No Corner On Surges
It's not just the size of this funeral ceremony in Trabzon, in northeastern Turkey, for a private who was killed fighting Kurdish rebels. (Similar protest are taking place across the country.) It's how the scale of the demonstration mirrors the extent of the fighting going on in Northern Iraq right now.
The Turkish incursion, five days old and three miles deep, involves 10,000 troops, with active bombing support from Turkish fighter jets.
But then, what of it? When it comes to Iraq, the American frame of reference these days fails to extend beyond: "the surge is working."
Turkey Resists Pressure to Wind Up Iraq Operation (Bloomberg)
(image: Tekin Atay/AP. Feb. 24, 2008. Trabzon, Northeastern Turkey. via YahooNews)
And this is what MSNBC quoted from one Robert Gates:
"U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday Turkey's campaign would not solve its problems with the rebels and urged Ankara to take political and economic steps to isolate the PKK."
Posted by: Rafael | Feb 26, 2008 at 04:34 AM
as usual Juan Cole informs @ http://www.juancole.com
Unlike corporate US media, Aljazeera English is actually covering the Turkish-Kurdish issue and this clip includes interviews with politicians in Ankara and Irbil at the same time. Since it is all in English, you can't argue that the US news networks could not do the same thing if they cared to. It is sort of a racist practice in much of US corporate media that foreigners are almost never allowed to speak to an American audience with their own voices --
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mp8BFfELUc 11:45
Posted by: jtfromBC | Feb 26, 2008 at 06:57 AM
This is the public response to the battlefield death of a single entry-level soldier? Don't see this one going away anytime soon. Caption: the gathering whirlwind.
Posted by: black dog barking | Feb 26, 2008 at 08:43 AM
It's not racism. It's about control, but not racism. It is not the race of the voice that stops its unfiltered presentation, it is the unpredictability of the content and the desire to control the message on the part of America's media gatekeepers.
Posted by: Northern Observer | Feb 26, 2008 at 12:23 PM
ref; it is the unpredictability of the content and the desire to control the message on the part of America's media gatekeepers.
I don't think Cole would disagree, but I think he believes that media control has been significantly influenced by racism especially in the ME, that's my take from reading his many comments of this subject.
Posted by: jtfromBC | Feb 26, 2008 at 02:08 PM
The public staged such massive demonstrations, at the time Turkey was pressured to be part of the US invasion of Iraq. At that time, because of the public sentiments, Turkey refused to become part of the invador's force.
Now Turkey has invaded Iraq in prusuit of PKK, so they say, and not in the pursuit of Kurds in general. US has been providing "navigational" information to Turkey, so they could locate the "PKK terrorists" as the US labels the group.
One wonders why is the northern Iraq still peaceful toward the occupants after their betrayal of the Kurds. One should never trust the occupants!
Posted by: lytom | Feb 27, 2008 at 04:37 PM