Posted on 11/25/2001 6:00:24 PM PST by oxi-nato
Turkish news reports said on Friday that loans of the International Monetary Fund IMF the Turkish minister of the economy Kamal Darwish used to say it will arrive Turkey very soon in order to rescue the economy from its drastic recession, appeared to be used to rescue certain Israeli military industry companies instead of supporting the Turkish economy.
The Turkish daily Millet said that it is expected that a sum of USD 700 million of the IMF loans will be transferred to the Israeli manufacturing company " AMA" and this loan will rescue the company from the drastic financial crisis it has been suffering since a long period of time. This facility will be given for an agreement to be signed between the Turkish ministry of defense and the said company in order to renovate 170 tanks used by the Turkish land forces.
The paper explained that if the Israeli company will accept the conditions of the Turkish army chief of staff to reducing bid prices, and allocate part of the production for the Turkish companies, then Turkey and Israel will sign the largest arms deal between them since the beginning of the new Millennium.
why should turkey get any respect?
No offense, but have you been introduced to the Shift key?
It seems clear that a whole lot of Armenians died during WWI. However, the situation is not nearly as simple as the Nazi holocaust against the Jews. For instance, has anybody come up with comparative death rates for Armemian vs. (say) Kurds or Circassians in the areas during this period? It was a time of great suffering for all involved, not just Armenians.
At least some Armenians actively were working against Turkey in support of their enemy Russia. Some Armenians were terrorists by today's definitions.
The Ottoman Empire of the time was not well enough organized to commit truly efficient genocide (or do much of anything else that required organization). Much of the killing of Armenians was free-lance banditry and raiding, in the ancient nomadic tradition. Much, if not most, done by the Kurds, who are now are great friends in opposition to Saqddam.
An "unholy alliance?"Yeah of the Great Satan and his two demons :^D
C'mon guys!
turkey's record is getting the heat my friend and not by my choosing.
wow, 1.5 million in a few years span. you must be anti-christian?
Im sorry but thats not really an excuse. And needless to say, comparing the deaths of Kurds or Circassians will not lower the death toll to Armenians. claiming that "Much of the killing of Armenians was free-lance banditry and raiding" from what research I have read, is not exactly true. The forced Anatolian marches were not banditry and neither were the deportations which began in earnest in 1915. I really have no stake in this debate about IMF funding. Both Israel and Turkey are allies, I myself lived in Ankara for a period of time. But I do fear your walking on genocide apologist ground, and that has always been rather shaky to say the least.
what's more important for the average turk, having a bloated military with the latest weapons [and for what?] or trying to give some jobs for the common folk?
I have no doubt at all that there was an intent among some in the Turkish government in 1915 to wipe out the Armenians. However, I believe that the term "genocide" implies a somewhat more organized and coherent process than the Ottoman Empire of the time was capable of.
I would not object to the term "genocide" if it were not so neatly tied up in the public mind with the "Nazi Holocaust" implication, as if the deaths among Armenians in WWI were morally exactly the same as the deaths among Jews and others in WWII.
BTW, the UN moved "enemy aliens" out of the military zones in WWII, with a great deal less reason than the Turks had to move the Armenians. The Armenians really were supportive of the invading Russians, with quite good reason since they had been oppressed by the Turks for so long. What do you think the Turks should have done when the area they were fighting in was heavily populated by people who were actively supporting the invaders? I'm really interested in your opinion. If you were the general in charge, what would you have done?
At least some of the deaths among the evacuees was due to the logistical incapacity of the Turks to follow through on providing for the needs of the evacuees.
It is an acknowledged fact that millions of people died during these forced mass movements of peoples. Yet there is little call in the West to bring Russia to the bar of justice for these deaths.
Why the differential treatment for the Cossacks, Tatars, etc. as compared with the Armenians? Why no outcry comparable to that against the Turks?
Turkey is on the edge of being overrun by its "frendly" moslem neighbors.But oxi and his orthodox balkan friends would welcome that... Exactly what would make their day. Plenty of orthodox nations have designs on Turkish land. Other than Israel, Georgia, and Azerbaidjan, all our neighbors are trouble!
Actual the Republican Policy Committee of the United States Senate in a 1997 release, found here - http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1997/iran.htm - demonstrates they had stong beliefs of and actual ascertained cases that showed the Bosnian Muslims did indeed carry out some of the worst and most publicized atrocities against their own people as propaganda ploys:
Self-Inflicted AtrocitiesAlmost since the beginning of the Bosnian war in the spring of 1992, there have been persistent reports -- readily found in the European media but little reported in the United States -- that civilian deaths in Muslim-held Sarajevo attributed to the Bosnian Serb Army were in some cases actually inflicted by operatives of the Izetbegovic regime in an (ultimately successful) effort to secure American intervention on Sarajevo's behalf. These allegations include instances of sniping at civilians as well as three major explosions, attributed to Serbian mortar fire, that claimed the lives of dozens of people and, in each case, resulted in the international community's taking measures against the Muslims' Serb enemies. (The three explosions were: (1) the May 27, 1992, "breadline massacre," which was reported to have killed 16 people and which resulted in economic sanctions on the Bosnian Serbs and rump Yugoslavia; (2) the February 5, 1994, Markale "market massacre," killing 68 and resulting in selective NATO air strikes and an ultimatum to the Serbs to withdraw their heavy weapons from the area near Sarajevo; and (3) the August 28, 1995 "second market massacre," killing 37 and resulting in large-scale NATO air strikes, eventually leading to the Dayton agreement and the deployment of IFOR.) When she was asked about such allegations (with respect to the February 1994 explosion) then-U.N. Ambassador and current Secretary of State-designate Madeleine Albright, in a stunning non sequitur, said: "It's very hard to believe any country would do this to their own people, and therefore, although we do not exactly know what the facts are, it would seem to us that the Serbs are the ones that probably have a great deal of responsibility." ["Senior official admits to secret U.N. report on Sarajevo massacre," Deutsch Presse-Agentur, 6/6/96, emphasis added]
The fact that such a contention is difficult to believe does not mean it is not true. Not only did the incidents lead to the result desired by Sarajevo (Western action against the Bosnian Serbs), their staging by the Muslims would be entirely in keeping with the moral outlook of Islamic radicalism, which has long accepted the deaths of innocent (including Muslim) bystanders killed in terrorist actions. According to a noted analyst: "The dictum that the end justifies the means is adopted by all fundamentalist organizations in their strategies for achieving political power and imposing on society their own view of Islam. What is important in every action is its niy'yah, its motive. No means need be spared in the service of Islam as long as one takes action with a pure niy'yah." [Amir Taheri, Holy Terror, Bethesda, MD, 1987] With the evidence that the Sarajevo leadership does in fact have a fundamentalist outlook, it is unwarranted to dismiss cavalierly the possibility of Muslim responsibility. Among some of the reports:
Sniping: "French peacekeeping troops in the United Nations unit trying to curtail Bosnian Serb sniping at civilians in Sarajevo have concluded that until mid-June some gunfire also came from Government soldiers deliberately shooting at their own civilians. After what it called a 'definitive' investigation, a French marine unit that patrols against snipers said it traced sniper fire to a building normally occupied by Bosnian [i.e., Muslim] soldiers and other security forces. A senior French officer said, 'We find it almost impossible to believe, but we are sure that it is true.'" ["Investigation Concludes Bosnian Government Snipers Shot at Civilians," New York Times, 8/1/95]
The 1992 "Breadline Massacre": "United Nations officials and senior Western military officers believe some of the worst killings in Sarajevo, including the massacre of at least 16 people in a bread queue, were carried out by the city's mainly Muslim defenders -- not Serb besiegers -- as a propaganda ploy to win world sympathy and military intervention. . . . Classified reports to the UN force commander, General Satish Nambiar, concluded . . . that Bosnian forces loyal to President Alija Izetbegovic may have detonated a bomb. 'We believe it was a command-detonated explosion, probably in a can,' a UN official said then. 'The large impact which is there now is not necessarily similar or anywhere near as large as we came to expect with a mortar round landing on a paved surface." ["Muslims 'slaughter their own people'," (London) The Independent, 8/22/92] "Our people tell us there were a number of things that didn't fit. The street had been blocked off just before the incident. Once the crowd was let in and had lined up, the media appeared but kept their distance. The attack took place, and the media were immediately on the scene." [Major General Lewis MacKenzie, Peacekeeper: The Road to Sarajevo, Vancouver, BC, 1993, pages 193-4; Gen. MacKenzie, a Canadian, had been commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Sarajevo.]
The 1994 Markale "Market Massacre": "French television reported last night that the United Nations investigation into the market-place bombing in Sarajevo two weeks ago had established beyond doubt that the mortar shell that killed 68 people was fired from inside Bosnian [Muslim] lines." ["UN tracks source of fatal shell," (London) The Times, 2/19/94] "For the first time, a senior U.N. official has admitted the existence of a secret U.N. report that blames the Bosnian Moslems for the February 1994 massacre of Moslems at a Sarajevo market. . . . After studying the crater left by the mortar shell and the distribution of shrapnel, the report concluded that the shell was fired from behind Moslem lines." The report, however, was kept secret; the context of the wire story implies that U.S. Ambasador Albright may have been involved in its suppression. [DPA, 6/6/96] For a fuller discussion of the conflicting claims, see "Anatomy of a massacre," Foreign Policy, 12/22/94, by David Binder; Binder, a veteran New York Times reporter in Yugoslavia, had access to the suppressed report. Bodansky categorically states that the bomb "was actually a special charge designed and built with help from HizbAllah ["Party of God," a Beirut-based pro-Iranian terror group] experts and then most likely dropped from a nearby rooftop onto the crowd of shoppers. Video cameras at the ready recorded this expertly-staged spectacle of gore, while dozens of corpses of Bosnian Muslim troops killed in action (exchanged the day before in a 'body swap' with the Serbs) were paraded in front of cameras to raise the casualty counts." [Offensive in the Balkans, page 62]
The 1995 "Second Market Massacre": "British ammunition experts serving with the United Nations in Sarajevo have challenged key 'evidence' of the Serbian atrocity that triggered the devastating Nato bombing campaign which turned the tide of the Bosnian war." The Britons' analysis was confirmed by French analysts but their findings were "dismissed" by "a senior American officer" at U.N. headquarters in Sarajevo. ["Serbs 'not guilty' of massacre: Experts warned US that mortar was Bosnian," (London) The Times, 10/1/95] A "crucial U.N. report [stating Serb responsibility for] the market massacre is a classified secret, but four specialists -- a Russian, a Canadian and two Americans -- have raised serious doubts about its conclusion, suggesting instead that the mortar was fired not by the Serbs but by Bosnian government forces." A Canadian officer "added that he and fellow Canadian officers in Bosnia were 'convinced that the Muslim government dropped both the February 5, 1994, and the August 28, 1995, mortar shells on the Sarajevo markets.'" An unidentified U.S. official "contends that the available evidence suggests either 'the shell was fired at a very low trajectory, which means a range of a few hundred yards -- therefore under [Sarajevo] government control,' or 'a mortar shell converted into a bomb was dropped from a nearby roof into the crowd.'" ["Bosnia's bombers," The Nation, 10/2/95]. At least some high-ranking French and perhaps other Western officials believed the Muslims responsible; after having received that account from government ministers and two generals, French magazine editor Jean Daniel put the question directly to Prime Minister Edouard Balladur: "'They [i.e., the Muslims] have committed this carnage on their own people?' I exclaimed in consternation. 'Yes,' confirmed the Prime Minister without hesitation, 'but at least they have forced NATO to intervene.'" ["No more lies about Bosnia," Le Nouvel Observateur, 8/31/95, translated in Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, January 1997]
Which neighbors is that?
Turkey is bordered by only three Moslem countries: Iran, Iraq and Syria. Assuming that these three could get together to do so (loud laughter just off-stage), the Turkish Army would have absolutely no trouble kicking their Arab and Persian behinds. Not to mention that they would have to invade thru some of the roughest terrain on earth.
Iraqi, Syrian and Iranian armies are far more used to killing unarmed civilians than they are taking on the Turks, who have always been renowned as tough fighters, even when poorly armed and led, which is probably not the case at the present time.
BTW, in case nobody had noticed, Turkey is a member of NATO, which might also have something to say about a Syrian/Iraqi/Iranian invasion. NATO bylaws require an attack on one member to be considered an attack on all.
that is all turkey has with the u.s., very shallow if you ask me!
whenever the u.s. wants something, turkey will always give in.
and payment for sending some troops to afghanistan, well, they will get more loans soon!
and payment for telling the u.s. to not call it armenian genocide [X42], the u.s. can continue to use its bases to bomb iraq with!
and payment for the u.s. to ignore its human rights abuses, well i dunno about that one, maybe oil pipeline deals!
when was the last time a u.s. president just visited turkey, no strings attached?
osce meeting in constantinople a few years back was a scheduled meeting among members!
a quick point, when did yugoslavia attack italy or greece?
in other words nato is a criminal organization that cannot even respect its own treaty, nato credibility is questionable!
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