Articles About Terrorist Activities

Justin Raimondo, Voltairenet

Early last August – that is way before the subject was mentioned in mainstream media -, Thierry Meyssan revealed in our columns the project for a US-Turkey joint military intervention against the PKK. However, the Pentagon’s right hand ignoring what its left hand is doing, the plan was soon to face a new reality described here by Antiwar’s Justin Raimondo: the PKK itself is armed by the Pentagon!

The serial numbers of arms captured from PKK fighters have been traced back to U.S. shipments to Iraqi military and police units. Responding to Turkish complaints, the Americans claim these arms were diverted by the Iraqis – presumably the Kurdish regional government – but the Turks aren’t buying it: if the large quantity of U.S.-made arms (1,260 seized so far) turns out to have been directly provided to the PKK by the Americans, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul warned, U.S.-Turkish “relations would really break apart.” U.S. diplomats immediately rebuffed this suggestion, and Washington dispatched the Pentagon’s general counsel, William J. Haynes, to the scene, where he met with top Turkish military leaders. According to at least one report, “The meeting discussed an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Defense into reports that U.S. arms were being sold by U.S. troops in Iraq.”

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Matthew Schofield, McClatchy Newspapers, Ankara-Turkey

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday branded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party a “terrorist organization” and a “common enemy” of the United States, Turkey and Iraq, but she stopped short of committing Washington to military action against the guerrilla force.

Turkey has threatened to launch military operations against the group in Iraq alone if necessary, and Turkish officials indicated that they weren’t satisfied by what Rice told them in talks Friday.

“This is where the words end, and the action needs to start,” Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said. “Her words were good to hear, but words offer nothing new,” said another government official, who requested anonymity because he isn’t an authorized spokesman.

The Bush administration has assured Turkey at least four times that it would take action against the PKK, as it’s known in its Kurdish initials, but hasn’t done so, in part because there are no U.S. troops in Iraq available for such a mission.

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Los Angeles Times, Opinion

Turkey has a legitimate complaint against the U.S. for not doing more to stop Kurdish terrorists in Iraq.

The “Kurdish problem” used to be a Turkish problem, a Syrian problem, an Iranian problem and an Iraqi problem. The U.S. invasion of Iraq has turned it into an American problem — and lately, a very vexing one.

Failure to quell Kurdish terrorism could end 50 years of strong relations between the United States and Turkey. The country matters a great deal because it is the only genuine Islamic democracy in the Middle East, the only Muslim country in NATO, a key ally in Afghanistan and an essential transit route into Iraq. It’s also very angry at the United States — and was so even before the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a bill condemning Turkey for the World War I-era Armenian genocide. It’s probably impossible for Washington to give Ankara what it wants, but this would be a good time to give Turkey something.

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Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis, American Chronicle

America is new in the Middle East; to put it correctly, the US remains for more than 60 years a novice. This alone illuminates the problem perfectly well. America did not just fail in the Middle East; by allying itself with those with whom the US should never be connected, America – under either Republican or Democratic administration – damaged severely the perspectives of diffusing the ideals of the Founding Fathers in the area.

Today, America is in crash orbit with its own interests and principles. For a superpower with so many experts and specialists, academia, diplomatic and intelligence support, plus supreme technological infrastructure, the forthcoming American disaster becomes absolutely incomprehensible. Why this happened, and how it can be terminated and remedied is a matter of a special study group.

At this very moment, America gives the impression that it believes in anything, except the famous motto ‘e pluribus unum’; divided in several different elites that function as cliques, the American establishment’s wings are deeply involved in a suicidal assault against one another.

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