Tag: Turkey

The Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla was an overt political act aimed at breaking the siege of Gaza.  Bringing food, medicine, and supplies to humans suffering extreme privation in defiance of “the authorities” is an act far less theatrical or playful but conceptually tantamount to hippies stuffing flowers into rifle barrels as a form of protest so good-natured and free of overt threat as to be disarming and impossible for the world audience to find the least bit menacing, much less provoking a violent response.   Indeed, military responses to expressions of “flower power” are unthinkable, and would instantly discredit and delegitimize those bearing actual weapons in support of establishmentarian power.  While the analogy may be imperfect, it generally seems that Israel has done the unthinkable by shooting the flower children dead, including an American and some Turks, citizens of their most critical allies.

Timequakes by The Starseeds

 

^{Library of Celsius at Kusadasi by lyng833}

Cold Turkey – Plastic Ono Band

Yoko doing her best turkey impression — a little scary.

Mashed Potato Time – Dee Dee Sharp

and what are mashed potatoes without the ….

Gravy – Dee Dee Sharp

for dessert …

Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie – Jay and the Techniques

Originally from Antiwar.com:

They say it better than I can.

Greenpeace’s request is to “Repost Widely.” This link is the only link that works, don’t try the others. Get code here, or take it from this diary since it’s easier.

Hey Friends!

The Greenpeace ship, the Arctic Sunrise navigated into perilous waters yesterday in the Cypriot Channel. Greenpeace was in the area calling for an end to unsustainable fishing practices and requesting the establishment of a marine reserve between Cyprus and Turkey.  

I’ve written about the real War on Christmas- in Iraq. Well, the New York Times has this, today, from Baghdad:

Inside the beige church guarded by the men with the AK-47s, a choir sang Christmas songs in Arabic. An old woman in black closed her eyes while a girl in a cherry-red dress, with tights and shoes to match, craned her neck toward rows of empty pews near the back.

“Last year it was full,” said Yusef Hanna, a parishioner. “So many people have left – gone up north, or out of the country.”

In a safe neighborhood, in the midst of the relative calm of the current relative downturn in violence, this is still less than a Merry Christmas.

Iraq’s Christians have fared poorly since the fall of Saddam Hussein, with their houses or businesses frequently attacked. Some priests estimate that as much as two-thirds of the community, or about one million people, have fled, making Sacred Heart typical. Though a handful have recently returned from abroad, only 120 people attended Mass on Monday night, down from 400 two years ago.

But, of course, that was in a safe neighborhood. Elsewhere, the violence continues, irrespective of religion or season. The Washington Post reports:

Gunmen stopped a minibus driving north of Baghdad on Monday and abducted 13 Iraqi civilians inside, Iraqi police reported. The mass kidnapping was a renewed tactic that has grown increasingly rare as violence has ebbed in Iraq.

An ominous sign?

(more)

“We’ve gathered here to mark the opening of this Holocaust Museum. We do so to help ensure that the Holocaust will remain ever a sharp thorn in every national memory, but especially in the memory of the United States, which has such unique responsibilities at this moment in history. We do so to redeem in some small measure the deaths of millions whom our nations did not, or would not, or could not save.”

~ President Bill Clinton, Remarks at the Dedication of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, April 21, 1993

“All of the people in this room and people in this country have a vital role to play. Everyone ought to raise their voice. We ought to continue to demand that the genocide in Sudan be stopped.”

~President George W. Bush, Remarks at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, April 18, 2007

From the Times of London, breaking news:

Turkish Prime Minister warns US: we will attack Kurdish rebels in Iraq

Recep Tayyip Erdogan tells The Times that he needs nobody’s permission to defend his country

[Oct. 22, 2007]

Martin Fletcher and Suna Erdem

Turkey will launch military action against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq despite frantic appeals for restraint from America and Nato, its Prime Minister has told The Times.

Speaking hours before the PKK, the Kurdish Workers’ Party, killed at least 17 more Turkish soldiers yesterday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey had urged the US and Iraqi governments repeatedly to expel the separatists but they had done nothing. Turkey’s patience was running out and the country had every right to defend itself, he said. “Whatever is necessary will be done,” he declared in an interview. “We don’t have to get permission from anybody.”

Mr Erdogan, who begins a two-day visit to Britain today, also offered a bleak assessment of relations between the US and Turkey, a country of huge strategic importance to Washington. He said that a “serious wave of antiAmericanism” was sweeping Turkey, called America’s war in Iraq a failure, and served warning that if the US Congress approved a Bill accusing the Ottoman Turks of genocide against Armenians during the First World War, the US “might lose a very important friend”.

— snip —

This is a potential distaster.

[Update: 10/21/07 11:27 PM by LithiumCola]:

More; the Times headline might be overhyped:

Military action could be avoided only if the Americans and Iraqis expelled the PKK, closed its camps and handed over its leaders, he said.

Mr Erdogan said that last week’s parliamentary vote authorising military action showed that Turkey’s patience was exhausted. He would not be drawn on the scale or timing of any operation, but Turkey is thought to have more than 60,000 soldiers massed along the Iraq border. Other Turkish officials said that the PKK had six training camps and 3,500 fighters in the mountains of northern Iraq.

[Update #2 11:40 PM 10/21/07 by Lithiumcola]: more below.