- Experts on U.S.-Turkish relations in Washington report
that the recent deterioration in relations between Washington and Ankara
are primarily due to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
and Turkey's other erstwhile friends, including the Anti-Defamation
League (ADL), pulling support for their former allies in Turkey because
of increasingly closer Turkish relations with both Syria and Iran
-- two countries that are being targeted by the neocon cells operating
in Vice President Dick Cheney's office and among Kadima and Likud
circles in Jerusalem.
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- In fact, Turkey, Syria, and Iran are cooperating in battling
PKK forces on their respective territories. Israel's Mossad has re-established
close links with the Kurds in the region. It appears that Israel is willing
to sacrifice its past close relations with Turkey in its support for the
Kurds and creating tension between the non-Arab powers in the region --
Iran, Turkey, and the Kurds. The election of Turkish Islamist-oriented
Abdullah Gul as President of a secular-oriented Turkey was a green light
for AIPAC, the ADL, and the neocons and other right-wing networks in Washington to
turn up the heat on Ankara.
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- The subsequent threat by Turkey to deploy troops into
northern Iraq to go after Kurdish guerrillas, some of whom are reportedly
backed by the Mossad and U.S. paramilitary private security forces,
was enough to cause the Israel Lobby to break their historic links to the
Turks. Adding to the anger of the Israel Lobby was the recent natural
gas deal inked between Syria, Iran, and Turkey. Iran will provide
Syria with Iranian gas via Turkish pipelines.
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- Turkish sources are reporting that the Mossad and
CIA are providing direct support to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),
a Kurdish group outlawed in Turkey and designated a terrorist organization
by the United States.
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- Tensions along the Turkish-Iraq border grew more inflamed
on October 21 after PKK guerrillas killed at least 12 Turkish troops in
an attack carried out on Turkish soil.
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- In July, Turkish authorities seized automatic weapons
of U.S. origin from captured members of the PKK. After Defense and State
Department investigations of weapons smuggling to the PKK, the Justice
Department began investigating Kenneth W. Cashwell and William Ellsworth
"Max" Grumiaux, two former Blackwater USA employees, for trafficking
in the interstate and foreign commerce of stolen firearms.
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- Eventually, Cashwell and Grumiaux pleaded guilty to possession
of the stolen firearms and began cooperating with the government in its
investigation of smuggling to the PKK via the Kurdistan Regional Government
(KRG).
-
- The Charlotte News and Observer reported that the federal
probe involves the possibility that Blackwater smuggled automatic
weapons and other military hardware to Iraq that potentially ended up in
the hands of the KRG and then the PKK.
-
- The Pentagon is investigating the loss of some 190,000
U.S. small arms in Iraq. Blackwater has denied any role in weapons smuggling
in Iraq.
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- WMR has also learned that some of Blackwater's top officials
maintain close links to the Israeli military and security communities as
well as to a shadowy network of right-wing Republican weapons manufacturers,
law firms, lobbyists, and arms exporters in the Washington, DC area,
including individuals linked to white supremacist organizations.
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- Turkey blames Israel for the passage by the House International
Relations Committee of the Armenian genocide resolution. Turkish Foreign
Minister Ali Babacan reportedly told Israeli President Shimon Peres earlier
this month that since Israel ultimately controls Jewish-American organizations
like the ADL, Turkey held Israel partly responsible for the passage of
the Armenian genocide resolution largely thanks to the support
of the ADL and AIPAC and one of their biggest champions on Capitol
Hill, House International Relations Committee Chairman Tom Lantos.
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- It was only after Turkey's own sizable lobbying machine
in Washington forced President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Robert
Gates, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- and behind the scenes
George H. W. Bush National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, the head of
the American Turkish Council -- to exert pressure on the House, did
leading Democrats succeed in killing the Armenian resolution. However,
that put Cheney and his neocon cabal on the defensive. They were more than
willing to sacrifice U.S. relations with Turkey to bring about a "final
solution" for the Iranians, Syrians, Palestinians, Turks, or anyone
else that stood in the way of the ultimate aims of the neocons: a Western-Islamic
"Clash of Civilizations" and iron-fisted U.S. control of Middle
East energy resources.
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- It also appears certain that the Israeli attack on a
alleged Syrian nuclear facility, said to have been built with the
aid of North Korean and Iranian specialists, was designed to scuttle
back channel attempts by Turkey to help negotiate a peace agreement
between Israel and Syria. The Israeli Likud Party and its allies in Washington,
primarily in Cheney's office and at two problematic think tanks in Washington
that act as Likud fronts -- the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and
the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) -- want no part of
an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement of any form of detente.
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- On October 21, Cheney launched a verbal barrage against
Iran and Syria at a meeting of WINEP held at suburban Virginia's exclusive
country club venue, the Landsdowne Conference Center. Cheney's remarks
were hailed by Clinton Middle East envoy and WINEP director, Dennis Ross,
strongly rumored to be a top contender for a major foreign policy slot
in a Hillary Clinton administration.
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- The Israeli spin that Israeli military planes attacked
the Syrian facility via Turkish airspace was a not-so-veiled warning to
Ankara that Israel looked with disfavor the Turkish-Syrian rapprochement.
The Israeli attack on the Syrian "facility" is now being
spun by the neocon media, primarily the Jerusalem Post and ABC News, as
a commando raid supported by an Israeli "mole" inside the Syrian
nuclear establishment. Most of the reports from the neocons about a Syrian
"nuclear facility" are no more believable than the reports of
Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction.
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- http://www.waynemadsenreport.com
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