PKK AND THE SCOTUS

"Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised."
~ Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

On June 21 the SCOTUS [Supreme Court of the US] determined that providing "training, expert advice or assistance" to teach the PKK how to file human rights complaints or to engage in peace negotiations is the same thing as providing material support to a "terrorist" organization. From The Washington Post, amazingly:

WHICH OF the following is illegal under the law that bars providing "material support" to terrorists?:

1. Giving money to a terrorist organization.

2. Providing explosives training to terrorists.

3. Urging a terrorist group to put down its arms in favor of using lawful, peaceful means to achieve political goals.

After Monday's Supreme Court ruling in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project the answer is: all three.

The material support law prohibits U.S. citizens from providing "services," "personnel" or "training, expert advice or assistance" to U.S.-designated terrorist groups. It has long been understood that funding and providing weapons training were off limits. What was less clear was how far the law could reach to punish activities with no link to terrorism.

The court's answer: Very far. In our opinion, it is the court that went too far.

From Foreign Policy:

And although it seems like attempts to convince terrorist groups to use non-lethal methods to pursue their political agenda would be a no-brainer, the US Supreme Court concluded otherwise. How could this be? According to the Supreme Court, an FTO such as the PKK could misuse such training to feign an interest in peace while in the meantime it builds up its strength as it awaits a more opportune time to resume terrorism. In addition, it could use its newly-gained knowledge of international law to subvert the legal system by manipulating it to prevent successful campaigns against terrorism. Finally, when an FTO such as the PKK learns skills such as peaceful political advocacy and the norms of international law and international humanitarian and human rights law, there is the substantial risk that it will obtain greater legitimacy, thereby making it harder to defeat them.

The Atlantic continues:

. . . But as Justice Breyer suggested in dissent, it makes no sense: Independent speech about a designated group may legitimize the group as much (or more) than advice to the group on conflict resolution. Breyer was equally dismissive of the assertion that such advice enables terrorism by "freeing up" the group's resources: "The Government has provided us with no empirical information that might convincingly support this claim." Nor did it make a factual showing that the speech proposed by the plaintiffs in HLP would confer any particular "legitimacy" on a designated group.

One of the original court documents in the challenge to the Patriot Act can be found here, and the document contains the argument of the plaintiffs in the case, including that of Judge Ralph Fertig. Here's a sample:

Since 1991 the HLP [Humanitarian Law Project] and Judge Fertig have devoted substantial time and resources advocating on behalf of the Kurds living in Turkey and working with and providing training, expert advice and other forms of support to the PKK. Judge Fertig and other individuals associated with the HLP have conducted fact-finding investigations on the Kurds in Turkey and have published reports and articles presenting their findings, which are supportive of the PKK and the struggle for Kurdish liberation. They assert that the Turkish government has committed extensive human rights violations against the Kurds, including the summary execution of more than 18,000 Kurds, the widespread use of arbitrary detentions and torture against persons who speak out for equal rights for Kurds or are suspected of sympathizing with those who do, and the wholesale destruction of some 2,4000 Kurdish villages. Applying international law principles, they have concluded that the PKK is a party to an armed conflict governed by Geneva Conventions and Protocols and, therefore, is not a terrorist organization under international law.

There's much more in the court document that outlines some of the work of the HLP and Judge Fertig on behalf of the Kurdish people. Take a look so that you can get a better idea of what it is to be a "terrorist" in the mind of the United States in general and of the fascist Black Robes of the SCOTUS in particular.

At the same time that the fascist Black Robes of the SCOTUS determined that helping the PKK negotiate peace was an act of terrorism, news reports were discussing the fact that the US military and its civilian contractors were handing out beaucoup bucks to warlords and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It's apparent from Le Monde Diplomatique that not only do US military officers like to flash the cash in the Taliban's direction, but NATO commanders are somewhat taken with the Taliban personally:

Sadly for the US, almost everyone supports the Taliban rebels. Even Nato commanders. A senior officer said: “If I was a young man, I’d be fighting with the Taliban.”

The same article says that, until recently anyway, the entire goal of the US military in Afghanistan was not even to defeat the Taliban:

For Nato soldiers, the fight is confusing. General Stanley McChrystal – their commander until President Barack Obama accepted his forced resignation last month, the result of his candour – told the troops that, in the counter-insurgency campaign, their primary goal is not to kill or even defeat the Taliban but rather to secure the population. The enemy is not even the Taliban, said Major-General Nick Carter, the British general in charge of the Kandahar campaign, but rather a “malign influence”, a code for corrupt government.

In light of a recent House subcommittee investigation into the matter, the Pentagon is taking the allegations "seriously". The entire congressional report can be found here and a larger news report on the investigation can be found at The Nation.

It makes one wonder whether or not such fine, upstanding Americans as US military officers and "free-market" contractors should, perhaps, be the first to be charged with offering material support to terrorists under the SCOTUS ruling. Alas, it's not to be for the simple reason that the Taliban is not listed as an FTO on the State Department's infamous List.

Now why is that?

On the one hand you have the PKK, an organization that has never targeted Americans or even talked about targeting Americans--unlike the MEK, pet organization of so many Republican congressmen--and on the other hand you have the Taliban, which manages to blow up or otherwise kill Americans every few days. Or at least every week. So why is the PKK on the List and the Taliban is not? It all sounds so very arbitrary to me.

Of course, the reason the Taliban has so far avoided being listed is because it was the guest of the Americans back in the 1990s:

Late in 1996, however, the Bridas Corp. of Argentina finally signed contracts with the Taliban and with Gen. Dostum of the Northern Alliance to build the pipeline.

One American company in particular, Unocal, found that intolerable and fought back vigorously, hiring a number of consultants in addition to Kissinger: Hamid Karzai, Richard Armitage, and Zalmay Khalilzad. (Armitage and Khalilzad would join the George W. Bush administration in 2001.)

Unocal wooed Taliban officials at its headquarters in Texas and in Washington, D.C., seeking to have the Bridas contract voided, but the Taliban refused. Finally, in February of 1998, John J. Maresca, a Unocal vice president, asked in a congressional hearing to have the Taliban replaced by a more stable regime.

The Clinton administration, having recently refused the PNAC request to invade Iraq, was not any more interested in a military overthrow of the Taliban. President Clinton did, however, shoot a few cruise missiles into Afghanistan, after the al Qaeda attacks on the U.S. embassies in Africa. And he issued an executive order forbidding further trade transactions with the Taliban.

Maresca was thus twice disappointed: The Taliban would not be replaced very soon, and Unocal would have to cease its pleadings with the regime.

Unocal's prospects rocketed when George W. Bush entered the White House, and the Project for the New American Century ideology of global dominance took hold.

The Bush administration itself took up active negotiations with the Taliban in January of 2001, seeking secure access to the Caspian Basin for American companies. The Enron Corp. also was eyeing a pipeline to feed its proposed power plant in India.) The administration offered a package of foreign aid as an inducement, and the parties met in Washington, Berlin and Islamabad. The Bridas contract might still be voided.

But the Taliban would not yield.

It would appear that the Americans are holding out to continue pipeline negotiations with the Taliban, and are, therefore, not "Listing" the group.

If so it means that former HPG Commander Comrade Bahoz Erdal's repeated comments about the targeting of oil and gas pipelines takes on a much greater sense of urgency. Since the Taliban refusal to go along with American oil companies and its continued targeting of US military personnel have kept it off the List, maybe the same tactics could benefit HPG and the PKK and, finally, force Turkey and the US to negotiate for a peaceful settlement of the Kurdish situation.

THE F WORD

"You're here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your mind -- driving you mad."
~ Morpheus, The Matrix.

Uh-oh! They used the "F" word and they mean it!

Scott Horton interviews Greg Palast about oil, Iraq, Georgia, and the "F" word. MP3 here. Run time just over 24 minutes.

I love the cynicism there. It's so refreshing.

Much more on corruption, fascism, and cynicism, and why there's no point voting--especially for McCain here. Run time, again, just over 24 minutes.

HPG: BTC PIPELINE TARGETED

"The oil pipeline that crosses through Kurdistan is an economic source for the Turkish Military for this reason it is possible for the guerrilla to go for it."
~ Murat Karayılan.

HPG has claimed responsibility for a blast on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, from Yeni Özgür Politika:

HPG stated that it conducted a sabotage operation against the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline. The aftermath of this operation has resulted in a great economic cost.

HPG BİM stated that the guerrillas conducted an operation against the BTC pipeline in Refahiye district of Erzincan. BİM said, "Later on, more information will be shared with the public about this high-cost economic incident."

Within 50 kilometers of the Refahiye garrison, near Yurtbaşı village, where the pipeline passed, an explosion occured the day before yesterday [5 August] around 2300 hours and this explosion was very powerful. After the explosion, flames reached a height of 50 meters and smoke blackened the sky. Officials in Ankara had to shut down the pipeline's valve near that region. Officials did not say anything about this incident.

The pipeline was always referred to as a "secured" pipeline by Turkey. Previously HPG conducted some sabotage operations against this "secured" pipeline, which were very effective. Also, last year in October, the guerrillas conducted an operation against a Turkey-Iran gas pipeline. On 8 May, between Mersin and Sivas, they targeted the pipeline. In addition, on 25 May in Ağrı's Doğubayazıt district, HPG again conducted a sabotage operation against a Turkey-Iran pipeline, which mainly destroyed the pipeline in the region between Hallaç and Süphan.

HPG also conducted an operation against a Turkey-Iran gas pipeline in August 2006.

Turkey appears to be in denial over the actual source of the attack against the pipeline, as reported by Hürriyet (English):

"No trace suggesting sabotage has been found so far, but the cause will become clear after the fire is over," the [BOTAŞ] official said.

Now that's amazing! Here, in a region where HPG regularly operates, against a target that HPG has, not only spoken about publicly, previously attacked, the Ankara regime refuses to suggest even a hint that HPG might be involved, even when "PKK" claims the operation. But a bombing in a place, like Güngören, where HPG does not operate, against targets that HPG attempts to avoid, the Ankara regime declares a "PKK" operation. . . even after "PKK" publicly denied involvement.

Moreover, with the exception of one source quoted below, the entire international "free" press has fallen in line with the regime's story, just as the same "free" press did with the regime's Güngören story. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out why all that is so.

Hürriyet gives an indication of the economic effects of HPG's operation:

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (BTC), which is still ablaze, will remain shut for about 15 days after an explosion sparked a fire in a section in eastern Turkey, news agencies reported on Thursday. The supply concerns pushed oil prices back to over $119.

[ . . . ]

The supply concerns helped to push oil prices higher and jump back above $120 a barrel on Thursday. Light, sweet crude for September delivery advanced $1.64 to $120.20 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier rising as high as $121.78.

In London, September Brent crude added $1.45 to $118.51 a barrel.

HPG's operation also managed to get some action out of BP:

BP said the BTC partners had declared force majeure on exports, freeing themselves from contractual obligations, Reuters reported.

BP said on Thursday the group which it leads producing oil in Azerbaijan had started diverting crude slated for the Turkish port of Ceyhan to other routes, including the Georgian port of Supsa, after the explosion.

"We are actively considering alternative routes," BP's spokeswoman in Azerbaijan told Reuters.

I wonder how much it costs the Ankara regime when other countries begin to "actively consider alternate routes" away from Ceyhan?

Energy Daily, in contrast to the rest of international media, has considered other possibilities:

Initial Turkish media reports stated an explosion occurred in the Refahiye BTC section, which resulted in a conflagration sending flames 160 feet into the air and halting oil flow. According to the reports, investigators are attempting to determine whether the explosion was an industrial accident or, more ominously, the result of PKK sabotage.

As Turkey, stung by PKK attacks across the border into its territory, last autumn deployed troops along the frontier, the PKK, well aware of the vulnerabilities of Turkey's energy imports, upped the ante last October, threatening, in the event of a Turkish military action, not only to strike Iraq's Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil export pipeline, but even to attack tankers heading for Turkey's Mediterranean port.

The same month the PKK's Abd-al-Rahman Chadarchi stated that if PKK forces in northern Iraq were attacked, his group would assault Turkish oil targets, "since they bring huge amounts of money to Turkey," adding, "The military regime in the country will use this (energy revenues) to develop its war machine to utilize it against the Kurdish people in Turkish Kurdistan," while Iraqi Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani said, "Northern Iraq cannot be pressured. Iraq is a rich country, and if there are economic pressures, we will cut off the (Kirkuk-) Ceyhan pipeline." Turkey subsequently launched a limited incursion against PKK forces ensconced in northern Iraq in February.

According to Wikipedia, BP leads the pack in share ownership of the BTC pipeline at 30%. Other companies involved in the consortium include the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), Chevron, StatoilHydro, Türkiye Petrolleri Anonim Ortaklığı (TPAO), Eni/Agip, Total, Itochu, Inpex, ConocoPhillips, and Hess Corporation.

"More ominously", indeed. Bijî Serok Apo!

VERY GOOD PEOPLE

"I like the PKK. They are very good people. They look after people here. The PKK are fighters but they are not dangerous people like other people, like Islamic people. Like Osama bin Laden."
~ Resident of Ranya, South Kurdistan.

The interest of the Progressive Historians has been piqued by YJA-STAR şehîd Devrim Siirt. Take a peek at the commentary by Gordon Taylor at the following links:

Moonlight in the Mountains

More Moonlight

Oramar

The Friends of Aynur

Turkish Army Captives

The Edge of Catastrophe


Okay, I confess that I have absolutely no idea what makes mainstream journalists tick--except the possibility of their getting a regular paycheck--and I'm suspicious when the old reactionary news services report accurately anything in the Kurdish world. The BBC must have someone running all over North and South Kurdistan, though, because they have another piece out, this time on PKK's neighbors in South Kurdistan:

In Ranya, local people have got used to their neighbours in the PKK.

"I like the PKK. They are very good people," one man said.

"They look after people here. The PKK are fighters but they are not dangerous people like other people, like Islamic people. Like Osama bin Laden," he added.

The recent shelling by the Turkish military in northern Iraq took place some distance from Ranya and residents in the town did not seem worried about the prospect of a Turkish military invasion.

(Photo: Warzer Jaff for The New York Times)

However, they did question the motives behind the army's plans.

"The Turkish government wants to attack all the Kurdish people and not just the PKK," said one middle-aged man.

"Turkey just wants to make things complicated here in the Kurdish region of Iraq," he said

[ . . . ]

In Ranya an elderly man in the market caught the mood of the town.

"The PKK are human beings like us," he said. "They just want to stay in their country.

"The Turkish government is like Saddam Hussein's regime. In the south of Turkey they cannot even study their own language. The situation is getting worse. We just want it to improve and for there to be peace," he added.

If you haven't figured out yet why DTP refuses to label PKK as "terrorists," another report from the BBC will explain it to you:

. . . [T]here is another dynamic at play in this region, where most people are ethnic Kurds.

Unlike in western Turkey, many here do not condemn what the PKK did. To them, the PKK remains the group that fought for their rights in the days when even saying you were a Kurd was seen as separatism.

The situation today has improved enormously. Even the most militant Kurdish nationalists admit that.

But ties to the PKK remain strong and there are plenty here who describe the violence as "self defence" against a military that has been targeting them for years.

"It's an instinct. People still feel the PKK is fighting for them," Mesrut explained.

A tiny man - dwarfed even further by his huge wooden desk - he runs a daily news-sheet in a town close to the Iraqi border.

That brings its own hazards. If he calls the PKK "terrorists" using official terminology, he gets threatened by locals.

With tension now so high, he uses news agency reports instead to avoid responsibility.

"People here still don't feel like equals in Turkey," Mesrut explains.

"And their children are still with the fighters in the mountains, so how can they condemn the PKK?"

Does everyone get it now?

In the meantime, there a couple of little snags that have developed against the international temper tantrum that the Ankara regime's been throwing. First, the US military is not going to go to Qendil and do anything . . . or so says the ranking US military officer in South Kurdistan:

Major General Benjamin Mixon, commander of Multi-National Division North, said Iraq's three northern provinces were under the control of the Kurdish provincial government and that he had no instructions to take action in the border area.

Asked what his forces planned to do against the Kurdish Workers Party or PKK rebels, Maj Gen Mixon said: "Absolutely nothing."

Pressed by reporters via a video link-up from Iraq whether there was anything US forces could do to head off a Turkish cross-border incursion, Maj Gen Mixon said, "I have not been given any requirements or any responsibility for that."

He said he had been given no instructions "that would even vaguely resemble" sending US forces into the Kurdish areas to reassure the Turks.

"Let me put it to you very clearly: the three northern provinces are under KRG [Kurdish regional government] provincial Iraqi control," he said.

"They have a security force, which you are all familiar with known as the pesh-merga. It's their responsibility to ensure the integrity of their particular provinces."

Translation: Screw you, Büyükanıt.

This tells me that the US is very aware of the geography, the climate, and the nature of guerrilla warfare, and they have no intention of getting involved with any kind of hunt on the ground for PKK fighters. They probably figure, "Better to let the Turks go in there,get the crap knocked out of them, and let them leave with their tails between their legs once more." And that's smart thinking.

The second snag came from another skunk at Turkey's garden party, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the speaker of the Iraqi parliament:

The speaker of Iraq's parliament warned Turkey on Thursday that his government would cut off the flow of oil from northern Iraq if Ankara followed through on its threat to level economic sanctions against the country.

Mahmoud al-Mashhadani's comments came a day after Turkey's top leadership agreed to recommend the government take economic measures to force cooperation by Iraqis against Kurdish rebels who have been staging cross-border attacks against Turkish troops.

"Northern Iraq cannot be pressured," al-Mashhadani told reporters in the Syrian capital of Damascus. "Iraq is a rich country, and if there are economic pressures, we will cut off the Ceyhan pipeline," he said, referring to two oil pipelines that run from northern Iraq to Turkey's Ceyhan oil terminal on the Mediterranean Sea.

The US will not commit fighters, Baghdad's going to turn off the spigot, no one supports a Turkish invasion, the Kurdish people overwhelmingly support PKK, and everyone--except the Ankara regime and the American Corporate State--wants a peaceful, political solution for the Kurdish situation in Turkey.

Every once in a while in this last week, I've had the suspicion that this current situation has been provoked by Ankara and stoked by the corporate media for the sole purpose of raising the price of a barrel of oil to over $90. It's just a matter of time before it reaches $100 a barrel, right?

Who benefits from this? Is it a coincidence that most of the Bush administration is composed of Big Oil pimps and that they were the ones who planned the invasion of Iraq well before September 11?

THE MANUFACTURED LIE

"Every truth must be accompanied by some corresponding act."
~ George MacDonald.

There's a must-read at AlterNet and here's a teaser:

The terrorist violence of Sept. 11, 2001, provided a spectacular opportunity. In the cacophony of outrage and confusion, the administration could conceal its intentions, disguise the true nature of its premeditated wars, and launch them. The opportunity was exploited in a heartbeat.

Within hours of the attacks, President Bush declared the United States "… would take the fight directly to the terrorists," and "… he announced to the world the United States would make no distinction between the terrorists and the states that harbor them." Thus the "War on Terror" was born.

The fraudulence of the "War on Terror," however, is clearly revealed in the pattern of subsequent facts:

* In Afghanistan the state was overthrown instead of apprehending the terrorist. Offers by the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden were ignored, and he remains at large to this day.

* In Iraq, when the United States invaded, there were no al Qaeda terrorists at all.

* Both states have been supplied with puppet governments, and both are dotted with permanent U.S. military bases in strategic proximity to their hydrocarbon assets.

* The U.S. embassy nearing completion in Baghdad is comprised of 21 multistory buildings on 104 acres of land. It will house 5,500 diplomats, staff and families. It is ten times larger than any other U.S. embassy in the world, but we have yet to be told why.

* A 2006 National Intelligence Estimate shows the war in Iraq has exacerbated, not diminished, the threat of terrorism since 9/11. If the "War on Terror" is not a deception, it is a disastrously counterproductive failure.

* Today two American and two British oil companies are poised to claim immense profits from 81 percent of Iraq's undeveloped crude oil reserves. They cannot proceed, however, until the Iraqi Parliament enacts a statute known as the "hydrocarbon framework law."

* The features of postwar oil policy so heavily favoring the oil companies were crafted by the Bush administration State Department in 2002, a year before the invasion.

* Drafting of the law itself was begun during Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, with the invited participation of a number of major oil companies. The law was written in English and translated into Arabic only when it was due for Iraqi approval.

* President Bush made passage of the hydrocarbon law a mandatory "benchmark" when he announced the troop surge in January of 2007.

When it took office, the Bush administration brushed aside warnings about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Their anxiety to attack both Afghanistan and Iraq was based on other factors.

The planning for the Iraq war began in 1992. Who were the planners? They have names that should ring familiar: Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Zalmay Khalilzad, among others.

How closely was the Bush administration allied with Big Oil? When did this cabal finally materialize and begin to scrutinize "detailed maps detailed maps of the Iraqi oil fields, pipelines, tanker terminals, refineries and the undeveloped oil exploration blocks"?

Why was Afghanistan a "strategically valuable location" for energy resources? Which oil company tried to massage the Taliban and which prominent Afghanis were consultants for the company?

Take a look at the last message the US State Department gave the Taliban over the question of pipelines and note the date:

At the final meeting with the Taliban, on Aug. 2, 2001, State Department negotiator Christine Rocca, clarified the options: "Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs." With the futility of negotiations apparent, "President Bush promptly informed Pakistan and India the U.S. would launch a military mission into Afghanistan before the end of October."

This was five weeks before the events of 9/11.

Lest anyone think that Big Oil is the only industry to benefit from the Big Lie, I have two words for you: Lockheed Martin. The neoconservatives who've pimped the ideas of global dominance, preemptive war, and the glorious spread of democracy are all linked to Lockheed Martin or the rest of the military-industrial complex.

Go and read "The Mega-Lie Called the 'War on Terror': A Masterpiece of Propaganda".

It may be that Big Oil and all of those who manufactured the Big Lie will be screwed in the end. Why did Talabanî go to China in June? Because Iraq will revive Saddam's old oil contracts with China.

DIRTY WATER, A MASS GRAVE, AND OIL

"The government is primarily responsible for my mother's death.If we had had clean drinking water, my mother would still be alive."
~ Shadan Mohammed, university student, Silêmanî.

The first cases of cholera have appeared in Baghdad and Basra. While Silêmanî, Hewlêr, and Kerkuk have had just over a thousand confirmed cases, there have been almost 25,000 suspected cases in the Kurdish region. The Kurdish minister of health predicts more cases if the KRG does not clean up the water:

"If the government doesn't fix the dirty water problem, the cholera outbreak will continue and a huge disaster will occur," said KRG minister of health Zryan Osman.

Dr. Osman said that 13 people have died of cholera in the northern provinces of Sulaimaniyah, Erbil and Kirkuk. The minister reported that 430 people in Sulaimaniyah and 270 in Erbil have been diagnosed with the disease. And Salah Ahmed Ameen, a senior health official in Kirkuk, said 450 people are infected with cholera there.

[ . . . ]

Osman noted that the spread of the deadly disease appears to be slowing. But he said that health officials are concerned that cholera could emerge in new areas where the water is not clean and basic services are poor.

"The water systems need to be cleaned, and then we can control the disease," agreed Sherko Abdullah, head of healthcare in Sulaimaniyah province. "The problem isn't with the healthcare, it's with the services."

[ . . . ]

People in Iraqi Kurdistan maintain that the government is not providing even basic services despite its relative stability and growing oil revenues. Many argue that the cholera outbreak is an example of how the regional authorities - which have a high level of autonomy from Baghdad - have failed them.

"The government is primarily responsible for my mother's death," said Shadan Mohammed, a 25 year old student at the University of Sulaimaniyah, whose mother recently died of cholera.

"If we had had clean drinking water, my mother would still be alive."

[ . . . ]

[A] video posted on Google that shows a man shovelling large amounts of dirt and sludge out of a huge water tanker in Sulaimaniyah has become popular viewing in the north. Some argue that the video provides evidence that authorities are not properly monitoring and managing the water supply.

"The drinking water sources in the city [of Sulaimaniyah] are so dirty that any disease could come out of them," said Osman. "The drinking water is mixed with sewage."

"The current water system in Sulaimaniyah can provide only 30 percent of residents with water," maintained Abdullah. "The system is old, the tankers are not regularly cleaned, and not enough chlorine is added to the water."

Funny you should mention chlorine. The crowning glory of the spread of this disease throughout Iraq is that a big shipment of chlorine has been held up at the Jordanian border:

A shipment of 100,000 tons of the water purifier has been held up at the Jordanian border over fears the chemical could be used in explosives. Baghdad, which has doubled the amount of chlorine in the drinking water, now has only a week's supply.

So people either die of cholera or of chlorine bombs? Yes, this is what's known as "spreading democracy in the Middle East."

You would think Blackwater could come up with a nice, little, overpriced, no-bid contract to secure the convoy of chlorine and ensure that it didn't fall into the hands of "insurgents." But I guess the mercenaries are too busy protecting American carpetbaggers or the stray US congressman who wanders over to Iraq for a photo-op.

Someone is purposely holding up the chlorine in order to cause more death and destruction in South Kurdistan and Arab Iraq. This by no means lets the KRG--the euphemism of unity for the two main Southern Kurdish parties of the KDP and PUK--off the hook for their own complete disregard of basic services for the Kurdish people. But even they are now hindered by someone higher up the food chain--those who rule this outpost of Empire from inside the Green Zone.

Business as usual.

Meanwhile, in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, HPG released some busy little bees who happened to whack three--count 'em, three--JITEM. See DozaMe on that here, here, and here.

DozaMe also has a post on a mass grave uncovered in a Turkish military compound in the Kurdish capital, Amed (Diyarbakır). As far as I know, the news first appeared in Özgür Gündem last Friday and there are photos accompanying the article.

Hevallo has been keeping up with the Hunt Oil deal, including possible Bush ties and his own poll. Now, apparently, Hunt Oil has taken a sudden interest in Hevallo.

Anyone who's interested in researching global government corruption should check out Transparency International. It's a one-stop shop for everything on who's dirty and who's not.

IMPERIUM

"Western oil interests closely influence military and diplomatic policies, and it is no accident that while American companies are competing for access to oil in Central Asia, the U.S. is building up military bases across the region."
~ Anthony Sampson.

So, the US is talking about using a South Korean model for Iraq. Let's see . . . how long has the US been in South Korea? Fifty-seven years, since 1950. Sounds like very long term to me, and they're going to want "mutual agreements," according to Defense Secretary Gates.

If you want to know about how "mutual agreements" operate, or how the US operates in countries like South Korea or Okinawa, I recommend Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic.

The question in your mind might be: Are they really going to do this? Are they really going to stay for decades? Well, take a look at the State Department's new digs in Baghdad, courtesy of Cryptome:

A portion of the new U.S. embassy under construction is seen from across the Tigris river in Baghdad, Saturday, May 19, 2007. The new $592 million embassy occupies a chunk of prime Baghdad real estate two-thirds the size of Washington's National Mall, with desk space for about 1,000 people behind high, blast-resistant walls. The compound is a symbol both of how much the United States has invested in Iraq and how the circumstances of U.S. involvement are changing. (AP Photo)

Kinda reminds you of one of Saddam's palaces, doesn't it? I guess they found a way to recycle all those gold toilets, which must have been one of the more pressing issues for the Bush administration.

Cryptome also references a post at Think Progress, which has graphics of the new imperial palace. At that link, you can read that the American ambassador will enjoy a private residence of 16,000 sq. ft., while the deputy chief of mission has to squeak by in a residence of only 9,500 sq. ft.

Oh, did I forget to mention that the imperial State Department ordered Think Progress to remove the photos of the new imperial palace on the Tigris?

Construction of the imperial palace has not been held to the same kinds of work and safety standards that you'd find in the US, which makes you wonder--if you ever really believed it--just what kind of "democracy" and "free market" capitalism the State Department's Baghdad staff is going to rule over. From IraqSlogger:

In the months following September 2005, complaints began coming in to the US State Department that all was not well with its most ambitious project ever: a sprawling new embassy project on the banks of the ancient Tigris River. The largest, most heavily-fortified embassy in the world with over 20 buildings, it spans 104 acres-- comparable in size to the Vatican.

[ . . . ]

The Americans protested that construction crews lived in crowded quarters; ate sub-standard food; and had little medical care. When drinking water was scarce in the blistering heat, coolers were filled on the banks of the Tigris, a river rife with waterborne disease, sewage and sometimes floating bodies, they said. Others questioned why First Kuwaiti held the passports of workers. Was it to keep them from escaping? Some laborers had turned up "missing" with little investigation. Another American said laborers told him they were been misled in their job location. When recruited, they were unaware they were heading for war-torn Iraq.

After hearing similar allegations during much of 2006, Howard J. Krongard, the State Department's inspector general, flew to Baghdad for what he describes as a "brief" review on Sept. 15. He now reports that the complaints had no substance.

"Nothing came to our attention," he wrote in a nine-page memorandum posted recently on the State Department's Web site.

[ . . . ]

One former labor foreman at the embassy site who recently read Krongard's review called it "bull shit." Another former First Kuwaiti employee viewed it as "a whitewash."

What a great bunch of humanitarians the imperial bureaucrats are, eh? Here they are, engaging in slave labor, or at least a modern version of indentured servitude. Don't you want these people ruling your country? Don't you want them teaching you all about "democracy?"

Why does the US government need a massive complex, the size of the Vatican, in Iraq? Oil. Specifically, the control of oil, which is the basis of the American dollar. Don't forget the roles of the World Bank and IMF, or the fact that Ted Koppel began to spin the same argument this morning on NPR.

Yep. Looks to me like they're there to stay.


Büyükanıt says military "equipment" was found in the train derailed by HPG earlier this week.

TREACHERY

“Cunning and treachery are the offspring of incapacity.”
~ François de la Rochefoucauld.

The new American-Shi'a alliance has bribed the corrupt Başûrî non-leadership into sending pêşmerge to die for the Arab nation, as I feared a week ago. Here's the story from Reuters:

Three Iraqi army brigades from the Kurdish north and the Shi'ite south will be brought in for a security crackdown in Baghdad seen as central to hopes of averting civil war, a senior Iraqi official said on Sunday.

Sami al-Askari, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said the extra troops were part of the plan which foresees Iraqi forces taking responsibility for inner Baghdad while U.S.-led multinational forces will be in charge of the surrounding areas.

[ . . . ]

Askari said two from the north, mainly Kurdish soldiers, and one from the Shi'ite south would come to Baghdad to take part in the operation which aims to clear areas that are "bases for terrorist groups" and to station troops there permanently to hold them in the long term.

[ . . . ]

Askari said he was confident the additional three brigades would be in place soon, and said the government was also determined to crack down on infiltration by militias in the armed forces.

"There's a plan alongside this security plan to try to clear the ministry of interior and defense ministry of these elements," he said. "It takes time because it's not an easy task.... (but) without it the people will not trust the security forces."

Bullshit. Askari claims it will take time to clear out the whorehouses euphemistically named "Interior Ministry" and "Defense Ministry" because the Shi'a have absolutely no intention of clearing them out, just as they have no intention of making "limited" strikes against the Mehdi Army. Moqtada al-Sadr, whom the Americans have enabled since 2003, is in charge of Baghdad and there will be no strikes against his militia. Al-Maliki, for whom al-Askari works, is al-Sadr's politician. It was these two, and their American allies, who collaborated in rushing the execution of Saddam in order to bury the Anfal trial and their complicity. Yet there is no rush to execute Saddam's co-defendants. In fact, no date has even been set for their executions.

Add to this the fact that the wildly incompetent US military is putting Petraeus in command of the whole enchilada and you will have the recipe for a complete Kurdish disaster because Baghdad is no Fallujah. How many times have I said it before that it is long past time to stop all cooperation with these enemies of Kurdistan?

What will happen to Kurdistan, then, if Turkey invades in the spring, something which is a distinct possibility?

Maşallah for every single PKK gerîla who ever drew breath or ever will draw breath! They are the ones who are left in the North to protect Kurdistan from the animals out to destroy her. For the people of Başûr, it is time for serhildan. It is time to call the corrupt leadership to accountability. The PUK has reached critical mass and has imploded due to nepotism and corruption, charges which can also be applied to the KDP and its control over the KRG. If anyone still has any doubts, compare today's situation with history. Or reminisce with this editorial from KurdistanObserver, February, 2003. In all this time, nothing has changed.

Let the PUK reformers take over and let us see if they have the will to work only for Kurdistan. Let them begin talking immediately with all other Kurdish political organizations, intellectuals, and politicians, including those in Diaspora, with emphasis on one, united Kurdish voice. It is also time to give the US notice that all of their business contracts in South Kurdistan will be immediately cancelled if the US insists that Kurdish pêşmerge deploy to Baghdad. All the people of Kurdistan should show their support for these efforts by a general strike in the South as well as in all parts of occupied Kurdistan.

While the US prepares for its change of strategy in Iraq, now is the golden opportunity to bring Kurds in all parts of Kurdistan together to stand up against a common enemy.

Berxwedan jîyan e û jîyan berxwedan e!


In relation to something I posted about The Oil Pashas back in December, check Britain's Independent for more:

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state controlled.

What a shock. If the oil pashas are pocketing up to "three-quarters of profits," how is that supposed to help anyone . . . except the oil pashas?

Greg Muttitt, a researcher for Platform, a human rights and environmental group which monitors the oil industry, said Iraq was being asked to pay an enormous price over the next 30 years for its present instability. "They would lose out massively," he said, "because they don't have the capacity at the moment to strike a good deal."

[ . . . ]

James Paul, executive director at the Global Policy Forum, the international government watchdog, said: "It is not an exaggeration to say that the overwhelming majority of the population would be opposed to this. To do it anyway, with minimal discussion within the [Iraqi] parliament is really just pouring more oil on the fire."

But all of the politicians who have been hard at work crafting the oil law will certainly benefit personally. That would be politicians like Barham Salih. There's more at another Independent article on the same subject:

Despite US and British denials that oil was a war aim, American troops were detailed to secure oil facilities as they fought their way to Baghdad in 2003. And while former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld shrugged off the orgy of looting after the fall of Saddam's statue in Baghdad, the Oil Ministry - alone of all the seats of power in the Iraqi capital - was under American guard.

Halliburton, the firm that Dick Cheney used to run, was among US-based multinationals that won most of the reconstruction deals - one of its workers is pictured, tackling an oil fire. British firms won some contracts, mainly in security. But constant violence has crippled rebuilding operations. Bechtel, another US giant, has pulled out, saying it could not make a profit on work in Iraq.

All of this, in spite of what they said:

"Oil revenues, which people falsely claim that we want to seize, should be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people"

Tony Blair; Moving motion for war with Iraq, 18 March 2003

"Oil belongs to the Iraqi people; the government has... to be good stewards of that valuable asset "

George Bush; Press conference, 14 June 2006

"The oil of the Iraqi people... is their wealth. We did not [invade Iraq] for oil "

Colin Powell; Press briefing, 10 July 2003

"Oil revenues of Iraq could bring between $50bn and $100bn in two or three years... [Iraq] can finance its reconstruction"

Paul Wolfowitz; Deputy Defense Secretary, March 2003


"By 2010 we will need [a further] 50 million barrels a day. The Middle East, with two-thirds of the oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize lies"

Dick Cheney; US Vice-President, 1999

WOW! What is that smell? Oh, somebody must have let Baker-Hamilton in.


The mention of Paul Wolfowitz reminds me . . . On another subject, let me direct your attention over to Lukery's place for an excellent read titled, "Sibel Edmonds & the Neocons' Turkish Gravy-Train." The burning question here is why did a recent World Bank report on the Afghani drug industry include only one reference to Turkey? Here's a snip:

Let's have a closer look at the title of the World Bank report: "Afghanistan's Drug Industry: Structure, Functioning, Dynamics, and Implications for Counter-Narcotics Policy"

Note that this isn't a report 'about Afghanistan' - but about the INDUSTRY - and given that Afghanistan supplies 90% of the global heroin market, we might expect to read in the report at least something about the major purchasers of Afghani product.We might even expect to learn something about the major traffickers. We might even expect to learn something about the major trafficking routes. Right?

In fact, the title of the report promises to look at the "Structure, Functioning, Dynamics, and Implications for Counter-Narcotics Policy" - and the report does pretend to cover many of these issues, using fancy terms like 'value chain analysis,' 'vertical price structure' and 'price margins at different stages' and so on - all the things that you'd expect to find in an industry analysis. However, the analysis is conducted primarily (with some notable, and telling, exceptions) on an 'in-country' basis - which is essentially meaningless for analysing a global industry. This World Bank report is akin to an attempt to understand the global soft-drink market by looking really, really closely at the logistics around Atlanta - and as Sibel suggests, the 'frame of reference' of this report is unlikely to be an accident, and is most likely an intentional attempt to whitewash Turkey's role in the heroin industry.

Lukery then cites information from a State Department report which dishes out a lot of dirt on Turkey's involvement in the global and illegal narcotics industry:

That's quite straightforward - Turkey is a key player up and down the value chain - yet the comprehensive 228 page report from Paul Wolfowitz' World Bank essentially ignores Turkey's role using various mechanisms of sophistry and mendacity - just as Sibel predicted.

At least three quarters of all heroin sold in Western Europe comes from Turkey - 4 to 6 tons every month - yet the World Bank report mentions Turkey exactly... once!

[ . . . ]

Why would Wolfowitz want to erase any mention of Turkey from his report?

From there, it gets into Deep State, the Genelkurmay Baskanligi's business interests, the American defense industry and illegal gun-running to places like Pakistan and China . . . and I will leave it at that because I think you should go read it for yourself. Make sure you check out all the links, too. Lot's of good information there.

Bijît, Lukery, for putting the whole thing together for us!