the middle east Thread

[Ebeneezer Goode]

BBC Breaking News ‏@BBCBreaking 1h1 hour ago

Nato says Russia's violation of Turkish airspace over the weekend "does not look like an accident" http://bbc.in/1Leb0Oi

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

not too shocking. russia regularly dives at alaskan and british airspace. we just sent out a few fighters and escort them away when they get close. the turkish air force just sucks and took too long to respond. i once broke into a fancy yacht club in china when there was no security around and chilled on the boats for a bit, similar situation. u try and break into a yacht club in a proper country they sniff u out at the gates

in other news bunch of independent journalists have been doing a geolocating project to try and pinpoint where russia have actually bombed, vs where they said they had. obviously they haven't bombed isis at all, highlight is their claim to have bombed raqqa, syria's capital. that particular incident was in fact 100 miles away. i gotta admit i do kinda admire putin's brazen lying in ukraine and now syria

 

[Stagat]

i once broke into a fancy yacht club in china when there was no security around and chilled on the boats for a bit, similar situation. u try and break into a yacht club in a proper country they sniff u out at the gates

 

[mowgli]

2,000 years of heritage blown up by IS. The latest was the Roman Arch Of Triumph after 2 temples were blown up in the last couple of months. Madness! I read the Russian Special Forces have been sent to Syria now,IS should be shiiting themselves. If the Russians target only IS scum i have no problem with that but alas they are bombing The Free syrian Army to help Bashir stay in power.

 

[DarkSithLord]

BBC Breaking News ‏@BBCBreaking 54m54 minutes ago
Russia launches rocket strikes on Islamic State group in Syria from warships in Caspian Sea, Russian officials say

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

willing to bet a nut it didn't hit an IS position

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

BBC Breaking News ‏@BBCBreaking 3m3 minutes ago

Four Russian cruise missiles fired at Syria from the Caspian Sea landed on Iran, unnamed US officials say http://bbc.in/1FUZNGB

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

some of u might find this interesting. it addresses the degree of opposition to dictators based upon perceived westernness. feeds into stereotyping and how we expect 'baddies' to look and behave

 

[spireite]

Sort your sig out Ian, it takes up the entire screen man

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

In other news the Turkish military got caught dragging the corpse of a dead Kurdish man through the streets...

 

[Dave-Vale]

http://www.duhprogressive.com/index.php/site-map/455-saddam-hussein-hey-america-miss-me-yet

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

this turkish terror attack has me confused as shit. turks say it was isism but isis ain't claimed responsibility. they've consistently claimed responsibility for everything, including attacks that most certainly were not them. something dodgy is going on and my money is on turkey bombing it's own people

 

[Stagat]

my money is on turkey bombing it's own people

The organisers of the march claimed that right away, didn't they? Not that it was given much stock in the media, mind.

 

[silkyman]

The police were certainly heavy handed towards people wanting to help the victims. Very odd response.

But what good would it do to bomb your own people at a peace rally? Any government in the world who wanted to attack ISIS would be able to find some justification without doing something like that. So why do it?

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

the heavy handed approach towards first responders isn't the issue imo, there's been incidences of attacks followed up by even bigger attacks on first responders. it's not nice to see but makes sense

erdogan is a megalomaniac and has been trying his hardest to turn turkey into a fascist dictatorship. terror attacks have CONSISTENTLY allowed states to squash civil rights in order to more effectively secure public safety. even in our country and the u.s. this is true

erdogan doesn't want to attack isis, he wants to attack the kurds and assad. really confuses me why this attack wasn't attributed to the pkk

 

[silkyman]

Perhaps because it actually was ISIS?

Otherwise why wouldn't they attribute it to the right enemy?

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

as said, isis have consistently claimed attacks that weren't them. isis want to be attacked and bombed, them not claiming an attack they actually did do goes against their entire modus operandi and everything we know about them

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

English speaking friends. The longer note I promised you yesterday.

There is much more to write, but I need to turn to organising what we will do in our work place tomorrow.

A double suicide bombing at a Trade Union organised peace march in Ankara last Saturday killed over 100 people and injured over 500.

The march had been called by two trade union federations, DISK and KESK, the Chambers of Engineers and Architects and the Turkish Medical Association.

Hundreds of union organised buses brought tens of thousands of people from all over Turkey to the assembly point near the Ankara railway station.

We gathered in front of Ankara railway station. While we were organising our contingent, distributing flags and banners and preparing to enter the line up for the march we heard a very loud double bang. People started to cry. We did what we could to stop panic and to get people to walk, not run, calmly away from the explosion. People had lost their shoes, their friends, their composure. As we moved away we saw human body parts lying on the ground, thrown there by the force of the explosions. We now realise we had been mid way between the two explosions and about 30 metres away from each.

We turned a corner and passed under the railway bridge. There we saw riot police approaching in full gear, but ambulances being kept waiting.

We now know that these riot police attacked those rescuing the wounded with tear gas and water cannon while the dead were still lying on the ground.

We had travelled from Istanbul to Ankara on a postal workers union bus. Before we could return to Istanbul we needed to wait for everyone to be accounted for. Finally one postal worker whose leg had been shredded by shrapnel from the bomb arrived in a taxi. We had to lift him up the stairs into the bus. They hadn’t even given him a crutch in the hospital. We got word that the President of the number 9 branch of the Postal Workers Union was in intensive care. With heavy hearts, we set off home.

This is the latest in series of violent provocations that have occurred since it became clear that the HDP (Peoples Democratic Party) was going to get enough votes in the June 7 general election to deny President Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan the parliamentary majority he needed to impose a Putin style executive presidency. Before the election there were 170 violent attacks on HDP offices, bombings of HDP offices in Adana and Mersin, then the bombing of the final HDP election rally in Diyarbakır, killing four people.

Erdoğan’s AK Party have made a pact with the devil in the shape of Turkey’s deep state, the secret apparatus within the security forces that was responsible for the years of terror in the 90s when thousands were the victims of “murder by persons unknown” or simply disappeared, their bones dissolved in acid wells.

Just as in the 1990s, killings blamed on “terrorists” provoke fear and hatred. Years later it turns out that they were not the work of “terrorists” but carried out, or ordered, or arranged by the deep state.

The single most important act that preceded the turn to an intensification of violence in Turkey and the end of the two year ceasefire with the PKK was the bombing at Suruç which killed 33 young socialist activists. Prime Minister Davutoğlu now makes the absurd claim that the government “caught the person responsible”. It was a suicide bombing. No living person has ever been held to account, despite the fact that the bomber was being tracked by the security forces. The bombing was blamed on Islamic State although the notoriously publicity hungry Islamic State has never claimed responsibility, despite BBC claims to the contrary. The bomber may or may not have believed that he was acting for Islamic State, but no actual connection has been established.
But it was an intervention by the United States after Suruç that began the intense government violence that we now live with every day. In exchange for use of the Incirlik air base in South Eastern Turkey by US war planes to bomb Syria, the US gave the green light to bombing raids by Turkish war planes on Kurdish targets inside Iraq and in Turkey.

Now town by town, city by city the security forces of the Turkish state are declaring curfews, attacking the population and arresting local elected officials. They are attempting to force election officials to declare that the election cannot be safely carried out in these districts where the HDP gets 80-90% of the vote.

But all of this violence and repression appears not to be working. Opinion polls show no fall in the support for the HDP. If anything, support among the embattled Kurds is increasing. Support for the HDP among Turks and other ethnic groups is not falling, either.

The response of the government, the president, and the forces of Turkey’s “deep state” with whom they have made an alliance, is to step up the violence even further.

Every week the violence, the repression and the suppression of free speech is increasing. HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş was due to speak on Bugün, a small TV channel this week. 24 hours before the broadcast, that channel and seven others were removed from the Digiturk TV satellite by order of the public prosecutor for “supporting terrorism”. One of the channels was a children’s channel.

Which brings us to the bombing in Ankara.

The government has not declared three days mourning for the victims in Ankara. They have declared three days mourning for the Ankara victims and the police, soldiers and paramilitary village guards who have died since July. Notably the civilians who have died in the Kurdish areas in the same period were not included. In his statement about the bombings, Prime Minister Davutoğlu started by posing the PKK as a possible culprit, followed by a left guerilla group and only then Islamic State. He spent 20 out of 30 minutes of his statement attacking the HDP.

In response to Davutoğlu’s attacks HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş said “We are Turks and we are Kurds, we are soldiers, we are police. We are the ones who die. We know what your children get up to. They don’t die. We die. And you are responsible.”

Behind the descent of the Turkish government into violent attacks on their own population lies the policy of intervention in the civil war in Syria. Within the context of all the foreign interventions in Syria, the Turkish government has tried pursue its own interests, and turn a profit, by acting as proxy for Saudi Arabian and Qatari intervention in Syria.

Now the Turkish government is getting backing from the US for its attacks on the Kurds by offering use of the Incirlik air base. And also blackmailing the European Union into supporting Turkey’s regional ambitions by threatening to open the doors to allow the 2 million Syrians who are being denied proper refugee status in Turkey to cross the border into Europe.

The hands of the EU and US are dirty. They have always stood behind repressive regimes in Turkey and approved every military coup in Turkey’s history. Now their interventions in Syria are also responsible for fuelling the rising death toll in Turkey. We have suffered 600 dead since the June 7 election.

The massacre in Ankara may be blamed on the Islamic State. The real culprits are closer to home. Bombing Syria is no solution. It will strengthen Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and increase the murderous activities of the deep state in Turkey.

Using events in Turkey as an excuse for voting for British bombing of Syria would be dangerous hypocrisy.

Now the unions and associations that called Saturday’s peace demonstration have called a general strike for Monday and Tuesday. The divided nature of the unions in Turkey means that this general strike will not bring life to a stop in Turkey. It will, however, be an opportunity in the work places and on the streets to build the unity of the exploited from different ethnicities and beliefs against the elites who want to defend their power by having us die fighting one another. This class unity is the only way forward for Turkey and for the whole of the Middle East.

 

[JaseTheVillain]

You know what worries me... This crap in Syria is very similar to the build up to WWI, replace the Middle East with the Balkans, all of the world powers meddling around, and one spark set off and boom, war. Perhaps I'm just paranoid, but it's looking to me like we could be very close to WWIII at this rate, some c*** will push the button too if it comes to that. Russia are clearly building up for something whilst the rest of the world are cutting their armed forces. You'd think we'd have learnt our lesson from the past, but alas, no.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

u r being paranoid. if there were functioning international organisations during the buildup to ww1, if the participating powers were democracies (flawed or otherwise) and if everyone concerned had nukes; ww1 wouldn't have happened. if we all didn't blow each other up over cuba in the cold war we certainly aren't over a lump of oil-less desert. russia aren't building up to shit, they're protecting their allies and practicing that very old 'our economy sucks lets do something to distract people' trick.

things don't go from zero to 60 like that. there are levels of response. going back to the cold war for example, the russian response to an attack on cuba by the u.s. was deemed to be a reciprocal attack on east germany and the bombing of the jupiter bases in turkey. it doesn't just go boom then BOOM. there are a lot of levels between a lil dustup and nuclear armageddon

 

[JaseTheVillain]

Oh absolutely, I'm just saying that things could very well build up from here. Russia's actions in Eastern Europe basically seem to be trying to restore the USSR. I think they are trying to assert themselves seeing as both the US and China have overtaken them as global superpowers, I just feel that things could very well go south quite quickly.

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

nah russia are just seeing how much they can get away with. we (the west) are acting like right wimps with russia and we've been outmaneuvered at every turn by putin. rather than being terrified of nuclear apocalypse like u seem to be suggesting is a (ludicrous) possibility, we instead should be taking a hardline with russia. we aren't going to go to war with russia, but we are being played the fools diplomatically. despite the return of western troops to iraq, despite the nuclear deal with iran - russia have become both country's number one ally in a month or so. our pussyfooting around the syrian issue has given them the upperhand. we need to make choices and stick by them and we actually do need to have a red line and act when it's crossed. sure it may be the last breath of a dying superpower, or it may be a new great power asserting itself. the thing is this situation we're in has been one of our own making. we absolutely should build from here and we should show force and power with russia.

the two most powerful middle eastern states are both nomimally 'western' allies and both border syria. we have had tremendous room and scope and absolute justification for a huge number of possible operations and plays in syria. rather than bigging up russia as this rogue element we should be shaking our head at the situation and just admit that, so far, russia have outdone as in our own backyard. they aren't this impossible to understand alien juggernaut though, they have the same concerns and same issues as us. just as we wouldn't nuke the hell out of another country on a tiny provocation (despite the west's overwhelming military superiority) neither will they

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

so daesh (the new hipster acronym for isis) have been pretty good at justifying their executions through any flimsy scripture they can dig up. in recent months we've seen people executed by

a) being locked in a car then shooting an rpg at the car
b) sticking people in a cage then lowering the cage into water
c) lining people up and linking them all with explosive neck collars

and now

d) running one unlucky captured solider over with a tank

i wonder where in the quran muhammed allows a tank as a method of execution

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

this is pretty heartbreaking viewing

although 'i swear by god jews are more honourable than them' is amazing

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

also turkey fired on ypg positions in syria earlier today or yesterday. it follows on from a very firm warning to the kurds that if they crossed the euphrates they'd get blown up. this is really interesting if u look at a map

so yellow is kurds, grey is daesh. so when turkey comes out and explicitly warns the kurds not to cross the euphrates (the river between jarabulus and sarrin on the map), what he's saying to the kurds is not to attack daesh. so if the kurds cross the euphrates to attack daesh, the turkish airforce attacks the kurds. turkey is defending isis from the kurds.

hope i don't have to say this, but the kurds who've been causing trouble in turkey (well, killing cops) are the pkk. not the ypg.




and on the other side of the middle east in yemen another msf hospital got hit. war on drugs failed war on terror failed let's see how the war on msf goes

 

[Dr Mantis Toboggan]

mass grave of 70 older ezidi women found in newly captured sinjar. those too old to be sold as sex slaves from the sounds of it

 

[mnb089mnb]

This is really long, but (I thought) very interesting on ISIS
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

 

[AFCB_Mark]

This is really long, but (I thought) very interesting on ISIS
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

Yeah that is a fantastic article, all be it a little hard going.
If anyone can spare the time it's certainly worth sticking with.

 

[UTS]

Saudi Arabia holds the key to all this. They inspire Wahabism in the Middle East, and indirectly/directly fund ISIS, yet the west can't do anything because we depend on Saudi Arabia for oil amongst other things.

 

[mowgli]

Saudi Arabia holds the key to all this. They inspire Wahabism in the Middle East, and indirectly/directly fund ISIS, yet the west can't do anything because we depend on Saudi Arabia for oil amongst other things.

And the money for all the arms we sell them. So we're indirectly paying for guns Daesh use in their murderous atrocities,makes no sense to me but it's all about the money.