Iraq 7 years later, the Legacy of Invasion
April 25, 2010 at 8:41 pm | Posted in Turkmens | Leave a commentTags: Haifa Zangana, Hassan Abdulrazzak
Iraq 7 years later,
the Legacy of Invasion
Seven years after the Anglo-American invasion
of Iraq, New Internationalist co-editor Hadani
Ditmars returned to a land she last visited in
2003, when she went to research her book
Dancing in the No-Fly Zone.
With more than a million people dead in
the wake of post-invasion violence, an
infrastructure in ruins despite $53 billion
dollars in ‘aid’, and a corrupt government
whose human rights abuses echo the terror of
the Saddam years, the prognosis is bleak.
But there are signs of life amidst the
devastation. The national theatre has reopened,
women continue to defy oppressive
fundamentalism, and young people dream
of a better future, where a renewed sense of
national identity trumps sectarian divisions.
As Iraq’s fortunes hang in a delicate, dangerous
balance, join the New Internationalist and special guests – writer
Haifa Zangana, and playwright Hassan
Abdulrazzak – for the launch of our May issue, as well as a panel
discussion on Iraq.
At the Hellenic Centre
16-18 Paddington Street, Marylebone, London W1U 5AS
Tel: 020 7487 5060 http://www.helleniccentre.org
Thursday 29 April, 7 pm, Free Admission
For media or other enquiries phone 07892486507
Tony Blair Stands Accused
April 23, 2010 at 12:07 pm | Posted in Turkmens | Leave a comment
Tony Blair Stands Accused
Malaysia must not allow this mass murderer to be immune from justice.
By Prof SHAD SALEEM FARUDI
April 22, 2010 “The Star” – – IT IS distressing to note that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been invited to Malaysia as an honoured guest of an NGO when he stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by many learned and independent scholars of international law.
The case against him looks rock solid, especially after his confession to the BBC and the Chilcot Inquiry that he would have gone to war to topple Saddam Hussein regardless of the issue of Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.
Indictments around the world:
The international criminal court to which Britain is a signatory has received a record number of petitions against Blair.
The World Tribunal on Iraq held in Istanbul in 2005 heard evidence from 54 witnesses and published rigorous indictments against Blair, former US president George W Bush and others.
The Brussels War Crimes Tribunal, the Blair War Crimes Foundation and the American international law jurist Richard Falk have amassed impressive evidence of Blair’s complicity in international war crimes.
Spain’s celebrated judge Baltasar Garzon (who indicted former Chilean dictator and president Augusto Pinochet) has called for Bush, Blair and former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar to be prosecuted for the illegal invasion of Iraq, which Garzon has condemned as “one of the most sordid and unjustifiable episodes in recent human history”.
Many UK jurists have described the invasion as a devastating attack on the rule of law that left the United Nations in tatters.
Here at home, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, after two years of meticulous investigation, received first-hand evidence from Iraqi victims of war that there have been grave violations of the international law of war in Iraq.
Last year, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, consisting of several international jurists – including Richard Falk from the US, Alfred Webre from Canada, and Niloufer Bhagat from India – unanimously adjudicated that Bush and Blair do not enjoy any immunity in international humanitarian law.
The main charges against Blair relate to his collusion with Bush in an illegal war of aggression against Iraq in 2003.
Crimes against peace:
Blair repeatedly and deliberately deceived the UN, his allies and his own people that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that could be rained on anyone within 45 minutes. In deceit and conspiracy, he incited passions for an illegal war.
The resulting amassing of an American, British and Australian invasion force outside Iraq and the invasion of March 20, 2003, were flagrant acts of lawlessness and an international crime.
The Charter of the UN contains a general prohibition against force as a means of resolving disputes. The unleashing of the horrors of war on innocent populations is permitted in only two circumstances by the Charter. First, legitimate self defence, under Article 51 in the event of an actual armed attack. Iraq had not attacked the US, the UK, Spain or Australia, and the argument about self-defence had no credibility.
Second, specific Security Council authorisation of force as a last resort to maintain peace and security under Articles 39 to 42 of the Charter. There never was such a resolution. The US and UK had tried to bulldoze one through but the Security Council was divided and the attempt failed, rendering the subsequent invasion a crime against peace.
Genocide and crimes against humanity: The Anglo-American alliance is also guilty of the heinous crimes of war, genocide and crimes against humanity.
The misadventure in Iraq has up to now caused 1.4 million deaths, four million refugees and countless maimings and traumas. Two to three million Iraqis are mentally and physically disabled. Iraq today is a land of five million orphans and one to two million widows.
There is near-total devastation of basic infrastructure, health, cultural and educational systems. Water systems have been contaminated. Iraq’s assets have been looted by the Allies.
In the prosecution of the illegal and racist war, indiscriminate rocket attacks were, and still are, being rained on civilian centres, killing thousands of innocent women and children.
In 2004, the entire population of Fallujah was expelled, save for young men of military age. Banned radioactive ammunition like depleted uranium, white phosphorous and cluster bombs have been used. Torturing of prisoners of war has been practised on a large scale.
These crimes of complicity by Blair are punishable under the United Nations Charter, the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Nuremberg Principles, Article 146 of the 1949 Geneva Convention and Article 3 of the 1907 Hague Convention.
What is also notable is that Blair has expressed no remorse whatsoever. Instead, he struts around the world as an apologist for the US in the Middle East and Israel. He recently received an Israeli “peace prize” worth US$1mil (RM3.2mil).
Malaysia must stand up and be counted among the community of civilised nations. It must not allow this perpetrator of epic crimes, who fakes faith in democracy and in “God’s work and God’s will”, to touch our soil ever again.
(Blair, who gave a talk at a local university in 2008, has been invited to head a line-up of speakers at the 2010 National Achiever Congress in Subang Jaya this weekend.)
If he does enter this country again we should arrest him. Regrettably, Malaysia has not yet ratified the Rome Charter, but we do have a Penal Code. Murder is a crime.
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission has countless reports from Iraqi survivors against Blair for complicity in mass slaughters, tortures, looting and other war crimes. The police must act on these reports and arrest this mass murderer.
In addition, citizens’ groups must file complaints against Blair with the United Nations General Assembly and with the Attorney-Generals of countries like Spain, Germany, Belgium, France and the UK which have “universal jurisdiction” statutes to pursue and prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity.
A tribunal like the one that tried Nazis at Nuremberg and several Yugoslav and African warlords since then needs to be constituted.
The world needs to be reassured that international humanitarian law is not applied and enforced in a racist and selective way against Asian and African tyrants only. Imperial politicians from the West who destroy millions of lives should not, any more, be immune from justice.
Shad Saleem Faruqi is Emeritus Professor of Law at UiTM and Visiting Professor at USM.
Women and birth defects, assassination of Iraqi academics, Torture,
April 23, 2010 at 1:04 am | Posted in Turkmens | Leave a commentTags: Assassination of Iraqi academics, Women and birth defects in Iraq
Women and birth defects, assassination of Iraqi academics, Torture,
Speech at protest meeting in Stockholm on March 20th 2010
Malak Hamdan
Abdulmunaem Almula
Please click on the link below:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/30316032/Abdulmunaem-Almula200310-1
Compensation Seats for Hamudi, Hasani and Jasim Muhammad Jaafar
April 23, 2010 at 12:35 am | Posted in Turkmens | Leave a commentTags: Hajim al-Hasani, Iraq's election, Jasim Muhammad Jaafar
Compensation Seats for Hamudi, Hasani and Jasim Muhammad Jaafar
Posted by Reidar Visser on Thursday, 22 April 2010 12:16
Until this week, the Kurdistan Alliance had been the only bloc to formally notify the Iraqi elections commission (IHEC) about its nominee (Fuad Masum) for the seven compensation seats that have been allotted to the winning blocs (1 for KA; two each for Iraqiyya, State of Law and Iraqi National Alliance).
However, once the manual recount for Baghdad had been announced, State of Law (SLA) moved quickly to announce its two nominees: Hajim al-Hasani and Jasim Muhammad Jaafar. Of these two, the seat awarded to Jaafar is probably the one that most closely approximates the conventional logic of a compensation seat under a proportional-representation system. Jaafar was the number one candidate for SLA in Salahaddin. He failed to win a seat, but with some 7,000 personal votes and 33,000 entity votes, this is a classical example of a situation in which a candidate failed to reach the governorate threshold (in this case 40,700 according to IHEC calculations) but was reasonably close and might have been able to win in a different governorate with a lower electoral divider.
On the other hand, as number 6 on the Baghdad list of SLA with just 700 personal votes, Hajim al-Hasani represents a different kind of compensation-seat usage. In this case, the discretion of the party leadership has been more decisive and is more clearly at variance with the will of the electorate. Hasani is of course not only the official spokesman of SLA, he is also sometimes portrayed as the “Sunni” face of SLA and as such part of the attempts to portray the bloc as a “rainbow alliance”. However, when SLA’s disposal of the compensation seats is viewed as a whole, it is probably the Turkmen ties of both nominees that stand out. Both Jasim Muhammad Jaafar and Hajim al-Hasani have Turkmen family connections, the former a Shiite and the second reportedly of mixed Sunni–Shiite origin. But before we get lost in the sectarian genetics of this, it may be more important to consider the geographical ties of the two candidates: With links to Salahaddin and Kirkuk respectively, they could represent an attempt by Maliki to enhance his Iraqi nationalist credentials north of Baghdad. It is also noteworthy that there are already several prominent Turkmens in SLA, such as Abbas al-Bayati who won a Baghdad seat.
Continue Reading Compensation Seats for Hamudi, Hasani and Jasim Muhammad Jaafar…
‘Divide & Conquer’, the model was Ireland’s, 1692, Ulster Plantation
April 21, 2010 at 10:11 pm | Posted in Turkmens | 1 CommentTags: Creating ethnic divisions, Ireland, Ulster Privilege
‘Divide & Conquer’, the model was Ireland’s, 1692, Ulster Plantation
It is no surprise that the Israelis should be using the tactic of “divide and conquer,” the cornerstone policy of an empire that dominated virtually every continent on the globe save South America. The Jewish population of British-controlled Palestine was, after all, victim to exactly the same kind of ethnic manipulation that the Israeli government is presently attempting in Northern Iraq.
Following the absorption of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the British set about shoring up their rule by the tried and true strategy of pitting ethnic group against ethnic group, tribe against tribe, and religion against religion. When British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour issued his famous 1917 Declaration guaranteeing a “homeland” for the Jewish people in Palestine, he was less concerned with righting a two thousand year old wrong than creating divisions that would serve growing British interests in the Middle East.
Sir Ronald Storrs, the first Governor of Jerusalem, certainly had no illusions about what a “Jewish homeland” in Palestine meant for the British Empire: “It will form for England,” he said, “a little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.” Storrs’ analogy was no accident.
Ireland was where the English invented the tactic of divide and conquer, and where the devastating effectiveness of using foreign settlers to drive a wedge between the colonial rulers and the colonized made it a template for worldwide imperial rule.
Divide and Conquer Revisited
Former Israeli Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin normally take credit for creating the “facts on the ground” policies that have poured more than 420,000 settlers into the Occupied Territories.
But they were simply copying Charles I, the English King, who in 1609 forcibly removed the O’Neill and O’Donnell clans from the north of Ireland, moved in 20,000 English and Scottish Protestants, and founded the Plantation of Ulster.The “removal” was never really meant to cleanse Ulster of the Irish. Native labor was essential to the Plantation’s success and within 15 years more than 4,000 native Irish tenants and their families were back in Ulster. But they lived in a land divided into religious castes, with the Protestant invaders on top and the Catholic natives on the bottom.Protestants were awarded the “Ulster privilege” which gave them special access to land and lower rents, and also served to divide them from the native Catholics. The “Ulster Privilege” is not dissimilar to the kind of “privilege” Israeli settlers enjoy in the Territories today, where their mortgages are cheap, their taxes lower and their education subsidized.
The Protestant privileges were a constant sore point with the native Irish; although in fact, most Protestants were little better off than their Catholic neighbors. Rents were uniformly onerous, regardless of religion.Indeed, there were numerous cases where Protestants and Catholics united to protest exorbitant rents, but in virtually every case, the authorities successfully used religion and privilege to split such alliances. The Orange Order, the organization most responsible for sectarian politics in the North today, was originally formed in 1795 to break a Catholic-Protestant rent strike.Ireland as Imperial Laboratory
The parallels between Israel and Ireland are almost eerie, unless one remembers that the latter was the laboratory for British colonialism.
- As in Ulster, Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories have special privileges that divide them from Palestinians (and other Israelis as well).
- As in Ireland, Israeli settlers rely on the military to protect them from the “natives.”
- As in Northern Ireland, there are political organizations, like the National Religious Party and the Moledet Party, which whip up sectarian hatred, and keep the population divided.
The latter two parties both advocate the forcible transfer of all Arabs Palestinians and Israelis alike to Jordan and Egypt
Prior to the Ulster experiment, the English had tried any number of schemes to tame the restive Irish and build a wall between conquerors and conquered. One set of laws, the 1367 Statutes of Kilkenny, forbade “gossiping” with the natives. All of them failed. Then the English hit on the idea of using ethnicity, religion, and privilege to construct a society with built-in divisions.
It worked like a charm
The divisions were finally codified in the Penal Laws of 1692, divisions that still play themselves out in the streets of Belfast and Londonderry. Besides denying Catholics any civil rights (and removing those rights from Protestants who intermarried with them), the Laws blocked Catholics from signing contracts, becoming lawyers, or hiring more than two apprentices. In essence, they insured that Catholics would remain poor, powerless, and locked out of the modern world.
The laws were, in the words of the great English jurist Edmund Burke,
“A machine of wide and elaborate contrivance and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.”
The Israeli Knesset recently prevented Palestinians married to Arab Israelis from acquiring citizenship, a page lifted almost directly from the 1692 laws. Israeli human rights activist Yael Stein called the action “racist,” and Knesset member Zeeva Galon said it denied “the fundamental right of Arab Israelis to start families.” Even the U.S. is uncomfortable with the legislation. “The new law,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Phillip Reeker, “singles out one group for different treatment than others.”
Which, of course, was the whole point?
Imperial Blowback
As the penal laws impoverished the Irish, so do Israeli policies impoverish the Palestinians and keep them an underdeveloped pool of cheap labor. According to the United Nations, unemployment in the West Bank and Gaza is over 50 percent, and Palestinians are among the poorest people on the planet.
Any efforts by the Palestinians to build their own independent economic base are smothered by a network of walls, settler-exclusive roads and checkpoints. It is little different than British imperial policy in India, which systematically dismantled the Indian textile industry so that English cloth could clothe the sub-continent without competition.
Divide and conquer was 19th and early 20th century colonialism’s single most successful tactic of domination. It was also a disaster, one which still echoes in civil wars and regional tensions across the globe. This latter lesson does not appear to be one the Israelis have paid much attention to. As a system of rule, division and privilege may work in the short run, but over time it engenders nothing but hatred. These polices, according to Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, foment “terror,” adding, “In tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interests.”
The policy also creates divisions among Israelis. Empires benefit only a few, and always at the expense of the majority. While for example the Sharon government spends $1.4 billion a year holding on to the territories, 27 percent of Israeli children are officially designated “poor,” social services have been cut, and the economy is in shambles.
The Israelis would do well to remember the Irish poet Patrick Pearse’s eulogy over the grave of the old Fenian revolutionary, Jeremian “Rossa” O’Donovan:
The Model for Iraq was Ireland, 1692, Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules
by Conn Hallinan
Global Research, Feb 20, 2007
Iraqi League – 2006-12-28
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s revelations that the Israeli government is encouraging Kurdish separatism in Iraq, Iran, and Syria should ring a bell for anyone who has followed the long history of English imperial ambitions.
Orange Order
The British employed “Divide and Rule” in British India as a means of preventing an uprising against the Raj. The partition of India is often attributed to these policies.
In his historical survey Constantine’s Sword, James P. Carroll writes,
“Typically, imperial powers depend on the inability of oppressed local populations to muster a unified resistance, and the most successful occupiers are skilled at exploiting the differences among the occupied. Certainly that was the story of the British Empire’s success, and its legacy of nurtured local hatreds can be seen wherever the Union Flag flew, from Muslim-Hindu hatred in Pakistan and India, to Catholic-Protestant hatred in Ireland, to, yes, Jew-Arab, hatred in modern Israel. [Ancient] Rome was as good at encouraging internecine resentments among the occupied as Britain ever was.”
TÜRK VARLIĞI Ve Irak seçimleri – Nefi Demirci
April 21, 2010 at 9:52 pm | Posted in Turkmens | Leave a commentTags: Iraq Elections, Kerkuk
TÜRK VARLIĞI Ve Irak seçimleri – Nefi Demirci
| Nis 20, 2010 |
İşgal altında, muhalefet grubu ve ABD tarafından hazırlanan, halk oylamasından geçen, geçirilen Anayasa, Irak’ı fiilen ikiye ve bulunan güç dengelerinin etkisiyle de ÜÇE bölündü, seçime hakim kuvvetlerin gölgesinde sözde DEMOKRATİK ortam içersinde gidildi.
Dr.Nefi DEMİRCİ – Kerkük Feneri/Özel (kerkukfeneri.com)
Bir ayda 400 kişinin öldüğü bir ortamda seçim yapıldı, Saddam rejimine karşı olan bugünkü yöneticiler dünün muhalefet grubu, bilinçsiz olarak ABD’ nin yanında ülkelerini demokrasi adına haraba haline getirdiler ve Kürtlerin ekmeğine yağ ve bal sürerek Türk varlığını “ TÜRKMENLERİ” bir kenara iterek bölünmesini hazırladılar ve gerçekleştirdiler. Şii, Sünni bölünmesi yetmiyormuş birde Şiiler kendi aralarında bölündüler.
Türkmenler ve Türk varlığı ne yazık ki kendi bayrağı altında değil, başka bayrağın altında seçime katıldı. 1991’den sonra Türkiye’nin gösterdiği yolda muhalefet grubuna katıldılar ve bugün seçime girdikleri koalisyon partisinin konseyinde Türkmenler alınmadı, dışlandığı gibi 1991 lerden sonrada Türkmenler hep dışlanmış, konseyin içine alınmamıştı.
Bundan önceki makalemizde, samimi ve tarafsız olarak , Türklüğü, Kerkük’ün Türk kimliğini savunan “ CEPHE” si altında seçime katılmaları, kutsal onurlu ve de ileriye dönük siyasi Tarih’e yazılacak ve kalıcı olarak kalacağını yazmıştık. Olmadı, milli şuur tartışıldı, üstün otarita gölgesinde tartışılan konu , ileri düşünülmeden ortaya atılan fikirler ve öneriler üstün geldi, makam Hayalları, yağlı Pilav lokmaları göz bebeklerini ışıldattı ve adam sende ben kimliğimi O gölgede de korurum eylemi üstün geldi milli duygular karşısında.
Umarım ve temenni edelim ki beklenilen en az 10- 15 kişi yerine seçilen seçilmiş olan “ 5 “ güzide kişi Türklük bilinci içersinde çalışmalarında başarılı olurlar. Her ne kadar daha şimdiden bir kişinin tereddüt içersinde olduğu ve fire verdiği haberleri gelse dahi.
Unutmamaları gereken konular var, bir kere Şii Kürt ittifakı ve Malikinin Kürt yanlı tutum ve demeçleri, Allavi Talabani yakınlaşması, birde Malikinin hükümet kurmada şanslı oluşu, şöyle ki 89, Şii olan Irak Milli İttifakı 70 ve 56 Kürtlerin toplam Milletvekilleri var. Kürtlerin Milletvekilleri arasında çok büyük ihtilaf yok, bir kere bütün partileri KÜRT adını kullanmış ve hepsinin amacı Büyük Kürdistan ve KERKÜK.
Farz edelim Allavi Hükümeti kurdu, Şii olan Irak Milli İttifakı ki bunlar Kürt isteklerine yakın veya doğrudan doğruya Kürtlerle ortak olacak. Belki bu hükümette işgüzar bir Bakanlık ve bazı yan kollarda Türkmenlere görevler verilir.
Irak’ta hükümet kurulma tartışmaları devam ederken Türkmenler ve özellikle seçilmiş olan Milletvekilleri çok sıkı bir işbirliği içersine girmeli, bir kere en önemli konu ; “ bizim toplum ne istiyor, ve biz siyasetçi olarak yarın ne isteyeceğiz, nelerin istenmesi lazım ve yollar değil tek yol tayin edilip o yolu izlenmeli. 5 kişi aralarında görev taksimi yapıp bir tek sözcü tayin etmelidirler, her yerinden kalkıp konuşursa veya fikir ileri sürerse çelişkiler artar. İttifak içersinde hareket etmeleri milli bir görevdir.
Ve seçilen Milletvekilleri partilerinden önce SEÇİLMİŞ OLDUKLARI bölgelerinin ve halkının Milletvekilleri olduklarını ve başta halkının çıkarlarını ve isteklerini yerine getirmekle yükümlüdür ve bu yükümlülük milli bir görevdir.
Toplumun önünde Çetin ve dikenli bir yol var, bu yolda amaca varmak için ilerlerken bir “ BAŞ” a ihtiyaç var dirayetli merhametli ama kararlı, elindeki kırbacı sallamasını bilen, elini avucunu başkasına açıp karşılığında onlardan talimat almayan, kendi tabanına doğruları anlatıp güven sağlayan bir yürekli Türk’e. Çantamda A, B, Planım var demeyen bir ER- TÜRK’E.
Önemli ve acilen, seçimde 13, 114, 248, 287 oy alan parti başkanlarının tabanlarının olmadığı, tabansız olan bu zatların bir gün önce partilerinden ve hatta partilerine son vermeleri erdemliktir, millet severliktir. Değişik partilerden girmeleri yarar sağlamadı, oylar böldündü, örnek, TUZ, eğer iki kişi yerine bir kişiye oy verilseydi bir çatı altında hareket etmelerini ve çalışacaklarını temenni ettiğimiz sayı 6 olabilirdi. Tabansız olan bu partiler verilen oyları böldüğü ortadadır. Kaldı ki sorgulanması gereken çok, çok önemli bir durumda; % 40 bazılarına göre % 60 katılım olmuş, katılmayan en az % 40, neden katılmamış? İTC çatısı altında tek liste olmadığı için mi? Veya izah edilemeyen başka bir neden mi? Seçim çalışmalarındaki kusurlar mı?
Konuları masaya yatırıp çözüm bulmalı, toplantılarda ben şunu yaptım, sen bunu yaptın, şikayetlerimizi bildirdik, zamanı artık geçmiş, kuvvet ve dirayet kimde var ise o toplumun mazlumiyetine son verebilir, aksi takdirde elinde kuvvet bulunanın zulmü kendi çıkar ve ideolojisi gerçekleşinceye kadar devam eder.
Bilmediğimiz bir tarihte, belki hükümet kurulduktan ve yeni meclis toplandıktan sonra, yerel yönetim yasası, ki çıkacak bu yasa en çok KERKÜK’ÜN kaderini belirler, yerel yönetim bugün olduğu gibi Kürt ağırlıklı olursa ve Türkiye’min politikası komşularla sıfır problem, Irak’ın olmayan toprak bütünlüğünün istenmesi, savunulması ve bütün kesimlere ayni mesafe, ticarette, kalkınmada Kuzey Irak’ın önde tutulması, biz Erbili kurtardık sizlerde Kerkük’ü kurtarın zihniyeti ve eğer Kuzey Irak politikasına Türkmenler önde tutulmaz ve Türkmenlerin varlığının Türkiye ve Anavatanın Güvenliği, Türkmenlere AÇILIM düşüncesi içersinde şu veya bu neden ve gerekçeden dolayı yön verme devam edilirse, Kerkük’ün ipi Erbil yerine HAVLER’E uzanır ve oradan da ipin ucu DİYARBAKIR dan çıkar.
Dernek ve diğer sivil kuruluşlar elbette ki gereklidir, ama ben Kerkük’ü vermem, Kerkük Türk’tür TÜRK kalacak, elbette Türk’tür Türk kalacak, TV. Lerde bilgi sahibi ve bölgeyi tam anlamıyla bilmeyen ahkam kesenler, ben Türkmenlerin yanındayım, onlara bir şey olursa yüreğim yanar demek bugüne kadar Türkmeneline siyasi bir kazanç sağlamadı. Bu gibi laflar samimi da olsa sadece laf olarak kalmaktadır. Öyleyse ne yapmalı, Türkmenler ve kuruluşlar, Ermeni, Yahudi ve Kürtleri örnek alarak LOBİ veya adına ne denirse, Diaspora, usul ve kaidelere uygun olarak, evvela Türkiye’de kurmalı veya bu ad ne ifade ediyorsa, Türkiye merkez olarak faaliyete geçmeli. Türk varlığının siyasi mevcudiyetini dünyaya kabul ettirmeye çalışılmalı ve Türkmenelinde can siper’ ana çalışanlara iş birliği, fikir ve AMAÇ birliği içinde olmalı. Türkiye bu oluşuma Anavatanın birliği, toprak bütünlüğü hatta Güvenliği bakımından geçmişten ders alarak tam destek vermeli, olmalıdır.
Ben bu konuyu bir çok yerde dile getirdim, yazdım, Siyasi parti, siyasi propaganda ve Güç olursa başarılı olur. Başarı olmak zorunluluğu vardır. Köklü bir tarihe sahip olan Türkmenleri göz göre, göre kaderlerine İKİ ATEŞ arasında yalnız bırakılmamalı.
Bu seçim Türkmenler yönünden başarılı oldu mu, Türk varlığı ne dereceye kadar korunabilir, siyasi olarak Irak’ta bulunan diğer etnik grupların elde ettikleri iddia edildiği toprak bütünlüğü içersinde haklarına kavuşabilirlerimi?
Depleted uranium is destroying life By Jerry Mazza
April 18, 2010 at 6:08 pm | Posted in Turkmens | Leave a commentTags: Depleted Uranium, US use of Depleted Uranium in Iraq
DU extreme hydrocephalus
Depleted uranium is destroying life By Jerry Mazza
Posted on April 15, 2010 by dandelionsalad
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/depleted-uranium-is-destroying-life-by-jerry-mazza/
By Jerry Mazza
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.jerrymazza.com
April 15, 2010
I have long heard sound-bites or seen passages about depleted uranium that sounded more than dire. But given my own cognitive dissonance, and the fact that I was writing about many other dire topics at the time, I filed depleted uranium in my cranium for future investigation, which, given the human aversion to bad news, could have been never.
But never was over in an exchange of emails about nuclear missiles in Israel’s arsenal. I received some startling nuclear information from San Francisco Bay View writer, Bob Nichols. It was an illumination long-time coming.
I started at the end of Bob’s article to find out who he was. His credits read “Bob Nichols is a Project Censored Award winning writer and a San Francisco Bay View correspondent. A former bomb maker in a U.S. government factory in rural Oklahoma, he reports on the two nuclear weapons labs in the Bay Area. He can be reached at duweapons@gmail.com.” His credentials were impressive and so was the article he sent, PTSD, infertility and other consequences of war.
In several, follow-up phone calls, Bob, in his gentle, mid-western drawl, filled me in on the picture of the imposing disasters caused by depleted uranium in Central Asia and in the Mid-East, in which hundreds of thousands of tons of depleted uranium had been dropped in the past 20 years.
Bob pointed out that San Francisco itself was receiving fallout from the Berkeley National [Nuclear Weapons] Lab, and from the Livermore Laboratory in the South Bay area, managed by San Francisco-based Bechtel, a nuclear-capable corporation, boosted by San Francisco’s “Nuclear Nancy’ Pelosi and her friends at Bechtel” as Bob commented. The University of California at Berkeley now earns more from weapons than from students.
The San Francisco facilities have been part of the Manhattan Project, operating from pre-1945, contributing a dangerous amount of radiation to the area with weapons testing and leakages of material into the Bay. It was for this reason, Nichols told me, that he still lives in Oklahoma, though he has a real love affair with San Francisco. Yet he fears for its human and natural safety due to poisoning by the nuclear projects.
In fact, he bemoaned the occasion of “Fleet Week,” “the happy boys sent off to war by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Fleet Week – an event responsible for a big chunk of the enlistments in the US Navy and marines – who will probably come in deadly contact with another Bay Area product: depleted uranium, aka DU, and weaponized ceramic uranium oxide gas and aerosols, UO.”
As he wrote, “Iraq and virtually all the rest of the Middle East and Central Asia have been continually dosed for almost 20 years with thousands of tons of weaponized ceramic uranium oxide gas, also known as depleted uranium.
“When used as directed, the depleted uranium bullets, shells and bombs become a lethal uranium gas or aerosol. The poison uranium oxide gas aerosols last for billions of years and never stop indiscriminately maiming and killing, which is a war crime in itself.”
That was shocking to hear. So I did a bit of research to corroborate Bob’s claims and came upon a number of YouTube pieces, one particularly powerful ten-minute piece called Depleted Uranium – The Ultimate Dirty Bomb.
It features Dr. Doug Rokke, US Army Health Physicist and Nuclear Medicine Sciences Officer, as well as the internationally known Geological Scientist and International Radiation Expert Leuren Moret. Please take ten minutes to listen to it.
Dr. Rokke explains that as far back as 1973 [the Yom Kippur War], radioactive materials carpeted Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. He mentions too that DU radioactive contamination makes food and water unusable. He explains how the huge jolts of electrical energy in a small amount of depleted uranium can destroy human cells.
Most notably, Dr. Rooke estimates that from October/November 1991 in Gulf War 1, 160,000 US soldiers were permanently disabled by US use of some 340 tons of depleted uranium. Ten years later that number had climbed to 221,000 and left 10,000 dead. Dr. Rooke, a victim himself of the lack of proper post-battle examinations for DU poisoning, spoke with a tempered but deliberate anger and frustration at the damage done to all, including civilian populations, combatants, and himself.
Lauren Moret pointed out that as far back as 1943 depleted uranium usage, aka “poison gas warfare” was encouraged in a government memo shown on screen. She also tells us that the UN Human Rights Commission declared depleted uranium as illegal. The ultimate irony she points out is that in 2003 we attacked Iraq and Saddam Hussein for possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction, which turned out not to be true. Yet when we attacked Iraq in 2003, we dropped between 1000 to 2000 tons of depleted uranium, a known Weapon of Mass Nuclear Destruction in a three-week period. This is a war crime unto itself.
This all jibed with Bob Nichol’s writings, especially the fact that the damage of depleted uranium is forever, lasting billions of years in the atmosphere, the earth and water, as it lasts on clothing, the skin, the human body, destroying vital organs, causing birth defects of all kinds, cancers, infertility, damage to the bones, brains, testicles and ovaries, which applies to civilians and animals as well.
As Nichols writes, “Uranium munitions, containing weaponized uranium oxide gas and aerosols, are used by presidential order in US war zones. Privates and corporals do not decide to use these poisonous uranium gas weapons on their own. No, that order comes from the American president.”
“Uranium oxide gas weapons are called ‘genocidal weapons.’ They maim and kill millions of people, their animals and their land. The actual targets by the US Expeditionary Forces are the populations of Central Asia and the Middle East, about a billion people.” Remember that US forces themselves are the victims as well of these weapons, the worst imaginable blowback.
In fact, Nichols points us towards a “Middle Eastern country that requires all 18-year olds to join national service for several years. This country even has a roughly comparable health care system to America for a population of 7,233,701, according to the CIA World Factbook. This country is Israel.”
Bob sent along an article from the noted Israeli paper, Haaretz, dated 3/21/2010: Study: Quality of Israeli sperm down 40% in past decade. Bob claimed the number was fudged somewhat because from 2004-2008 there was a 10 million sperm a year drop-off. Taken to 2015, all of the nation would be infertile. The motility of the tested sperm also indicated a drop-off. These samples were taken from healthy young people who do not smoke.
“In Israel, too,” Haaretz writes, a study was published about a year ago, showing an increase of about 30 percent in defects in the male reproductive system. In addition, in the past decade, the number of cases of testicular cancer has doubled.”
Haaretz goes on to attribute the sperm drop to “chemicals in the ground and in drinking water…as impacting hormone levels and secondary sexual characteristics.” The paragraph concludes with “Studies published in Britain have highlighted a clear connection between continual decline in sperm counts and chemicals in the environment.”
In the next to last paragraph of Bob Nichols’ article, he writes of the Israeli situation, “Since 20 percent live sperm is considered to be the beginning of infertility, Israel will be sterile in less than 10 years at this rate of decline. The estimated 7 million Israeli Jews will have no more children after that. This catastrophic development has already occasioned legislative hearings in Israel’s Knesset… Israeli sperm concentration is just an example of what is happening to human sperm all over the Middle East and Central Asia, by the choice and force of will of successive US presidents.”
The 800-pound gorilla in the room here is that young people tested (both men and women) are performing in the Israeli Defense Forces, and face massive amounts of depleted uranium in the US manufactured weaponry being used in the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. The land, animals, and those involved in the conflict on both sides must be, by definition, poisoned by these toxic weapons of nuclear destruction. That’s the real story. The Israelis have performed a service in a way just by conducting a bona fide scientific analysis of the situation.
In nearby Iraq, three-headed babies are turning up and a virtual Pandora’s Box of birth defects that you can see here. Caution: these are not pretty pictures, but they are true pictures of what the future could be as the present.
Again, please read the entire Haaretz article and view the YouTube piece. Or check the more conservative Wikipedia for the 38-page article (which includes 13 pages of footnotes) linked here on Depleted Uranium. You can verify the information presented above and find more information as well. In fact, the first DU, which uses radioactive isotope-238 was “manufactured in the 1940’s when the US and USSR began their nuclear weapons and nuclear power programs.” P.S. Depleted uranium bombs were also used on Serbia in the Bosnian War by President Clinton.
The total world inventory of depleted uranium stands at 1,188,273 tonnes as of 2002. That is enough to wipe out life on the planet for billions of years.
The United States leads the pack with 480,000 tonnes; Russia closely follow with 460,000 million tonnes; France, 190,000 tonnes; United Kingdom, 30,000 tonnes, etcetera.
As to the Legal Status of DU, Wiki reports, “In 1996 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) gave an advisory opinion on the ‘legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons’.[29] This made it clear, in paragraphs 54, 55 and 56, that international law on poisonous weapons—the Second Hague Declaration of 29 July 1899, Hague Convention IV of 18 October 1907 and the Geneva Protocol of 17 June 1925—did not cover nuclear weapons, because their prime or exclusive use was not to poison or asphyxiate. This ICJ opinion was about nuclear weapons, but the sentence ‘The terms have been understood, in the practice of States, in their ordinary sense as covering weapons whose prime, or even exclusive, effect is to poison or asphyxiate,’ also removes depleted uranium weaponry from coverage by the same treaties as their primary use is not to poison or asphyxiate, but to destroy material and kill soldiers through kinetic energy.”
The deadly irony here is that depleted uranium, through the use of a perverse legalese, is classified here not as the awful poison and asphyxiate it is, but as a destructor of material and killer of solders through kinetic energy. Never has there been such a torturous misuse of language. Obviously, the people at the top are not thinking clearly. But we down here, the everyday people, must think clearly and protest the use of depleted uranium in any form, as a deadly poison and as a destructor of material, soldiers, civilians, animals, soil, water and air. Otherwise, we’re committing suicide, the universe’s ultimate punishment for our poisoning the planet.
This includes poisoning as well in non-warfare situations like the one in Naples, Italy (home of my forefathers) where the crime organization, the Camorra, is poisoning the Mediterranean, as Bob Nichols tells me, with the continual exploding of forty foot barges of nuclear waste, including depleted uranium. These gangsters are killing the sea that feeds that nation, the sea that runs into the Red Sea, in which Israelis swim. The Med is being poisoned for profit by criminals as the bought-off police turn their heads. Evil has many heads, like the DU misconceived child itself.
But let me conclude this piece, with Bob Nichols’ last line, “The American war machine has consequences. PTSD is just one of them. The poison gas cannot be contained, undone or recalled. There is no antidote; there is no cure. There is no escape.” But I will add that there is consciousness and the actions of conscious people to stop the situation from worsening. Let’s use it.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer, life-long resident of New York City. His book “State Of Shock – Poems from 9/11 on” is available at www.jerrymazza.com, Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com.
see
The United States takes the matter of three-headed babies very seriously by William Blum
Depleted Uranium: A War Crime Within a War Crime By William Bowles
We Are All Accountable By Timothy V. Gatto
Iraq to sue US, Britain over depleted uranium bombs
Poison bullets: Depleted Uranium factor covered-up?
Dennis Kyne: Depleted Uranium (DU) and Very Sick Soldiers and the Cover-Up
Why was the Iraqi resistance conference held in İstanbul?
April 17, 2010 at 8:57 pm | Posted in Turkmens | Leave a commentTags: Iraqi Resistance
Why was the Iraqi resistance conference held in İstanbul? |
Hasan Kanbolat, Director of ORSAM |
| On April 10, 2010, the Iraqi Resistance Support Conference was held at İstanbul’s Cevahir Hotel. The gathering had been organized by the Global Anti-Aggression Campaign (GAAC). The GAAC is a structure that wants to see cooperation under one roof for all movements resisting attacks on Muslim peoples worldwide. But the organization leans toward the “resistance” in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan, and is working to bring the resistance movements there under a single roof. In this way, the GAAC is a structure that has determined America and Israel to be fundamental threats. For this reason, more than resistance, it has taken on the appearance of an establishment that aims to damage American interests in every way.The Iraqi Muslim Scholars Delegation (IMAH) forms the top level of GAAC and is the real organizer of the İstanbul conference, and also has bureaus in Ankara. Established with the participation of university professors, academics, scientists, imams and students in 2003 in the years following the invasion, the organization would later become a central authority for the organizations and structures opposing the invasion of Iraq. The secretary-general of IMAH is Shaykh Dr. Harith al-Dhari. Al-Dhari holds the position of spokesperson for all of the Iraqi resistance groups that have gathered together and all of the dozens of other resistance movements in that country, large and small. Some of these organizations are as follows: the Jihad and Change Front (which includes the 1920 Revolution Brigades, the Army of Rashedeen, the Army of Muslims in Iraq, the Islamic Movement of Iraqi Mujahideen, the Jund al-Rahman Brigades in Iraq, the Da’wah and Ribat Brigades, the al-Tamkeen Brigades, the Muhammad al-Fatih Brigades, the Army of Tabe’eyn and the Jihad Army); Asaib al-Iraq al-Jihadiyyah, the Army of Mujahideen Murabiteen and the Army of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Attendance at the conference was not high. There was at most an audience of 150 in a 700-person hall. Outside of the organizers, there were a few people from Turkey with sympathies toward the topic present and some from East Turkistan who live in İstanbul. It’s also not possible to say that national media paid the event much attention. The speakers emphasized that violence “can only ever be considered as acceptable when used to save people under oppression, and that extremism is not accepted [by Islam].” The resistance movement’s representatives said that there was a terrorist movement in Iraq but that it had settled into the country following the US invasion, and that before the invasion, organizations like al-Qaeda were unable to gain a foothold in Iraq. So the resistance movement, even if it looks like it finds commonality with al-Qaeda on the principle of opposing America, distances itself from that group and says that it does not support its actions. In fact, they even say that organizations such as themselves have even put together events that serve the interests of America and some other countries in the region. The talks given at the conference tried to stay away from focusing on names, and also viewed Iran as a regional threat. The conference in question stirred great reaction in Iraq. For example, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s spokesman said: “The conference is a negative indicator for bilateral relations. Turkey must take a side. There is no resistance in Iraq, and making it appear as if there is does not work toward Turkey’s interests. The American presence is legitimate. Turkey should do some thinking when hosting conferences of this type, which aim to hurt Iraq.” In recent years, İstanbul has become a center of attraction for politicians and intellectuals of the Middle East and the Muslim world. People in power, opposition and even resistance factions have begun holding their meetings in İstanbul. This situation has been a source of both curiosity and concern in the West. While leaders of the Middle East have been pleased with such meetings that they themselves held, they are deeply discomfited by the activities held by their opponents. Why İstanbul? Turkey’s development of its relationship with the Middle East and the Muslim world was influential in the choice of İstanbul. But the main factor of importance here is that Turkey is the only democratic country in the region that shares the same religion and culture. Different opposition groups can gather freely in İstanbul without procuring any permission ahead of time. The lack of any such obstacle, if anything, should be supported because the free debate between different ideas may point out the right road — a road toward reconciliation — for the Middle East and Muslim world. |
Iraq’s Future: Implications of Order 81 on Iraq’s Agriculture
April 17, 2010 at 4:15 pm | Posted in Turkmens | Leave a commentTags: International seed day, Iraq's agriculture
Posted on the occasion of the International Seed Day organised by INEAS :
Excerpt of my speech at the Third Iraqi Turkmen Media Conference in Istanbul – 10-12 April 2009:
I thank the General Secretary and the Members of the Turkmen Media Council for inviting me to the 3rd Turkmen Media Conference and for giving me the opportunity to speak.
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:
Iraq‘s Future
On the subject of Iraq’s future a lot has been said and published in the media, U.S. and EU experts are giving their opinions and advice, which are mostly patronizing and which do not necessarily represent the interest of the Iraqi people. These “experts” concentrate almost exclusively on the business opportunities in Iraq for their companies and their interest is centred principally on Iraq’s oil, gas and agriculture.
Iraq, as we all know, can be self-sufficient, it has water, wheat and oil. Today, because of the war and occupation, Iraq has to import wheat and even oil and a great number of Iraqis do not have access to water.
The future of Iraq’s oil is being decided under Occupation (by the US through their lackeys in the Iraqi government and by the Kurdish warlords) long term contracts which are giving away Iraq’s oil riches are being signed and these will bind Iraqis for several generations.
What is more, the fate of Iraq’s food sources and agricultural heritage is being looted behind closed doors.
The US-UK’s deliberate bombing of Iraq’s civilian infrastructure of water purification and electrical plants, cattle feed lots, poultry farms, fertilizer warehouses, pumping stations, irrigation systems, fuel depots and pesticide factories – the very infrastructure of Iraqi agriculture – has destroyed the Iraqi Agriculture.
The invasion of Iraq was not only about oil, the US corporate agribusiness is now overseeing the “rehabilitation” of agriculture in Iraq and this means the doom of Iraqi farmers.
Iraqi scientists are ringing the alarm bell, but unfortunately their warnings do not get the attention they deserve in the media.
The Occupation is destroying the economy and the future of Iraq.
Iraq, the Fertile Crescent, is home to the oldest agricultural traditions in the world. It was the centre of domestication for a remarkable range of today’s primary agricultural crops and livestock animals. Wheat, barley, rye, lentils, sheep and goats were all originally brought under human control around 8.000 BCE. Iraq is where wild wheat was once originated and many of its cereal varieties have been exported and adapted worldwide.
The inhabitants of Mesopotamia have used informal seed supply systems to plant crops, suited to their particular environment. The saving and sharing of seeds in Iraq has always been a largely informal matter. Local varieties of grain and legumes have been adapted to local conditions over the millennia. Agriculture remains an essential part of Iraq’s heritage.
Despite extreme aridity, characterised by low rainfall and soil salinity, Iraq had a world standard agricultural sector producing good quality food for generations.
According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), 97% of Iraqi farmers in 2002 still used saved seed from their own stocks from last year’s harvest, or purchased from local markets, this despite the criminal sanctions which destroyed Iraq’s agricultural sector.
U.S. Policies – GMOs and the Detrimental Effects of Order 81
When Paul Bremer left Baghdad after the so-called “transfer of sovereignty” in June 2004, he left behind the 100 orders he enacted as head of the occupation authority in Iraq.
Among them is Order 81 which he issued and signed on April 26, 2004 (paragraphs 51-79) on “Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety“. This order amends Iraq’s original patent law of 1970 and unless and until it is revised or repealed it has the status and force of a binding law; with important implications for farmers and the future of agriculture in Iraq, this order is yet another important component in the US attempts to radically transform Iraq’s economy.
While historically the Iraqi constitution prohibited private ownership of biological resources, the new US-imposed patent law introduces a system of monopoly rights over seeds. Inserted into Iraq’s previous patent law is a whole new chapter on Plant Variety Protection (PVP) that provides for the “protection of new varieties of plants“. PVP is an intellectual property right (IPR) or a kind of patent for plant varieties which gives an exclusive monopoly right on planting material to a plant breeder who claims to have discovered or developed a new variety. So the “protection” in PVP has nothing to do with conservation, but refers to safeguarding of the commercial interests of private breeders (usually large corporations) claiming to have created the new plant.
To qualify for PVP, plant varieties must comply with the standards of the UPOV Convention, (International Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties) which requires them to be new, distinct, uniform and stable. Farmers’ seeds cannot meet these criteria, making PVP-protected seeds the exclusive domain of corporations. The rights granted to plant breeders in this scheme include the exclusive right to produce, reproduce, sell, export, import and store the protected varieties. These rights extend to harvested material, including whole plants and parts of plants obtained from the use of a protected variety. This kind of PVP system is often the first step towards allowing the full-fledged patenting of life forms. Indeed, in this case the rest of the law does not rule out the patenting of plants or animals.
The term of the monopoly is 20 years for crop varieties and 25 for trees and vines.
During this time the protected variety de facto becomes the property of the breeder, and nobody can plant or otherwise use this variety without compensating the breeder. This new law means that Iraqi farmers can neither freely legally plant nor save for re-planting seeds of any plant variety registered under the plant variety provisions of the new patent law. This deprives farmers from what they and many others worldwide claim as their inherent right to save and replant seeds.
Corporate control
The new law is presented as being necessary to ensure the supply of good quality seeds in Iraq and to facilitate Iraq’s accession to the WTO (World Trade Organization). What it will actually do is facilitate the penetration of Iraqi agriculture by the likes of MONSANTO, SYNGENTA, BAYER and DOW CHEMICAL – the corporate giants that control seed trade across the globe.
Eliminating competition from farmers is a prerequisite for these companies to open up operations in Iraq, which the new law has achieved. Taking over the first step in the food chain is their next move.
Food Sovereignty
Food sovereignty is the right of people to define their own food and agriculture policies, to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade, to decide the way food should be produced, what should be grown locally and what should be imported.
The demand for food sovereignty and the opposition to the patenting of seeds has been central to the small farmers’ struggle all over the world over the past decade. By fundamentally changing the law in Iraq, the US has ensured that Iraq’s agricultural system will remain under “OCCUPATION”.
Unfortunately, the mainstream media hardly cover this important subject and the majority of Iraqis are unaware of this Machiavellian plan which will devastate the future of their country’s agriculture and irremediably change their lives and that of the future generations of Iraqis if it is implemented.
Organizations, activists, farmers and organic food advocates around the world have endorsed and will observe April 26 (day on which Bremer issued and signed this criminal law in 2004) as International Seeds Day (ISD).
A “Greedy, unjust law is meant to be disobeyed”.
The Iraqi Turkmen media can play a paramount role in informing the Iraqi people and especially the farmers of the implications of Order 81, the future of Iraq’s agriculture depends on it.
According to a recent report drafted for the ministers of the Group of Eight nations the world faces a permanent food crisis and global instability unless countries act now to feed a surging population by doubling agricultural output, it warns that global agriculture production must double by 2050.
I wish the Iraqi Turkmens and all the Iraqi people determination and courage to achieve these goals.
I thank you for your attention.
Merry Fitzgerald
Committee for the Defence of the Iraqi Turkmens’ Rights
Istanbul, 10th April 2009.
Note:
To endorse the International Seed Day (ISD), please email your full name or organization name and website to info@ineas.org and ineas@aol.com
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