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Washington and the Turkish octopus thereReader comment on item: Kastelorizo - Mediterranean Flashpoint? Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Feb 25, 2012 at 11:09 myth wrote : >I read about Kastelorizo here first. I find it hard to understand that Greece has not yet asked the EU for support on the matter while negotiating with the EU. A shame the EU has not offered it.< What can the EU - an empire without an army, a giant with feet of clay - offer ? Just words! When in January 1996 the Imia crisis erupted, on the 15th of February the European Parliament adopted a resolution "On the provocative actions and contestation of sovereign rights by Turkey against a Member State of the Union" where it is said clearly what the EU really can do on such occasions, namely "deplore","stress", "call for compliance" and "instruct" and explicitly admit "the failure of the European Union and its member States in this crisis" : [ " The European Parliament A. having regard to Turkey's provocative military operations in relation to the isle of Imia in the Eastern Aegean ...... C. having regard to Turkey's official statements making territorial claims and contesting the sovereign rights of an EU Member State, D. whereas the islet of Imia belongs to the Dodecanese group of islands, on the basis of the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, the Protocol between Italy and Turkey of 1932 and the Paris Treaty of 1947, and whereas even on Turkish maps from the 1960s, these islets are shown as Greek territory, E. whereas this action by Turkey forms part of a broader policy of questioning the status quo in the Aegean, 1. Gravely concerned by the dangerous violation by Turkey of sovereign rights of Greece, a Member State of the European Union and by the build-up of military tension in the Aegean; 2. Deplores the fact that Greece and Turkey appeared to be on the brink of hostilities and calls for an immediate stop to all actions which endanger peace and stability in this area; 3. Stresses that Greece's borders are also part of the external borders of the European Union; 4. Calls for compliance by Turkey with international treaties, and in particular the OSCE, which insists that all disputes be settled by peaceful means in accordance with international law; 5. Deplores the failure of the European Union and its Member States in this crisis, to take effective action within the framework of the common foreign and security policy; 7. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Government of Turkey, the Parliament of Greece and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. "] At that time the crisis was ended not by an impotent and belated resolution of an impotent entity that "deplores", "stresses","calls for compliance", "instructs" and admits its own failure but by a blunt and brutal phrase by Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke "Whoever shoots first will have big problems with Washington!!!" The shameful thing about this brusque denouement after a 48 hour-long confrontation around Imia is that it actually solved nothing but simply put off the real issue until later. Bullying and threatening America humiliated the victim and didn't punish the provocateur and aggressor. Greece had to remove its flag from its own, internationally recognized territory while the Turks despite breaking international law went unscathed. Instead of being punished for starting the row they continue to call the Greek territory a "disputed grey zone" and are waiting for a better occasion to try their luck again. What happened corresponds roughly the pattern of events in the wake of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 which makes the suspicion that also on this occasion the US supported the Moslem aggressor fairly obvious. Now the opportunity for Turkey to strike again will come when enough politicians in Washington (where - to paraphrase Bismarck's saying - the map of the world is spread ) are bought by Turkey and people already bribed to work for Turkey and when the final message to the Greek and Turkish forces deployed around Kastelorizo, Imia or Gavdos is going to change to be "Whoever shoots at our staunch Turkish allies will have big problems with Washington !!!". It goes without saying that in Washington it is not not only Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that has accepted dirty money from the Turks to boost her career. The most potent and effective tool Turkey uses to corrupt and bias America is the American Turkish Council (ATC) which came to the public attention when its long standing dirty dealings with senior US officials, business people and top military and cultural elites were suddenly revealed by whistle blower Sibel Edmonds and her colleagues. Needles to say, all were in due course gagged, hushed up and played down by the US government. Especially refined methods were used to silence Sibel Edmonds who had too much first hand knowledge on what was going on between the ATC and the US power elite . The best analytical description of the ATC I know of is as follows : "While the ATC is an Association in name and in charter, the reality is that it and other affiliated Associations are the US government. Theirs is the voice that matters and is the one that is heard on television and radio networks through the mouths of news-readers, senators, congressmen, presidents and military leaders. It is in and through such Associations that US political, economic and military policy is made and the American public subsequently 'educated' to support policies that are not, and could not, be debated in public because of their illegality, audacity, complexity and, arguably, necessity." Stanton likens the ATC to the "game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon [which] is based on the premise that the famed actor Kevin Bacon is the center of the entertainment universe and that any actor or actress can be linked back to him within six degrees. Replace Kevin Bacon," Stanton says, "with ATC leaders and/or members, and you are sure to find that any corporation, military leader, government official, former politician, and even actor can be linked back to the ATC within six degrees. The ATC is an extraordinary group of elite and interconnected group of Republicans, Democrats and corporate/military heavyweights who are spearheading one of the most ambitious strategic gambits in US history... In fact, he continues, in "2004 the ATC was led by Bush family insider LTG Brent Scowcroft , USAF (Ret.) who served as Chairman of the Board. George Perlman of Lockheed Martin was the Executive Vice President and Marise Stewart of Textron the Vice President. Executives from every major US and Turkish corporation are members. Among them are Mars (candy),Coca Cola , Atlantic Records, Shell Oil, ExxonMobil ,Pfizer ,General Dynamics Northrop Grumman, Hyatt and Phillip Morris. Dozens of retired US Flag officers, ex-ambassadors and representatives sit on the ATC Board of Directors...Counted amongst ATC's hundreds of members are think-tanks "like the Eisenhower Institute, CSIS, Brookings Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute. Among member universities are "Georgetown University, the University of Washington and the University of Chicago." Other members include "the Livingston Group (Bob Livingston, ex-Congressman), the Cohen Group (William S. Cohen ex-SECDEF) and ex-Congressman Stephen Solarz. All three are paid big-bucks by the Turkish interests to work on their behalf in the halls of the US Congress and the Pentagon". It's worth bearing that in mind whenever we hear of incessant Turkish provocations, territorial claims, "freedom flotillas", threats, aggressions, bullying, genocide denials,Turkish inroads into Northern Iraq,persecutions of Kurds by the Turkish army and police, Turkish drug and human trafficking, and other criminal activities and yet nothing happens to bring the culprit to account. Washington falls adamantly silent while the EU issues resolutions that "deplore, stress, call for compliance and instruct" which are hardly worth the price of the paper upon which they are written. The secret is simple enough. Too many important people in Washington where the real power is concentrated are interested in the uninterrupted flow of Turkish cash to their own bank accounts and those of the corporations and lobbying groups they represent to really bother about such antiquated things as justice,international law or decency. That they are also very interested in using Moslem Turkey as their battering ram and/or Trojan horse to re-shape Eurasia according to their new global US strategy as described in Brzezinski's "Grand Chessboard" is also obvious enough. The temporary benefit seems to be mutual. Turkey is allowed to play her favorite historical role of a thug in the region and to be secure from retaliation she pays protection money to the world policeman while the world policeman is happy to have things done to achieve his strategic goals and promote his interest through the Turkish thug. >Greece enjoys a quasi-colony-status now.< All smaller EU member-states enjoy that status too. The EU is after all nothing but a corrupt hyper-bureaucratic autocracy. The bigger EU members enjoy roughly the same status in relation to a bigger empire. > In return the EU, that is mainly us the Germans and France, should offer substantial protection.Greece itself is forced to cut budgets, including the defence budget.< I am afraid that, like its US model, Germany is more interested in selling to Turkey its military and other industrial equipments and products and in appeasing the numerous Turkish Fifth Column on her own soil than in defending a victim of Turkish jihad. And France with its aggressive Moslem minority will rather think twice before it openly sides with a Christian country against a Moslem aggressor who enjoys full support by the US at that. Submitting....
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