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ImiaReader comment on item: Kastelorizo - Mediterranean Flashpoint? Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Feb 17, 2012 at 15:28 Dr. Pipes wrote : > In addition, Ankara has long denied Cyprus its EEZ, so doing the same vis-à-vis Kastelorizo builds on an established policy. Indeed, the Turks' brutal, napalm-assisted 1974 conquest of the northern 36 percent of Cyprus set a precedent for seizing nearby island territory. Grabbing Kastelorizo would require about as much time as reading this article.< Let's note that the napalm the Turks were burning Greek villagers with was made in the US like most weapons the Turks had and their use was authorized by the US. Turkey had been ready to grab Cyprus as early as 1965 but all of its invasion troops and US-made arsenals remained idle due to a single letter signed by President Johnson. In 1974 the Turkish militarists received a different letter from Washington and they acted immediately and under the protective shield of the 6th US Fleet at that. Now I agree that perhaps the actual act of grabbing Kastelorizo may take as much time as is needed to read Dr. Pipes' article. But setting the stage and organizing the incidents that will lead to it is much more time-consuming and painstaking. But the Turks are methodical and have got powerful friends and allies in the right places. As Sibel Edmonds has shown in her excellent article and elsewhere the Turks have practically bought the key political and military figures in the US and even infiltrated such institutions as the FBI. The system of Turkish bribes works as follows : " former (US) statesmen and 'dime a dozen generals' cash in on their connections and peddle their enormous influence to the highest bidders turned clients.These groups' activities shape our nation's policies and determine the direction of the flow of its taxpayer driven wealth, while to them the interests of the majority are considered irrelevant... certain foreign interests, combined with their U.S. agents and benefactors, override the interests and security of the entire nation. This illustrative model ... involve(s) three major elements: the purchasing of a few 'dime a dozen generals,' bidding high in the auctioning of 'former statesmen,' and buying one or two ex-congressmen turned lobbyists. In addition ... the "Military Industrial Complex (MIC),"... (becomes) a de facto 'foreign agent' by the universally recognized principle of 'mutual benefit." To see how effective this system of buying American politicians to achieve Turkish political and economic goals is, let's note that the present Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton received quite officially $ 105 000 from a notorious Turkish businessman and high-level official of the Chicago-based Turkish American Cultural Association and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations Mehmet Celebi for her 2008 presidential campaign. This connection proved very embarrassing for her as her Turkish sponsor was the producer of the rabidly anti-American and anti-Semitic, yet extremely popular, movie "The valley of the wolves". The embarrassment must have been compounded when it became clear that back at home the Celebi family was involved in big arms and drugs dealings. A fuller list of US politicians on direct Turkish payroll or otherwise connected with Turkish lobby is published by the Turkish Coalition of America that predicts that "there will be a Turkish American in the US Congress in five years." Now bearing this background in mind we can imagine what happens when the Turkish militarists decide to use a few spare minutes to grab Kastelorizo and then to depict themselves as "defenceless victims" of Greek aggression and denigration. There is at least one recent historical precedent that comes to my mind. At the turn of 1995-1996 an illuminating incident took place in the Aegean Sea.It revolved around a tiny rocky Greek island called Imia which lies between the Dodecanese and Halicarnassus. Severl major strategc issues are connected with those uninhabited islets as Turkey in her neo-Ottoman frenzy is striving to grab most of the Aegean for herself. On 25th Decemeber the Turks organized the following incident. A Turkish cargo ship ran purposefully aground there and refused to be salvaged by a Greek ship back to Turkey as the captain declared he was on Turkish territory and could be salvaged only by a Turkish ship.The dispute widened immediately as the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs jumped in to defend the Turkish "rights". After a while a group of Turkish "journalists" was flown in a military helicopter onto the islet to raise the Turkish flag and the "journalists" were followed by Turkish special forces that embarked upon the islet and raised again a Turkish flag that had been dismantled by the Greeks and so made the Turkish claims to this "Turkish" territory "valid". In the meantime the Greek and Turkish navies and air forces were mobilized and moved to the front. A Greek helicopter crashed, most probably hit a Turkish missile killing three Greek soldiers but the Greeks couldn't respond symmetrically.The US intervened. Richard Holbrooke told (by phone) the two NATO "allies" to keep quiet, allowing the Turks to continue to consider Imia as Turkish territory together with a number of other Aegean islands and wait for a better opportunity to validate their claims. Turning to Kastelorizo now I surmise the same or something very similar will happen the moment the Turks feel the person on their payroll will make the decisive phone call to Athens and will give the Greeks the instructions to evacuate their island. So the scenario may look as follows. First, the Turk will organize an incident with a ship or a plane or whatever, afterwards he will let it develop into a major crisis and then through bribed US officials like Hillary Clinton he will make the Greeks abandon their territory on behalf of Turkey for fear of US intervention in favor of the aggressor. The lesson of 1974 in Cyprus where Ioannidis was told by Kissinger - also by phone - to remain inactive and call off all military jets ready to fly to Cyprus while the Turks were bombing the island with napalm as well as the consistent pro-Islamic US policy are clear enough signs of what is going to happen. And I am afraid that not even the IDF will be able to help Greece if the barbarian Turkish blackmailer and provocateur is reinforced by US/NATO bullying through people that are on his payroll. Submitting....
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