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Turkey spends $2.6 Million to Hire Two New Lobbying and PR Firms

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Last week, I wrote about a dozen public relations and lobbying companies the Turkish government had already hired. In recent weeks, the Republic of Turkey added two new such firms: Ballard Partners and Burson-Marsteller.
Turkish officials don’t seem to realize that having more than a dozen lobbying firms not only is a waste of money due to unnecessary duplication, it is also a waste of the valuable time of several Turkish Embassy officials in Washington, D.C., spending a lot of their time on a daily basis to give detailed instructions to these lobbying firms, read their reports, comment on them, meet with them, forward their reports to the Foreign Ministry with lengthy explanations, and take corrective action based on Ankara’s reaction. Unless such an intense and elaborate effort is made in working with so many lobbying firms, Turkish officials are simply wasting their country’s money!
I am happy that the Turkish government has decided to waste more of its money by agreeing to pay Brian Ballard’s firm, Ballard Partners, $1.5 million from May 15, 2017 to May 14, 2018. According to Ballard’s registration with the Justice Department, the firm will provide the Turkish government “with advocacy services relative to US-Turkey bilateral relations.” The lobbying activities include “advising, counseling, and assisting [Turkey] in communications with US Government officials. Maintaining US relations with this important NATO partner.”
Brian Ballard is the longtime lobbyist for Pres. Donald Trump as the representative of the Trump Organization in Tallahassee, Florida. He raised $16 million for Trump’s presidential campaign while serving as his state finance chairman and later as vice chairman of the President’s inaugural committee. Ballard issued a statement asserting that he “still speaks to Trump on occasion.” Susie Wiles, who was introduced by Ballard to Trump during the campaign, served as Trump’s Florida campaign manager. She is now working for Ballard Partners. Ballard also hired former Congressman Robert Wexler (Democrat-Florida) to be in charge of the Turkish lobbying account. As co-chair of the Congressional Turkey Caucus, Cong. Wexler actively lobbied and voted against a proposed House Armenian Genocide resolution on Oct. 10, 2007. His new job is his reward for staunchly supporting Turkey in Congress for years!
According to the Tampa Bay Times, Ballard’s first interaction with Trump occurred several years ago when he wrote a letter to Trump after reading his book, Art of the Deal, and Trump answered. Ballard wrote back stating: “if you ever have any issues in Florida, please don’t hesitate to call.” Trump called him after purchasing Mar-a-Largo in 1985, and paid Ballard at least $460,000 from 2013 to 2015 for lobbying work. Trump personally called Ballard asking for his help when he launched his presidential campaign. Ballard is now organizing a fundraising banquet for Trump on June 28. The cost is $35,000 per person and $100,000 to join the host committee.
Ballard makes no secret of his special connections with Pres. Trump. “I would imagine if Hillary Clinton were elected I wouldn’t be here,” he told the Tampa Bay Times. Ballard said “he doesn’t discuss how he works or his contacts with the president. He’s been spotted at the White House, however, and Trump maintains phone relationships with allies.”
In addition, the Turkish Embassy in Washington D.C., signed a contract with Burson-Marsteller for $1.1 million for the period May 1-Dec. 31, 2017. Ironically, from 2012 to 2015, Burson-Marsteller was doing lobbying work for the Alliance for Shared Values, a group tied to the Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen whom Erdogan opposes and seeks his extradition from the US to Turkey. The Turkish government reportedly threatened Burson-Marsteller’s operations in Turkey if the firm continued to lobby for Gulen.
Burson-Marsteller is supposed to provide “integrated public relations services to support the [Turkish] Embassy’s communications objectives in the United States. Activities include media outreach, monitoring and analysis; event support; stakeholder engagement; social media counsel; and support for Turkish consulates in Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and New York.”
It is noteworthy that despite the millions of dollars spent by Turkey on more than a dozen high-powered lobbying and public relations firms, they could not counter the large number of news articles and TV coverage critical of the Turkish government for the attack on peaceful protesters by Pres. Erdogan’s bodyguards in front of the Turkish Ambassador’s residence in Washington, D.C., on May 16. This fact reinforces my firm belief that Turkey is wasting millions of dollars annually trying to cleanse its image in the U.S., which is further tarnished by the Turkish government’s brutal policies both at home and abroad!

President Obama’s 2013 Golf Trip With Tiger Woods Cost Taxpayers $3.6 Million

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obama-tiger-golgBy on

Golf, as I have written before is a wonderful game. It is a thinking persons game. It is profoundly challenging and one can play it practically until they cart you away to the afterlife clubhouse. That Obama also likes golf is one of the few things on which he and I could (in theory) relate. (My usual go to with my “progressive” friends is classic rock. If one can drink a beer, keep one’s politics in check for a couple of hours and talk T-Rex and The Kinks we can be friends.) That he has played as much golf as he has in his presidency I also see as a positive. I’d rather have him wandering the fairways than getting all “inspired” back in the White House.

But a $3.6 million golf trip on the taxpayer’s dime is just insulting.

(From Mediaite)

In February 2013, President Obama took a four-day golf vacation to Florida where he played a round withTiger Woods, and took a lesson from Woods’s former coach, Butch Harmon.

A new report from The Washington Times says that the long weekend getaway cost taxpayers $3.6 million.

Click here for the article.

TURKEY The actual cost of the destruction of a civilization by Cengiz Aktar

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arton119772-480x320The past weekend, the Bagazici University hosted a conference organized by the Hrant Dink Foundation, in cooperation with Sabanci and Bilgi University in Istanbul and titled “A destroyed civilization: the wealth of Non-Muslims at the end of the Ottoman period and the beginning of the Republican era. “

The theme of the conference was the Armenians, Greeks, Jews and Arameans (Syriacs) at the time of the Ottoman Empire and that of the Republic.

The period studied was 1894-1896 massacres of Armenians that occurred during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II until today. Finally, for over a century, we observe a broken order, and also the violence and injustice that result. The pogroms against Greeks Aegean, deportation and genocide of Armenians and Syriacs in 1915-1916, trade in Orthodox and Muslim populations of 1923 and then the deportation of Greeks in 1964 is the emergence points over a century of violence and suffering endured by non-Muslims.

In a summary list of reasons for the breakdown of order are: Muslims who took refuge in Anatolia in the 19th century, the Caucasus and the Balkans, hoping naturally get their share of the cake, the forced settlement of nomads who began developing since the mid 19th century, the religious cleansing that was undertaken in the name of building a nation-state based on religion, and gender non-Muslims-Muslims resulted from the Tanzimat reforms of the 19th century.

The human dimensions of the destroyed civilization is overwhelming. We speak of some 1.5 million Armenians and 1.5 million Greeks left on an overall population of 13 million in 1923.

The conference largely focused on economic, political, social and cultural rights of the destroyed civilization. As for the economic dimension, the disappearance of non-Muslims sectors of agriculture and industry, loss and dispossession of their financial and physical capital and the destruction of human capital has led to huge losses and the collapse of Anatolia. Not only many production activities – such as textiles, silk and vineyards – were fatally disorganized, but the enormous wealth of ancient agricultural knowledge has also evaporated. Severe damage was reported to the seasonal migration of craftsmen between Anatolia and Istanbul, a tradition dating back to the times of Byzantium. Likewise were destroyed economic relations with Europe that had been established and strengthened for years between industrial and non-Muslim merchants from Anatolia and Istanbul.

22-11-2015-1398776-480x320-480x320The plundering, looting and seizures forces have mainly benefited the state and some local notables. Nevertheless, the loss of human capital became placed as always major problems for the continuation of business. It is not possible to decree the creation of a middle class or create by pressing a magic button; the whole economy collapsed altogether. From this point of view, the forced expulsion of non-Muslims in these lands denotes an absolutely irrational thinking.

Meanwhile, the illegal confiscation and seizure of assets of non-Muslims that we have observed since 1850, had its justification in compensation which had no result so far. With regard to cultural annihilation, the most tangible examples are given by the systematic and deliberate destruction of thousands of buildings, monasteries, churches, schools, homes, gardens and farms belonging to non-Muslims after their annihilation or their forced departure.

Taken together, the 27 papers presented in the conference were very informative for the participants. And the presence of so many young researchers at the conference is a reason to hope. At the same time, however, the conference has reminded us all how we know little about our painful past.

Finally, I will quote the writer Yasar Kemal disappeared in his book ‘Yagmurcuk usu’:

“Son, if you return to this village, you do not adopt the houses abandoned by the Armenians, an abandoned nest can bring life and prosperity to the bird that settles it, the cruelty of the scene only grows cruelty”.

By Cengiz Aktar

Translation Gilbert Béguian

http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist/cengi-z-aktar/the-real-cost-of-a-destroyed-civilization_405235.html