BUTCHERS OF BUSHLAND: IS THE PRICE WORTH IT?
By Luciana Bohne
Online Journal, FL
Oct 16 2006
There is no longer any doubt that Bush’s policy in Iraq is facilitating
genocide. The recent Lancet study makes that very clear.
Bush’s unprovoked attack on Iraq was a premeditated and documentable
conspiracy to subvert the peace — a crime for which the Nazi
elites were hanged. The war crimes Nuremberg Tribunal, Protocol,
and Principles would have no qualms calling the invasion of Iraq “the
supreme crime,” a crime from which all other war crimes have derived,
including genocide.
The war against Iraq was, as far as international law is concerned,
the mother of all crimes. It violated the Constitution two, three times
over, starting with violating the UN Charter, which is the “supreme
law of [our] land,” according to the Constitution, and encompasses
the principles of the Nuremberg Judgment. The occupation violated the
Geneva Conventions against mistreatment of prisoners. It violated
the Geneva and Hague Conventions on the occupier’s obligations 1)
by failing to provide Iraqis with security and basic services,
while at the same time disbanding the Iraqi army, 2) by failing to
safeguard the sites of their national patrimony (National Library,
museums, etc), 3) by attempting to sell off Iraqi assets, banks,
services to foreign bidders 4) by altering Iraq’s tax laws without
representation (Bremer’s “Orders”). Now comes evidence of national
dying on a genocidal scale from the Lancet study.
We live in a grotesque rogue state. Its disregard for law and human
life endangers the planet, yet the larger the crime grows the less
we are able to fathom it. A terrible numbness envelops us. We are
becoming one of “them” — the freaks at the helm. Or, are we hoping
that “elections” will deliver us from evil? We have to realize,
sooner rather than later, that the only thing that stands between
the horror and their victims is our willingness to oppose it. This
empire thing will not stop by electing the Democrats: they
have never opposed this war. They will send more troops; they will
expend more funds; they will tell more lies.
Unless they start to fear us.
We say we “support the troops.” Do we know what that means?
It means supporting the death and injury not only of nearly 3,000
US troops and 20,000 casualties but also the death of over 650,000
Iraqis, the detention, torture, and disappearance of an unknown number
of others, and the projected partition of the country.
It means supporting genocide by denying it. Five hundred Iraqis
per day have been dying since 19 March 2003, when Bush decided to
despoil, rape, plunder, poison, bomb, torture and steal Iraq from
Iraqis because they were oppressed by Saddam Hussein.
It means supporting George Bush, the humanoid predator in the White
House, who sneered at the Lancet’s study, referring to the results as
“whatever they guessed at” — and that was just before he added as an
afterthought that the “innocent” death of Iraqis concerned him greatly.
It means supporting the US bullets that directly killed about 150,000
Iraqi men, women, and children, or 31 percent of the Lancet’s total
estimated deaths. The Lancet study, based on cluster sampling, used
the standard methodology employed to estimate mortality in cases of
conflict and disasters.
Bush’s Operation Iraqi Freedom has liberated Iraq of 2.5 percent
of its population in three years. Is the world better off without
Saddam? I wouldn’t ask an Iraqi that question!
France has just passed a bill in the lower chamber, proposing to
make it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide of 1.5 million people
by the Turkish government in WWW I. The war in Iraq is half way to
that number, and the warmongers are saying they won’t pull out until
2010 or 2011 (though I wouldn’t hold my breath; the US has 60 nuclear
warheads in bases in South Korea, half a century after that war,
and a similar number on Italian bases; it never “leaves”). If one
adds 1.5 million Iraqis killed by the US sanction regime (1990-2003)
and now over half a million killed as a result of the US occupation
regime we’re way over the number of people who died in the Armenian
holocaust — and the fat lady has not sung yet!
It means supporting more than 50 percent unemployment and 100 percent
anarchy in crucial parts of Iraq.
It means war crimes such as the destruction of cities such as Falluja,
Ramadi, Tel-afar and others.
It means one Iraqi child in four suffering from malnutrition.
It means a cost of $500 billion for the US wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq thus far while US citizens have scant defenses against natural
disasters and catastrophic illness.
It means no end in sight.
It is time we ask the butchers in the White House a question the poet
W.H. Auden asked in verse about another war: “To save your world
you asked this man to die:/Would this man, could he see you now,
ask why?” (Epitaph for an Unknown Soldier)
Luciana Bohne teaches film and literature at Edinboro University of
Pennsylvania. She can be reached at [email protected].
man/publish/article_1317.shtml

LE GRAND SHUSH
Cleveland Plain Dealer, OH
Oct 16 2006
Here’s a hint to French lawmakers, who just leaped into the realm
of stupidity and excess by voting 106-19 last week on a bill that
would make questioning a 90-year-old atrocity a crime: It’s exactly
the wrong message to send Turkey, which continues to deny its own
history in the 1915-1920 massacres of more than a million Armenians.
What should be encouraged is dialogue, openness and a reliance on
facts, not emotions. Those in France who hope to torpedo Turkey’s
application to the European Union with this nasty ploy should be
ashamed. Especially so, given the timing of the vote Thursday that
served to cheapen that day’s announcement that outspoken Turkish
novelist Orhan Pamuk had won the Nobel Prize in literature.
Pamuk is at the leading edge of a Turkish society struggling to break
free of old attitudes and prejudices through a real national dialogue
and give-and-take with Armenian scholars over the truth of those
long-ago atrocities amid the Ottoman Empire’s disintegration. That’s a
process worth supporting, not this suffocation of intellectual honesty.

ORHAN SPOKE FALSELY
Sabah, Turkey
Oct 16 2006
Nobel winner Orhan Pamuk’s mother, ªekure Basman, has commented on
her son’s controversial words after 1.5 years: “He spoke falsely.”
Orhan Pamuk’s mother, ªekure Basman, has commented on Pamuk’s words;
“1 million Armenian and 30,000 Kurds were killed.” ªekure Basman
said: “Orhan spoke falsely to a small European Newspaper. However,
the Turkish press exaggerated his false statement. The government
tried to cover it up, but the press scooped it up.”
“My son said false things”
Orhan Pamuk’s mother has commented on her son’s words regarding the
death of 1 million Armenians on Turkish land: “Orhan spoke falsely.”
ªekure Basman has given an interview to SABAH Newspaper, as the mother
of the first Turk to have ever received a Nobel Prize. ªekure Basman
said: “I am very happy for my son but when I heard he won a Nobel
Prize, I thought ‘God knows what they will write about him this
time…’. Orhan probably knew false things about history. I don’t
think he has much information about the subject. No one teaches these
things in school. I myself have no idea about this issue. Orhan spoke
falsely to a reporter from a small Swedish newspaper. However, the
Turkish press overexaggerated his statements. Although the government
tried to cover it up, the Turkish press scooped it up and took great
pleasure from doing so. I think it is the press we should blame.”
–Boundary_(ID_itDUNMj1Lf9nTfI6AhtXn g)–

ROJ TV SHINE
By Kameel Ahmady
KurdishMedia, UK
Oct 16 2006
Recent political events along with turkeys negotiation and arms dealing
with US in relation to the “War on Terror” brought ROJTV (SUN-TV) once
again under pressure from turkey. While Turkey did not move forward
on its promises to EU in relation with improving human rights and
freedom of press it’s also rejected the offered unilateral ceasefire.
Now the Turkish Government has start it blocking viewers in some
parts of Turkey’s Kurdistan from watching the Kurdish television
station, ROJ TV and it continues to block signals in more areas main
land turkey. Such move represents another grave potential threat to
freedom speech and to expression of ethnic minority and identity in
Turkey and the world of free media.
Turkey has long campaigned to close down ROJ TV within EU and has
applied pressure on Demark, by whom the TV is licensed up to a point
that brought shame upon the Turkish Government when Danish PM Rasmussen
lectured Turkish PM Erdogan on press freedom after he failed to attend
a press conference in Copenhagen because ROJTV’s journalist was due
to attuned, saying that “Turkey has to realise that there are some
very specific conditions that need to be fulfilled if Turkey wants
to become an EU member one day, and one of them is respecting freedom
of press and freedom of expression.”
There is been further embarrassment for turkey this week when Orhan
Pamuk, Turkey’s best-known novelist, who faced trial this year for
insulting his country, won the 2006 Nobel prize for literature from a
Swedish Academy, and add on to the pain and Turkey’s fury, the French
lower house of parliament approved a bill making it a crime to deny
the Armenian genocide. Pamuk was tried for insulting “Turkishness”
after telling a Swiss paper last year that one million Armenians had
died in Turkey during World War One and 30 000 Kurds had perished in
recent decades.
Such development can be seen as a test case for freedom of speech
in Turkey, but in another front turkey continues to ignore the basic
rights of the kurdish people and their rights of access to free media
and try to justify all actions as “war on Terror” While turkey’s
state terrorism in Kurdistan continues.
ROJTV for Kurds in Kurdistan and exile is not viewed as only news
source, for them the TV represent home and one free big family. The
same time as a forum for the expression of ideas about Kurdish
identity as well as a means to voice political debates and discussion,
its represents platforms for Kurdish movement, something that turkey
dose not allow the Kurds to practice in turkey. Such restrictions on
ROJTV will make many thousand homeless in Kurdistan, those who has
no voice of theirs in Kurdistan. ROJ has brought sense of identity
and belongings to Kurds and some may wonder how and why the free
world should turn a blind eye to very principle that they protect
and respect or their own citizens.
ROJTV has also played an important role in empowering younger
generations of Kurds throughout of the Diaspora and homeland, keeping
them in touch with each other and with their unique heritage. It has
supported the career development of many successful artists, musicians
and film-makers, and renewed a sense of pride in the contributions
of the Kurds to many world cultures around the world.
It provides them with positive role models and a means of education
regarding the positions and activities, to say nothing of keeping
people abreast of events in the Middle East.
Further, ROJTV has provided a means of contact and a voice for
those Kurds in places like Syria and the former Soviet Union as
well as Iranian and Iraqi Kurdistan, who would not otherwise have
any connection to Kurds in other regions, due to the isolation and
repression they suffer in their home communities. It is a sole means
of informing people about events taking place across borders, not
only the Kurds but those who participate in their struggle, and in
the general struggle for peaceful solutions to the issues facing the
Middle East generally.
The threat ROJTV is face with by looking at recent political climates
and significant damage to formation of identify and image and
meaning of freedom of media also by drawing a parallel between the
opportunities and constraints of human mobility and border controls
with those on political ideas but freedom of expression in the 21st
century’s world of digital media which dose not recognise border
controls and scope of a satellite broadcast, which cant be restricts
a specific geographical area, and that’s here Amir Hassanpour’s quote
nicely applies that “Kurdish TV gave sovereignty to the Kurds in the
sky” . So giving such factors, the Kurds and the free loving world
can say to Turkey that: your threat to block the Kurdish TV once
again would be a failure.
No matter how dark the night is, ROJ always starts shining the next day
Kameel Ahmady maintains a website at:

CHIRAC SAYS SORRY TO TURKEY FOR ARMENIAN BILL
Stuff.co.nz, New Zealand
Oct 16 2006
ANKARA: French leader Jacques Chirac has told Turkish Prime Minister
Tayyip Erdogan he is sorry French lawmakers approved a bill making
it a crime to deny Armenians were victims of genocide at the hands
of Ottoman Turks.
“Chirac called me and told me he was sorry and he said that he is
listening to our statements and he thinks we are right and he will
do what he can in the upcoming process,” he told his AK Party, in
broadcast comments, during a dinner on Saturday (local time).
France is home to Europe’s largest Armenian diaspora.
Turkey denies any genocide, saying the Armenians were victims of
a partisan war that also claimed many Muslim Turkish lives. Turkey
accuses Armenians of carrying out massacres while siding with invading
Russian troops during World War 1.
The French president’s office did not comment when contacted about
Chirac’s call to Erdogan on Saturday morning.
Erdogan, facing a rise in nationalism ahead of next year’s
parliamentary elections, warned on Friday that Ankara was considering
retaliatory measures against France.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul repeated the government’s call for
France to scrap the bill, which has complicated Turkey’s European
Union accession bid.
AdvertisementAdvertisement”We are worried. Turkish-French relations
have been very deeply wounded. I hope that French politicians and
statesmen will see this and will take the necessary measure to prevent
further damage to France’s credibility,” Gul told reporters.
FEAR BACKLASH
French businesses fear the bill will have repercussions for their
business in Turkey, a fast-growing market which imported 4.7 billion
euros’ worth of French goods in 2005.
About 100 people protested outside the French consulate in Istanbul
on Sunday, throwing eggs at the building.
Immediately after Thursday’s vote, the French Foreign Ministry said
it did not support the lower house bill, calling it “unnecessary and
untimely” and indicating it might never become law as it still needed
to be ratified by both the upper house Senate and French president.
France is believed to be home to the largest Armenian immigrant
community in western Europe, with up to half a million people of
Armenian descent living there.
They make up a powerful political lobby which cannot be overlooked
just seven months ahead of a presidential election.
However, some Turks think French politicians have a broader agenda
and are using the bill to try to block Ankara’s EU bid.
Chirac and the two leading candidates to replace him in polls due
next May – Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal – all say Ankara must
accept the genocide before joining the bloc.
The European Commission has said that recognition of the genocide
was not a precondition for Turkey entering the EU.

CHIRAC REGRETS BILL
7DAYS, United Arab Emirates
Oct 16 2006
French President Jacques Chirac expressed his regret to Turkey’s prime
minister over a French bill that insists the World War I massacres
of Armenians were genocide, Turkish media reported yesterday. “Mr
Chirac expressed to me this morning (Saturday) his regrets” and said
he understood the fierce reaction in Turkey to Thursday’s approval
of the bill by France’s lower house, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.
The bill, launched by MPs of France’s opposition Socialist party but
opposed by Chirac’s government, would make it an offence punishable
by jail to deny that the massacres carried out under Ottoman rule
constituted genocide. Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their people
were slaughtered, but Turkey rejects the use of the term “genocide”,
saying some 300,000 Armenians died when the Ottoman Empire fell apart,
but at least as many Turks did too.
Speaking in Erdine, northwestern Turkey, Erdogan said Chirac had
promised to “do everything he could in the following process”
of readings through which the bill must pass before becoming law
in France.
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AZERI RESEARCHER REVEALS NEW EVIDENCE CONDEMNING CHIRAC
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Oct 17 2006
The French National Assembly’s approval on Thursday of a bill that
envisions prosecution for denying the “genocide of Armenians” that
allegedly happened in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 is related to certain
historical developments, an Azeri analyst told a news conference
on Friday.
The National Academy of Sciences Human Rights Institute director,
Rovshan Mustafayev, cited facts derived exclusively from foreign
sources to back up his statement, saying that in 1982, the French
government signed a cooperation agreement with Armenian terror
organization ASALA.
“The document envisioned mutual assistance and jointly striving for
the recognition of the fake genocide of Armenians on the international
scale.”
Mustafayev said the adoption of the unfair bill was largely influenced
both by French President Jacques Chirac and MP of Armenian descent,
Patrick Davachian, who prepared the bill.
“Davachian is a lawyer for Jacques Chirac’s family and most of their
secrets have been confided in him. Therefore, it was under Davachian’s
influence that Chirac supported the measure. Moreover, Armenians are
now saying that Chirac’s last name is actually of Armenian descent,”
the Institute director said.
Mustafayev presented at the news conference excerpts from Washington
Post, Armenian Reporter and Le Monde newspapers as well as copies of
the minutes from the US Senate hearings providing his findings.
The researcher added that by passing the “genocide” bill, the French
parliament violated a provision of the European Convention on Human
Rights.

THE KURDISH PEN CENTRE CONGRATULATES THE TURKISH WRITER ORHAN PAMUK
Kurdish Media, UK
Oct 17 2006
The Kurdish PEN Centre congratulates the Turkish Writer Orhan Pamuk
with his Nobel Prize Award for Literature
Bremen, Homburg and Cologne (Germany) and London (UK)
15th October, 2006
The Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk draws cultures together and underlines
their humane foundation. Therefore, the Kurdish PEN Centre welcomes
the Nobel Committee decision of 2006 for awarding him for his literary
works. We are especially delighted to state that several works of
Orhan Pamuk have been translated into Kurdish becoming available to
Kurdish readers.
Obviously Orhan Pamuk’s daring to portrait the life of Turks, Kurds
and Armenians is en evidence of the Turkish intellectuals’ readiness
to help their people to overcome fear and misunderstandings. The
Kurdish PEN Centre is certain that Orhan Pamuk’s Nobel Prize award
will contribute to a better attention world-wide to the Near Eastern
literatures, cultures and popular hopes. In this case the name and
fame of Orhan Pamuk will strengthen the high principles of Peace,
Democracy, Equality and Freedom of Opinion.
The Kurdish PEN Centre
The Kurdish Centre of INTERNATIONAL P E N – A World Association of
Writers NAVENDA PEN A KURD Kurdisches PEN – Zentrum e.V.

“UNITED JAVAKHK” FACTION CHAIRMANSHIP MEMBER ARRESTED
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Oct 16 2006
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 16, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Vahagn Chakhalian,
a member of the “United Javakhk” (“Miasnakan Javakhk”) democratic
faction chairmanship was arrested on October 11 by employees of the
RA National Security Service. “United Javakhk” informed about it in
the October 13 statement. Presenting themselves as police employees,
they invited V.Chakhalian to the police department as a victim,
but take him to the Special Security Service isolator.
As it is mentioned in the statement, V.Chakhalian was presented
“accusation for illegally crossing the RA state border.” Based on the
accusation mentioned on October 13, the Court of First Instance of
the Kentron and Nork-Marash communities of Yerevan made a decision
to use arrest as a prevention mean towards V.Chakhalian.
“Especially the circumstance causes indignation that instead of
examining and revealing dangerous criminals committed the act of
violence against V.Chakhalian, subjected to hooligan attack and got
serious bodily injuries, the latter’s family as well as faction
member Gurgen Shirinian, the victim is being pursued with false
accusations. The mentioned circumstance obviously proves presence of
direct tie between the act of violence committed against V.Chakhalian
and arrest followed it and some forces’ order,” the statement authors
mention.
“United Javakhk” is anxious that future events may bring to dangerious
and unforeseen developments. “Vahagn’s absence and the successive
attempts to liguidate the faction with firm means strike heavy blows
to the present system securing stability in Javakhk, in which “United
Javakhk” has a decisive role owing to the population’s all-embracing
assistance,” is said in the statement.
“Famous margin forces and criminal clans strive for keeping monopoly
of presenting himself on behalf of Armenians of Javakhk and with
their not responsible actions they create serious threat for the
regional stablity,” faction members mention, expressing hope that
all the interested forces, particularly, the authorities of Armenia
“will foster more clever attitude towards the mentioned forces’
activity which may bring to destroying the regional stablity system
and most seriously damage the Armenian-Georgian interstate relations.”

DECLINE IN ARMENIA’S EXPORT IS A RESULT OF DEVELOPMENTS ON INTERNATIONAL MARKETS, RA MINISTER OF TRADE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SAYS
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Oct 16 2006
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 16, NOYAN TAPAN. According to the RA Minister of
Trade and Economic Development Karen Chshmaritian, a 3.6% deline in
export in January-August 2006 on the same months of last year happened
as a result of the fact that the Armenian economy integrated into
international markets, and the developments taking place in those
markets affect Armenia’s export. The minister stated this during
hearings on the dram’s appreciation in the RA National Assembly on
October 16.
According to him, during the indicated period, the prices of
feromolybdenum, one of export products, declined by 60-65% on
international stock exchanges. Export of alcoholic drinks from Armenia
to Russia decreased by 13% as a result of some imperfect amendments
made to the RF legislation about circulation of such drinks. The
decline in jewelry export is also related to some continuous declines
on the international market.
The minister explained the 20% import growth in January-August 2006
on the same months of 2005 by an increase in equipment and technology
import.