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AT: TUrkey key to war on terror
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AT: TUrkey key to war on terrorTurkey’s involvement in the war on terror causes human rights abuses and more terrorismFisk 05[Robert Fisk, writer for the Independent, London. “The Year In Review 2005: Terrorism: WAR WITHOUT END: Only justice, not bombs, can make our dangerous world a safer place,” 12/30/05, Lexis] We have gone on smashing away at the human rights we trumpeted at the Russians " and the Arabs " during the Cold War. We have perhaps fatally weakened all those provisions that were written into our treaties and conventions in the aftermath of the Second World War to make the world a safer place. And we claim we are winning. Where, for example, is the terror? In the streets of Baghdad, to be sure. And perhaps again in our glorious West if we go on with this folly. But terror is also in the prisons and torture chambers of the Middle East. It is in the very jails to which we have been merrily sending out trussed- up prisoners these past three years. For Jack Straw to claim that men are not being sent on their way to torture is surely one of the most extraordinary " perhaps absurd is closer to the mark " statements to have been made in the 'war on terror'. If they are not going to be tortured " like the luckless Canadian shipped off to Damascus from New York " then what is the purpose of sending them anywhere? And how are we supposed to 'win' this war by ignoring all the injustices we are inflicting on that part of the world from which the hijackers of September 11 originally came? How many times have Messrs Bush and Blair talked about 'democracy'? How few times have they talked about 'justice', the righting of historic wrongs, the ending of torture? Our principal victims of the 'war on terror', of course, have been in Iraq (where we have done quite a bit of torturing ourselves). But, strange to say, we are silent about the horrors the people of Iraq are now enduring. We do not even know " are not allowed to know " how many of them have died. We know that 1,100 Iraqis died by violence in Baghdad in July alone. That's terror. But how many died in the other cities of Iraq, in Mosul and Kirkuk and Irbil, and in Amara and Fallujah and Ramadi and Najaf and Kerbala and Basra? Three thousand in July? Or four thousand? And if those projections are accurate, we are talking about 36,000 or 48,000 over the year " which makes that projected post-April 2003 figure of 100,000 dead, which Blair ridiculed, rather conservative, doesn't it? It's not so long ago, I recall, that Bush explained to us that all the Arabs would one day wish to have the freedoms of Iraq. I cannot think of an Arab today who would wish to contemplate such ill fortune, not least because of the increasingly sectarian nature of the authorities, elected though they are. The year did allow Ariel Sharon to achieve his aim of turning his colonial war into part of the 'war on terror'. It also allowed al-Qa'ida's violence to embrace more Arab countries. Jordan was added to Egypt. Woe betide those of us who are now locked into the huge military machine that embraces the Middle East. Why, Iraqis sometimes ask me, are American forces " aerial or land " in Uzbekistan? And Kazakhstan and Afghanistan, in Turkey and Jordan (and Iraq) and in Kuwait and Qatar and Bahrain and Oman and Yemen and Egypt and Algeria (there is a US special forces unit based near Tamanrasset, co-operating with the same Algerian army that was involved in the massacre of civilians the 1990s)? In fact, just look at the map and you can see the Americans in Greenland and Iceland and Britain and Germany and ex-Yugoslavia and Greece " where we join up with Turkey. How did this iron curtain from the ice cap to the borders of Sudan emerge? What is its purpose? These are the key questions that should engage anyone trying to understand the 'war on terror'. US-Turkey Relations Bad- DemocracyU.S. Turkey relations kill Turkish DemocracyThe Guardian 10 [ The Sri Lanka Guardian, “USA Undermines Democracy In Turkey: It’s Turkey Stupid, Not Israel” 6/18/10, http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2010/06/usa-undermines-democracy-in-turkey.html] Clearly, Israel wants the AKP government out of power and a return to the Kemalist/Nationalist military backed government there, just as it wants Iran attacked by the USA. Many Americans in the White House, US Congress and in groups like the Iran Policy Committee seek the same outcomes. That Americans allow such meddling in US domestic and foreign affairs is unprecedented and dangerous. One Turkish academic said “The Cold War is still alive in the parliaments of the Middle East and the USA. The US president has to take the initiative to break out of this mode of thinking. Israel, primarily, is still functioning as a Cold War state. That type of thinking can’t be implemented today. Israel is out of touch with reality. It is incorrect that our Prime Minister and Foreign Minister make decisions based on religion. These decisions are made on a practical basis.” Israel’s neighboring states accept the fact that Israel is in the neighborhood to stay. No one in Turkey doubts Israeli conventional military prowess. But there is the worry that Israel is becoming unstable and might turn to its nuclear arsenal in haste. “Israel is living in the Middle East but is intellectually it is living in Washington, DC,” said Ozhan of SETA. “Israel must decide whether it is still a project or wants to be a state.” According to one Turkish human rights activist, “The troubles between Israel and the Turkish government places us in a complex situation. Our government does not have a problem with Israel’s existence. We could have but did not oppose Israel’s membership in the OECD. Israel and Turkey are now in a vicious circle after their Gaza Cast Lead Operation and the Freedom Flotilla incident. There is a war of nerves now between the two countries. The Israeli lobby is clearly at work now behind the black propaganda against Turkey in the world’s media. It seems lost that Turkey can be a great broker with Israel and Arab world.” Prime Minister Erdogan is criticized by his supporters for identifying too closely with the Palestinians and Hamas. But, according to his supporters in the press, academia and universities, the Israeli military operation against Gaza and then against the Freedom Flotilla “shook Erdogan to his core.” Erdogan believed that someone had to respond. According to Orhan Cengiz, President of the Human Rights Agenda Association, “It is not true that Turkey is moving Radical or East. This is a propaganda campaign by anti-Turkish elements in the region.” In fact, Turkey’s “no vote” against a new round of Iranian sanctions actually provides the Obama Administration with some room to continue back channel diplomacy with Iran and others in the region. Turkey is giving the USA a grand opening to change the balance of power in the region to its advantage without another conflict. Will the USA be smart enough to recognize this? Turkey Inside Despite seven years of reforms under AKP, Cengiz said, there are many prejudices that will take decades to eliminate. “Homophobia, Islamophobia, the head scarf issue, Armenian genocide, religious persecution and the ‘Kurdish Question’ remain the major issues. We need to accept that there is discrimination and confront it. But it is hard to do. Many in Turkey are fighting for rights for all.“ The task of eliminating many of those prejudices is made more difficult because the former military backed government promoted the practice according to Cengiz. “The State encouraged discrimination in the past. And of course, now it is engrained in society and we are seeing hate crimes.” Cengiz, whose life was threatened within Turkey for defending Kurds in court, believes that “Indirect discrimination is so deep that people are not aware of it. If we do not confront discrimination aggressively then we will have very serious problems in the future.” “The open media is a new phenomenon for Turkish society. The clash of ideas and reporting on discrimination is good for Turkey. Exposing The Deep State made the Turkish people feel free, said Cengiz, “But a new government may come in and roll back changes.” With elections looming on the horizon, many in Turkey are asking if the internal reforms of the AKP and its foreign policy successes will hold and advance. “Turkey is still in transition,” said one human rights leader. Democracy is not a done deal. Institutions do not have a strong foothold in society yet. We need a new constitution [amendments to] but that is not a reality yet. We need to have a solid, functioning federal, state and local system. Economic stability is critical to a democracy’s success. Our reserves are looking good at $100 billion (US) in reserves. But political stability is not a given.” Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 1.27 Mb. Share with your friends:
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