Turkey is fascinating and confusing. What is happening? A protest over a new shopping mall turns into the spark of a revolution? Is Taksim Square the new Tahrir Square?
As ever it is complicated and there are many lines and strains and competing interest groups. However the smoke is starting to clear a bit.
1) Turkish protestors decide to raise $55,000 for a full page ad in the New York Times? Huh? As Scott Creighton points out:
“Yes folks, it looks like the uprising in Turkey is being directed and marketed from abroad. Hell, they’re taking out ads in the New York Times…
“What kind of revolutionaries start scrapping for their very lives against a tyrannical government and have the where-with-all to start thinking about marketing it to the people of a foreign country?
“I thought they were pissed about how Turkey was in bed with the U.S. with regard to our terrorists in Syria. And they take out an ad in the New York Times looking for support from us? Hmmm……”
2) Humanitarian interventionists Amnesty International fully on board. Amnesty International not long ago hired to head up its US operations Suzanne Nossel, a woman who has spent her career shilling for the use of the US military to impose “democracy” at the barrel of a gun. Her pedigree is soaked in the blood of the most enthusiastic servants of the US empire:
“Nossel would have worked for and with Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Samantha Power and Susan Rice, and undoubtedly helped them successfully implement their ‘Right to Protect (R2P)’ – otherwise known as ‘humanitarian intervention’ – as well as the newly created “Atrocity Prevention Board.’”
Amnesty International is an illegitimate and thoroughly compromised organization that true supporters of peace and non-interventionism should avoid like the plague.
It is this same Amnesty International which is now “Calling for urgent action” — i.e. foreign interventionism — in Turkey’s current unrest.
Amnesty is instructing its (duped) foreign supporters in the exact steps they need to take to help ensure the protest in Turkey turns into a full blown color revolution:
1. Continue the actions outlined yesterday. These include:
A. Use of social media:
Please use social media including twitter and facebook to circulate the below suggested messages, tagging @aforgutu for AI Turkey:
.@Valimutlu Police use of force against #direngeziparkı protestors is excessive, unacceptable & breaks international HR standards @aforgutu
.@Valimutlu @RT_Erdogan Istanbul authorities must immediately stop police violence against peaceful #direngeziparkı protestors @aforgutu
Amnesty International’s issuing international call to its activists to take action over police violence in #Taksim #direngeziparkı @aforgutu
B. Voice your concern directly to the Turkish government by writing to the Turkish embassy in your home country (see here for details on text)
Addresses and details for these embassies can be found here: http://www.mfa.gov.tr/turkish-representations.en.mfa
In addition, Amnesty asks that you lobby your own government
Call or e-mail your representative in Congress or Parliament. Let them know that you expect your government to speak out for freedom of expression and against the police violence in Turkey.
Contact your country’s Foreign Affairs Ministry (the State Department in the United States) and ask them to reiterate Amnesty International’s call for:
• Turkey’s Prime Minister to intervene immediately to end the police violence against protestors;
• The authorities to allow the right to peaceful protest of the demonstrators;
• The end of ill-treatment during arrest and in places of detention;
• Unhindered access to health care for all those who need it including in detention;
• An immediate, independent and impartial investigation into allegations of excessive use of force and a clear statement of attrition.
We need your help and, more importantly, the brave protestors in Turkey need your help. The time to act is now.
That’s pretty handy!
It is interesting that this crisis came at a perfect time to obfuscate other developing crises, like the fact that the Turkish government kept uncovering terrorist plots and attacks against Turkish territory planned and carried out by the US-, Israel-, and Gulf State-allied Free Syrian Army and its partners the Al-Nusra Front and other extremist groups. These plots were clearly designed to draw Turkey’s NATO allies into the rapidly imploding insurgency against the Syrian government. The planned “Geneva II” conference scheduled for later this month was rapidly turning into a laughable farce, as it has become all too obvious that there is simply no opposition side to go to the negotiating table.
Erdogan was coming under increasing pressure domestically over his foolish decision to back the US-led plot against his neighbor and certainly these rapidly increasing plots against Turkish soil by his Syrian allies was threatening to stretch his policy to the breaking point. Was he going wobbly?
Again Scott Creighton offers a pretty plausible explanation:
If Turkey supports the inclusion of Iran to the Geneva II conference, NATO’s little regime change and neoliberalization operation in Syria is doomed. Turkey is a big player in the Middle East. Their support can truly shift the power structure.
So let’s recap –
car bombing investigation reveals our mercenaries did it.
our mercenaries caught red-handed with sarin gas, Obama’s “red line game changer” in the making
Turkey at least appears to support the inclusion of Russia and Iran in next round of talks on Syria.And suddenly, uprising.
Interesting indeed. The smoke is clearing, but it is not yet clear. These are just preliminary thoughts based on past experience and a nagging skepticism. Stay tuned.
