http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2006/10/1732794.php
Lockheed Martin, Joseph Ralston, and the Kurds [EMAIL PROTECTED] Former USAF General Joseph Ralston was recently appointed as a "special envoy" to Turkey by the Bush Administration, in order to coordinate the Kurdish situation, which includes a recent unilateral ceasefire by the PKK (Kurdistan Workers" Party). However, Joseph Ralston is a member of the Board of Directors of Lockheed Martin and a vice-chairman of the defense industry lobby firm, The Cohen Group, which indicates a severe conflict of interest at a time when Turkey has completed a $3 billion deal for new F-16 fighters and is considering a $10 billion deal for the all new F-35 JSF aircraft--both produced by Lockheed Martin. Will the Ralston appointment help to end the 22-year-old conflict in the Kurdish region of Turkey, or is it the beginning of the continuation of the war? Lockheed Martin, Joseph Ralston, and the PKK In mid-October, Congress approved the sale of 30 F-16 aircraft to Turkey, in a deal that will bring almost $3 billion to Lockheed Martin: "The Pentagon on Sept. 28 notified Congress of the planned sale, and no congressional objection has been raised within the formal waiting period of two weeks, U.S. and Turkish sources said. This means that all U.S. agencies have confirmed the sale, and that the rest depends on negotiations between related defense agencies and companies from the two allies, a process that should lead to the signing of a contract."(1) Lockheed Martin, the world's largest arms manufacturer, will produce the fighter jets, but other members of the American defense contractor's establishment will also stand to gain in the deal, with General Electric, Boeing, L-3 Communications Holdings, Raytheon, and BAE Systems contributing to the production, according to Market Watch: "'This proposed sale will enhance the Turkish Air Force's ability to defend Turkey while patrolling the nation's extensive coastline and borders against future threats and to contribute to the Global War on Terrorism and NATO operations,' the U.S. defense agency said." (2) Turkey is also poised to decide on the purchase a state-of-the-art fighter aircraft fleet (numbering between 150-200 aircraft over the next 20 years) by the end of this year, with the two contenders for the honor being the Lockheed Martin F-35 JSF and the Eurofighter.(3) The question that should concern Kurds is how these purchases, as contributions to the "Global War on Terror," will affect the recent PKK ceasefire. It is widely known that the Turkish military has used Lockheed Martin F-16's to assist with the obliteration of Kurdish villages in North Kurdistan during the 1990's Dirty War, with the facts well-documented by human rights groups. In 1995, Human Right Watch documented arms sales to Turkey, along with related violations of the laws of war by that state. Included among the many gross abuses that Turkey has perpetrated against the Kurdish people, the F-16 fighter jet figures prominently. In spite of the fact that the US State Department issued its first human rights report on Turkey in 1995, US officials in Ankara remained eager to sell more of their deadly toys: "Despite documenting the fact that Turkey has misused U.S. weapons, the Clinton administration, which says it supplies Turkey with 80 percent of its foreign military hardware, has consistently refused to link arms sales to improvements in Turkey's human rights record. Shortly after publication of the June 1995 State Department report, the U.S.'s top military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Shalikashvili, wrote a letter to the U.S. Congress urging U.S. lawmakers not to cut military assistance to Turkey because of its human rights record. "In fact, based on Human Rights Watch interviews with U.S. military personnel, it appears that Pentagon representatives in Ankara are more eager than ever to sell Turkey U.S. weapons, including M-60 tanks, helicopter gunships, cluster bombs, ground-to-ground missiles and small arms. The U.S. is also involved in co-production agreements with the Turkish defense industry, most notably helping to build the F-16 fighter-bomber, which the U.S. State Department acknowledged may have been used indiscriminately to kill Kurdish civilians, and a new armored personnel carrier. " (4) Moreover, Turkey was not content to keep its use of the F-16, or other aircraft, within its own borders. During Operation Northern Watch, the Turkish military routinely bombed Kurdish civilians in South Kurdistan, in attempts to obliterate those villages that Saddam had never gotten around to destroying: "In 1995 and 1997, as many as 50,000 Turkish troops, backed by tanks and fighter aircraft, occupied what the West called 'Kurdish safe havens'. "They terrorised Kurdish villages and murdered civilians. In December 2000, they were back, committing the atrocities that the Turkish military commits with immunity against its own Kurdish population. "For joining the US "coalition" against Iraq, the Turkish regime is to be rewarded with a bribe worth $6billion. Turkey's invasions are rarely reported in Britain. So great is the collusion of the Blair government that, virtually unknown to Parliament and the British public, the RAF and the Americans have, from time to time, deliberately suspended their "humanitarian" patrols to allow the Turks to get on with killing Kurds in Iraq." (5) The PKK's most recent unilateral ceasefire (6) went into effect on 1 October, and it still remains unilateral. The entire Turkish establishment, from Buyukanit to Erdogan have rejected it, while clearly stating their determination to continue the war. (7) This is in spite of the fact that the PKK perfers to negotiate a political settlement and indicated their willingness to do so in August, with demands that are fully consistent with EU accession criteria. (8) The rejection of a political settlement was echoed by the US PKK coordinator, Joseph Ralston, in Ankara: "Days before the declaration of the truce, the United States publicly said that a PKK cease-fire would have little value and that the terrorist group instead should lay down its arms and renounce violence. 'Cease-fire sort of implies an act that is taken between two states, two actors, to do that. And I don't want to confer that kind of status on the PKK by saying a cease-fire,' Joseph Ralston, the newly appointed U.S. special envoy for countering the PKK, said here last Wednesday." (9) Additionally, former General Ralston has ruled out the possibility of following an IRA-type model in coming to a political settlement of the Kurdish situation. (10) What is most interesting about former USAF General Joseph Ralston are not the words he speaks or what is reported about him in the press as Washington's PKK coordinator. The most interesting thing about Joseph Ralston is that he is a member of the Board of Directors of Lockheed Martin (11), the same corporation whose deal for the sale of 30 F-16's was approved by Congress earlier, and whose F-35's may become Turkey's main fighter aircraft. What, then, is Joseph Ralston really coordinating in Ankara? What are the intentions of the American administration that appointed Ralston to his new post? It is difficult to believe that the American administration was unaware of the conflict of interest that the appointment of a board member of Lockheed Martin would create, in a matter that has resulted in some 40,000 Kurdish dead. Such a conflict of interest can only be described as obscene. The conflict of interest becomes more obscene by the fact that both Joseph Ralston and Lockheed Martin are closely tied to the Turkish lobby organization, the American Turkish Council (ATC). Joseph Ralston is a member of the 2006 ATC Advisory Board (12), while a former Lockheed Martin executive, George Perlman, is a member of the 2006 ATC Officers and Board of Directors. (13) Lockheed Martin Corporation is a Golden Horn member of the ATC, as is General Electric Company, Boeing Corporation, Raytheon, and BAE Systems, all of which stand to profit from the current sale. (43) This conflict of interest makes it clear that neither the US nor Turkey has the intention of finding a just and peaceful solution to the great opportunity the PKK ceasefire affords them. On the contrary, both countries seek a return to the Dirty War, in order to reap the profits of repression. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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