force commanders of the army, including the Chief of Gendarmerie Forces General Bekir Kalyoncu, who was expected to be appointed to replace the current chief of the Land Forces according to customary practice.
The Supreme Military Council’s (YAŞ) appointments shaping the commandment echelon of the army which was announced Aug. 3 following President Abdullah Gül’s approval, assigned Deputy Chief of the Turkish General Staff General Hulusi Akar as the new Land Forces Commander replacing General HayriKıvrıkoğlu, who was consigned to retirement.
The post is considered to be key as the Land Forces Commander is customarily the next in line to replace the current Chief of General Staff General Necdet Özel, who will be keeping his post until August 2015.
Speculation had grown during the three-day Supreme Military Council meetings that Kalyoncu was not approved of by the government as his name was mentioned in testimonies by defendants in the Ergenekon case as a figure involved in operations aiming to organize a coup against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.
Air Forces Commander Mehmet Erten was replaced by General Akın Öztürk, Naval Forces Commander Murat Bilgel was replaced by Admiral Bülent Bostanoğlu and General Kalyoncu was replaced by General Servet Yörük as the new Chief of Gendarmerie Forces.
Admiral Bilgel was also put sent into retirement, along with Generals Kıvrıkoğlu and Kalyoncu.
Meanwhile, General Erten was appointed as a member of the Supreme Military Council (YAŞ). The decision has been interpreted behind the scenes as a “polite way of forcing a resignation,” daily Hürriyet reported. Erten is expected to ask for his retirement within six months, the report added.