The Buie Knife

U.S. Passengers on Gaza Flotilla Assert State Department's Negligence in Not Advocating for Americans

"Why is the US Government Deaf to What Has Been Done to My Son?" asks Ahmet Dogan, father of American citizen Furkan Dogan, who was shot five times at close range by Israeli soldiers. He and 13 U.S. passengers from the Gaza Freedom Flotilla have written an open letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing their anger "at the lack of any visible, active effort on the part of any agency in our government to conduct and release an independent investigation of the killing of one and assaults on other Americans by a foreign military force, the Israeli commandos."

In their letter, the U.S. passengers assert that "the State Department has allied itself with Israel, ignoring its responsibilities to its own citizens." The letter stated that they "are appalled at the lack of any visible, active effort on the part of any agency in our government to conduct and release an independent investigation of the killing of one and assaults on other Americans by a foreign military force, the Israeli commandos."

Vincent Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, writes that his organization is seeking to answer some of the American citizens' questions through Freedom of Information Act requests.

 A report by the International Bureau of Humanitarian NGOs (IBH) and the Friends of Charities Association (FOCA) found that several of the videos the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Israeli Defense Force released to support their version of events were digitally enhanced, computer-manufactured or fraudulent.

Related:

• US Media Ignore Israeli Flotilla Executions: "What would the consequences be if an American teenager was executed by Iranian commandos? The Times Union, and the rest of the American media, would be filled with cries of outrage. There would be demands for bombing Tehran, demands that might well be met. Because Dogan was murdered by an American ally, the response has been nothing but the silence of complicity." 

• Furkan Dogan's 19th Birthday.
• Visiting Furkan's Grave
• Former US Marines condemn murder of Furkan Dogan: "Snipers secure in the aircraft indiscriminately killed activists with a scope. It was a real, profound act of cowardice. Like Ken, I am a former U.S. Marine. Honorable military groups do not attack unarmed civilians, at least by accepted policy, but Israel does."

Previous:

• Disillusioned by Israel's Lack of Interest in Peace

 

As Turkey Strengthens Democracy, US Needs to Seek It Out As Mideast Guide

As an analyst of contemporary Turkey and the geographical region it surrounds, Stephen Kinzer, formerly the Istanbul bureau chief for The New York Times and now author of books about international relations, is hard to beat. He thinks Turkey's recent constitutional changes strengthen democracy and reduce the power of the military to intervene in civic life. He also thinks the US should look to Turkey as a friendly guide to the Islamic world. More

Greece: Photo Essay and History Lesson

Athens, the Foundation of Western Civilization, and Delphi, Ancient Center of the Universe. A Photo Essay on the 10 days my wife, sons and I spent in Greece. Plus, on our Turkey Blog, you can't really understand modern Turkey without studying Greek history. Two posts:

• The Poignant Story of How Modern Turkey and Greece Were Forged
• Greek Culture Has Long Penetrated American Consciousness, While Turkish Culture, and Links to Native Americans, Are Just Beginning To

Elusive Justice for Turkish-American Furkan Dogan, Shot 5 Times at Close Range By Israelis

Finding out what really happened on the Turkish flotilla headed for Gaza and to Turkish-American Furkan Dogan of Kayseri last May 31 has been painfully slow. The BBC has produced a documentary, "Death on the Med," (on Youtube.com here and here), but it seems mostly reported from an Israeli military point of view. It's disturbing that the BBC producers showed no curiosity about Furkan's character as revealed in video interviews Matt Porter and I conducted with Dogan's brother and with one of the flotilla participants, which were published by Global Post. 

Some of the criticisms of the documentary by Gilad Atzmon and Ken O'Keefe seem to be quite credible. Journalists and activists aboard the flotilla assert that their cameras, footage, and laptops, which some say prove that the Israelis shot first, were confiscated by the Israelis and have not been returned. Israel has returned the Mavi Marmara ship on which the violence occurred -- freshly painted, reporters noted, clearly intended to hide evidence of bullet holes and blood stains.

Israel, Turkey, and the United Nations continue to investigate the flotilla incident, and Dogan's father is seeking legal action on his son's behalf in the US. To illustrate the continuing importance of the case to Turkey, Prime Minister Recip Erdogan paid his respects at the Dogan home in Kayseri.

Meanwhile, a group of Americans, invoking Martin Luther King and comparing the cause of the Palestinians to that of African Americans during segregation, are seeking to sail their own ship to Gaza, and have raised more than $150,000 to do so. Pamela Olson reports. A native of Oklahoma and Stanford alum, she's the author of a book, "Fast Times in Palestine" about her two years in the Palestinian territories. "I wrote (the book) because so many Americans still don’t have even a basic grasp of the realities in the Holy Land despite (or perhaps because of) watching hours of mainstream media coverage," she writes.

Among the speakers at a fundraiser for the American flotilla to Gaza was advocacy journalist Chris Hedges, a foreign correspondent most noted for quitting The New York Times in 2003 because he was far more skeptical of the impending war in Iraq than Times editors.  He said, "As Martin Luther King said, the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice, and that arc is descending with a righteous fury that is thundering down upon the Israeli government..."

Previous:

• Israel Still Offers No Accounting for Death of American Shot 5 Times At Close Range
• Turkish-American Killed By Israel Becomes Symbol and Martyr
• Facts on the Flotilla That Gives Reasonable People Pause

Related:

•  Despite Raid, Mostly Business As Usual for Israel and Turkey

A Fun Last Few Hours in Istanbul

On my way to the US, I spent a delightful morning in Istanbul:

• I visited the stunning Hagia Sophia church and mosque. Professional video clips included.
• I reflected on how Byzantium, which ruled Turkey for more than a thousand years, echoes today. I include links to a six-part documentary on "The Lost Empire of Byzantium." 
• I was attacked by birds in Sultanahmet Park (video). 

Two Amusing Experiences

Visits to a Turkish barber and to a Turkish bath. Haircut Time: Do I Resemble Frankenstein or Tom Cruise? and Turkish Bath Day. 

In the Realm of the Gods, Southeastern Turkey

In the Realm of the Gods from Jim Buie on Vimeo.

Atop Mt. Nemrut, in southeastern, Kurdish part of Turkey not far from the Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian borders, we held the sunset in our hands as we stood in the presence of ancient gods. Their heads were thought to be a royal shrine and burial ground dating to the first century BC. The landscape reminded us of the Southwestern United States. We also perused the charming city of Gaziantep, ate at a classy Ottoman restaurant that has been in business since the 1870s,  toured an awesome museum of Roman mosaics, dipped our heels in a tributary of the Euphrates, and visited a bucolic Kurdish village where (we learned later) a horrific event occurred a few months earlier. Read our report.

 

Iran Fades, Turkey Rises to Become Palestinian Advocate, Muslim Spokesman on World Stage

American and Israeli neo-conservatives who are expressing hostility toward Turkey and demonizing it because Turkey no longer marches in lockstep behind US policies or supports every Israeli action aren't thinking things through. The emergence of moderate and Sunni Turkey as an advocate for Palestine and as a spokesman for the Muslim world -- Turkey is a country with longstanding business, military and diplomatic ties to Israel  -- is far better than having authoritarian and Shia Iran in that role, considering that Iran still says Israel should be driven into the sea. Iran is now jealous, insecure, and angry about Turkey's new role, as Iranian fortunes on the world stage decline. See "Turkey's Gain is Iran's Loss," by  Elliot Hen-Tov, a doctoral candidate and Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton.

'Forget China: Turkey Is the Next Superpower'

In January, 2010, when I posted, "A New Turkish Empire Or Economic Powerhouse Begins to Emerge," my comments were met with great skepticism from some friends in America who thought maybe I was a little too intoxicated by my experiences here in Turkey. Now John Ferrer, co-director of "Foreign Policy in Focus," at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, writes an article for Salon making the same points I did, adding some depth and going further. "Forget China: Turkey is the Next Superpower," he declares. Projected to become the 10th largest economy in the world, Turkey has a booming economy, a powerful military, a strategic location between West and East, and the new confidence to insert itself into major international controversies such as sanctions against Iran and conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, he writes. See the fascinating  analysis by Ferrer in Salon.com. I realize this is a shocking concept for some observers of the current world order to comprehend, and my use of the word "empire" for these modern times threw some of my readers off. A better word is probably "sphere of influence." 

Update: Thomas Friedman, NYT columnist, gets it. "Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkey has become the center of its own economic space, stretching from southern Russia, all through the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and down through Iraq, Syria, Iran and the Middle East," he writes. 

Update #2: Andrew Mango, an author specializing in Turkish history, writes in The Wall Street Journal: "Ottoman Past Shadows Turkish Present. Ankara's turn against the U.S. on some crucial issues reflects centuries of power plays."

U.S. Neo-Conservatives, Architects of Iraq War, Want to Isolate Turkey

American neo-conservatives, the geniuses who brought us the U.S. war in Iraq, are now trying to break America's long-standing friendship with Turkey, and are even proposing that Turkey be thrown out of NATO. Fortunately, neo-cons do not represent a majority within the U.S. Congress these days, and certainly not the Obama administration.  

See Fox News, "Lawmakers Threaten Turkey with Reprisals Over Israel." See former Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, Liz Cheney' s comments lumping Turkey in with Syria and Iran as part of a new "axis of evil." Neo-conservatives are upset that Turkey is no longer the pliable follower of U.S. policy it was during the Cold War (when it was afraid of the Soviet Union). Turkey is now demonstrating independence from the U.S. on issues like sanctions against Iran, relations with Israel and the plight of the Palestinians. Turkey, neo-cons say, has sided with Islamic radicals and now rejects a Western orientation. The Turkish government strongly denies that it has "changed its axis," and Turkish businessmen strongly reject such an analysis as well.

U.S. neo-cons who had connections with the Turkish military were upset in 2003 when Turkey refused to allow Americans to use a Turkish military base in the run-up to the Iraq war. They are now upset that the Turkish military has lost its power as the guardians of secularism and can no longer stage coups in Turkey at will, as it did in 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997. Turkish media have exposed the coup plots, and the government is prosecuting the plotters. 

Neo-cons are not comfortable that Turkey is an emerging democracy that increasingly follows the will of its own people, more than 90 percent of whom are Muslim, rather than the Turkish military and a secular if not anti-religious bureaucratic elite.

Yes, Turkish Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan has, over time, made some imprudent and undiplomatic statements. But his basic stance is that through diplomatic means, Turkey must defend its citizens who were shot dead by Israeli soldiers in acts of excessive force. To fail to take such a stance on behalf of its citizens would be an act of negligence by any government. The Turkish government is freezing diplomatic relations with Israel until certain actions are taken to account for the killing of Turks aboard the flotilla.

As for UN sanctions against Iran which the US supported and which Turkey opposed, they are largely symbolic. Even proponents of sanctions against Iran doubt that they are going to change Iranian behavior or prevent Iran from further enriching uranium for development of nuclear technology. The Turks believe that continuing to talk to Iran, giving them a stake in engagement with the West, has more of a chance of success than punitive sanctions that won't work anyway. From a practical point of view, Turks depend on Iran to supply Turkey with 20 percent of its natural gas. 

What the neo-cons don't seem to get is that by attempting to isolate Turkey from the West, the U.S. simply encourages anti-Western sentiment. Like every great nation, regardless of ideology, Turkey will act in its own perceived interests, not simply in the interests of U.S. neo-conservatives.

Related:

• US & Turkey's Interests Diverge, Dramatically, But Even So, There's New Hope for Peace in Mideast