Turkey Shoot
Title: Turkey Shoot TURKEY SHOOT by Dan Scanlan (P)resident George W. Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice and their many cohorts are perfectly correct to fear a terrorist attack relevant to the coming November elections. They will be attacked by terrorists -- American terrorists, the kind that go to the ballot box. The case can be made that despite the social engineering of the Vietnam era draft, that despite the propaganda of the CIA-infiltrated press of that era, despite the heavy-handed government response to protestors, despite the carnage, when the American citizens turned terrorist, the War in Vietnam ended. When plain old American young men who had been knowingly sent to their deaths by elite, wealthy politicians began "fragging" their commanding officers, the war wound down. No longer could the United States send draftees into the jungle without the risk of officers getting shot in the back by their own men. This fragging, of course, could only work its way up the line of command right to the White House. And it did. (Despite the lack of coverage.) (Of course, I don't advocate shooting anybody, with the possible exception of he who gives me a gun and orders me to kill others, a situation I fortunately have never had to endure. I talk here of the vote.) It seems to me that the American people approach a place where it will begin firing back, instead of holding back (often less than half bother to vote). This is what the Bush White House and its corporate sponsors and cheerleaders fear (the Washington Post just editorialized in favor of studying election postponement). They're about to get blown off the face of the electoral map, fragged by the very people they treasonously dragged into the mire of war and seduced by sedition. Even with a House of Representatives full of chickenhawks afraid to impeach, the comeupance is coming up. And they tremble. And trembling right beside them is John Kerry and his wannabes, the corporate fallback team. Their backs are turned on the American people. Gives the voter a real turkey shoot. All we have to do is show up. I intend to and I'll vote Nader.
Clash ahead of Bush visit to Turkey
Clash ahead of Bush visit to Turkey Saturday, June 26, 2004 Posted: 9:41 PM EDT (0141 GMT) ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkish police fired tear gas as more than 100 left-wing demonstrators hurled rocks and used sticks to try and break down a police barricade during a protest Saturday ahead of U.S. President George W. Bush's arrival in the country. The clash came amid intense security in anticipation of Bush's visit and the opening of a NATO summit in Istanbul on Monday. Some 6,000 people, mostly members of trade unions and leftist groups, gathered in the center of Ankara, with some chanting Murderer U.S.A. get out of the Middle East. The area was completely closed off to traffic and surrounded by more than a dozen police armored personnel carriers. Shortly after the protest began, about 150 people rushed a police barricade, hitting the blue iron barrier with sticks. We will go beyond barricades protecting Bush, the group shouted. Police fired tear gas at the group from an armored personnel carrier. A few minutes later the group, the Socialist Platform of the Downtrodden, again attacked the barricade, throwing rocks at the police. The group is an umbrella organization representing several leftist labor unions in Turkey. Police again responded with tear gas. After the second clash, organizers of the main protest asked everyone to disperse and people began leaving the square. Saturday, a small bomb attached to a banner protesting the summit and Bush's visit went off in downtown Istanbul, causing no injuries. Two small bomb blasts overnight caused minor damage but no injuries in the southern city of Adana, and police defused a remote-controlled bomb placed under a car in the Black Sea port of Zonguldak, the Anatolia news agency said. The bombings have been blamed on militant leftists, and Turkish police have detained scores of suspected members of radical groups. Militant Kurdish, Islamic and leftist groups are active in the country, and security in Istanbul has been of special concern since November, when four suicide truck bombings blamed on al Qaeda killed more than 60 people. More than 23,000 police officers will be on duty during the summit, which will be attended by NATO leaders including Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac. Bush was to meet with Turkish leaders early Sunday before heading to Istanbul for the NATO summit.
40,000 protest Bush in Turkey
40,000 protest Bush in Turkey Sunday, June 27, 2004 Posted: 12:42 PM EDT (1642 GMT) ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- Tens of thousands of Turks chanting anti-Bush slogans demonstrated against the president's visit to their country on Sunday and a NATO summit. Bush is unpopular in Turkey, where the overwhelming majority of the public opposed the Iraq war. As the president arrived in Turkey Saturday, supporters of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said they kidnapped three Turkish workers in Iraq, Arab TV station al-Jazeera reported. The group has threatened to behead the hostages, an al-Jazeera employee told The Associated Press. The protest in the Kadikoy district, on the Asian side of Istanbul, attracted more than 40,000 people, mostly members of leftist groups, police said. There were some 100 foreign protesters from Greece, Britain, The Netherlands, Portugal and Syria. We want to throw NATO out of Istanbul, said Dogan Aytac, a Turkish protester with a flag in his hat that read: Get out Bush! A 20-year-old Greek protester, Odysseas Maaita, said, We are here to express our solidarity with the Turkish people, with the people of the Middle East and all others that are under attack, to say that we are against NATO. The summit is to be held on the European side of the city, across the Bosporus, about six miles from Kadikoy. Turkey dramatically boosted security before Bush's arrival and in preparation for the NATO summit, which begins Monday. F-16 warplanes patrolled the skies of Istanbul on Sunday. AWACS early warning planes dispatched by NATO will help monitor a no-fly zone over the city. More than 23,000 police will be on duty during the summit. Turkish commandos are patrolling the Bosporus in rubber boats with mounted machine guns. Bush, who will attend the summit along with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and others, met with Turkish leaders in Ankara on Sunday morning and flies to Istanbul in the early afternoon. At the protest, demonstrators chanted Istanbul will be a grave for NATO. They carried banners, reading: Down with American Imperialism, and Go away Bush! Greenpeace activists carried signs against nuclear weapons. Others chanted in English: Yankees Go Home! Thousands of policemen, deployed in back streets, watched the crowds from a distance as a police helicopter hovered above. In Ankara on Saturday, Turkish police fired tear gas at scores of stone-throwing leftist demonstrators, just hours before Bush arrived in the country. Police said 13 officers were injured by rocks hurled during the rally, the Anatolia news agency reported Sunday. On Sunday, police rounded up some 15 leftist demonstrators in downtown Ankara, saying the group was planning to stage a firebombing in the city. Bush's arrival was preceded by a series of protests and bomb blasts, including one Thursday that injured three people outside the Ankara hotel where Bush is expected to stay. Another blast that same day on an Istanbul bus killed four people and injured 14. The bombings has been blamed on militant leftists. Militant Kurdish, Islamic and leftist groups are active in the country, and security in Istanbul has been of special concern since November, when four suicide truck bombings blamed on al Qaeda killed more than 60 people.
Title correction: Game Theory (Instead of Islam and Democracy: The Lesson from Turkey)
Game Theory should have been the title of my previous post. By the way, that I do not like Game Theory has nothing to do with that I am a Leftist. But it has a lot to do with that I am an Easterner. Best, Sabri
Re: Islam and Democracy: The Lesson from Turkey
Jim: As I noted, GT doesn't (usually?) take individual tastes, ideologies, etc. as endogenously determined by the social structure or game. Exactly. At least, the Nash Equilibrium Version of it does not. If someone asked me what the most important aspect/issue of/with economics/econometrics is, I would say without hesitation that it is endogeneity. Heterogeneity among individuals and associated with that the so-called state-dependence (history as well as geography dependence) which are important dimensions of endogeneity are absent from the classical game theory, whatever classical means. I don't think if Michael Perelman and I played the Prisoners' Dilemma Game between the two of us, we would have ended up playing the Nash Equilibrium. Also, Nash was a paranoid-schizophrenic not because of Game Theory but Game Theory, at least, its Nash Version, is paranoid-schizophrenic because of Nash's psychology. Anyway! Sabri
Islam and Democracy: The Lesson from Turkey
An excerpt from the below Counterpunch article: What does this have to do with Iraq? It is unlikely that this country, held together so effectively by tyranny, could avoid splitting into at least three separate enclaves if the US were to pull out abruptly. Of these three parts, it is unlikely that any (except, perhaps, the majority-Kurdish area) would put forth a leader with much sympathy for Western-style democracy. The Shiites would rally behind an ayatollah, and the Sunnis would fall back into Baathism. I am not so sure about this. I was born to a Sunni family but that was just by chance. As I know it, the Sunnies and Shiites see themselves as Muslims first. Kurds are Muslims too. The differences among these three peoples are not as big as the West likes to think they are. And I don't think the differences among Jews, Christians and Muslims are as big as some want to lead us believe. You never know what the future will bring us and keep my fingers crossed. We will see. Interesting article though. Sabri http://www.counterpunch.com/smith05152004.html Islam and Democracy The Lesson from Turkey By JUSTIN E.H. SMITH After Abu Ghraib, the Bush administration's insistence that its misadventure in Iraq has anything to do with promoting democracy should by now come across as grossly fraudulent to any half-thoughtful, non-self-deluding adult. At the outset, a charitable anti-imperialist could, if not share, at least conjure some sympathy for the optimistic outlook of Thomas Friedman and other opponents of tyranny who thought that the end of Hussein's regime (for 'Hussein' is his surname, and he and I are not on first-name terms) would trigger, by way of the domino effect, the conversion of all those middle eastern, pre-Enlightenment hold-outs into so many Jeffersonian republics. Beyond the obvious difference, though, that American democracy, such as it is (or once was), was born of revolution against a colonial power, and not imposed by a colonial power, our anti-imperialist might also have pointed out the hypocrisy of pretending to promote democracy in the Islamic world while simultaneously denouncing the Turkish parliament's rejection, shortly before the invasion of Iraq a year ago, of $15 billion dollars in US aid and loans, offered in exchange for permission to send over 60,000 more troops into their country as part of a two-front invasion of Iraq. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz immediately criticized the Turkish military for not playing the strong leadership role we would have expected, while the body-snatched Christopher Hitchens took Turkey's refusal as confirming something he'd long held, that Turkey is an ally we can do without. West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, in contrast, courageously proclaimed on the senate floor: It is astonishing that our government is berating the new Turkish government for conducting its affairs in accordance with its own Constitution and its democratic institutions. Wolfowitz evidently wanted Turkey to do what it indeed has traditionally done throughout its 20th-century history: to override democratic decisions that, in the long term, could easily spell the end of its alliance with the US. As the great sociologist and theorist of modernity Ernest Gellner has argued, modern Turkey's idiosyncrasy lies in the fact that its periodic military coups really have functioned to keep the democratic will of the Turkish electorate and the governing bodies from straying too far from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's initial, revolutionary vision of what a secular, democratic, Turkey should look like, which included, among other things, alliance with Western, secular democracies. Amazingly, after the civilian leaders have been roped back in and the voters humbled, the military really does restore power to democratically elected officials. This, then, has been a feature that has distinguished Turkey from every other country in which military coups regularly happen, for in all other cases we can be sure that the general in charge, promising to restore power to civilian leaders just as soon as order is restored, will be exceedingly careful not to let things get sufficiently orderly to enable him to come good on his promise. Military coups, on Gellner's analysis, are, or have been, just a part of Turkey's unique system of checks and balances. Wolfowitz, presumably, and likely without all that much knowledge of Kemalism's history, would have liked to see the military step in at just the moment that its new governing party began leading Turkey away from its traditional role as a stalwart, strategic ally of the United States. But a coup didn't happen this time; Turkey turned its back on an ally and the military has not bothered to set the matter right. The religiously secular republic created by Ataturk in the 1920s _when I taught at a state university in Istanbul last year I used to watch female students remove their head scarves in a booth just at the campus
My little brother and several other boys and girls from Turkey
Here is a book that you may find interesting: The Politics of Permanent Crisis: Class, Ideology and State in Turkey Edited by Nesecan Baykan and Sungur Savran. Here is an excerpt from Baykan and Savran's editorial piece: Having been thrown by history to the front stage in Eurasia, one of the most delicate regions of the world at present and also having been accorded a significant mission by its allies, in particular the US, and torn, on the other hand, by such profound tensions in economics, society and the polity, Turkey seems to be a powder keg sitting in the midst of the fateful triangle formed by the Balkans, the Middle East and the Caucasus. Here is where you can find some information about the book: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?show=Hardcover:Sale:159033129x:55.20 I have not read the book yet but happen to know many of the contributors and read my brother's review of the book for Science and Society about 10 minutes ago. It sounded interesting. Best, Sabri
Turkey, pipelines and all that........
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav011404.shtml EURASIA INSIGHT January 14, 2004 TURKEY SEEKS TO CARVE OUT CONFLICT RESOLUTION ROLE IN THE CAUCASUS Mevlut Katik: 1/14/04 Turkish officials view the recent leadership turnover in both Azerbaijan and Georgia as a diplomatic opportunity to promote stabilization in the strife-prone Caucasus. In particular, Ankara wants to act as a conflict mediator, with the aim of smoothing the way for pipeline construction in the region. Many political analysts believe the Turkish initiative stands little chance of success. They point to Armenia's antagonistic relationship with both Turkey and Azerbaijan as a major stumbling block. There have been few signs in recent months, they add, that the historic enemies are prepared to set aside feelings of mutual hostility in order to promote stabilization measures, such as a lasting political settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Turkey opened its diplomatic campaign in early January, when Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul paid his first official visit to Baku since Ilham Aliyev's election as Azerbaijani president last fall. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Azerbaijan, which has strong cultural links to Turkey, is Ankara's staunchest ally in the Caucasus. While Gul's talks with Azerbaijani officials spanned a wide variety of economic and political issues, the topic of regional security clearly dominated the meetings. Gul mentioned repeatedly that Turkey sought to increase its role in the Karabakh peace process. Negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan are currently stalemated. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. We are working on producing solutions [to the Karabakh issue] by bringing together the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Turkish foreign ministers, Gul said at a joint news conference with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Vilayat Quliyev. Gul went on to say that a trilateral meeting would be convened at an unspecified future date. Turkish and Azerbaijani officials also discussed Baku's potential membership in NATO. Turkey is scheduled to host the upcoming NATO summit in June. Turkey's recent conflict-settlement efforts are reportedly not limited to Azerbaijan. According to a January 10 report in the Turkish daily Hurriyet, Ankara is also trying to position itself as a go-between in Georgia, seeking to ease tension between the new government in Tbilisi and the autonomy-minded region of Ajaria. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Ankara's eagerness to improve the security climate in the Caucasus is clearly driven by a desire to keep the construction timetable for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline on track. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In Baku, Gul and Quliyev both expressed hope that pipeline construction would be completed in 2005, as planned. The Caucasus retains its strategic importance as an East-West energy and transportation corridor, and as a door for Turkey to Central Asia, Gul stated during a speech at Baku State University. Upheaval in Georgia in late 2003 -- namely the rigged November election that sparked popular protests, culminating in former president Eduard Shevardnadze's resignation - initially raised concerns about potential BTC construction delays. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Those concerns have eased in recent weeks, especially after the January 4 special presidential election, won by Mikheil Saakashvili, passed without prompting fresh unrest. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Saakashvili has repeatedly stated that his administration will be committed to the BTC project and will seek to foster closer ties with Turkey. The important thing is to increase our economic cooperation, Turkey's NTV television channel quoted Saakashvili as saying January 9. We [in Georgia] are planning significant tax rebates for small and medium-sized businesses. In this way, Turkish capital will be able to come here and enter new fields of business. While bilateral Turkish-Georgian relations may be poised for a breakthrough, prospects for significant improvement in the Caucasus' overall security climate appear uncertain. For all the talk about wanting to foster a Karabakh settlement, Gul gave no indication that Ankara would make a policy shift that could facilitate peace talks. At present, Turkey's ability to promote the Karabakh peace process would seem limited, given that Ankara does not maintain formal diplomatic relations with Armenia. Gul stressed that back-channels of bilateral communication have opened in recent years. Yet, Turkish-Armenian relations remain strained over the highly contentious Armenian Genocide debate, as Ankara steadfastly refuses to recognize that the mass deaths of Armenians in eastern Turkey during World War I were the result of well-coordinated Turkish government action. Some Azerbaijani observers have speculated that Turkey's desire to gain
Egoyan award winning film not shown yet in Turkey
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1c=Articlecid=1073430609510call_pageid=968867495754col=969483191630 KAREN PALMER STAFF REPORTER The Canadian writer-director of a controversial film about Turkey's historical genocide says he's surprised a country that seemed so committed to starting a dialogue about its painful past has postponed screening the film amid fears of attacks. Atom Egoyan, whose award-winning film Ararat was scheduled to begin showing in Turkey on Jan. 16, said he's still waiting to hear more details from the Turkish film distributor about why its screening was scuttled. The only way I can understand this being postponed is if these threats were taken very seriously. What I can't determine is whether the threats were against the distributor or against the government as well, he said, noting that he has been scouring the Internet looking for credible information. Just before the new year, the Turkish cultural minister agreed to release the film, saying it could trigger a dialogue. All of those were huge and significant statements, so it seems surprising to me that a few days later the whole process is scuttled and postponed, Egoyan said. Ararat focuses on the bloody years between 1915 and 1923, when 1.5 million Armenians died while being expelled from Turkey, and carries forward to the present, depicting a family in modern-day, multicultural Toronto, struggling to deal with the wounds left by the genocide. Turkish nationalists have denounced it as propaganda and the former Turkish cultural minister refused to allow it to be screened. I've had lots of threats making this movie, all the way along, actually ... but I really didn't take them seriously, Egoyan said. The Armenian National Committee of Canada said the film distributor, Istanbul-based Belge Films, pulled the film's release after receiving threats from Ulku Ocaklari, a group with ties to the Grey Wolves, a nationalist paramilitary group, as well as the Turkish military and intelligence units. Egoyan said he's uncertain of the exact nature of the threats, but acknowledged that the group has a history of violence. I really don't know the internal situation enough, but I do know that that group was linked to a number of very violent actions, he said. I do know that this group is very opposed to the government on this issue. It sees the government as a traitor to the Turkish nationalist cause. Egoyan suspects the people making the threats haven't seen the film. It's a complex and considered piece of work, it's not a blunt propagandistic movie, he said. The Turkish government censored at least one scene in the film, showing a Turkish soldier raping an Armenian woman. As an artist I can't condone any cuts on the movie at all. The imagery that it shows is so carefully considered, any attempt to change or delete moments is reprehensible, Egoyan said.
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
Doug writes: Trying to quantify it [surplus value] reminds me of Hayek's Prices Production. Doug Could you elaborate on the analogy? Are you saying that quantifying surplus value (or rather a workable proxy, in the same way the NIPA accounts are workable proxies) is too difficult empirically or is it theoretically illogical ? Thanks Paul
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
Mark Perlman has a wonderful account of Kuznets and the creation of national accounts in the US -- how it was designed as a war planning tool. Come to think of it, he was trying to calculate the surplus, to see how much production could be diverted to the war. In this sense, Doug can be correct, but I still don't get the Hayek analogy. On Fri, Dec 05, 2003 at 08:27:24AM -0500, Paul wrote: Doug writes: Trying to quantify it [surplus value] reminds me of Hayek's Prices Production. Doug Could you elaborate on the analogy? Are you saying that quantifying surplus value (or rather a workable proxy, in the same way the NIPA accounts are workable proxies) is too difficult empirically or is it theoretically illogical ? Thanks Paul -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
Mark Perlman has a wonderful account of Kuznets and the creation of national accounts in the US Would this be Mark Perlman, The Character of Economic Thought, Economic Characters, and Economic Institutions ? J.
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
Paul wrote: Doug writes: Trying to quantify it [surplus value] reminds me of Hayek's Prices Production. Doug Could you elaborate on the analogy? Are you saying that quantifying surplus value (or rather a workable proxy, in the same way the NIPA accounts are workable proxies) is too difficult empirically or is it theoretically illogical ? Thanks To an outsider, it looks like a weird private language, a quirky obsession. I had in mind Keynes's characterization of PP - It is an extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in Bedlam. Doug
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
Yes, a very interesting person. On Fri, Dec 05, 2003 at 08:03:44PM +0100, Jurriaan Bendien wrote: Mark Perlman has a wonderful account of Kuznets and the creation of national accounts in the US Would this be Mark Perlman, The Character of Economic Thought, Economic Characters, and Economic Institutions ? J. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
Yes, a very interesting person. And I'm a dork ?
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
please scroll down for my comment on Paul's comment on Ahmet's comment E. Ahmet Tonak wrote: . . . snip Specifically and in order to point out how dramatic the empirical sense one may get based on these two different approaches I'd like to compare some preliminary estimates of the rate of surplus value (calculated by my student Kaan Parmaksiz based on ShaikhTonak methodology in 1998) with rate of economic surplus as reported in Cem's piece (Table 1). The rates start with approximately the same 1981 value, 1.29 and 1.20 for the rate of surplus value and that of economic surplus respectively. But, that point on until 1988 they behave very differently, i.e. the rate of surplus value increases by 103% while the rate of economic surplus decreases by 19%! This is the period which was characterized by Yeldan (1995) as surplus extraction through wage suppression. ... The interesting thing is that the dramatic difference in the behavior of the above-mentioned rates also existed between our US (s/v) and Stanfield's rate of economic surplus: during 1965-69 our rate declined by 4.2% as his increased by 9.7%! Paul wrote: This sounds interesting. Is it possible to give a bit more detail? For example can one generalize about the major categories or sectors accounting for the divergence (I realize this is hard given two different theoretical approaches)? Comment: Concerning the Somel - Parmaksiz (based on ShaikhTonak) difference of estimates about Turkey - dont know. But regarding estimates of SV USA, Moseleys book compares his estimates with those of other authors. All of these authors measured the same theoretical concept (SV). But the estimates diverged considerably. One of the reasons was that other authors stayed closer to the statistical categories of the GDP accounting system, whereas Moseley re-cast the data into authentic Marxian categories. Gert _ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/viruspgmarket=en-caRU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
g kohler wrote: Concerning the Somel - Parmaksiz (based on ShaikhTonak) difference of estimates about Turkey - dont know. But regarding estimates of SV USA, Moseleys book compares his estimates with those of other authors. All of these authors measured the same theoretical concept (SV). But the estimates diverged considerably. One of the reasons was that other authors stayed closer to the statistical categories of the GDP accounting system, whereas Moseley re-cast the data into authentic Marxian categories. And the intellectual/political payoff for this authenticity is? Doug
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
Assuming that we're still interested in changing capitalism, I would argue that Marx's categories help us to understand how the imperatives of profitability and capitalist growth operate, in theory and in practice. That is sufficiently large enough payoff (intellectual or otherwise) for me. Ahmet Tonak - Original Message - From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 3:00 PM Subject: Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel) g kohler wrote: Concerning the Somel - Parmaksiz (based on ShaikhTonak) difference of estimates about Turkey - don't know. But regarding estimates of SV USA, Moseley's book compares his estimates with those of other authors. All of these authors measured the same theoretical concept (SV). But the estimates diverged considerably. One of the reasons was that other authors stayed closer to the statistical categories of the GDP accounting system, whereas Moseley re-cast the data into authentic Marxian categories. And the intellectual/political payoff for this authenticity is? Doug
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
E. Ahmet Tonak wrote: Assuming that we're still interested in changing capitalism, I am. I would argue that Marx's categories help us to understand how the imperatives of profitability and capitalist growth operate, in theory and in practice. That is sufficiently large enough payoff (intellectual or otherwise) for me. As I've said before, and never been convinced to the contrary, I don't see how the intelligent use of bourgeois stats and categories doesn't accomplish the same task. Unless you're trying to make the argument that rising OCC = FROP = system collapses as profits go to 0. But no one makes that anymore, right? Doug
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
Doug Henwood wrote: I don't see how the intelligent use of bourgeois stats and categories doesn't accomplish the same task. With a suitable definition of intelligent use, it must accomplish the same task. But then we cannot easily communicate the results to orthodox Marxists with no or little training in standard economics. And, yes, there's a (growing?) group of Marxists that don't have (don't want to have?) training in standard economics. Perhaps they've decided a priori that -- after David Ricardo -- there's nothing in bourgeois economics worthy of study. I don't know if this belief underlies it, but there is a recent posting on PEN-L about advising students to avoid graduate economics programs. If this is a broader trend, then Marxists are increasingly moving to history, geography, sociology, political science, literature, gender studies, cultural studies, etc. -- running away from economics. This creates a real rift -- at first academic, but potentially political. If we don't speak the same language, we are more likely to misunderstand each other. However, at the end of the day, it's the broader public that we want to engage with. So, I really don't know what the best answer is -- except that it is a good idea to try and be conversant in orthodox Marxism, modern economics, etc., and not to reject others on the basis of terminological preference. Julio _ MSN Amor: busca tu ½ naranja http://latino.msn.com/autos/
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
Wasn't Marx proud that his understanding of surplus value helped to elucidate the nature of exploitation in ways that conventional measures would not? On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 04:14:55PM -0500, Doug Henwood wrote: As I've said before, and never been convinced to the contrary, I don't see how the intelligent use of bourgeois stats and categories doesn't accomplish the same task. Unless you're trying to make the argument that rising OCC = FROP = system collapses as profits go to 0. But no one makes that anymore, right? Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Title correction: Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
The above should have been the title of my previous post. Sabri
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Doug Henwood wrote: g kohler wrote: Concerning the Somel - Parmaksiz (based on ShaikhTonak) difference of estimates about Turkey - dont know. But regarding estimates of SV USA, Moseleys book compares his estimates with those of other authors. All of these authors measured the same theoretical concept (SV). But the estimates diverged considerably. One of the reasons was that other authors stayed closer to the statistical categories of the GDP accounting system, whereas Moseley re-cast the data into authentic Marxian categories. And the intellectual/political payoff for this authenticity is? Doug A different understanding of the causes of the decline of the rate of profit in the postwar US economy, and of the reasons for its only partial recovery, in spite of two decades of wage cuts, speed-up, etc.
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
Michael Perelman wrote: Wasn't Marx proud that his understanding of surplus value helped to elucidate the nature of exploitation in ways that conventional measures would not? That's a political/sociological point. Trying to quantify it reminds me of Hayek's Prices Production. Doug
Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
just published in CJE - empirical study - abstract below Cambridge Journal of Economics 27:919-933 (2003) Copyright © 2003 Cambridge Political Economy Society Estimating the surplus in the periphery: an application to Turkey Cem Somel Middle East Technical University. Address for correspondence: Cem Somel, Department of Economics, Middle East Technical University, 06531 Ankara, Turkey; email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Abstract This note discusses how the economic surplus concept can be used to analyse the constraints the world system imposes on economic development. An estimation of the surplus for Turkey for 1980-96 utilises Köhler's unequal exchange analysis to measure the transfer of surplus abroad and the official minimum wage to calculate essential private consumption. The estimation yields the allocation of the surplus between non-essential consumption, investment and unrequited transfers abroad. The note assesses Lippit's argument that the main obstacle to development is the misuse of the surplus in the domestic economy and not transfers abroad. Key Words: Economic surplus . Dependency . Development _ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/bcommpgmarket=en-caRU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca
Re: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
I am very glad that my good friend Cem was able to share his important and meticulous work with the English-speaking world. His article has so many insights regarding policy shifts in Turkey and their implications for Turkish economy at large. Having said that, I should point out that because his article is based on the notion of economic surplus rather than surplus-value many of our earlier criticisms of those empirical works based on economic surplus are applicable here as well (you may review those in ShaikhTonak, 1994:202-209). Specifically and in order to point out how dramatic the empirical sense one may get based on these two different approaches I'd like to compare some preliminary estimates of the rate of surplus value (calculated by my student Kaan Parmaksiz based on ShaikhTonak methodology in 1998) with rate of economic surplus as reported in Cem's piece (Table 1). The rates start with approximately the same 1981 value, 1.29 and 1.20 for the rate of surplus value and that of economic surplus respectively. But, that point on until 1988 they behave very differently, i.e. the rate of surplus value increases by 103% while the rate of economic surplus decreases by 19%! This is the period which was characterized by Yeldan (1995) as surplus extraction through wage suppression. BTW, Yeldan (1995) is not exclusively theoretical work on economic surplus as classified by Cem, it has many insightful empirical estimates, including excess wage income estimates. He also uses a version of productive and unproductive labor distinction when he conceptualizes surplus depleting and surplus generating concepts (Yeldan 1995. RRPE, Vol.27, #2). The interesting thing is that the dramatic difference in the behavior of the above-mentioned rates also existed between our US (s/v) and Stanfield's rate of economic surplus: during 1965-69 our rate declined by 4.2% as his increased by 9.7%! Ahmet Tonak - Original Message - From: g kohler [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 11:20 AM Subject: Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel) just published in CJE - empirical study - abstract below Cambridge Journal of Economics 27:919-933 (2003) Copyright © 2003 Cambridge Political Economy Society Estimating the surplus in the periphery: an application to Turkey Cem Somel Middle East Technical University. Address for correspondence: Cem Somel, Department of Economics, Middle East Technical University, 06531 Ankara, Turkey; email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Abstract This note discusses how the economic surplus concept can be used to analyse the constraints the world system imposes on economic development. An estimation of the surplus for Turkey for 1980-96 utilises Köhler's unequal exchange analysis to measure the transfer of surplus abroad and the official minimum wage to calculate essential private consumption. The estimation yields the allocation of the surplus between non-essential consumption, investment and unrequited transfers abroad. The note assesses Lippit's argument that the main obstacle to development is the misuse of the surplus in the domestic economy and not transfers abroad. Key Words: Economic surplus . Dependency . Development _ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/bcommpgmarket=en-caRU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca
Estimating the surplus - Turkey (Cem Somel)
E. Ahmet Tonak wrote: I am very glad that my good friend Cem was able to share his important and meticulous work with the English-speaking world. His article has so many insights regarding policy shifts in Turkey and their implications for Turkish economy at large. Having said that, I should point out that because his article is based on the notion of economic surplus rather than surplus-value many of our earlier criticisms of those empirical works based on economic surplus are applicable here as well (you may review those in ShaikhTonak, 1994:202-209). Specifically and in order to point out how dramatic the empirical sense one may get based on these two different approaches I'd like to compare some preliminary estimates of the rate of surplus value (calculated by my student Kaan Parmaksiz based on ShaikhTonak methodology in 1998) with rate of economic surplus as reported in Cem's piece (Table 1). The rates start with approximately the same 1981 value, 1.29 and 1.20 for the rate of surplus value and that of economic surplus respectively. But, that point on until 1988 they behave very differently, i.e. the rate of surplus value increases by 103% while the rate of economic surplus decreases by 19%! This is the period which was characterized by Yeldan (1995) as surplus extraction through wage suppression. ... The interesting thing is that the dramatic difference in the behavior of the above-mentioned rates also existed between our US (s/v) and Stanfield's rate of economic surplus: during 1965-69 our rate declined by 4.2% as his increased by 9.7%! This sounds interesting. Is it possible to give a bit more detail? For example can one generalize about the major categories or sectors accounting for the divergence (I realize this is hard given two different theoretical approaches)? Paul
Turkey bombings: an analysis
Peace Iniative/Turkey Press Release - 5 New York City, USA November 24, 2003 WE DON'T HAVE TO MAKE A CHOICE BETWEEN TERRORISTS! During the past week, four explosions in Istanbul have caused the deaths of more than 50 people, have wounded hundreds and incited a wave of panic amongst the citizens of Turkey. We strongly condemn these attacks, regardless of the identities of the perpetrators and the purpose behind the crimes. We offer our condolences to those who lost their beloved and we wish urgent recovery for the wounded. First, it has to be stressed that the statements coming from the Turkish state and the media after these obviously well-coordinated attacks are far from satisfactory; rather than offering clarity about the situation, they raise more and more questions. The public statements and immediate developments after these bombings, similar to the aftermath of the September 11th attacks in the US, suggest that the peoples of Turkey and of the world are being shoved into a cage of fear and despair, that the events are being manipulated by the powers that be towards some sinister end. At a first glance, the chosen targets are synagogues, the British Consulate, and a British bank. The perpetrators wanted us to think that the attacks, at least symbolically, were against Israel and the UK. Thus the Behemoth of Islamist terror, in its national and/or international forms, is immediately invoked. However, the attacks did not only harm people directly related to the targets - most of the murdered and maimed victims (80%) are neither Jewish nor British, but are unlucky passers-by, all of them Muslims. It is illogical to assume that the organizers (or their puppetmasters) of an action of such scale have not foreseen this. The perpetrators appear to have calculated that the bombings would enrage the Turkish society excessively. If, despite all this, Islamist groups are behind the attacks - which is not at all a negligible probability - then we are confronted by a purposeless network of murderers, who do not have any serious political agenda, who do not care about gaining the total hatred of a country populated by a Muslim majority, and who, in the end, promote US' and Israel's plans for the region. On the other hand, there is another possible backgrounder to all this, one which is much more intricate than the story we are told and expected to believe in. It is well-established that the Turkish state, against the Kurdish guerilla movement, has groomed, used, and (when their utility has expired) tried to exterminate armed Islamist groups - a telling similarity to the US-Osama bin Laden connection. Parallel to this fact, the authoritarian/fascistic elements entrenched deeply inside the state are disturbed by and resistant to the democratizing reforms of the government on the path to the European Union - resistance is especially strong against a peaceful resolution to the Cyprus question and against the possibility of a victory by the Turkish Cypriot opposition in the coming elections. Recently, numerous dents have been inflicted on the armor of the National Security ideology (held dearly by these state actors), and these cadres feel that if the current political climate continues, they will become unemployed. Moreover, increasingly more lies told by the neo-conservative tendency (whose chief sponsors are Bush and Blair) are being exposed, the resistance in Iraq is getting more costly, and gaining the consent of the world for a long-term and total mobilization against international terrorism is becoming more and more difficult. Global hegemons and those powerful Turkish actors worrying about the integrity of their dominant positions have a convergent interest in convincing the masses that they are constantly in great danger. National (or international) security ideologies require a habitat colonized by terror and despair in order to sustain themselves. Therefore, the Bush/Blair leadership, the Sharon tendency in Israel, and the militarist cadres of the Turkish state all have an interest in the consolidation of a perpetual terror threat. It is telling to observe that these three groups joined hands in the last few years and that they moved closer after the bombings. Even if it is proved in the coming days that the perpetrators of the crimes in Istanbul were Islamist groups, we have to keep the above points in mind while we think about what political ends the ruling powers will exploit the bombings for. These are the things which, in responding to the storms of violence that thunder through the Middle East today, and that have recently engulfed Turkey, we will not let be forgotten and concealed from the public. Let us repeat these points briefly: 1) In our region, as in other regions around the world, the United States, allied with its close partner Israel, using both direct interventions and client dictatorships, is the chief source of violence and destabilization. 2) The US, Israel and Turkey have all supported
bombings in Turkey
From: Sebnem Oguz [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Middle East Socialists Network [EMAIL PROTECTED] ,Discussions on the Socialist Register and its articles [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [MESN] Fw: Terror blasts in Istanbul :atrocities aid Bush's war on terror Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 11:40:04 -0500 http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/nov2003/turk-n21.shtml By Justus Leicht and Peter Schwarz 21 November 2003 On Thursday, the Turkish capital of Istanbul with its 12 million inhabitants was rocked by violent explosions for the second time within the space of a few days. Bombs exploded in front of the British consulate in the Istanbul district of Beyoglu and before a branch of the major Anglo-Asian bank HSBC, situated in the Levent district of the city. Initial reports speak of 27 dead and over 450 injured. The casualty figures will very likely increase. Amongst the dead is the British Consul General in Istanbul, Roger Short. Witnesses spoke of a bloodbath. An employee of the German Goethe Institute, which has its offices just 100 metres from the British consulate, spoke to Spiegel-Online of people covered in blood on the streets. A delivery van drove into the British consulate, and there followed a violent explosion. The bomb set off in front of the HSBC bank shook a nearby shopping centre that was packed with thousands of ordinary citizens, both Turks and tourists. Two similar attacks were carried out last Saturday morning against the synagogues of Beth Israel and Neve Schalom. The latter is the largest synagogue in Istanbul. It is situated on a busy street that was filled with observers on the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest. The two bomb blasts took 24 lives. Most of those killed were Muslims, who were employed as security personnel in nearby mosques or worked in nearby shops. Over 300 were wounded in the explosions. Turkish authorities and representatives of the Israeli, British and American governments immediately assigned responsibility for both series of bombings to Al Qaeda. On Thursday, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw made a press statement blaming Al Qaeda for that day's blasts before the dust had even settled on the sites of the explosions. Later, an anonymous person called the Turkish news agency Anadolu to claim that Al Qaeda and the Turkish Islamist group IBDA-C (Warriors Front for an Islamic Great Middle East) were responsible for the bombings. The caller said the attacks on Thursday were the result of a joint action by the two groups. The group IBDA-C also claimed responsibility for the earlier synagogue attacks. Some time later on Thursday, an Arabic newspaper received an email in which a group affiliated with Al Qaeda named The Martyrs Brigade of Abu Hafs el Masri also claimed responsibility for the attacks. Turkish authorities assert that on the basis of genetic tests they have been able to definitively establish the identity of the two suicide bombers from last Saturday. They are alleged to be two Turkish men from the eastern city of Bingöl who have links to radical Islamist groups. The television channel NTV claims that one of the men had travelled to Iran on six occasions to receive training as an explosives expert. However, the reports that have been issued up to now are full of contradictions. The Turkish interior minister, Abdulkadir Aksu, said that claims of responsibility by IBDA-C were not credible. He said no Turkish organisation was in a position to carry out attacks of such a magnitude. This raises the question, however, how it was possible for foreigners to smuggle such large amounts of explosive into Turkey, and then situate and explode the bombs almost simultaneously at two different locations. Some security experts have expressed doubts regarding the participation of Al Qaeda. The Turkish Daily News quoted the Israeli anti-terror expert Boaz Ganor, who said, At this time (there is) no indication of Al Qaeda involvement. Mustafa Alani from London's Royal United Services Institute told Reuters: There is no history of Al Qaeda operating in Turkey. It's very hard to say Al Qaeda is involved in this attack. I think the activities of Al Qaeda now are concentrated on two states-Saudi Arabia and Iraq. It remains unclear who is really responsible for the terror attacks in Istanbul. On the other hand, it is very clear that the attacks come at a highly opportune moment for both the American and British governments, as well as sections of the Turkish military. Against a background of growing resistance to the occupation of Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George Bush used the bloodbath in Istanbul to justify the terror they are carrying out against the Iraqi people. At a joint press conference on Thursday held only a few hours after the attack on the British consulate, President Bush vowed to finish the job we have begun, and Blair stated: I can assure you of one thing: that when something like this happens today, our response is not to flinch or give way or concede one inch
Tom Turkey
[The stuff at the end is standard boilerplate, but the beginning is useful.] http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-oe-wills3nov03,1,6821637.story COMMENTARY/L.A. TIMES A Slave to His Time and Place In protecting slavery, Jefferson shielded a system that nurtured him economically and politically. By Garry Wills Garry Wills' latest book, Negro President: Thomas Jefferson and Slave Power, will be published this month by Houghton Mifflin. November 3, 2003 Americans are blessed, but ambiguously blessed, by the extraordinary generation of men (yes, all men) who shaped our republic in the 18th century. They formed such a brilliant galaxy of talents that they hover far above us. At times, it seems that the only way to remedy their Olympic remove is by rocket assault, which brings them crashing down to Earth. Usually the fuel is humanizing (but trivializing) scandal, which leads to an overemphasis on such matters as Thomas Jefferson's sexual liaison with Sally Hemings. In this famous tale, too much has been made of sex and too little of slavery. The real point of the story is that Hemings was available to Jefferson because he owned her - he never had to acknowledge her, educate her, bring her within the circle of his family or free her. The issue is not his sexual continence but the fact that he used his property at his will. And that raises the larger question - not what he did for or to her or her family, but what he did about the institution of slavery. The answer is simple: He did everything he could to protect and extend the slave system. This was not because he approved of slavery, or would have defended it in principle - as did John Calhoun of South Carolina in the Senate and John Taylor of Caroline County, Va., in his writings. Jefferson defended slavery because it was inextricable from the economy that sustained him and the politics that supported him. Publicly questioning slavery would have been fatal to a man with political ambitions in the South. He actively worked to keep his own personal condemnations of slavery away from the voters. So did his great compeers, George Washington, James Madison and James Monroe. The importance of slavery to Jefferson's political career can be summed up in one astonishing and often overlooked fact. But for slavery, he would have lost the 1800 presidential race. He received fewer votes than his adversary, John Adams. What put him in office was a bonus of 12 votes in the Electoral College that came from counting the slave population at three-fifths of its number. As his Federalist opponents put it, he rode into the temple of liberty on the shoulders of his slaves. As he added new plantation territory to the nation through the Louisiana Purchase and efforts to acquire the Floridas, Federalists protested at the number of slaves who would be added to the Southern vote count. We often forget the rationale for the three-fifths clause in the Constitution, which affected the balance of power between North and South, slave and free, in all congressional votes, as well as those in the Electoral College. The South had feared that it would be underrepresented in the first Congress because there were fewer whites in the South than in the North. To even things out, it demanded that blacks be counted in the representable population. Northerners said this would be non-representation, given that blacks were disenfranchised and would have no say in how their representatives voted. The Deep South said it would not ratify the Constitution unless slaves were counted. The North tried to whittle the representation down, offering to count a black as one-half a person. The South responded with a bid for three-quarters. Three-fifths was the resulting compromise. But slaveholders continued to feel politically vulnerable because of their treatment of human beings as property. Jefferson defended the agrarian virtue of the plantation system, vilifying Northern banks and commerce and cities, in part as a means to excuse slavery, the literal backbone of the Southern economy. When states were opening up in the West - Missouri, Kentucky, Kansas - Jefferson argued that they should be slave states in order to maintain that agrarian virtue. The protection of the slave system made Jefferson scheme with George Washington to make sure the permanent national capital would be in slave territory, because their slaves had been hard to hold on to when they took them to the seat of government in Philadelphia. The proof of the Virginians' intent is that Washington carried the survey for the District of Columbia lower than Congress had authorized, to include the slave city of Alexandria (which was not deeded back to Virginia until 1846). Such facts cannot be ignored or glossed over. The protection of slavery by even our noblest founders left a horrendous legacy, one only partially cleansed by a horrendous war. Deep patterns of bias may be defended by the use of Jefferson's example. Uprooting
Turkey-Iraq
Turks will bring chaos, say Kurds Michael Howard in Irbil Monday October 13, 2003 The Guardian The Bush administration is in danger of scoring a disastrous own goal with its decision to bring Turkish peacekeeping troops into Iraq, a Kurdish leader has warned. Necirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan regional government in Irbil and a key US ally in the war to remove Saddam Hussein, said the plan to bring Turkish soldiers to Iraq had needlessly upset the pro-American Kurdish population in the north, and was also opposed by Sunni and Shia Arab communities in central and southern Iraq. We believe that their presence, or that of any other neighbouring country, on Iraqi soil will only create instability, Mr Barzani told the Guardian. The question on the table is: how much respect has the US for the will and the wish of the people of Iraq, the governing council, and the political parties of Iraq? Mr Barzai's comments came as a delegation from the Iraqi governing council sought the support of Muslim nations at the summit in Malaysia of the organisation of Islamic countries for its opposition to the planned deployment of peacekeeping troops from any of Iraq's neighbouring countries. Last Tuesday's vote in the Turkish parliament in favour of a force of about 10,000 soldiers going to Iraq created a rift between US officials and the US-appointed governing council, and raised dissenting voices from political and community leaders in the country. Another of Iraq's neighbours, Iran, signalled support yesterday for the council's stance. Ankara, meanwhile, put the ball back in America's court at the weekend by saying that the US must overcome the Iraqi opposition to the plan before finer details are finalised. The preferred US option is thought to be for the Turks to operate in areas north and west of Baghdad, towards the Syrian and Jordanian borders. However, Fawzi Shafi Ifan, the mayor of Falluja, west of Baghdad, said Turkish troops there would be seen as a punishment by the Americans. He said Ankara would find an occasion to revive its old projects and interfere in Iraq's internal affairs. But it is in the northern Kurdish areas that the decision to deploy Turkish troops has been greeted with the most hostility, albeit tinged with a feeling of disappointment with their American allies. We just got rid of Saddam, must we now suffer from the Turks? said Dara Ahmed, a trader in Irbil's Sheikallah bazaar. Jamal Farraj, who owns an internet cafe near the city's ancient citadel, said: We just want to be left alone and to run our affairs. The presence of Turkish troops, wherever they are, makes that much less probable. If they come here I will fight them, and so will we all. Mr Barzani's administration controls Iraq's northern border with Turkey. He warned yesterday: If the US insists on Turkish troops coming in, then we will be firmly against them coming through the borders of the Kurdistan region. US officials insist they want to keep Turkish forces well away from Kurdish areas. Turkey's generals, however, are thought to favour a deployment to the north of Baghdad. A Turkish foreign ministry official rejected suggestions that the country had a hidden agenda in Iraq. If we had wanted to crush the Kurds, why did we let US and British airplanes here to protect them during the last 12 years? he said. To this day, no one has come up with a set of rules for originality. There aren't any. [Les Paul]
Turkey (was Bush Reports No Evidence of Hussein Tie to 9/11)
What does Turkey have to gain by sending troops? An IMF loan? Doug Maybe! But I think it is more complicated than that. First of all, the question is ill-posed. It is not Turkey that is interested in sending troops, if by Turkey what we mean is those 67 million people living there. Majority of the people are against it. It is these who are interested in sending troops: 1) TUSIAD (Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association), that is, the most powerful section of the Istanbul bourgeoisie; 1') TUSIAD connected big media; 2) The Islamic Christian Democrats, that is, the Erdogan centered upper management of the governing Justice of Development Party; 3) The Military, or rather its chief of general staff centered, NATO connected, the US favored (promoted?), upper management. They all have their own reasons/gains but I don't have the time to elaborate. Maybe some other Turkish subscriber of the list would say a few words about these. Sabri What are the major Turkish anti-war/anti-occupation activist organizations/coalitions/networks that US activists should be aware of? How do we get in touch with them? -- Yoshie * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Turkey
Yoshie: What are the major Turkish anti-war/anti-occupation activist organizations/coalitions/networks that US activists should be aware of? How do we get in touch with them? Try this web site: http://www.peace-initiative-turkey.net They should be able to answer all of your questions. They are based here in New York. Best, Sabri
Re: Turkey: We are all billionaires
So, how do they make it? Lots of two income families in Turkey? And these people are employed...ain't the wages system grand? Mike B) --- Sabri Oncu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Kamu-Sen recalled that the lowest monthly civil servant wage stood at TL 570 million at present when the hunger line stands at TL 581 million, stressing that it's a miracle for a civil servant to make their living with his wage. http://www.turkishdailynews.com/old_editions/09_15_03/dom.htm#d4 = * We have nothing that is ours except time, which even those without a roof can enjoy. Baltasar Gracián, Oráculo manual y Arte de prudencia http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Turkey: We are all billionaires
Poverty line rises to TL 745 million - ANKARA - Turkey's poverty line went up to TL 745 million and the hunger line to TL 581 million as of August, a survey conducted by leading public worker' union Kamu-Sen said. Following the most severe economic crisis of the country in 2001, thousands of people lost their jobs in Turkey, while those working people have found themselves in a state of exhaustion and desperation. Kamu-Sen said in its survey that the hunger line, which stood at TL 566 million in July increased to TL 581 million in August. The poverty line, which was TL 730 million in July rose to TL 745 million in August. The poverty line for a family of four increased to TL 1,587 billion from TL 1,581 billion in August, the survey said. Kamu-Sen recalled that the lowest monthly civil servant wage stood at TL 570 million at present when the hunger line stands at TL 581 million, stressing that it's a miracle for a civil servant to make their living with his wage. http://www.turkishdailynews.com/old_editions/09_15_03/dom.htm#d4
Turkey: Domestic rivalries
The greatest boxing event of the entire history, even more exciting than Mohammed Ali Clay versus Foreman: A holly alliance of the governing AK Party, big bourgeoisie, big media and neoliberal intelligentsia versus the Turkish Military. I did not want you to miss this greatest boxing event of all times. Don't have the time to tell you more so I stop here. Sabri ++ MGK hits back at media critics of its regulations The MGK says it is wrong and unjust to create an image of the MGK Secretariat-General as a body preparing and implementing psychological campaign plans on its own, like a state within the state ANKARA - The executive body of the powerful National Security Council (MGK) responded Monday to media criticisms that its secret regulations allowed the military-dominated organization to penetrate into all aspects of social life and said the reports and comments were exaggerated and designed to mislead society. The so-called seventh harmonization package, passed by Parliament in July, has amended the regulations of the MGK Secretariat-General but the existing regulations are due to stay in force for three more months. The daily Radikal has said in its recent issues that the secretariat has powers to draft and supervise implementation of psychological campaigns, which the newspaper said covered many aspects of social life. A statement from the MGK Secretariat-General said that it was authorized to carry out the duty of coordinating psychological campaigns under relevant Turkish laws. According to the statement, it is difficult to understand how it can be argued that psychological campaigns, necessary to take measures against separatist and destructive movements, are not necessary. It also said the secret nature of psychological campaigns should not be questioned as well. It is clear that such a line of thinking would not contribute to the fight against destructive and separatist activities in our country, which spent 20 years and is still spending time under destructive and separatist terror threats, the statement said. The controversial article of the MGK Secretariat-General regulations that authorizes the secretariat to carry out psychological campaigns is as follows: Taking all sorts of psychological measures for the protection of the existence of the state, integrity and indivisibility of the country, peace and safety of the society and for the preservation of the constitutional order; as well as those measures necessary to create national unity and solidarity around principles of Kemal Ataturk, national aspirations and values of Turkey and to steer the society towards national objectives. The MGK statement said that the regulations authorized the Secretariat to coordinate such campaigns and emphasized that plans for campaigns were prepared in coordination with relevant ministries and state organs. The statement said it was wrong and unjust to create an image of the MGK Secretariat-General as a body preparing and implementing psychological campaign plans on its own, like a state within the state. It said that the daily's reports and comments posed a slander in the face of which one cannot remain silent, and added that necessary legal measures would be sought against the authors and the newspaper involved. Turkish Daily News
Turkey: Subimperial dreams
Dear All, Below is an article by Emrah Goker, a sociology PhD student at Columbia University and a member of the Peace Initiative/Turkey, based in New York. Since we recommend on the A-List that post should be made in plain-text format, I converted his document to that, and in due course, his footnotes were lost. Those of you who are interested in the original article, with the footnotes, can write to me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] to get his Word Document. I have been contemplating about writing a summary of my observations I made during my visit home, as well as some other developments after I came back to the US, but Emrah summary is so good that I feel no urge to write my own. However, I would like to say a few words before I let you read Emrah's article. In a short note that I sent to the A-List and PEN-L from Turkey, I claimed that Turkey was on the road to fascism. I know some of you might object to my usage of this term on theoretical grounds but I leave it to the experts to further their debates on what fascism is. I had two coalitions in mind: 1) The currently power, and corporate media supported, conservative-democratic coalition, or our domestic neo-cons, as Ergin Yildizoglu put it in a recent article in the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet. This coalition consists of the Erdogan lead sections of the governing Islamic-Christian-Democrat Justice and Development Party, the pro-American, and the more powerful, section of the Military and the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen Association centered Istanbul bourgeoisie. 2) Their anti-American antagonists, consisting of national leftists, fascist nationalists, orthodox Kemalists and the anti-American, and the less powerful, section of the Military. They are calling for a Military takeover to overthrow of the coalition currently in power. In either case, what we are looking at is what Nestor called the Re-Ottomanization of Turkey. And, unfortunately, the political will of the progressive forces that may stop the above two is not there. They appear to be just watching helplessly, if we ignore for a while the never-ending sectarian fights they seem to enjoy since way back when! Here is Emrah's article. Best, Sabri Conscripting Turkey: Imperial Mercenaries Wanted Emrah Goker On December 30th, 1900, amidst the heated debates about US military campaigns in Asia and the Philippines and about the burden on the shoulders of British gentlemen serving the Empire in her savage colonies, Mark Twain bitterly saluted the new century: I bring you the stately matron called Christendom returning bedraggled, besmirched and dishonored from pirate raids in Kiaochow, Manchuria, South Africa and the Philippines; with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and a towel, but hide the looking-glass. Give her the glass; it may from error free her / When she shall see herself as others see her. Twain's words, unfortunately, reach out to us even after a hundred years. Of course, the contemporary culprit of imperialist agony and bloodletting is not and was not, a hundred years ago an abstract theological entity. Those who have been resisting the US army-state continue to inform the world, tirelessly, about the destructive activities of the institutions, financial groups, think-tanks, politicians, etc. that are collectively managing the war without end. Still, the question remains: Can the Empire, which expands by shaping the savage/rogue/terrorist/unruly elements enclosed within the imperium in its own image, be made to see itself as its victims see it? Surely, challenging capitalist imperialism with a mirror to expose its orientalist and civilizing delusions is only but one step in the political struggle. Nevertheless, it is still a vital step, if we consider the material effects of the imperial civilizing will on peripheral states like the Turkish one, whose imagination of the Middle East, of the Arab, and of its very own Kurdish citizens imitate that will. As the occupation of Iraq unfolds, democracy and social justice are being further undermined in Turkey: The political and (im)moral economy of the expanding imperium is most fitting for the power-hungry agendas of the military and business fractions of the Turkish bourgeoisie, albeit not for the same ends. In this essay, I want to touch upon the most recent debate on sending Turkish troops to Iraq, revived once again since the parliament's rejection (days before the invasion began) of allowing US troops inside the country. Looking into this ongoing episode in Turkey will allow me to reflect upon two related topics the dangerous erosion of democratic principles in my country, triggered by the war on terrorism, and the Turkish construction of the Middle East as a sickly cross-breed of the Ottoman and Anglo-American colonial projects. Our strategic interests... Within two weeks following the July 4th Sulaymaniyya controversy where
Turkey: 10,000 soldiers to Iraq
Below is from: http://www.turks.us It is based on a current article from the Turkish site of MSNBC. According to the original MSNBC article, Pakistan is also expected to send troops to Iraq. Turkey has to pass a resolution from the Parliament to send the troops and this time, they will do it as it looks, despite that almost everybody is against this in Turkey. It seems from the article that Pakistan is still thinking. If Pakistan also decides to come in, they want to it after the Turkish troops enter Iraq so that they can justify their involvement to the Pakistani opposition, which is the majority of Pakistanis. Start Details of the meeting between Turkey and the US become clear and Ankara is expected to take part in west and north Baghdad. The details of the agreement between Turkey and the US indicated that around 10,000 Turkish troops would go to Iraq to deploy in west and north of Baghdad as peacekeeper force, news channel NTV reported today. In addition to this, the US said that Turkish troops could work in its own sector and under a Turkish commander. According to deal, the US first demanded 16,000 troops from Turkey, but Ankara replied that it could deploy just 10,000, but on the other hand this number could increase up to situation and conditions. Alongside Turkey, Azerbaijani and Albanian troops would able to be launched and the US started initiative for proving participation of the countries to peace forces. Meanwhile the US assured that it could contribute to pay some expenses of Turkish soldiers, but details of the issue was not clear yet. End And below is an English translation of an article by the Radikal columnist Ismet Berkan, a fucking non-human and a pro-US bustard, possibly on the payroll of Washington, who explains why we should send troops to Iraq. It is at: http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=12629 Also see the article entitled Powell Says U.S. Will Ask Other Nations to 'Do More' in Iraq in today's New York Time at: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/21/international/worldspecial/21CND-DIPLO .html Start The Main Question On Iraq Troop Deployment BYEGM: 8/21/2003 BY ISMET BERKAN RADIKAL- Columnist Ismet Berkan comments on the prospect of Turkey deploying its troops to Iraq. A summary of his column is as follows: The United Nations' headquarters in Baghdad fell prey Tuesday to a huge truck-bomb attack that killed more than 20 UN staffers and injured scores more. All of these people had left their own warm, safe homes and were in Baghdad just to try and help the Iraqis. As I watched the horrific scenes of the shattered building and bleeding victims on television, two retired generals were commenting on this devastating incident. I couldn't believe my ears. These two retired generals, who I believe were once engaged in our own fight against terrorism, were simply shedding crocodile tears. On the surface they seemed sad, but inside they were very pleased indeed. There is a new trend in Turkey which I call 'reactive politics,' a sheer reflexive stance induced by a reaction to the West and particularly to the US. One may find the Iraq war unjust, but one should also realize the gravity of the actual situation there. We are Turkish citizens. That is why we must see things from Turkey's side. If this perspective is pointing at some foreign policy issues, then of course, we must feel ourselves bound by certain moral rules. I think that the main question we need to answer is this: Would a stable, democratic Iraq - if that at all is possible, given that the country is being dragged further into chaos with each passing day - serve Turkey's interests or not? In other words, would a chaotic situation in Iraq, one in which invasion forces get bogged down in a swamp by mounting terrorist attacks and a prolonged state of turmoil, be to our country's benefit? Could a possible US failure in Iraq - as our two retired generals possibly wished - actually work in Turkey's best interests? It is one thing to debate whether the future stability of Iraq would be to Ankara's benefit, and it's quite another to discuss the prospect of sending Turkish troops there to help Iraq's stabilization. SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION End
Re: Turkey: 10,000 soldiers to Iraq
I can see why Pakistan would do it. That nation is a virtual hostage. What does Turkey get? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Turkey: 10,000 soldiers to Iraq
speaking of Pakistan, the recent Congressional report on 911 left out the many pages on the Saudi contribution, but what about the Pakistani dimension there? the Pakistani intelligence services were allegedly allied with the Taliban; were they allied with al Qaeda? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 11:14 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Turkey: 10,000 soldiers to Iraq I can see why Pakistan would do it. That nation is a virtual hostage. What does Turkey get? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Turkey: 10,000 soldiers to Iraq
Michael: I can see why Pakistan would do it. That nation is a virtual hostage. What does Turkey get? I think a better question is what sections of Turkey would get something from it. At least two groups would gain some, at least, in the short run: 1) AKP, the governing Islamic Christian Democrats (rubbish, of course, they are hardly democrats any kind). 2) TUSIAD (Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen Association) centered Istanbul bourgeoisie. I will give some reasons later, when I have the time, possibly tomorrow. On another note, Turkey is a virtual hostage of the US as well, although not as badly as Pakistan is. We had gone through a debt consolidation only a few weeks ago and even after that we have no hope to pay our debts. I started claiming this a few years ago. These IMF loans are hardly self-amortizing. With what money are we, that is, the government, going to pay them? In the mean time, here is an article from the Turkish daily Zaman on a recent event in Turkey. Sabri http://www.zaman.com/default.php?kn=3771 Gen. Dogan Accuses Some Media Organs of Being 'Armistice Media' Istanbul, TURKEY, August 21, 2003 - Gen. Cetin Dogan has criticized some media outlets as being 'armistice media', including Hurriyet Editor-in-Chief Ertugrul Ozkok albeit without giving his name. Gen. Cetin Dogan has handed over the 1st Army Commandership to Gen. Yasar Buyukanit yesterday. At the ceremony in Istanbul, Gen. Dogan, recently retired by the Supreme Military Council (YAS), accused some media organs of being 'armistice media' due to their publications on the subject of troop deployment. Dogan, in his speech at the ceremony yesterday, said that the most fundamental duty of the media is to prevent the secular and democratic republic from being obliterated. What is 'Armistice Media'? The Ottoman Empire had been defeated at the end of the 1st World War and had to sign the Mondros Armistice on October 30th, 1918. After the armistice Turkey was occupied by foreign powers. During that period, some Istanbul media had published articles supporting the occupiers in return for money and took a stance against Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey. Others had published articles advising no resistance against the occupiers for the sake of Turkey's future. These media organs during that period are known as 'armistice media'. aa / Istanbul / TURKEY
US-Turkey strains
EURASIA INSIGHT July 13, 2003 US-TURKISH STRATEGIC TIES CONFRONT BIGGEST EVER CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE Mevlut Katik: 7/10/03 US-Turkish strategic relations are confronting their biggest ever crisis of confidence since the founding of the modern Turkish state, military leaders in Ankara believe. A major factor stoking the diplomatic confrontation is Ankara's and Washington's diverging interests in northern Iraq. The crisis was precipitated by the US move to detain 11 Turkish military intelligence officers in northern Iraq. A detachment of roughly 100 US troops took the Turkish officers into custody on July 4 in Suleimania, a city dominated by Iraqi Kurds. US military officials held the Turkish officers for over two days. Turkish media carried reports that Americans forces treated the detainees roughly and held them on suspicion of planning to assassinate an Iraqi Kurdish leader. The incident outraged Turkish military and political leaders. Compounding their anger was the alleged slow US response in securing the officers' release. The incident occurred during the Independence Day holiday in the United States. Turkish military leaders have strongly denied that the detained officers were plotting an assassination. The Chief of Staff Hilmi Ozkok expressed disappointment in a July 7 statement broadcast by NTV television. From the outset, efforts were exerted by the [Turkish] government and the military, particularly between me and my US counterparts, to settle this incident speedily, Ozkok said. I have to say, unfortunately, that this incident began and has grown into the biggest ever crisis of confidence between the Turkish and US armed forces. We would have expected to be informed of an intelligence report [on a potential assassination plot], if there were any, and follow through on it together, Ozkok added. For reasons incomprehensible to us, however, the incident did not evolve in this way. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, speaking July 9, attributed the distressing incident to mistakes made by US military officials in northern Iraq, the Anatolia news agency reported. He was dismissive of the assassination plot allegation, saying such a probability is not valid for us since we do not have any benefits. Our real benefit is the establishment of stability in Iraq as soon as possible. Gen. Ozkok, however, did not share Gul's view concerning the impetus for the incident. I am having great difficulty to see it as a local incident, given the level of officials we contacted and the length of time period till it was brought to an end. He also stressed that our national honor and honor of Turkish armed forces are as important as Turkish-American relations and relations between Turkish and US armed forces. A joint US-Turkish commission established to examine the incident met in Ankara on July 9. The meeting focused on the cause of the detention. Participants also discussed ways to avoid such incidents in the future. Both sides are trying to understand what happened in Suleimania, said US Ambassador Robert Pearson. The commission resumed work in Ankara on July 10. Gul has characterized the evidence presented so far as not convincing. He added that the US delegation would travel to northern Iraq later in the day for discussions with local American officers who were involved in the decision-making process that led to the detention. Some Turkish political analysts say the root cause for the bilateral tension is clashing ideas concerning northern Iraq's future. Turkey does not want to lose its leverage in the region, and northern Iraq has increasingly been seen by officials in Ankara as Turkey's backyard. Turkish officials are mindful of the experience of the Kurdish separatist struggle in Turkey mounted by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) [for additional information see the Eurasia Insight archives]. A loss of Turkish influence in northern Iraq, in the Turkish view, would greatly increase the chances of a revival of an armed Kurdish separatist effort. Many in Turkey believe the US military's administration in northern Iraq has been insensitive to Turkey's strategic concerns. The July 4 incident has raised the domestic pressure on Turkey's government, which is dominated by the Justice and Development Party (AKP). The government's handling of the incident has come under heavy criticism from media outlets and opposition politicians. Newspaper editorials have called for the Turkish government to retaliate. Ertugrul Ozkok, the influential editor of the mass circulation daily Hurriyet characterized the incident as a big fiasco for the United States. Thus far, the official Turkish response has been limited to a suspension of top-level military contacts. Turkish officials also briefly closed down a border crossing on the Turkish-Iraqi frontier, preventing the delivery of aid to northern Iraq. However, the border was quickly reopened, as Turkish officials deemed the move counterproductive, given Turkey's desire
Turkey-Russia
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/business/articles/eav071403.shtml TURKEY AND RUSSIA FAIL TO RESOLVE PIPELINE DISPUTE Mevlut Katik: 7/14/03 Turkish and Russian energy officials have failed to resolve a pricing dispute concerning the Blue Stream pipeline. Turkish sources indicate the two sides remain far apart. The deadlock could cause a shake-up at Gazprom, the Russian concern responsible for exporting gas via Blue Stream, according to media reports in Moscow. A Russian delegation headed by Alexei Miller, the Gazprom CEO, visited the Turkish capital Ankara on July 10 seeking to break a negotiations stalemate. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archives]. According to Turkish sources, Miller could not secure a commitment from Turkish officials to resume gas imports that were suspended in March. The two sides agreed to continue talks, however. In suspending Blue Stream energy deliveries, Turkish officials complained about high costs and weak demand. They have sought reductions in both the price and volume of gas deliveries. There has been a lot of material [that came out of the talks] for both sides to examine individually, Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said after the July 10 discussions. Guler added that the existing Blue Stream agreement was made against the interests of Turkey [and is] being tried to be rectified. We aim to get natural gas on improved terms. Meanwhile, pressure in Moscow seems to be building on Miller. A commentary posted on the Strana.ru web site said the current situation can be described as a dead end, thus threatening Russia's investment in the $3 billion Blue Stream project. Meanwhile, an editorial published by the Izvestiya daily suggested that government officials are blaming Miller for strategic mistakes. Within the [Russian] government there is talk that the idea of building such an expensive pipeline for only one customer was too radical, and hints at the possible resignation of Miller, the Izvestiya editorial said. Turkey's semi-official Anatolia news agency reported July 11 that continuing negotiations would be conducted via communication lines. Political analysts in Turkey interpret this as meaning that substantial differences continue to separate the two sides. The agency added that Turkish and Russian representatives would assess proposals exchanged during the July 10 talks. Both sides have threatened to take the Blue Stream dispute to international arbitration, even though the process could prove complicated, costly and potentially unfulfilling. Turkey is reportedly interested in using barter deals to pay for Blue Stream energy. Russian negotiators have rejected the barter proposal, citing the fact that Gazprom must repay its bank creditors in cash. Meanwhile, Gazprom supposedly expressed an interest in helping to finance the construction of gas distribution networks in Turkey. Such infrastructure improvements in Turkey have been hampered by the country's financial struggles in recent years. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Gazprom assistance could hasten the pace of network expansion, which could have the net effect of stimulating demand. Turkish officials did not appear enthused about the proposal. In addition, Turkish officials indicated that earlier concessions by Gazprom, including a moderate price cut, were insufficient to break the deadlock. Complicating the search for a Blue Stream settlement is the fact that the pipeline issue has become enmeshed in Turkish domestic politics. The incumbent government, dominated by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), seems determined to use Blue Stream to expose allegedly corrupt practices by the previous government. A Turkish parliamentary commission has launched an investigation into whether former government officials personally benefited from agreeing to Blue Stream terms that were unfavourable to Turkey. The corruption probe has proven popular with the Turkish electorate and some political observers in Turkey suggest the AKP - which has struggled to promote economic reforms, while presiding over strained bilateral relations with the United States - may take try to take political advantage of Blue Stream outrage to move local elections forward. Those elections are now scheduled for April, 2004. Another factor prompting Turkey to drive a tough bargain is Ankara's desire to diversify its energy sources. The AKP government would prefer to reduce its dependency on Blue Stream and obtain power from other sources, including solar energy, hydro stations and nuclear reactors. We cannot ignore [building] nuclear power stations, Guler said July 13. In his July 13 comments, Guler stated that Turkey has experienced an overdependence on a single [energy] source [Russia]. He went on to say that the Blue Stream issue is not easy to resolve. In the aftermath of the July 10 talks, two powerful constituencies appear to be growing anxious and have started
Turkey-US-Iraq
July 6, 2003, 1:25AM U.S. forces detain Turkish special forces in northern Iraq Associated Press ISTANBUL, Turkey -- The United States seized 11 Turkish special forces in a raid in northern Iraq, but released several Saturday after vigorous protests from the NATO ally. The detentions threatened to further strain tense ties between the two nations. U.S. officials remained silent over why they were seized in the Friday night raid. A Turkish newspaper said the detentions aimed to foil a Turkish plot to kill a senior official in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Lt. Cmdr. Nicholas Balice, spokesman at the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., said: We are certainly aware of the incident, and at the moment we're investigating it. Turkish government officials said about 100 American troops raided a Turkish special forces office in the town of Sulaymaniyah, detained 11 soldiers, and took them to Kirkuk. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul in a phone call that 24 detainees, including the Turkish soldiers, were taken to Baghdad, the Anatolia news agency reported. Powell said some had been released but did not say how many. Aside from the Turkish soldiers, U.S. troops also detained security guards and staff working at the office, reports said. U.S. diplomat Robert Deutsch said in Istanbul that Turkish and U.S. officials were working for the soldiers' release, Anatolia reported. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded all be let go immediately. Some of them are still in their hands, Erdogan said in a visit to the northern Turkish city of Samsun. This is an ugly incident. It should not have happened, Erdogan said earlier. For an allied country to behave in such a way toward its ally cannot be explained. Anatolia said Gul relayed to Powell that the issue could harm relations. Turkey was already trying to repair relations with the United States, at a low since the Turkish parliament's refusal in March to allow U.S. troops to use the country as a staging ground to invade Iraq. The detentions also reflected the friction between the allies over northern Iraq. U.S. forces have been working closely with Kurds in the area, while Turkey -- facing a longtime separatist movement among its own Kurds -- greatly fears an increase in Kurdish influence in Iraq. Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper said the detentions followed reports that Turks were planning to kill a senior Iraqi official in Kirkuk. The city recently elected a Kurdish lawyer, Abdulrahman Mustafa, as its mayor. The city is divided between Arabs, Kurds, ethnic Turks and Christians and has been the scene of ethnic tensions. After the arrests, Turkey closed its border gate with Iraq at Habur, officials at the border said. The Habur crossing is used to ship U.N. aid as well as gas and other supplies to U.S. troops in northern Iraq. After the closure, trucks lined up for six miles at the border. Private NTV television said Turkey's powerful military was discussing other measures to take if the soldiers were not released -- including closing Turkish airspace to U.S. military flights, stopping the use of the southern Incirlik air base and sending more troops into northern Iraq. Turkey has long maintained a military presence in parts of northern Iraq in a campaign to suppress Turkish Kurd rebels operating in the region. At the onset of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Turkey threatened to send in troops, fearing Iraqi Kurds would establish an independent state in northern Iraq, which could encourage Turkish Kurd separatists. Kurdish rebels fought a 15-year war against Turkish troops for autonomy in Turkey's southeast, which has killed some 37,000 people. It was the second time that U.S. forces detained Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq. In April, the U.S. Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade caught a dozen Turkish soldiers, dressed in civilian clothes and trailing an aid convoy.
Turkey, tensions
http://www.eurasianet.org EURASIA INSIGHT July 2, 2003 POLICY DIFFERENCES STRAIN RELATIONS BETWEEN TURKEY'S GOVERNMENT, MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT Igor Torbakov: 7/02/03 The policy priorities of Turkey's government and those of the country's military establishment are diverging. The nexus of the building dispute is connected with the country's need for modernization and the military's insistence on maintaining Turkey's secularist tradition. Recent developments are prompting fresh discussion in Turkey of a possible military intervention in the country's political life. At present, Turkey finds itself in the middle of its annual military coup discussion, suggests Sedat Bozkurt, the news coordinator at the ATV television station. Speculation about possible military intervention has intensified in the days since a June 26 meeting of Turkey's all-powerful National Security Council (MGK). At that meeting, which focused on efforts to promote Turkish membership in the European Union, the government, which is dominated by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), was unable to find common ground with military leaders on key policy matters. Turkish military leaders are irked by the AKP's political course, which has established Turkey's full membership in the EU as a key goal. To achieve this aim, the AKP has aggressively pushed reforms aimed at aligning Turkey's legislative framework with EU standards. The problem is that the proposed changes are seen by many in the officer corps as detrimental the military's interests, especially in limiting the influence that generals can exert over the political process. Military leaders have claimed that implementation of the proposed legislation could endanger Turkey's national security. Some commentators say the military is also concerned that the AKP government is steering the country away from the secularist tradition established by Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish state. The AKP's origins are rooted in Islam and the party continues to enjoy the firm support of devout Muslims, especially those in the Anatolian heartland. The military has long believed itself to be the guardian of Turkey's Kemalist political philosophy. Those who see the European Union and its lofty ideals as a means of realizing their archaic and separatist goals are doomed to be disappointed, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, Deputy Chief of the Turkish General Staff, stated in a May 29 speech. Buyukanit is not the only military leader to have recently alluded to a possible intervention. At the end of May Turkey's top general cautioned the government about the need to adhere to the country's secularist constitution, while pointedly declining to rule out the possibility of the military's re-entry into politics. In what appeared to be a thinly veiled threat, General Hilmi Ozkok, the chief of the Turkish General Staff, referred to the so-called post-modernist coup when an openly Islamist government was eased out of power with the military's help in 1997. That was cause and effect, General Ozkok said, and if the cause is still there the effect will be there also. Significantly, in 1997, one of the main complaints brought by the military against the ousted Islamist government was that it has tried to divert Turkey from its European path by advocating the formation of a Muslim NATO and common market. Ironically, now it is the AKP - a successor to the banned Islamist Welfare Party - that is the chief backer of EU-inspired, liberal reforms. Meanwhile, it is the army - which is viewed by some as a modernizing force in Turkey - that appears intent on stalling legislative reform. In attempting to explain the military's seemingly paradoxical position, some analysts point out that the Kemalists' views on modernization are, to a great extent, superficial. While Kemalists, especially those in the officer corps, have been quick to embrace the trappings of modernization, particularly those found in Western society, they have traditionally been wary of embracing the core principles of Western dynamism: democracy, pluralism and genuine secularism envisaging freedom of expression. Some political analysts are quick to emphasize that the secularist tradition played a vital role in transforming traditional Ottoman society. But this heavy-handed style of modernization enshrined a deeply authoritarian military-bureaucratic establishment, creating the main impediment to Turkey's successful evolution into a fully developed democracy, argue political scientists Mujeeb Khan and Hakan Yavuz in the March issue of Current History. While the goal of becoming a 'European' nation was always the central ideological pillar of this [Kemalist] elite, it was quite unwilling to implement the requisite political and juridical reforms which would undermine its monopoly on power, Khan and Yavuz add. Other observers believe that although the military's secularist zeal may be excessive, the generals do have a point. Since sweeping
Interetsting Conference in Turkey
Confrerence to be held in Ankara on september 6-9, 2003. Comradely erdogan Conference web page: www.erc.metu.edu.tr KEYNOTE ADDRESSES Mario Blejer (Bank of England, Former Governor of the Central Bank of Argentina) http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/ccbs/ Kevin Hoover (University of California at Davis, USA) http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/kdhoover/ Adrian Pagan (The Australian National University, Australia) http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/staff/adrian/ Ellen Meiksins Wood (York University, Canada) *** INVITED LECTURES THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GLOBALISATION Aijaz Ahmad (York University, Canada) http://www.yorku.ca/polisci/faculty/ahmad.html Henry Liu (Liu Investment Group, New York, USA) David McNally (York University, Canada) http://www.yorku.ca/polisci/faculty/mcnally.html RADICAL POLITICAL ECONOMICS Al Campbell (University of Utah, USA) http://www.econ.utah.edu/facstaf1.htm George C. Comninel (York University, Canada) http://www.yorku.ca/polisci/faculty/comninel.html Gerard Dumenil (CEPREMAP, France) http://www.cepremap.ens.fr/~levy/ Korkut Erturk (University of Utah, USA) http://www.econ.utah.edu/korkut/index.htm Hannes Lacher (Eastern Mediterranean University) http://ir.emu.edu.tr/astaff/hlacher.htm Peter Meiksins (Cleveland State University, USA) http://www.csuohio.edu/sociology/peter.htm Alfredo Saad-Filho (SOAS, University of London, UK) http://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staffinfo.cfm?contactid=52 INVITED SESSION: REVISITING MACROECONOMICS IN THE AGE OF FINANCE Organised by: IDEAs (International Development Economics Associates) C.P. Chandrasekhar (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) Jayati Ghosh (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) Prabhat Patnaik (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) Erinç Yeldan (Bilkent University, Turkey) http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~yeldane/ MACROECONOMICS, GROWTH AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY Pierre-Richard Agénor (TBC)(Yale University and the World Bank, USA) http://www1.worldbank.org/wbiep/macro-program/agenor/index_agenor.htm Alfred Kleinknecht (Technische Universiteit, Delft, The Netherlands) http://www.flexcom.org/myfiles/cv_kleinknecht.htm Daniel Malkin (OECD, France) Branko Milanovic (The World Bank) http://econ.worldbank.org/staff/2500/ Bart Verspagen (ECIS and Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands) http://www.tm.tue.nl/ecis/bart/ MONEY, FINANCE AND BANKING Pierpaolo Benigno (New York University, USA) http://homepages.nyu.edu/~pb50/ Philipp Hartmann (European Central Bank) Monique Jeanblanc (Université d'Evry Val d'Essonne, France) http://www.maths.univ-evry.fr/pages_perso/jeanblanc/ Graciela L. Kaminsky (George Washington University, USA) http://home.gwu.edu/%7Egraciela/index.htm Ike Mathur (Southern Illinois University, USA) http://www.cba.siu.edu/faculty/profiles/mathuri.htm Paolo Pesenti (Federal Reserve Bank of New York, USA) http://www.ny.frb.org/rmaghome/economist/pesenti/contact.html Liliana Rojas-Suarez http://www.cgdev.org/fellows/rojas-suarez.html ECONOMETRICS Karim Abadir (TBC, York University, UK) http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~kma4/abadir.htm Badi H. Baltagi (Texas AM University, USA) http://econweb.tamu.edu/baltagi/ Anindya Banerjee (European University Institute, Florence, Italy) http://www.iue.it/Personal/Banerjee/Welcome.html Luc Bauwens (Université Catholique de Louvain, CORE, Belgium) http://www.core.ucl.ac.be/econometrics/Bauwens/CV/lb.htm Hans-Martin Krolzig (TBC) (Oxford University, UK) http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/research/hendry/krolzig/default.htm Jan Magnus (Tilburg University, The Netherlands) http://center.uvt.nl/staff/magnus/ Marius Ooms (Free University Amsterdam, The Netherlands) http://www.feweb.vu.nl/econometriclinks/ooms/ AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS Hartley W. Furtan (University of Saskatchewan, Canada) http://www.usask.ca/agriculture/agec/people/faculty/furtan.htm Richard S. Gray (University of Saskatchewan, Canada) http://www.usask.ca/agriculture/agec/people/faculty/gray.htm -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Turkey Consents to Help
New York Times Powell Patches Things Up, as Turkey Consents to Help By STEVEN R. WEISMAN BELGRADE, Serbia, April 2 Yielding to pressure from the United States, Turkey agreed today to increase its cooperation with the American military campaign in Iraq by permitting use of its territory for the overland supply of food, water, fuel and other nonlethal necessities to American armed forces operating in northern Iraq, not far from the Turkish border. In another step deemed helpful to the war effort, Turkey also agreed formally to open its airfields to American military planes in distress or for the evacuation of wounded American service personnel. Turkey has extended such help occasionally since the war began two weeks ago, but the new accord will make it more routine, American officials said. The accord on Turkey's enhanced role was announced in Ankara by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul after meetings to repair the political damage caused by the Turkish parliament's rebuff to an American request last month to use Turkey as a base for the invasion of Iraq. Since the new agreement does not involve shipment of arms, Mr. Gul said it would not require approval by the Turkish parliament. We have solved all the outstanding issues with respect to providing supplies through Turkey to those units that are doing such a wonderful job in northern Iraq, Mr. Powell said. American officials added that the government's action would help in securing Congressional approval of $1 billion in aid for Turkey, and that the food, fuel and other supplies could be sent very soon on Turkish trucks. Turkish leaders were reported to be pleased this evening with Mr. Powell's visit. Aides to Mr. Powell said the agreement would help expand American military operations in northern Iraq, which includes only the 173rd Airborne Brigade and some small Special Forces units sent instead of the Fourth Infantry Division. After it was not allowed to enter Iraq through Turkey, the Fourth Division was rerouted to southern Iraq by air and sea. Officials in Ankara said the military cooperation Turkey promised today was quite limited, but that it was as much as the Turkish government could do, given strong public antipathy toward the war. In a separate but important part of the agreement, Mr. Powell said the United States and Turkey would establish a monitoring group to watch northern Iraq to make sure no conditions arose that might compel Turkey to send its troops across the border into Iraq. Mr. Powell said there was no reason for Turkey to intervene. He fears that such a move would inflame the Kurdish-controlled region in northern Iraq. The Ankara government fears that northern Iraq could become a base for Kurdish secessionists within Turkey or that a war could flood Turkey with refugees. Turkish officials praised the accord on the monitoring group but said it did not serve as a definitive roadblock to Turkish intervention in Iraq. Mr. Powell did not come in contact with a few small protest groups that demonstrated against his visit today. But just before he left, he got into an angry exchange with a national television interviewer who interrupted his defense of the war several times, and, running past the agreed-upon time limit for the interview, interjected antiwar comments and pleaded with the secretary to stop the war. Mr. Powell, clearly irate, ripped off his microphone and left the studio for the airport without responding. Mr. Powell flew on to Belgrade for talks with the new prime minister of Serbia, Zoran Zivkovic, who took over the job after the assassination last month of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. The irony of Mr. Powell's visit, not lost on anyone in his entourage, was that hours after telling Turkish audiences of his hope that one day soon a war-ravaged Iraq would become a democracy reconstructed by the United States, the secretary found himself in a downtown still partly in ruins from the American bombs that landed there in 1999. On Thursday, Mr. Powell is to meet in Brussels with foreign ministers of Russia and member countries of NATO and the European Union. Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/03/international/worldspecial/03TU RK.html
Turkey allows US to use its territory
http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=9784 General Staff: A Total Of 204 Unarmed Hummers Have Been Transferred To Northern Iraq Anadolu Agency: 4/2/2003 ANKARA - The General Staff stated on Wednesday, a total of 204 unarmed Hummers, which were brought to Turkey for site preparation, have been transferred to northern Iraq for last few days. There have not been any weapon or equipment transferred to the region. Releasing a statement, the General Staff Information Center said, there were news stories in some press organs claiming that military equipment had been transferred from Turkey to northern Iraq. It is known that the United States had begun sending some military vehicles and equipment, which were brought to Turkey for site preparation, to certain regions after the second motion was rejected by the parliament. There is not any opportunity of using 204 unarmed Hummer vehicles which were brought to Turkey for site preparation. These vehicles have been transferred to northern Iraq for last few days. Transfer of any weapon or equipment to the region is out of question. Meanwhile, transfer of Hummers is not related with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit and his contacts in Ankara, the statement added. (UK-MS) 02.04.2003 + http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en21375F Headline: Turkey allows US to use its territory: Supplies for troops in Northern Iraq -- Detail Story ANKARA: US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday secured Turkish logistical support for US operations in northern Iraq, and again warned Ankara against sending troops over the border into the Kurdish-held region. We have solved all the outstanding issues with respect to providing supplies through Turkey to those units in northern Iraq, Mr Powell told reporters at a joint news conference with Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul. The agreement came after weeks of bilateral tension triggered by the Turkish parliament's refusal last month to allow the deployment of 62,000 US soldiers to open a northern front against Iraq - a move that, military strategists say, might have helped to shorten the war and minimize casualties. Mr Powell said Washington was disappointed by the rejection, but he described Turkey as an important member of the coalition against President Saddam Hussein and praised its decision to open its airspace to US planes. A senior Turkish official said the agreement between the two sides included the passage of humanitarian aid through Turkey, as well as food, medical supplies and fuel supplies for the US troops airlifted or parachuted into northern Iraq. Turkey is also allowing wounded US soldiers to be treated in Turkey, the official said on condition of anonymity. However, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters later that supplies to US forces would not include weapons or ammunition. The announcements came after Mr Powell met President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, Erdogan, Gul and army chief Hilmi Ozkok to resolve the two countries differences over Iraq. The two sides have agreed on an early warning process to inform each other of any possible problem situation in northern Iraq, and will set up a coordination committee to work out how to respond to such a situation, he said. Mr Powell, who arrived in Turkey late Tuesday, left on Wednesday afternoon for Belgrade where he was to express support for the Balkan country following the assassination last month of prime minister Zoran Djindjic. After a brief stopover, he was to travel on to Brussels for discussions on Thursday on Iraq with NATO and EU ministers. US ARMY JEEPS: The Turkish army said on Wednesday that some 200 US army jeeps were crossing into northern Iraq after the Turkish parliament refused to allow the deployment of US troops here. A statement from the general staff said that the 204 unarmed Hummer jeeps had been sent to Turkey within the framework of Ankara's permission for the United States to upgrade Turkish air bases and ports in preparation of a war against Iraq. In line with the approval of a request by the US, these vehicles have been in shipment to northern Iraq for sometime in batches, the army statement read. No other weapons, military supplies or equipment have been shipped, it added. The army statement coincided with a one-day visit to Ankara by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, during which the two sides agreed on the transfer of supplies to US troops in northern Iraq through Turkey. But the general staff denied that the shipment of the jeeps was related to Mr Powell's trip. The United States was forced to airlift troops to Kurdish-held northern Iraq after Ankara rebuffed Washington's demands for its troops to use Turkish territory as a launching pad for attacks on Iraq. Turkey later opened its airspace to US warplanes for overflights.
who lost Turkey?
COMMENTARY How the IMF Lost Turkey By CLAUDIA ROSETT How did we lose the loyalty of Turkey , and with it that much-wanted northern front for the war in Iraq? It sure wasn't for lack of largesse. Over the past four years, at the clear behest of the U.S., Turkey's troubled economy has received -- via the International Monetary Fund and World Bank -- more cheap loans than any other country on the planet. Since 1999, the IMF has approved some $30 billion in below-market funding for Turkey , making it one of the IMF's top clients. Over the same period the World Bank has lent Turkey $7 billion at subsidized rates, making it one of the bank's biggest customers, too. At every juncture, meanwhile, until Turkey's turncoat vote last month on troop transit for the Iraq war, the U.S. government had sent the message that Turkey was simply too strategically vital to be allowed to fail. And Turkey's politicians, knowing that the money would pour forth, kept coming back for more. Then, in the dickering over the troop deal, the U.S. threw another $30 billion in grants and loan guarantees on the table. The Turks walked away from it. Why? * * * All those years of big money and bad IMF advice, for starters. Yes, there were lots of other factors, not least Turkey's desire to join a European Union in which France had just threatened to blackball any applicant that backed the U.S. Yet even more to the point, in Turkey we are now seeing the latest failure in the long line of ill-advised big bailouts. They were set in motion by the Clinton administration in Mexico in 1994, spread to Asia in 1997, rolled on to the Russian devaluation and default in 1998, tore through Brazil and most recently -- under the Bush administration -- helped wreck Argentina. Now we have come to the souring of Turkey , long prized as America's best friend in the Muslim world. True, the Turkish economy is still afloat. It is even somewhat reformed. But for some time now, the average Turk has been drowning. Thanks to the IMF's stress on high-tax fiscal discipline above economic growth and political realities, millions of Turks are out of work and short on hope. In 2001, the Turkish economy shrank 9.4%. This followed on a decision to float the currency, which led straight to a crash of the Turkish lira, halving its value against the dollar and devastating the savings and income of the country's poor and middle class. Although the economy has since begun to grow again, lira policy remains uncertain and unemployment in this nation of 68 million people still tops 11%. People consume less and less day by day, an official tells me. Life is tough in this country for the average Turkish person. If this is what comes of taking billions in aid, small wonder that last November Turkish voters axed the politicians who struck the IMF deals, and gave a big win to the Islam-oriented Justice and Development Party (AKP). The AKP came to power promising to renegotiate Turkey's terms with the IMF, and was clearly leery of any conditions attached to more money from Washington. Referring to the past four years of ballooning IMF funding for Turkey , one high-level European official suggests: If you had given them less money [then], they would have been more willing to conclude the [troop basing] agreement now. How we got to this point is a cautionary tale of some importance as the U.S. maneuvers for friends in the post-Sept. 11 world. When Turkey borrowed its way into financial crisis in 1999 and came to Washington for help, the first mistake was to start supplying subsidies immediately. Had the U.S. left Turkey's politicians to sort out their own financial mess, the Turks would have had much keener incentives to work out their own routes to reform, routes perhaps less painful for the electorate. Turkey had a truckload of problems, including huge state-subsidized industries, a rotten banking system, large state debts and chronic high inflation. But Turkey's crisis was not one that threatened the world financial system. The massive debt coming due was largely internal. The chief threat was to the domestic politicians who presided over this system, and who were in danger of being voted out of office if Turkey's economy turned into a train wreck. Once the U.S. decided that Turkey's politicians could not be trusted to fix their own mess, the second mistake was to give the IMF (which is heavily funded by the U.S.) the mission of bailing them out. The IMF tends to tie its loans to conditions that favor high taxes and devalued currency -- the worst medicine for ailing economies. The fund also likes to meddle in local patronage arrangements, demanding reforms that, when imposed wholesale from outside, too often succeed not in restructuring a system, but in fracturing it. That in turn leads to more crisis, more IMF loans and more worship at the altar of high taxes and budget surplus -- all at the expense of the client country's ordinary people, the folks least able to cushion
Re: who lost Turkey?
At 2003-04-02 14:40 -0800, you wrote: COMMENTARY How the IMF Lost Turkey By CLAUDIA ROSETT How did we lose the loyalty of Turkey , and with it that much-wanted northern front for the war in Iraq? I would have thought that Turkey is a natural ally of Saddam Hussein, in so far as it does not want an autonomous, and still less an independent, Kurdistan. The Iraqi regime has drawn the Kurds towards Kirkuk and Mosul. Certainly I think the hypothesis must be considered. Chris Burford London
turkey source
Sorry, it was from the ed. page of the Wall St. Journal. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: who lost Turkey?
Title: RE: [PEN-L:36429] who lost Turkey? CLAUDIA ROSETT writes: When Turkey borrowed its way into financial crisis in 1999 and came to Washington for help, the first mistake was to start supplying subsidies immediately. Had the U.S. left Turkey's politicians to sort out their own financial mess, the Turks would have had much keener incentives to work out their own routes to reform, routes perhaps less painful for the electorate. but the U.S. doesn't want Turkey's politicians to sort out their own financial mess. Instead they want a cookie-cutter IMF solution that wrecks the debtor economy, opens markets for US business, etc. It doesn't care about the Turkish electorate either. Maybe it's in the long-term interest of the capitalist class to follow different policies, but capitalism has always tended to sink its own boat. Jim
Turkey: Powell Protested Everywhere
http://istanbul.indymedia.org As the US-UK attack in Iraq faces unexpected civil resistance and slows down, the US is again asking support from Turkey for an Northern Iraqi Front. Colin Powell, visiting Ankara for related talks, was protested in many locations, despite his travel route being changed repeatedly due to security reasons. ODP members chanted slogans against the attack and threw red paint on Powell's way. University students protested Powell in front of the Foreign Ministry. TKP members protested in front of the Presidental Residence. Prime Ministry reporters protested Powell by turning their backs to him. Ankara Anti-War Platform members gathering in nearby Guven Park tried to march to the Prime Ministry. Many demonstrators were detained in all protests. Powell's visit was protested also in Istanbul, Izmir and other cities. Photographs are here: http://istanbul.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/1212.php
Brought to you by the Peace Movement in Turkey
Of course, this article does not even pay a lip service to the role many intellectuals, students, labor and public employee unions, left political parties, Chambers of Engineers and Doctors, Lawyers Guilds, Islamic groups, feminists, gays and lesbians, artists, musicians and the like in the Peace Movement in Turkey played in this outcome, but that is fine. We know what we did and we are not about to stop any time soon. Best, Sabri Missteps With Turkey Prove Costly Diplomatic Debacle Denied U.S. a Strong Northern Thrust in Iraq By Glenn Kessler and Philip P. Pan Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, March 28, 2003; Page A01 Under the original Pentagon war plan, a powerful force of Army tanks and tens of thousands of troops now would be bearing down on Baghdad from northern Iraq as other heavily armored troops converged on the capital from the south. Neither is happening. In the south, Army troops and Marines are bogged down by supply problems and unexpected Iraqi resistance. In the north, 1,000 lightly armed U.S. paratroopers only arrived Wednesday night, not enough to seriously challenge the Iraqi government. The reason is that Turkey, a close NATO ally that shares a 218-mile border with Iraq, earlier this month refused a Bush administration request to permit the armored troop deployment from its soil. One week into the war, the administration's inability to win Turkey's approval has emerged as an important turning point in the U.S. confrontation with Iraq that senior U.S. officials now acknowledge may ultimately prolong the length of the conflict. It is a story of clumsy diplomacy and mutual misunderstanding, U.S. and Turkish officials said. It also illustrates how the administration undercut its own efforts to broaden international support for war by allowing its war plan to dictate the pace of its diplomacy, diplomats and other experts in U.S.-Turkish relations said. Turkey's rejection was especially surprising to administration officials because Turkey has loyally backed U.S. military actions since the Korean War a half-century ago. In retrospect, U.S. officials say, they made unrealistic demands on the new government of Turkey, which was installed only in November, insisting on a vote on whether it would accept as many as 90,000 U.S. troops even as President Bush was still publicly claiming he had made no decision to attack Iraq. U.S. officials repeatedly set deadlines for action, but then took no action when the deadlines passed, costing the administration credibility and inflating Turkey's sense of importance. Some senior officials in Turkey, where 94 percent of the population opposed the war, even began to believe they could halt a military conflict through inaction on the U.S. request. The Turkish prime minister at the time, Abdullah Gul, appeared racked with doubts about a war, and Turkish officials suggest he secretly opposed the American troop request. The deadlines were never real, U.S. officials admit now, but merely a feint to keep pressure on Turkey. The Pentagon augmented the pressure by keeping three dozen ships packed with tanks and heavy equipment for the Army's 4th Infantry Division bobbing off the Turkish coast in the eastern Mediterranean awaiting permission to offload. When the Turkish government finally agreed to schedule a vote on the U.S. request on March 1, parliament voted it down. The State Department and Vice President Cheney's office both pushed to send the ships to Kuwait to shore up the Marines and Army forces assembling there for a southern invasion. Bush, in fact, had warned Turkish officials that the United States did not need a northern front for a successful war, according to a senior administration official. But the military, in particular Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the head of U.S. Central Command and one of the chief architects of the war plan, clung to the idea that Turkey ultimately would accept the troops, officials said. The Pentagon insisted that administration diplomats press the government in Ankara to reverse the vote. The ships started moving through the Red Sea to Kuwait only after the war started last week, and the 4th Infantry Division will not be ready to move into Iraq until at least mid-April. The Turks came to think we would pay anything for their cooperation, a senior U.S. official said. The Turks got to believe they were indispensable, and it colored their capacity to decide when they had negotiated enough. Yasir Yakis, the former Turkish foreign minister who played a key role in the talks with the United States, was quoted saying as much last week in the newspaper Vatan. We thought the United States needed the northern front. We made bargaining plans based on this. We did not consider the possibility that they would apply Plan B, he said, using the phrase for an invasion of Iraq without Turkish cooperation. Turkey's rejection not only forced a rewrite of the war plan, but it undercut the administration's broader
Turkey
U.S. Watches Warily as Turkey's Economy Teeters By Paul Blustein Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 26, 2003; Page A30 A severe financial crisis is engulfing Turkey as a result of its diplomatic rift with the United States, raising the prospect of a debt default that could wreak economic havoc in a country long viewed in Washington as a linchpin of stability in the Muslim world. The Turkish lira hit a new low against the U.S. dollar Monday, and the yield demanded by investors for holding Turkish government domestic bonds shot well above 70 percent, amid mounting fears that policymakers in Washington would balk at funneling aid to Ankara's heavily indebted regime. Turkey's refusal to cooperate fully with the U.S.-led attack on Iraq has angered administration officials and many members of Congress. Although Turkish markets rallied yesterday on news of a White House proposal to Congress for $1 billion in aid to Ankara, the gains erased only a modest portion of the sell-off that has battered Turkish currency, bonds and stocks over the past couple of weeks. At 60 to 70 percent interest rates, the government stands little chance of being able to carry its debt burden for very long, analysts agree. Moreover, administration officials suggested that the new aid offer -- much less than the $6 billion Washington once envisioned as compensation for Turkey's cooperation in the war -- may not pan out. Deepening the gloom surrounding Turkey's economic prospects, the country's debt was downgraded yesterday by Fitch Ratings Ltd., the credit-rating agency. Turkey's foreign debt rating is now the same as that of Moldova, an impoverished nation that was recently forced to restructure its obligations. Fitch is concerned over how the authorities will manage to fill a growing public sector funding gap in 2003, the agency said, using polite terminology for a possible default. The crisis is a potentially enormous headache for the Bush administration because Turkey's geopolitical importance far exceeds that of some other emerging markets that have been stricken by financial panics -- Argentina, for example. Not only is the country strategically located, but it also is a NATO ally and its moderate Muslim society is viewed by Washington as a model for its neighbors. Until recently, that was enough to convince investors that Washington would move heaven and earth to keep Turkey's economy afloat, including using its dominance at the International Monetary Fund, which committed last year to lend Ankara $17 billion. But now irritated U.S. officials are sending quite different signals, and in conveying their displeasure to Ankara they risk worsening the Turkish crisis by confirming the market perception that the country can no longer count on easy IMF support. Some experts believe that the administration will ultimately resolve the dilemma in Turkey's favor, perhaps by prodding the IMF to increase its loan program. The last thing they need is a major financial crisis in Turkey on top of everything else that's going on in the region, said Steven Radelet, a fellow at the Center for Global Development, who previously oversaw relations with Ankara at the Treasury Department. But administration officials have shown little enthusiasm for increasing the IMF loan and have confined themselves mainly to admonishing Ankara to stick to the fund's requirements for fiscal discipline. The amount Turkey owes the IMF is already more than five times what it would ordinarily be permitted to borrow under fund rules. So in the markets, many are betting that Turkey will eventually decide to default because of a vicious circle that has taken hold. Worries about U.S.-Turkey relations have prompted investors to insist on higher bond yields, which drives up government borrowing costs, which worsens the budgetary problem, which arouses even further market anxiety. They've got to get on a virtuous path of some sort, and it's hard to see how they can do that even if they implement the IMF program, said Daniel Hewitt, a senior international economist at Alliance Capital Management. The overarching problem is that the government is staggering under a debt of about $160 billion, close to the nation's annual national output. So when interest rates shoot up a few percentage points, as they have recently, the impact is huge. The same goes for declines in the lira, because a substantial chunk of the government's debt is denominated in dollars or linked to the U.S. currency. The recently elected government has taken many of the budgetary steps required by the IMF, which praised Ankara's latest moves yesterday. But those measures are often swamped by changes in financial market sentiment such as higher interest rates and a lower lira, said Dani Rodrik, a Turkish-born economist at Harvard University who is advising the nation's central bank. If the government finally gives up and suspends payment on the debt, the most likely effect would be a major
EU warns Turkey
The EU has warned Turkey not to send troops into northern Iraq, where the Kurds have autonomy. This is an example of an imperialist move, for imperialist reasons, which in the concrete situation, is progressive. It is progressive because it reduces the risk of harm to the unity of the working people of the world, by opposing coercion in the handling of contradictions between different peoples. This is extremely important for international solidarity. It is an example of an imperialist move against a capitalist country, Turkey, which is progressive in the some total of the concrete balance of contradictions. This can complement the struggles of progressive people in Turkey, and isolate those who have chauvinistic feelings towards Kurdish people. It illustrates how in the 21st century it is not correct to orientate progressive policy by simple mecahnical rules like opposing all imperialism or all capitalism, without regard to the actual situation. Chris Burford London
American ground troops already in Turkey?
Yesterday I read one sentence that said that U.S. ground troops were illegally passing through Turkey. This morning a Canadian news broadcast I heard claimed the same, and also that a military coup in Turkey is possible. Any information on these reports from anyone on this list? Paul *** Confronting 9-11, Ideologies of Race, and Eminent Economists, Vol. 20 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
Turkey Caves?
Turkey Signals It May Be Ready to Assist U.S. Mon March 17, 2003 03:32 PM ET ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey signaled on Monday that it may be ready to take urgent steps to assist its NATO ally the United States in any war on neighboring Iraq. Turkey's prime minister, president and military chief met for talks that the defense minister said might satisfy urgent U.S. demands to use Turkish airspace and ground bases. Turkey has decided to take urgent steps to preserve its national interests, presidential spokesman Tacan Ildem told reporters after the meeting. He gave no details but the steps would be in accordance with recommendations of the influential National Security Council, a partly military body which in late January urged the government to take military measures to safeguard Turkey's interests.
In that Turkey
In that Turkey, there is a place for all the peoples of the world. There is a place for dignity, freedom, and solidarity. Thank you Emrah, Sabri +++ Turkey's Imperial Troops: How George Bush's War Is Threatening Democracy in Turkey By Emrah Göker March 17, 2003 -- 10:48 am EST When the Turkish Grand Assembly rejected the joint resolution which would allow U.S. troops in the country and send Turkish troops to Northern Iraq two weeks ago, antiwar groups all around the world cheered and applauded the recognition of the will of the citizens by their most senior representative body. However, being more able (than most of the U.S. and European spectators) to decode the complex dynamics of the political field in Turkey, antiwar activists from within immediately recommended caution along with rightful joy and hope. After two weeks, by March 15, it turned out that we were right Turkey's minority of warmongers, the local arm of the imperial troops, quickly initiated an offensive campaign of lies, intimidation, mud-throwing, red-baiting and doublespeak to counter the glimpse of democracy and accountability in our country. What happened? And what is at stake at the moment within Turkey, for the popular-democratic struggle against the war? The local mercenaries who line up to support the U.S. war without end and who now publicly declare their readiness to endorse the killing of Iraqi and Turkish Kurds during a possible conflict in Northern Iraq are not all in complete unison in terms of their interests and agendas. Capital The first group within the enlisted company is made up of Turkey's leading capitalists and financial speculators, mobilized by the countrys most powerful class organization, the Turkish Association of Industrialists and Businessmen (TUSIAD). By March 3, the Turkish corporate leadership was already threatening the country with another economic crisis unless the promised U.S. war aid arrived. Business analysts and brokers prophesized that this disturbing development of the rejection of the war resolution would quickly create one of those mystical market uncertainties and demanded that the state has to resume a strong pro-war position to relieve the markets and pump up the volume of speculation. Media Simultaneously, the second battalion, the Turkish corporate media cartel, whose ruling ranks have organic ties to TUSIAD, joined the campaign to ridicule and undermine the decision of the Grand Assembly. Columnists of leading dailies and TV journalists blamed the MPs of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) for working against our national interests and declared that this was not a time to be sentimental about the killing of Arabs. Turkey, for these khaki-wearing journalists, had to join with the winning camp, and also had to settle in Northern Iraq to defend Iraqi Turcomans (our Turkish brothers) and to prevent the foundation of an autonomous Kurdish state (by any means necessary). During the week of March 3 the citizens of Turkey were told that the price of opposition to the war will be paid out of the peoples pockets, as if the promised war aid would have been distributed among the poor majority of the country. This continuing, outrageous blend of anti-Kurdish and anti-Arabic racism, nationalist populism and blindness to the antiwar will of the citizens both promotes the interests of TUSIAD and helps the two or three media monopolies dig their trenches deeper, maintaining their control over the journalistic field. Government The third groups support for the U.S. military plans is most complicated, not necessarily sharing (but also trying hard not to conflict with) the agendas of the first two. The ruling AKP is a neo-Islamist party, or, by their own words, a conservative democratic movement led by Sunni elites who, before they cut their ties and moved to the center, had been politicized within the tradition of the more confrontational Islamist movement led by Necmettin Erbakan. The party leadership's (the bulk of the cabinet) uncompromising support was already being harshly criticized by its various provincial organizations, quite a few of its MPs, and mayors before the vote on the resolution. Yet few observers predicted that the antiwar opposition within AKP was so strong that it would lead to a voting down of the resolution. After the disturbing development, the leadership is still working to convince its MPs, some of which had already declared that they will vote for the resolution this time. During the week of March 10, Tayyip Erdogan, AKP's leader, was elected to the parliament after the repeated elections in the province of Siirt, became the new Prime Minister, and formed a new government (leaving a few dissenting ministers out). His hold on the party was already strong, so it is not likely that this will end the conflicts within AKP. The antiwar pressure from the partys Sunni grassroots (including all elements from progressive ones to the most reactionary
RE: PETITION: WE WANT TURKEY TO SAY NO TO WAR
Friends, It is getting serious. Some friends with connections in the Turkish parliement learnt that the government once again will bring the US troops resolution to the National Assembly, either tomorrow or Wednesday. We may have to send this petition with however many signatures we have as early as tonight and follow it up later with updates. Currently we have about 800 to 1000 signatures. If you have not signed it yet and now go and sign it, I would be grateful. Best, Sabri -Original Message- From: Sabri Oncu [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2003 2:54 PM To: Marxmail; RadGreen; PEN-L; ALIST Subject: PETITION: WE WANT TURKEY TO SAY NO TO WAR PETITION ACTION ALERT FOR WORLD CITIZENS: WE WANT TURKEY TO SAY NO TO WAR Peace Initiative/Turkey has launched an online petition campaign to encourage Turkey to say no to war and we invite all world citizens to join this campaign. The petition is addressed to the President, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the Parliament, and the MPs of the Republic of Turkey. To read and sign the petition, please visit the link below and spread the word as much as you can. We can stop this war! http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/turkeysaynotowar *** Peace Initiative/Turkey (USA) Baris Girisimi/Turkiye (ABD) www.peace-initiative-turkey.net [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: PETITION: WE WANT TURKEY TO SAY NO TO WAR
It is now official! After a meeting the President, the Chief of General Staff, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs attended, the President's office announced that the resolution will be sent to the parliement as soon as possible. Sabri
Turkey
http://www.latimes.com/ U.S. Drops Its Bid to Base Troops in Turkey Washington warns Ankara not to send its soldiers into northern Iraq. Pentagon moves some vessels from the Mediterranean Sea. By Richard Boudreaux and John Hendren Times Staff Writers March 15, 2003 ANKARA, Turkey -- The Bush administration told Turkish leaders Friday that it had all but given up on their country as a base from which to assault Iraq, ending months of intense lobbying for the deployment of tens of thousands of American troops to a northern front against Saddam Hussein, a senior U.S. official said. Instead, the official said, the administration is now trying to dissuade Turkey from plans to send its own army into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, warning that such an incursion could lead to a war within a war and further damage Turkey's relations with the United States. The shift in the administration's position came nearly two weeks after Turkey's parliament refused to authorize a deployment of 62,000 American troops and after its top political leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, balked at a backup proposal to open Turkish airspace to U.S. missiles and warplanes for a bombing campaign in Iraq. In response, the Pentagon on Friday sent some of the 12 warships that were in Mediterranean waters near Turkey to the Red Sea, where they can fire through Saudi Arabian airspace instead. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ordered the repositioning Thursday night, Pentagon officials said. Turkish cooperation was essential to a Pentagon plan to attack Iraq with massive ground forces from the north as well as the south, which U.S. officials said could achieve a swifter victory with fewer allied casualties. But with Turkey's mostly Muslim populace strongly against a war and the country's politics in turmoil, U.S. officials ran out of hope for a quick reversal of parliament's surprise decision March 1. In Washington, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told a congressional hearing Friday that a $15-billion aid package offered to Turkey in return for backing a U.S. troop deployment was no longer on the table. The senior U.S. official said presidential envoy Zalmay Khalilzad was dispatched to Turkey with the same message Friday after President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney phoned Erdogan this week to urge quick parliamentary approval of overflight rights. The official, who requested anonymity, said Turkey would not get the aid if it eventually allowed overflights without accepting a U.S. troop deployment. Erdogan, who became prime minister Friday in a change of government, pleaded for time to organize his Cabinet and win a parliamentary vote of confidence next week before taking up any form of help in a war, Turkish sources said. Hurriyet, a Turkish newspaper, characterized his conversation with Cheney on Thursday as tense. Given the record of the past few weeks, we are not counting on Turkey's help anymore, the official said late Friday, briefing reporters on the envoy's three hours of talks with top Turkish diplomats and military commanders in Ankara, the capital. If Turkish help is forthcoming eventually, it would be appreciated, the official said. But plans have to move forward with the assumption that what we wanted is not going to happen. Since Turkey rejected the Pentagon's initial request to base ground troops on its soil, the United States has been developing contingency plans for deploying a smaller, more lightly armed force into northern Iraq. The first of the U.S. ships and submarines that had been near the Turkish coast in the Mediterranean passed through the Suez Canal on Friday, and one U.S. defense source said the rest were to follow soon. The vessels are considered critical for the opening hours of combat. They fire Tomahawk missiles, satellite-guided explosives that can strike targets deep inside Iraq. The 18-foot missiles carry 1,000-pound explosives to their targets, visible to the naked eye as they skim as close as 100 feet from the ground. The shifting of the vessels could signal the transfer of further American provisions of war. Much of the American military materiel remained positioned for use on a northern front in or near Turkey. Cargo vessels bearing the tanks and armored personnel carriers of the Army's 4th Infantry Division remained in the Mediterranean, as did two aircraft carriers. The administration's appeal to keep Turkish soldiers out of northern Iraq came after Turkey began massing troops and equipment along the border. Washington would have allowed 40,000 Turkish troops to follow American forces across the border in a coordinated operation and to protect Turkish interests in northern Iraq. But U.S. officials say those plans are now void because parliament rejected the U.S. request. Turkish leaders have said their troops would have several missions in Iraq. They would set up camps for Iraqi refugees on Iraq's side of the border, trying to keep them out of Turkey; protect Iraq's
PETITION: WE WANT TURKEY TO SAY NO TO WAR
PETITION ACTION ALERT FOR WORLD CITIZENS: WE WANT TURKEY TO SAY NO TO WAR Peace Initiative/Turkey has launched an online petition campaign to encourage Turkey to say no to war and we invite all world citizens to join this campaign. The petition is addressed to the President, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the Parliament, and the MPs of the Republic of Turkey. To read and sign the petition, please visit the link below and spread the word as much as you can. We can stop this war! http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/turkeysaynotowar *** Peace Initiative/Turkey (USA) Baris Girisimi/Turkiye (ABD) www.peace-initiative-turkey.net [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Turkey: Erdogan's true colors
I don't like this Orhan Pamuk but what the heck! Sabri ++ I feel despair Turkey's MPs surprised the world by voting 'no' to US troops being based in the country. Now it seems their new prime minister will overturn this - with the army's help. Acclaimed Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk fears that once again his country will become a military dictatorship Friday March 14, 2003 The Guardian Before Turkey's new prime minister Tayyip Erdogan won a landslide victory in the elections last November, he was constantly maligned and abused by most of the Turkish media. They said that the naive Turkish people should be aware of Erdogan's pro-Islamist past before voting for him. Nevertheless, those like me, who were afraid Erdogan's election would pave the way for a military coup, said that his new pro-western and pro-European Union liberal stance should be taken at its face value. But the establishment press accused Erdogan of being a fundamentalist in disguise who would strike a blow at secularism in Turkey once in power. In Istanbul now, the joke is that we were mistaken and Erdogan was indeed hiding his true colours. What he was hiding, however, was not Islamic fundamentalism but commitment to American military interests. First, he made it clear that he was displeased with parliament's rejection of US demands for a northern front against Iraq. This no to war reflected the fury of the Turkish people, 90 per cent of whom are opposed to the war. I was amazed and delighted by this decision, which should make the Turkish parliament proud. Even the pro-state and pro-army Turkish press briefly paid it lip service, since everyone's national sensibilities were hurt by the coverage of Turkey in the western media as a country that would engage in a war it did not believe in for the sake of American dollars. In particular, a cartoon in which Turkey was depicted as a belly dancer writhing in front of Uncle Sam in order to get more money broke many hearts in the country. The reaction to the cartoon was so exaggerated in the Turkish press, which is as highly sensitive to any coverage in the western media as the Turkish public, that I expected the Turkish Society of Belly Dancers to protest that belly dancing was not as dishonourable as portrayed. Since the image of the nation as a carpet- dealer upset everyone, Erdogan produced a new trump card that would force Turkey into cooperation with Bush and convince the public: Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq and, God forbid, demands for an independent state. Since some nationalist male Turkish politicians consider bombing poor Kurds far more honourable than belly dancing, it may be that this new argument will carry more weight. Already many columnists are hinting at the possibility of undesirable developments in northern Iraq in an attempt to influence the public and bewildered members of parliament. The idea of a Kurdish state is such a fearsome prospect in Turkey, such an unmentionable taboo, that it can only be spoken of as undesirable developments. Erdogan's party asked the army to make an announcement in favour of war to influence the parliamentary decision before the rejection of the proposal, but the army did not wish to grasp this thorny issue before parliament. When parliament, too, evaded the thorny issue, the job fell on Erdogan and the Turkish press, which had called on the army for help. The majority of the Turkish press have no qualms about carrying on war propaganda, despite the anti-war fury of the people, because most of their financial clout comes not from newspaper sales but from bribes received from the state by various subterfuges. Many nationalist Turkish columnists, whose heart was broken by the representation in the west of Turkey as a nation fighting for money, are now busily engaged in war propaganda for their own bread and butter. The truth that emerges from all this irony and comedy is this: the Bush government's relentless desire to launch a war against Saddam has nothing to do with establishing democracy in the Middle East. On the contrary, American military ambitions are curtailing democracy in Turkey and leading to more army intervention in politics. After the government and the press, the task now is to intimidate members of parliament to obtain a reversal of its decision. The world should know about the damage that has been done to Turkish democracy by the Bush government, which, has bypassed the sentiments of the Turkish people, preferring to cooperate with the army. Already, parliament's no to war has been dismissed and the massing of American troops in Turkish harbours is continuing as if nothing had happened. In response to this scandalous disrespect for the parliament, its president bravely declared that it made his hair stand on end, while his fellow party member, prime minister Erdogan, seemed quite undisturbed. The justified complaint that there is not enough democracy in Turkey, which we have become accustomed to hearing
FW: PARLIAMENT SECURES VOTE OF CONFIDENCE FROM THE PEOPLE OF TURKEY
This is a response I wrote to a subscriber of the Rad-Green list who wrote to me personally. I made slight changes to it after I sent my response to him/her. Best, Sabri ++ However, Erdogan has now assumed prime ministership. What could this mean for the future? Dear , Let me thank you for your kind words first. Now, any analysis of mine will be biased by my limited personal knowledge (I am in the US) and by my politics. Keeping this in mind, let me proceed to what I think: Erdogan's victory was expected and it will not make a huge difference. From a distance what I can see, and it seems a sociologist friend thinks the same way, is that there are roughly three tendencies in the ruling Justice and Development Party or JDP: 1) Progressive Islamic modernists (May their God be with them!); 2) Reactionary Fundamentalists and 3) Normalized elements, representatives of a section of the capitalist class, whose interests are in line with those of the Military. This third tendency represents the so-called Anatolian Tigers, that is, the bourgeoisie of the smaller cities of Anatolia, as well as the so-called Green Capital (Islamic Capital) of the big cities such as Istanbul and Konya. Their interests don't align with the interests of the secular and westernized Istanbul bourgeoisie, which is one of the three building blocks of the war party in Turkey, and who have been screwing them for quite some time, but they are not anti-military and at this instant would not go against the wishes/orders of the military. Erdogan not only belongs to this third tendency but also he is the unchallengeable leader of it. Indeed, although he was not the Prime Minister, it was not just Gul, the current Prime Minister until Erdogan replaces him (indeed, Erdogan is in the process of building the new government, if he is not done yet), who tried to push the Party to voting yes for the US troops, but both him and Gul. Now, Erdogan is not only the party leader but also the Prime Minister and this may give him better ability to maneuver but I don't think this would make a major difference. Last time, Erdogan and Gul avoided pushing their party to a groups decision not because they were against the war but because they did not want to take the blame on themselves. It was just a strategy to pull the Military, whose higher ranked members tried to push the JDP to pass the approval of the US troops for them, to confess what they really want and, in that, Erdogan and Gul were succesful. When they let the members of their party vote independently, some members of the first and second tendencies I mentioned above voted against, some for truely humanitarian reasons, some for religous reasons and some because of their self-interest. However, at this point, the real player is not the JDP anymore. Nor is it the opposition party CHP, some of whose members, including their leader Baykal, praised the intervention of the Chief of General Staff Ozkok, as timely and wise. At this point, there are two major players in this game: The Military and the People. The military (that is, the naked emperor), the Turkish capitalist class (mainly the Istanbul bourgeoisie centered at TUSIAD or Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen Association) and their media are pushing the country into joining the US in its attack on Iraq. It is not that their interests are perfectly in line with the interests of the US administration but at this point teaming up with the US war-mongers is their second-best strategy, their first being what we have been experiencing for the past two decades or so around the globe, which was abondened after the Bush coup of 2001 in the US. The People, however vague a concept this is, are the anti-war party. They are the 94% of the population, some of whom undoubtedly filled with strong nationalist and religious feelings but, whoever they are, I have never seen the peoples of Turkey rise up like this before. From labor and public employee unions to left political parties, from gays and lesbians to Islamists, from academics to shoe-shine boys, they are fighting. Whether Turkey will avert joining this insane attack on Iraq or not will depend on how well the People will play their cards, not on others including Erdogan. This is how I see it. Power to the People! Sabri
Turkey
'I feel despair' Turkey's MPs surprised the world by voting 'no' to US troops being based in the country. Now it seems their new prime minister will overturn this - with the army's help. Acclaimed Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk fears that once again his country will become a military dictatorship Friday March 14, 2003 The Guardian Before Turkey's new prime minister Tayyip Erdoan won a landslide victory in the elections last November, he was constantly maligned and abused by most of the Turkish media. They said that the naive Turkish people should be aware of Erdoan's pro-Islamist past before voting for him. Nevertheless, those like me, who were afraid Erdoan's election would pave the way for a military coup, said that his new pro-western and pro-European Union liberal stance should be taken at its face value. But the establishment press accused Erdoan of being a fundamentalist in disguise who would strike a blow at secularism in Turkey once in power. In Istanbul now, the joke is that we were mistaken and Erdoan was indeed hiding his true colours. What he was hiding, however, was not Islamic fundamentalism but commitment to American military interests. First, he made it clear that he was displeased with parliament's rejection of US demands for a northern front against Iraq. This no to war reflected the fury of the Turkish people, 90 per cent of whom are opposed to the war. I was amazed and delighted by this decision, which should make the Turkish parliament proud. Even the pro-state and pro-army Turkish press briefly paid it lip service, since everyone's national sensibilities were hurt by the coverage of Turkey in the western media as a country that would engage in a war it did not believe in for the sake of American dollars. In particular, a cartoon in which Turkey was depicted as a belly dancer writhing in front of Uncle Sam in order to get more money broke many hearts in the country. The reaction to the cartoon was so exaggerated in the Turkish press, which is as highly sensitive to any coverage in the western media as the Turkish public, that I expected the Turkish Society of Belly Dancers to protest that belly dancing was not as dishonourable as portrayed. Since the image of the nation as a carpet- dealer upset everyone, Erdoan produced a new trump card that would force Turkey into cooperation with Bush and convince the public: Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq and, God forbid, demands for an independent state. Since some nationalist male Turkish politicians consider bombing poor Kurds far more honourable than belly dancing, it may be that this new argument will carry more weight. Already many columnists are hinting at the possibility of undesirable developments in northern Iraq in an attempt to influence the public and bewildered members of parliament. The idea of a Kurdish state is such a fearsome prospect in Turkey, such an unmentionable taboo, that it can only be spoken of as undesirable developments. Erdoan's party asked the army to make an announcement in favour of war to influence the parliamentary decision before the rejection of the proposal, but the army did not wish to grasp this thorny issue before parliament. When parliament, too, evaded the thorny issue, the job fell on Erdoan and the Turkish press, which had called on the army for help. The majority of the Turkish press have no qualms about carrying on war propaganda, despite the anti-war fury of the people, because most of their financial clout comes not from newspaper sales but from bribes received from the state by various subterfuges. Many nationalist Turkish columnists, whose heart was broken by the representation in the west of Turkey as a nation fighting for money, are now busily engaged in war propaganda for their own bread and butter. The truth that emerges from all this irony and comedy is this: the Bush government's relentless desire to launch a war against Saddam has nothing to do with establishing democracy in the Middle East. On the contrary, American military ambitions are curtailing democracy in Turkey and leading to more army intervention in politics. After the government and the press, the task now is to intimidate members of parliament to obtain a reversal of its decision. The world should know about the damage that has been done to Turkish democracy by the Bush government, which, has bypassed the sentiments of the Turkish people, preferring to cooperate with the army. Already, parliament's no to war has been dismissed and the massing of American troops in Turkish harbours is continuing as if nothing had happened. In response to this scandalous disrespect for the parliament, its president bravely declared that it made his hair stand on end, while his fellow party member, prime minister Erdoan, seemed quite undisturbed. The justified complaint that there is not enough democracy in Turkey, which we have become accustomed to hearing from the US for years has, thanks to the Bush government, been transformed
Turkey-Ocalan
Turkish fury as Kurdish leader's trial ruled unfair Andrew Osborn in Brussels, Jonny Dymond in Istanbul and Owen Bowcott Thursday March 13, 2003 The Guardian Turkey came under intense pressure yesterday to retry its most prized prisoner - the Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan - after the European court of human rights ruled that his original trial had ignored his legitimate rights of defence. In an eagerly awaited ruling that angered Ankara and inflicted fresh damage on Turkey's international reputation, the Strasbourg court said Ocalan's 1999 conviction for leading a 16-year separatist insurgency against the Turkish state was unsafe and deeply flawed. Yesterday's judgment, which Ankara has vowed to appeal, is a bitter pill for Turkey since it regards Ocalan, the founder of the now outlawed Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK), as its enemy-in-chief and originally sentenced him to death, a sentence which was subsequently commuted to life. The jailed leader was also awarded £66,000 in costs. Although non-binding, the ruling is a setback for Ankara's long-cherished hopes of joining the EU. EU officials are closely monitoring Turkey's human rights record in the run-up to membership talks, and the judgment comes just days after negotiations on Cyprus collapsed - talks which Brussels has stipulated Turkey must support if it is to join the EU. Nor did the court pull any punches. The applicant, it said, did not have a fair trial. The Ankara state security court which convicted Ocalan of leading a revolt that claimed the lives of up to 37,000 people had not, it said, been an independent and impartial tribunal, due to the presence of a military judge. It added that Ocalan's recourse to a proper defence had also been ignored. He had been granted only late and restricted access to his lawyers, he had been interrogated for at least seven days without being brought before a judge (during which time he made several self-incriminating statements) and he had initially been denied full access to his case file. The overall effect of these difficulties taken as a whole had so restricted the rights of the defence that the principle of a fair trial had been contravened. The court, however, rejected several complaints from Ocalan - notably his claim that his prison conditions were inhumane and degrading. That was not enough to appease Turkey, and reaction from Ankara was swift and laced with anger. Our conscience is clear, said Judge Turgut Okyay who presided over the initial trial. The European court of human rights has once again shown how it uses double standards against Turkey. Yasar Yakis, Turkey's foreign minister, said if Ocalan were tried again he would have the same punishment: Head terrorist Ocalan caused the killing of thousands of people - this reality won't change. But Ocalan's legal team, many of whom are British, hailed the judgment as a real breakthrough. This is one of the most significant judgments ever to have come out of the European court, said Mark Muller, one of Ocalan's lawyers and the chairman of the London-based Kurdish Human Rights Project. Calling on Turkey to comply fully and immediately with the judgment, Mr Muller alleged that Ocalan's human rights were still being flouted. We call upon the Turkish state to give us full and unconditional access to our client who has been held in solitary confinement for over three years. No legal representative has been able to see Mr Ocalan for the last 15 weeks. In our view this is totally unacceptable and constitutes a further breach of his human rights. A panel of five judges will now consider whether Turkey's appeal has any merit.
Turkey
My knowledge of Turkey is very limited. Right now, my main concern is the extent to which Turkey aids American imperialism. I am also distraught by the United States support for the repression of the Kurds. I think that the detailed debates about the intricacies of Turkish politics might be far afield of the focus of this list right now. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Turkey
|| -Original Message- || From: Michael Perelman || || || My knowledge of Turkey is very limited. Right now, my main || concern is the || extent to which Turkey aids American imperialism. I am also || distraught by || the United States support for the repression of the Kurds. || || I think that the detailed debates about the intricacies of Turkish || politics might be far afield of the focus of this list right now. Do the massacres perpetrated by the Kurds on the Iraqi Turkomans have any place in your concerns? Are you aware that Barzani wants to occupy a city that has been demographically Turkoman for 4 centuries and probably still is despite Kurdish and Iraqi ethnic cleansing? Or is that far afield as well? Your limited knowledge of Turkey should be a reason for you to withhold your opinions on the Kurdish question until you have broadened that knowledge. As for the intricacies of Turkish politics, you have Louis Proyect to thank for them, who insisted I produce evidence.
Re: Turkey
Michael Perelman wrote: I think that the detailed debates about the intricacies of Turkish politics might be far afield of the focus of this list right now. I.e., one of the parties to this debate is volatile, so let's move on to something else? Doug
RE: Re: Turkey
It's a pretty important question, IMO. I have no idea who is right. I'd like to know more. The challenge is for partisans of either side to provide third-party corroboration for their claims. Vituperation is not going to persuade anyone here. We understand LP's inclination to support indigenous persons over more powerful intruders, and there is something to be said for that. I don't know Hakki myself, but he seems knowledgeable in his own right. It is plausible that some Kurds would practice violence against other ethnic groups associated with Turkey. That in and of itself does not invalidate their national claims. Obviously sorting out who is and isn't a cop is pretty close to impossible in this setting. Whatever we decide is not very important either. Deciding who is and is not a 'nation' is a dicey business for an outsider. Some nations are defined by the oppression they suffer at the hands of others. The Palestinians, for instance. Or the black race. That doesn't invalidate their claims or need for some kind of shelter under a bourgeois nation-state of their own. Like the Zionists 100 years ago, the Kurds are likely to side with whoever can offer some protection. At the same time, it seems clear they would not qualify as any kind of oppressor nation comparable to South Africa or Israel. The status quo -- some kind of protected Kurdish enclave in the North of Iraq -- seems a lot better than invasion or total withdrawal. The former raises the question of whether they get screwed by the U.S. and/or stomped on by Turkey; the latter means delivering them back to Saddam. mbs Michael Perelman wrote: I think that the detailed debates about the intricacies of Turkish politics might be far afield of the focus of this list right now. I.e., one of the parties to this debate is volatile, so let's move on to something else? Doug
RE: RE: Re: Turkey
|| -Original Message- || From: Max B. Sawicky || Deciding who is and is not a 'nation' is a dicey business || for an outsider. Some nations are defined by the oppression || they suffer at the hands of others. The Palestinians, for || instance. Or the black race. That doesn't invalidate || their claims or need for some kind of shelter under a || bourgeois nation-state of their own. Very good point. I'd say the Kurdish proletariat in Diyarbakir and Gaziantep fit that bill at the moment. They are less bound to the feudal order and have been systematically repressed for 15 years or more. DEHAP's votes and perhaps more importantly voter participation, which remains below %30 in the Southeast, is a good gauge of their frame of mind. Their distinctive voting behavior is evidence of a collective will. But it does not necessarily follow that the ya basta feeling they have now about the Turkish republic will necessarily lead them to better tomorrows, or that a gradual cooling off and integration as the region develops will be a loss. After all, Kurds constitute 25% percent of the population and DEHAP only got 6.2% of the vote. They clearly saw the AKP as a better answer to their problems than DEHAP's ethnicism. This shows that most Kurds want democracy, the EU, and traditional populism, not partition. || Like the Zionists 100 years ago, the Kurds are likely to side || with whoever can offer some protection. At the same || time, it seems clear they would not qualify as any kind || of oppressor nation comparable to South Africa or Israel. I'm not so sure, what's to stop them? What makes Barzani or Talabani so different from Pasha Khan Zadran or Dostum? Barzani has every intention of ethnically cleansing Kirkuk. He didn't block the inclusion of the Turkomans in Khalilzad's opposition get-together for nothing. || The status quo -- some kind of protected Kurdish enclave || in the North of Iraq -- seems a lot better than invasion || or total withdrawal. The former raises the question of || whether they get screwed by the U.S. and/or stomped on || by Turkey; the latter means delivering them back to || Saddam. I agree about the status quo. They would be better off integrated, but that's not going to happen in Iraq, so maybe their rentier economy in the enclave will one day sprout a bourgeoisie and the sheiks will allow it to live, or it will finish off the sheiks, who knows? Turkey is all for the north Iraq Kurds settling down and setting up an administration, just as long as they don't try to set up an army. It's the tolls paid by Turkish fleets of trucks carrying contraband fuel from Kirkuk that keeps the Kurds going, and both the Kurds and the Turks are happy about that arrangement.
RE: Turkey
Hakki: Are you aware that Barzani wants to occupy a city that has been demographically Turkoman for 4 centuries and probably still is despite Kurdish and Iraqi ethnic cleansing? This is where you screw up Hakki. Late Mehmet Abi, the doorman of our apartment building back in those good old days when I was a kid, and who was like a son to my late grandmother, and hence a part of the family, was Kurdish and he had nothing to do with that ethnic cleansing you are talking about. Nor the Iraqi attendant at the parking garage where I park my car, who is a singer who is in love with the Turkish music and sings some Turkish songs to me every now and then, had anything to do with it. The problem, when formulated in your way, is ill-posed. And ill-posed problems have no solutions. This is where you screw up. Sabri
RE: RE: Turkey
This is supposed to be an argument? Everybody has Kurdish friends. I was married to a wonderful lady who was half Kurdish. I worked for a Kurd, and it was very inspiring. As a buck private, I had Kurdish sergeants who sat around in the mess playing a saz and singing Kurdish songs who called us communists (this was in 1980)! But the PKK was still murdering marxists, the Iraqi Kurds were still oppressing the Turkomans, and Ocalan was teaming up with Syria and others to impose the Sevres partition of Turkey which so many Turks had given their lives to resist. I'd appreciate if Sabri and others would not resort to provocative language when they can't come up with arguments. || -Original Message- || From: Sabri Oncu || || || Hakki: || || Are you aware that Barzani wants to occupy a || city that has been demographically Turkoman || for 4 centuries and probably still is || despite Kurdish and Iraqi ethnic cleansing? || || This is where you screw up Hakki. || || Late Mehmet Abi, the doorman of our apartment building back in || those good old days when I was a kid, and who was like a son to || my late grandmother, and hence a part of the family, was Kurdish || and he had nothing to do with that ethnic cleansing you are || talking about. Nor the Iraqi attendant at the parking garage || where I park my car, who is a singer who is in love with the || Turkish music and sings some Turkish songs to me every now and || then, had anything to do with it. || || The problem, when formulated in your way, is ill-posed. And || ill-posed problems have no solutions. || || This is where you screw up. || || Sabri ||
RE: Turkey
Hakki: I'd appreciate if Sabri and others would not resort to provocative language when they can't come up with arguments. You know that I don't argue with you. Arguing with you is completely meaningless. It is like talking to the walls. There is no difference between the two actions. In either case you have no hope to get heard. So why bother? Sabri
Turkey
EURASIA INSIGHT March 7, 2003 HISTORICAL FACTORS INFLUENCE TURKEY'S STANCE ON IRAQ WAR Igor Torbakov: 3/07/03 A EurasiaNet Commentary The Turkish parliament's reluctance to accept US troop deployment reflects widespread concern among the country's governing class about the merits of overhauling the region's geopolitical balance. Many are loath to abandon the cautious, if not isolationist, foreign policy principles established by the founders of the Turkish Republic. On the surface, the Grand National Assembly, Turkey's parliament, simply yielded to the overwhelming pacifist emotions of the public when it voted March 1 not to permit American deployment. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Roughly 90 per cent of Turks, according to polls, oppose Turkey's potential involvement in the war against Iraq. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party, described the parliament's vote as a completely democratic result. Besides popular opposition to a war to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, however, the parliament vote was the product of a deeply rooted political instinct in Turkey. It is an understanding that, historically, Turkey's security interests are better served by maintaining regional stability than by altering the existing geopolitical order. A sizeable segment of Turkey's political class remains wary of the Bush administration's grandiose plans to revamp the Middle East. Many in Ankara are particularly concerned about the possible consequences for Turkey of a regional geopolitical restructuring. The March 1 parliament vote was, according to political analyst Burak Bekdil, mostly the product of Washington's failure to convince the Turkish military, which traditionally has an upper hand in deciding on security matters, that its war plans . did not contain a hidden agenda that might pose a security threat to Turkey. Among the sensitive issues that concern Turkish leaders, Bekdil pointed to possible demographic changes in the area of the oil-rich cities of Kirkuk and Mosul in northern Iraq, and to the possible formation of a loose federation in a post-Saddam Iraq that, in its turn, might eventually lead to the emergence of the independent Kurdish state. The razor-thin margin of the March 1 parliamentary vote testifies to the sharpness of the internal political debate on the Iraq issue. This debate has reminded some commentators of another, even more dramatic, parliamentary session when, by only a single vote, Turkey avoided being drawn into the Second World War. Of course, Turkish reluctance to enter the conflict was influenced heavily by the country's experience during the First World War, which cemented the break-up of the Ottoman Turkish empire and the tumultuous emergence of the modern Turkish Republic under Ataturk. Some observers have pointed to analogies between Turkey's current situation and that which existed prior to the outbreak of World War I. The most significant similarity is that Turkey is confronted now - as it was in 1914-1923 - with the geopolitical ambitions of powerful external players that are pursuing self-interested policies in the region. In addition, the current Turkish government is grappling with mounting economic hardships - a reminder of the economic decay that marked the waning days of rule by Ottoman Turkish sultans. US officials are now exerting pressure for a reconsideration of the March 1 parliament vote. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The evident irony of Washington's displeasure over the vote is not lost on many Turkish political observers. Taking heed of public attitudes and reflecting them in legislative decisions are democratic practices that the American (and European) democrats have been advising the Turks to follow, one Turkish observer noted sarcastically. Turkish opponents of the conservative defensive strategy argue, however, that the potential damage of the isolationist policy could be much higher than the risks of the possible war with Iraq in alliance with the United S tates. If Turkey maintains its anti-war stance, they contend, Ankara will find itself unable either to prevent the war, or to maintain the regional geopolitical balance once hostilities commence. The greatest nightmare would come to be true if the United States goes ahead without Turkey and wins the war against Iraq. In this case, it will have no responsibility to ask Turkey's opinion on how to restructure Iraq, says Ali Nihat Ozcan, an Ankara-based expert on the Middle East. The potential effect of Turkish parliament's vote on the country's European Union membership bid is also a matter of controversy. EU leaders France and Germany are outspoken opponents of military action against Iraq. As a result, Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Ertugrul Yalcinbayir asserted that the parliament's decision raised Turkey's standing in EU's eyes and may accelerate the nation's accession process. Not everyone in Turkey shares
Re: Re: It's not over in Turkey-the vote/military/politicalpersecution
Thanks, Ahmet. Two further questions: Is it correct that the vote is confidential from the Turkish people, but not the political leadership (which means that they know whom to pressure, but the people don't who would be pressured and who may cave in)? Second, I have Turkish students in one of my classes and I privately congratulated them. They were pleased, but one also said you will see, the vote will be reversed! Do you share this opinion as a likely outcome? I myself rather think it would be difficult to recall the same vote and not make it 100% obvious that pressure had been applied. Furthermore, I understand that any re-vote is unlikely before next week and, in the meantime, the U.S. cannot just sit and wait but must consider alternative strategies which may require implementation this week (e.g., redirecting the battle ships off Turkey through the Suez to the Arabian Gulf -- which takes time.) Paul *** Confronting 9-11, Ideologies of Race, and Eminent Economists, Vol. 20 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka On Tue, 4 Mar 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Re. The confidentiality of the vote: Although the session was a closed one, but the vote itself was not confidential in that session. In fact, there is a news coverage that the leader of AKP, Erdogan, apparently requested the list of AKP members,who opposed to the resolution, from the speaker! Re: Turkish military-whether it was weakened: No. Because it did have opportunity to openly support the government's proposal a day before the voting through the National Security Council meeting and it chose not to. The military itself had its own worry vis-a-vis the possibility of the establishment of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq. This intention is always supported by the politicians and this parliament will pass anything needed to facilitate this shared policy. In fact, the military did not, does not need any parliamentary approval to penetrate Iraq to neutralize Kurds. As we all know, the Turkish forces are already in Iraq. Moreover, the military, as they see it, has this proud tradition of independence and, as they exercised it in the case of Cyprus intervention,in the last analysis, can act independently of the US. The recent negotiations with the US were evolving in such a way that the Turkish military was a bit irritated by the US requirement of the exclusive command, including the Turkish forces. Re: Political persecution: It should be expected to decline regarding certain type of activism, e.g. anti-war and anti-imperialist ones. The ones which are challenging the foundations of political structure through outside the mainsteram political channels will be treated much more harshly. Ahmet Tonak Re: Re: It's not over in Turkey by Paul Zarembka 03 March 2003 03:55 UTC Sabri, Was this vote confidential? I recall that the last one on base construction was confidential. Also, is the Turkish military being weakened now because of yesterday's victory, and could political persecution be expected to decline? Thanks, Paul *** Confronting 9-11, Ideologies of Race, and Eminent Economists, Vol. 20 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
Re: Re: Re: It's not over in Turkey-the vote/military/politicalpersecution
Paul Zarembka wrote: Thanks, Ahmet. Two further questions: Is it correct that the vote is confidential from the Turkish people, but not the political leadership (which means that they know whom to pressure, but the people don't who would be pressured and who may cave in)? It seems correct; that is also my understanding. Second, I have Turkish students in one of my classes and I privately congratulated them. They were pleased, but one also said you will see, the vote will be reversed! Do you share this opinion as a likely outcome? I myself rather think it would be difficult to recall the same vote and not make it 100% obvious that pressure had been applied. In its original form the resolution will have no chance to pass in this parliament. Furthermore, I understand that any re-vote is unlikely before next week and, in the meantime, the U.S. cannot just sit and wait but must consider alternative strategies which may require implementation this week (e.g., redirecting the battle ships off Turkey through the Suez to the Arabian Gulf -- which takes time.) Domestically speaking, there are two important developments in terms of timing of any new resolution: 1. This Sunday the leader of the governing party AKP, Erdogan, will become a member of the parliament and then he is expecting to form a new cabinet. Even if this process happens very smoothly, it will take at least 2-3 weeks. 2. The former leader of Turkish Islamic politics, Erbakan recently regained his political rights and already started to intensify his efforts to steal those oppositional members of AKP to his own party and is eventually with the sufficient number of parliamentarians hoping to form a group in the parliament so that he can act as a power broker. Paul *** Confronting 9-11, Ideologies of Race, and Eminent Economists, Vol. 20 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka On Tue, 4 Mar 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Re. The confidentiality of the vote: Although the session was a closed one, but the vote itself was not confidential in that session. In fact, there is a news coverage that the leader of AKP, Erdogan, apparently requested the list of AKP members,who opposed to the resolution, from the speaker! Re: Turkish military-whether it was weakened: No. Because it did have opportunity to openly support the government's proposal a day before the voting through the National Security Council meeting and it chose not to. The military itself had its own worry vis-a-vis the possibility of the establishment of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq. This intention is always supported by the politicians and this parliament will pass anything needed to facilitate this shared policy. In fact, the military did not, does not need any parliamentary approval to penetrate Iraq to neutralize Kurds. As we all know, the Turkish forces are already in Iraq. Moreover, the military, as they see it, has this proud tradition of independence and, as they exercised it in the case of Cyprus intervention,in the last analysis, can act independently of the US. The recent negotiations with the US were evolving in such a way that the Turkish military was a bit irritated by the US requirement of the exclusive command, including the Turkish forces. Re: Political persecution: It should be expected to decline regarding certain type of activism, e.g. anti-war and anti-imperialist ones. The ones which are challenging the foundations of political structure through outside the mainsteram political channels will be treated much more harshly. Ahmet Tonak Re: Re: It's not over in Turkey by Paul Zarembka 03 March 2003 03:55 UTC Sabri, Was this vote confidential? I recall that the last one on base construction was confidential. Also, is the Turkish military being weakened now because of yesterday's victory, and could political persecution be expected to decline? Thanks, Paul *** Confronting 9-11, Ideologies of Race, and Eminent Economists, Vol. 20 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka E. Ahmet Tonak Professor of Economics Simon's Rock College of Bard 84 Alford Road Great Barrington, MA 01230 Tel: 413 528 7488 Fax: 413 528 7365 www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
Re: It's not over in Turkey-the vote/military/political persecution
Ahmet wrote: Re: Turkish military-whether it was weakened: No. Because it did have opportunity to openly support the government's proposal a day before the voting through the National Security Council meeting and it chose not to. I object Ahmet. Your assessment sounds no different than that of Leyla Boulton's at Financial Times: http://tinyurl.com/6vl2 The US cannot just talk to the military, haggle - and sign the cheque By Leyla Boulton, Judy Dempsey, David Gardner and Peter Spiegel Financial Times; Mar 04, 2003 The Turkish parliament's failure to allow more than 60,000 US troops to use the country as a base to launch an attack on Iraq has not only greatly complicated Washington's military planning. It has added more layers of uncertainty to Turkey's horrendously difficult political, diplomatic and financial situation - a sort of perfect storm in which all the country's problems are constantly being flung into each other. CUT This is the assessment of pure and heartless logic. The Turkish military is definitely weakened in the eyes of many although not all. Most of them are just afraid to say it out loud, given all the oppression they have seen. There are systemic and ideological cracks everywhere. It is now the job of you and I and people like us to get into those cracks and break them open. I am trying my best. What will you do? Best, Sabri
Re: Re: It's not over in Turkey-the vote/military/political persecution
I am a bit puzzled by Sabri's identification of my observations with the FT's piece. Neither the quoted sections nor the entire assessments (i.e. FT's and mine) is saying the same thing. Moreover, I am not fully sure what exactly Sabri's characterization of the assessment as .. pure and heartless logic refers to. To the FT piece or FTmine? If it is the latter, I didn't understand what part of my message would make the underlying logic as a heartless one. If it is the former, I doubt that Leyla Boulton would mind applying a heartless logic. Sabri is saying that The Turkish military is definitely weakened in the eyes of many although not all. Most of them are just afraid to say it outloud, given all the oppression they have seen. As I understand this, Sabri is suggesting that there are unexpressed and changed perceptions about the strength of military. Though unexpressed, but somehow we can know these perceptions and use these changes as evidence for weakened military. I disagree with this reasoning. Instead, in my earlier message I tried to use specifics of the recent negotiations and some historical evidence/events to support my sense that the Turkish military is still objectively strong (relative to its strength before the vote and to its plans in Northern Iraq). And then Sabri says this: I am trying my best. What will you do? Any suggestion? What should I do? Ahmet Tonak Ahmet wrote: Re: Turkish military-whether it was weakened: No. Because it did have opportunity to openly support the government's proposal a day before the voting through the National Security Council meeting and it chose not to. I object Ahmet. Your assessment sounds no different than that of Leyla Boulton's at Financial Times: http://tinyurl.com/6vl2 The US cannot just talk to the military, haggle - and sign the cheque By Leyla Boulton, Judy Dempsey, David Gardner and Peter Spiegel Financial Times; Mar 04, 2003 The Turkish parliament's failure to allow more than 60,000 US troops to use the country as a base to launch an attack on Iraq has not only greatly complicated Washington's military planning. It has added more layers of uncertainty to Turkey's horrendously difficult political, diplomatic and financial situation - a sort of perfect storm in which all the country's problems are constantly being flung into each other. CUT This is the assessment of pure and heartless logic. The Turkish military is definitely weakened in the eyes of many although not all. Most of them are just afraid to say it out loud, given all the oppression they have seen. There are systemic and ideological cracks everywhere. It is now the job of you and I and people like us to get into those cracks and break them open. I am trying my best. What will you do? Best, Sabri
Re: It's not over in Turkey-the vote/military/political persecution
Re. The confidentiality of the vote: Although the session was a closed one, but the vote itself was not confidential in that session. In fact, there is a news coverage that the leader of AKP, Erdogan, apparently requested the list of AKP members,who opposed to the resolution, from the speaker! Re: Turkish military-whether it was weakened: No. Because it did have opportunity to openly support the government's proposal a day before the voting through the National Security Council meeting and it chose not to. The military itself had its own worry vis-a-vis the possibility of the establishment of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq. This intention is always supported by the politicians and this parliament will pass anything needed to facilitate this shared policy. In fact, the military did not, does not need any parliamentary approval to penetrate Iraq to neutralize Kurds. As we all know, the Turkish forces are already in Iraq. Moreover, the military, as they see it, has this proud tradition of independence and, as they exercised it in the case of Cyprus intervention,in the last analysis, can act independently of the US. The recent negotiations with the US were evolving in such a way that the Turkish military was a bit irritated by the US requirement of the exclusive command, including the Turkish forces. Re: Political persecution: It should be expected to decline regarding certain type of activism, e.g. anti-war and anti-imperialist ones. The ones which are challenging the foundations of political structure through outside the mainsteram political channels will be treated much more harshly. Ahmet Tonak Re: Re: It's not over in Turkey by Paul Zarembka 03 March 2003 03:55 UTC Sabri, Was this vote confidential? I recall that the last one on base construction was confidential. Also, is the Turkish military being weakened now because of yesterday's victory, and could political persecution be expected to decline? Thanks, Paul *** Confronting 9-11, Ideologies of Race, and Eminent Economists, Vol. 20 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
It's not over in Turkey
The Turkish government says that it will try again. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/02/international/worldspecial/02CND-POLI.html -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: It's not over in Turkey
Michael: The Turkish government says that it will try again. It is possible that they wil try again. But if they try it again, we will fuck them. I got the news about the Turkish vote from my father-in-law, who is one of the most apolitical persons you can imagine. Both of my in-laws were cheering after the result. If they let the US troops statition in Turkey, you will witness one of the biggest revolutions of our age. Especially after this victory, whether it is real or perceived. But don't they say: Perception is reality. They cannot do it. We will not let it happen. Best, Sabri PS: Did you see that picture, on the front page of New York Times today, of the deputy holding a No To War banner with a bitter smile on his face? That picture will hang on my wall as long as I am alive.
Re: Re: It's not over in Turkey
Sabri, Was this vote confidential? I recall that the last one on base construction was confidential. Also, is the Turkish military being weakened now because of yesterday's victory, and could political persecution be expected to decline? Thanks, Paul *** Confronting 9-11, Ideologies of Race, and Eminent Economists, Vol. 20 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka On Sun, 2 Mar 2003, Sabri Oncu wrote: Michael: The Turkish government says that it will try again. It is possible that they wil try again. But if they try it again, we will fuck them. I got the news about the Turkish vote from my father-in-law, who is one of the most apolitical persons you can imagine. Both of my in-laws were cheering after the result. If they let the US troops statition in Turkey, you will witness one of the biggest revolutions of our age. Especially after this victory, whether it is real or perceived. But don't they say: Perception is reality. They cannot do it. We will not let it happen. Best, Sabri PS: Did you see that picture, on the front page of New York Times today, of the deputy holding a No To War banner with a bitter smile on his face? That picture will hang on my wall as long as I am alive.
Re: It's not over in Turkey
Sabri, Was this vote confidential? Yes, it was. I recall that the last one on base construction was confidential. Also, is the Turkish military being weakened now because of yesterday's victory, I would say yes but this is my personal view. and could political persecution be expected to decline? Difficult to say. We will see. As our great poet Nazim said, you never know what will happen: When they push their heavy hands against the ground, And rise up. Thanks, Paul Best, Sabri
Turkey: Democracy functioning! No more US soldiers...
The government's resolution was not able to get the simple majority vote in the parliament; hence it was rejected. Out of 534 parliamentarians only 264 supported the resolution when at least 268 supporters were needed --251 opposed, 19 abstained. As the parliament was in this 5 hour, rather turbulent closed session, hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters were on the streets of Ankara. E. Ahmet Tonak Professor of Economics Simon's Rock College of Bard 84 Alford Road Great Barrington, MA 01230 Tel: 413 528 7488 Fax: 413 528 7365 www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
Re: Turkey: Democracy functioning! No more US soldiers...
Congratulations on the courage and perseverance of those inside and outside the Turkish parliament. This is real internationalism! Chris Burford London
Turkey: Democracy functioning! BUT US MEDIA ARE NOT!!!
The US media bias recognizes no limits: read the following two statements regarding the size of the demonstration in Ankara from CNN's web site --both are on the same page!!! http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/01/sprj.irq.main/index.html Meanwhile, TENS of thousands of Turks holding anti-war banners were protesting at a square 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from parliament. http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/01/sprj.irq.main/index.html The proposal has little popular support -- HUNDREDS of thousands of Turks protested on the streets of Ankara, and public opinion polls show that more than 90 percent of the population opposes war. Hi Ahmet, Thanks for the good news, and congrutulations and thanks to all your Turkish comrades! Comradely, Fred ..
[Fwd: Turkey: Democracy functioning! BUT US MEDIA ARE NOT!!!]
My apologies; the correct second link should have been the following: http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/01/sprj.irq.turkey/index.html Original Message Subject: [PEN-L:35179] Turkey: Democracy functioning! BUT US MEDIA ARE NOT!!!From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, March 1, 2003 2:07 pm To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The US media bias recognizes no limits: read the following two statements regarding the size of the demonstration in Ankara from CNN's web site --both are on the same page!!! http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/01/sprj.irq.main/index.html Meanwhile, TENS of thousands of Turks holding anti-war banners were protesting at a square 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from parliament. http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/01/sprj.irq.main/index.html The proposal has little popular support -- HUNDREDS of thousands of Turks protested on the streets of Ankara, and public opinion polls show that more than 90 percent of the population opposes war. Hi Ahmet, Thanks for the good news, and congrutulations and thanks to all your Turkish comrades! Comradely, Fred ..
Turkey: Ankara delays vote on deal over US troops
This is important: Ertugrul Yalcinbayir, deputy prime minister, has threatened to resign and urged colleagues to vote against the government. There are cracks even in the government. They, that is, AKP, postponed the vote to Saturday, March 1, so that they can share the blame with the National Security Council and the generals, the strongest wing of the commanding heights of Turkey, who will meet tomorrow. But March 1 is a bad choice: There will be tens of thousands in the streets of Ankara on March 1. The organizers expect a hundred thousand but I have learnt to adjust my expectations after some years I have spent visiting this interesting place called earth. Best, Sabri +++ http://tinyurl.com/6kyl Ankara delays vote on deal over US troops By Leyla Boulton in Ankara February 27 2003, Financial Times The Turkish parliament has decided to delay until Saturday a vote on the deployment of 62,000 US troops for the opening of a vital second front in a likely war against neighbouring Iraq. The delay was announced on Thursday as the US confirmed there was still no final agreement in its negotiations with Turkey on a package of economic aid potentially worth $24bn (22.3bn, £15.2bn) in cheap long-term loans - and a variety of political concessions sought by Turkey as a condition for its support. The announcement depressed volatile Turkish financial markets, which had rallied in anticipation of a deal. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP), had said on Wednesday that unless something out of the ordinary occurred, a vote would take place on Thursday. Although the reasons for a postponement were not immediately clear, one senior official explained that the AKP leadership wanted the support of Turkey's powerful generals at a meeting of the National Security Council today. In particular, they want the military to help them persuade President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who is frequently at loggerheads with the AKP, that a second United Nations resolution is not necessary before US troops can be deployed. The AKP is also troubled by the national anti-war feeling. Its members of parliament have been inundated with anti-war complaints from constituents. Ertugrul Yalcinbayir, deputy prime minister, has threatened to resign and urged colleagues to vote against the government. However, Abdullah Gul, the prime minister, and Mr Erdogan decided that Turkey had more to gain than to lose from supporting the US. Apart from gaining extensive US aid, Turkey would also secure a say in the shaping of Iraq after a war. It has also obtained the blessing of the US to send around 40,000 troops to northern Iraq to keep refugees in protected camps. Ankara is determined to discourage moves towards an independent state in northern Iraq or an ethnically based federation that would perpetuate self-rule by Iraqi Kurds - seen in Ankara as a dangerous example for Turkish Kurds.
Turkey
http://istanbul.indymedia.org/news/2003/02/342.php
Re: Turkey
Hey, I think if Turkey supports the US in the ME, they'd be fools not to ask for every cent they can get. Works for Israel anyway. Joanna At 09:24 AM 02/26/2003 -0800, you wrote: http://istanbul.indymedia.org/news/2003/02/342.php
Re: Turkey
Joanna: Hey, I think if Turkey supports the US in the ME, they'd be fools not to ask for every cent they can get. Works for Israel anyway. It is not Turkey who will be supporting the US in the ME. It is the rulers of Turkey who will do that. 94% percent of the population is against it. We don't want their fucking money. Sabri PLEA This country shaped like the head of a mare Coming full gallop from far off Asia To stretch into the Mediterranean THIS COUNTRY IS OURS. Bloody wrists, clenched teeth bare feet, Land like a precious silk carpet THIS HELL, THIS PARADISE IS OURS. Let the doors be shut that belong to others Let them never open again Do away with the enslaving of man by man THIS PLEA IS OURS. To live! Like a tree alone and free Like a forest in brotherhood THIS YEARNING IS OURS. Nazim Hikmet
Turkey Iraq
Title: Turkey Iraq from SLATE: According to pieces in the [Washington] Post and LA [TIMES]... there is growing Kurdish opposition to Turkey's plans to send troops into northern Iraq. No one should think we are bluffing, one top Kurdish official told the Post. There will be conflict. A Turkish military official told the LAT that he's confident things will work out just fine, The Iraqi Kurds are no match for us. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Turkey
and if the parliament votes no? Sabri, anyone else?
Re: Turkey
It will be a good step forward for the establishment of democratic processes and institutions in Turkey. It seems to me there is a possibility for that, albeit a slim one. Today even the deputy prime minister commented on this possibility by saying that the rejection of the government's motion in the parliament would be good for the future of democracy in Turkey or something like that. Ian Murray wrote: and if the parliament votes no? Sabri, anyone else? - E. Ahmet Tonak Professor of Economics Simon's Rock College of Bard 84 Alford Road Great Barrington, MA 01230 Tel: 413 528 7488 Fax: 413 528 7365 www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
Re: Turkey
Ian wrote: and if the parliament votes no? Sabri, anyone else? Sorry Ian, just saw this. Busy with empirical IO and the contract theory in these days. I read Ahmet's response and agree with him. The chances are slim. But both Ahmet and I live in the US. Is there anyone out there who lives in Turkey? Best, Sabri
Turkey
Turkey Closer to Allowing in U.S. Troops Parliament Must Vote After Cabinet Approves Troop Deployment By Loius Meixler The Associated Press Monday, February 24, 2003; 1:38 PM ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkey's Cabinet agreed Monday to host tens of thousands of U.S. combat troops, a key step toward allowing Washington to forge ahead with plans for a northern front against Iraq. Government spokesman Abdullatif Sener said the measure was being sent to parliament Monday. A vote on Tuesday is widely expected, but passage of the bill is not certain. The Cabinet decision comes after weeks of tense U.S.-Turkish negotiations. Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis warned that final details of a U.S.-Turkish agreement are still being worked out and the motion could be delayed until those negotiations are concluded. In a sign of how contentious a U.S. troop deployment is in Turkey, Sener said that many ministers had reservations. An important part of our ministers did not find the developments satisfactory. But after negotiations, the decision of sending the authorization to the parliament was made, Sener said. In the end, the ministers unanimously endorsed to send it to parliament, he added. The Cabinet motion calls on parliament to allow the deployment of U.S. troops and authorize Turkish soldiers to enter Iraq. The deputy chairman of the Justice and Development Party, which has a large majority in parliament, said he expected parliamentary approval, but gave no date for a vote. There will not be a problem, legislator Reha Denemec told The Associated Press. The government approves it. The announcement comes as U.S. ships loaded with tanks and other armor awaited orders off the Turkish coast. Washington wants to use Turkey to open a northern front to divide the Iraqi army. Other U.S. troops will advance from Kuwait. But for weeks Turkey had been holding out for a better aid package to compensate for any Turkish losses in case of war. The deadlock was finally broken late last week, when Washington offered Turkey $5 billion in aid and $10 billion in loans to cushion the Turkish economy from the impact of any war. But Turkish and U.S. officials were still working out the final details of an agreement. Negotiations have not been finalized yet, Sener said. A U.S. official said talks are expected to continue throughout Monday. The Bush administration has been putting enormous pressure on Turkey to pass a basing agreement. Negotiations to reach an agreement on the military, political and economic issues have reached an important stage, Sener said. However, they are still continuing. But to have kept the process any longer would not have been very healthy, therefore it was decided to send the authorization to parliament today. An overwhelming majority of Turks oppose any war in neighboring Iraq, fearing that it would further weaken Turkey's already fragile economy. As well as aid, Turkish leaders have demanded assurances that the fall of Iraq's Saddam Hussein will not lead to the creation of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq. A Kurdish state, Turkey fears, would boost aspirations of Turkey's Kurdish rebels. To prevent this, Turkey wants to send tens of thousands of troops into northern Iraq in case of war. Ankara fears that a war will push hundreds of thousands of refugees toward Turkey. Kurdish groups living in those areas say they strongly oppose any Turkish deployment. Turkey and the United States are also still discussing command of any Turkish troops in northern Iraq, the disarmament after a war of Iraqi Kurdish groups, and the control of two northern Iraqi oil fields, Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis said. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the Justice and Development Party, has said that he would not order his lawmakers to vote in favor of the deployment. He said he hoped his friends would act toward the authorization. On Monday, a NATO mission to help defend Turkey against a potential Iraqi attack got underway with the departure of a planeload of equipment and support units from Germany. Turkey, a member of NATO, fears that Baghdad might launch a counterattack if it supports the United States.
Re: US / Turkey: Contract theoretical
Michael: Sabri, you should be proud of Turkey. Most of the prostitutes don't even haggle. I am not proud of what the powers that be in Turkey are doing. However, whatever they are doing, they are not doing it in my name. On the other hand, I think that they serve the world public well by exposing the real face of the US administration. Just think about their demands; not only about this ridiculous negotiation on compensation but also about the Kurds. Take a look at this from the below article: When asked whether commitments of the United States to Turkey would be written or not, Pearson said that meetings continued and added that if there was an agreement, it would be a written document. They want a written contract. Sabri +++ Pearson: Turkey And United States Will Reach Agreement As Soon As Possible Anadolu Agency: 2/19/2003 ANKARA - U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Robert Pearson said on Wednesday that he thought that Turkey and the United States would reach agreement regarding issues on a possible operation against Iraq. Pearson replied to questions of reporters following his meeting with Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ugur Ziyal. Stating that he and Ziyal had a beneficial meeting, Pearson said that he conveyed views of Washington to Ziyal. Pearson stated that Ziyal also conveyed views of Turkey to him at the meeting. Noting that he hoped that Turkey and the United States could reach a solution regarding the issue, Pearson said that it was not possible for him to explain details of the issue to reporters because those issues should be discussed in atmosphere of secrecy and security. When asked whether he brought response to economic expectations of Turkey, he said that he could not explain details of the issue and added that but both sides were working hard on the issue. Upon another question on sending of motions to the parliament this week, Pearson said that time had a critical importance for the United States. Stating that timetable of the United States would be determined by U.S. President George Bush, Pearson said that agreement would be reached as soon as possible and added that they were working for it. Asked whether Ankara gave response to demands of Washington, Pearson said that meetings continued well and noted that he hoped that they would overcome obstacles in economic, military and political fields. When asked whether commitments of the United States to Turkey would be written or not, Pearson said that meetings continued and added that if there was an agreement, it would be a written document.
RE: Re: US / Turkey: Contract theoretical issues
Title: RE: [PEN-L:34906] Re: US / Turkey: Contract theoretical issues but, at least in theory, prostitution is a victimless crime. The war against Iraq isn't. Jim -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 2/19/2003 8:48 PM Subject: [PEN-L:34906] Re: US / Turkey: Contract theoretical issues Sabri, you should be proud of Turkey. Most of the prostitutes don't even haggle. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
