Aegean Disclosure

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Turkish Invasion, A Musical Style That Never Caught On*
*(courtesy of Mcsweeney's)

Our tightrope walk with respect to the Turkoman in Iraq has been executed with the agility of a mule. Those in the military and elsewhere who are connecting the words "civil war" with Iraq (the unsaid words being "we will help the Turkoman"), are probably crazy enough to want a rerun of Cyprus. Thankfully, most people realize thats beyond the boundaries of acceptable action. Kurdish media has an article on the Turkoman Front, which is one out of a few Turkoman political organizations, but also the one that is supported by Turkey:

The Turkoman Front, TF, which should be more appropriately called the Turkish Front behind a Turkoman Façade, has damaged the rightful, lawful and just demands of the Turkoman people.

Since its inception, the TF has been unwavering in its crusade and direction of its energy, time and money, which is to drive a wedge between the Turkoman and the Kurdish people.

Its political objectives, periodicals, newspapers and internet sites have two main and well thought out aims, the first is to spread lies about the Kurds and the second is to provoke the Kurds into taking some sort of retaliatory action in order to get the big brother behind the scene into executing plan A, which is to send in Turkish troops.

What is striking however, is that the TF’s Arabic internet news site has attracted a number of Arab and Turkoman writers who seem to share a passion, of complete dislike and disdain of anything Kurdish. In fact, their usual anti-Kurdish diatribe and harangue, such as the Kurds are nothing but peasants, Kurdish language is only a mixture of languages, to cite but a few of the content of TF’s net news writers, is a true and accurate excerpt taken from pages of Turkish academia of humanities, which for years published thesis and awarded doctorates on topics such as the Turkish origin of Kurds and the non-existence of Kurds as a race and language. These can be easily constituted as racist materials which incite hatred and violence, which anywhere else other than Turkey is punishable by the law.

If this is true, its pretty damning. There is also evidence that there is falsified material that is trying to be channeled to the outside world from Iraq. Just today, Milliyet reported that the US ambassador thanked the newspaper for not publishing photos that claimed to be pictures of bodies of massacred Turkoman civilians. The photos, he said, were actually old pictures of the 12 murdered Nepalis.

The Turkish Torque says:

"Next month there’ll be population survey in Kerkuk in preparation for the Iraqi elections in January. The news stories suggest that the Kurdish administration in the North is bringing Kurds by the busloads into Kerkuk and quartering them in tents on the outskirts of the city. Kurds claim they are just “Kurdish refugees going back home.” Even the American sources took notice of this sudden swell in the Kurdish population in Kerkuk, a city that had a Turcoman majority for centuries. Turks are upset that the U.S. commanders in charge are not doing anything to stop this attempt to change Kerkuk’s population composition."

I doubt the majority Turcoman claim, and noticeably the Tork does not cite his sources. The idea that the US commanders should stop immigration into Kerkuk is rather ridiculous, because what information are they going to use to determine whether or not someone has the right to reside in Kerkuk? Certainly, a blanket policy that turns back everyone who tries to enter is not acceptable. How about until the population survey is complete? Maybe. But how many Kurds immigrate to Kerkuk is beside the point, as long as the Turcoman that are already there aren't kicked out of their houses. The point is to protect the rights of the Turcoman regardless of the population composition. This obsession with population percentages provides, at best, a shortcut to hell.