Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

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Journal: Turkey’s Grand Strategy

08 Wild Cards
Chuck Spinney Sends

Below and at the link is a comprehensive discussion of the emerging grand strategy that is shaping Turkey's foreign initiatives.  It deserves careful reading.

Stealth Superpower: How Turkey is chasing China to become the next big thing

by John Feffer

John Feffer is the co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, writes its regular World Beat column, and co-directs its Balkans Project. His past essays, including those for TomDispatch.com, can be read at his Web site. He would like to thank Alexander Atanasov, Rebecca Azhdam, and Noor Iqbal for research assistance.

Why doesn’t Turkey have a comparable grip on American visions of the future? Characters in science fiction novels don’t speak Turkish. Turkish-language programs are as scarce as hen’s teeth on college campuses. Turkey doesn’t even qualify as part of everyone’s favorite group of up-and-comers, that swinging BRIC quartet of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Turkey remains stubbornly fixed in Western culture as a backward-looking land of doner kebabs, bazaars, and guest workers.

But take population out of the equation – an admittedly big variable – and Turkey promptly becomes a likely candidate for future superpower. It possesses the 17th top economy in the world and, according to Goldman Sachs, has a good shot at breaking into the top 10 by 2050. Its economic muscle is also well defended: after decades of NATO assistance, the Turkish military is now a regional powerhouse.

Perhaps most importantly, Turkey occupies a vital crossroads between Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. A predominantly Muslim democracy atop the ruins of Byzantium, it bridges the Islamic and Judeo-Christian traditions, even as it sits perched at the nexus of energy politics. All roads once led to Rome; today all pipelines seem to lead to Turkey. If superpower status followed the rules of real estate – location, location, location – then Turkey would already be near the top of the heap.

FULL SOURCE ONLINE

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Worth A Look: AFCEA White Papers

Worth A Look

Latest:

The Intelligence Community: New Challenges, Sources, and Methods

Previous:

Congress and the Intelligence Community: Rebuilding Trust

Intelligence Support to Critical Infrastructure Protection

Enabling a Responsive and Agile Intelligence Enterprise

Information Sharing and Collaboration: Planning, Budgeting, and Execution
The Need to Share: The U.S. Intelligence Community and Law Enforcement
The Last Tactical Mile…and the First
Lessons Learned: Building a New National Intelligence Partnership
Intelligence: The Way Forward
Making Analysis Relevant: It's More than Connecting the Dots
Intelligence and the New National Security Environment
National Security and Horizontal Integration

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NIGHTWATCH Extract on Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia

05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards

Iran-Turkey: Iranian President Ahmadi-Nejad said on 13 June that the United States pressured Turkey to abstain on a U.N. Security Council vote approving new sanctions against Iran, instead of voting against the sanctions, Islamic Republic TV reported. Ahmadi-Nejad said Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan told him US President Obama spoke with Erdogan on the telephone requesting Turkey's abstention for 90 minutes. Erdogan also allegedly told Ahmadi-Nejad that Obama said he needed to “do something” about Iran, that he was under pressure from the US Congress and that the sanctions were not strong and would have no effect on Iran.

Comment: If Ahmadi-Nejad's statements are accurate, the Turkish prime minister committed an egregious betrayal of confidence. If the Turkish government does not deny this report, the US is entitled to consider it and treat it as authentic. Turkey is behaving as an ally of Iran more than an ally of the US.

Many commentators have warned about Turkey's aspirations for leadership in the Gaza confrontation. A point overlooked is it is not a Muslim problem, so much as an Arab political problem. Turks are not really welcome except to the extent that they provide diversion from Arab handling of the problem. The same is also true of the Persians in Iran.

Support for HAMAS is not a path to leadership in the Arab world for outsiders. Arab leaders also apparently judge that strong support for HAMAS does not advance their interests.

Iraq: For the record. A one-hour meeting between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and al-Iraqiya leader Iyad Allawi on 12 June ended with both parties agreeing to form a national partnership government encompassing all groups, Aswat al-Iraq reported.
This announcement did not state who will be the prime minister.

Saudi Arabia: For the record. On the afternoon of 12 June responded to The Times of London report that the Saudi forces would allow Israeli jets to use Saudi airspace to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, Jerusalem Post reported. The Saudi Defense Ministry described the report as being baseless and untrue.

Comment: This minor fracas looks like a Saudi reminder to the Persians of what can happen if they continue to intrude in Arab affairs, such as Gaza, or are shown to have developed a nuclear weapons capability. A Saudi denial is required and an important part of the message that will feed Iranian anxiety.

NIGHTWATCH HOME

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Event: 25-26 Oct 2010, Brussels, Crisis Group’s Annual Global Briefing

Collective Intelligence, CrisisWatch reports
event notice

The International Crisis Group is pleased to announce its new premiere annual event in Brussels: The Global Briefing. This two-day exclusive gathering – involving over thirty of Crisis Group’s senior staff and expert Board members – will take you beyond the headlines to examine urgent issues and solutions to the major conflict flashpoints across the globe today. The briefing is targeted at mid-level and senior representatives from governments, multilaterals, think tanks, NGOs, media, foundations, corporations and universities and will be limited to 120 participants. Details on the agenda, format, cost, and registration process will be posted on Crisis Group’s website at the end of June.

Related:
CrisisGroup update: Conflict in Congo

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The Mexico + American Narcosphere (Calling Carlos “Slim” Helu)

01 Poverty, 02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 04 Education, 06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Immigration, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Audio, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement, Media, Military, Mobile, Research resources, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

Excellent May 31, 2010 New Yorker article by William Finnegan called Letter from Mexico, Silver or Lead which is unfortunately only available by subscription only (click here for link to abstract also pasted below) The most telling two words of the article = “state capture.”

ABSTRACT: LETTER FROM MEXICO about La Familia Michoacana and the pervasive power of drug traffickers in the country. Writer visits the hill town of Zitácuaro in the Mexican state of Michoacán. On the morning before his arrival, the dismembered body of a young man was left in the middle of the main intersection. It was an instance of what people call corpse messaging. Usually it involves a mutilated body and a handwritten sign. “Talked too much.” “You get what you deserve.” The corpse’s message—terror—was clear enough and everybody knew who left it: La Familia Michoacana, a crime syndicate whose depredations pervade the life of the region.

Mexico’s president, Felipe Calerón declared war—his metaphor—on the country’s drug traffickers when he took office, in December, 2006. It was a popular move. Although large-scale trafficking had been around for decades, the violence associated with the drug trade had begun to spiral out of control. More than twenty-three thousand people have died since Calderón’s declaration. La Inseguridad, as Mexicans call it, has become engulfing, with drugs sliding far down the list of public concerns, below kidnapping, extortion, torture, unemployment, and simple fear of leaving the house. The big crime syndicates still earn billions from drugs, but they have also diversified profitably. In Michoacán a recent estimate found eight-five per cent of legitimate businesses involved in some way with La Familia. Among Mexico’s drug trafficking organizations, La Familia is the big new kid on the block. It first gained national attention in September, 2006, when five severed heads rolled onto the dance floor at a night club in Uruapan, Michoacán. A senior American official in Mexico City told the writer, “La Familia is looking more and more like an insurgency and less like a cartel.” Mentions one of La Familia’s leaders, Nazario Moreno González, who is also known as El Chayo, or El Más Loco (the Craziest). Writer discusses La Familia’s activities with a local politician and relates how the cartel has, in some places, filled the vacuum created by public distrust of the police and the courts.

The overwhelming growth of organized crime in Mexico in the past decade is often blamed on multiparty democracy. Until 2000, the country was basically a one-party state for seventy-one years under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Drug trafficking flourished, but its practitioners enjoyed stable relations with officialdom. Describes how the election of Vicente Fox in 2000 changed the status quo between drug traffickers and government. Writer gives a survey of other significant Mexican drug cartels, including the Sinaloa cartel, and the Zetas, who had previously occupied Michoacán. Tells about the rise of La Familia in 2006 and its expansion into nearby states. Discusses U.S.-Mexico relations and the drug trade. Writer visits a drug-rehabilitation center in Zamora. Describes acts of kidnapping and extortion perpetrated by La Familia.

Links Connecting Police Corruption + Narcosphere + U.S. + North Mexico/Chihuahua/Juarez & Beyond: Continue reading “The Mexico + American Narcosphere (Calling Carlos “Slim” Helu)”

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Journal: US Political & Military Double-Dealing Blown Open

02 Diplomacy, 08 Wild Cards, Ethics
Marcus Aurelius Recommends

COMMENT:  From (UK) Independent.  There is some interesting stuff on Wikileaks.  Not all of it is US and not all of it is classified.  Further, Wikileaks is far from the only site in the business.  Oh, and Bradley Manning is very unlikely to be a US IO.  He's much more likely to be an E-1 or E-2 Army 96B intel analyst who had a couple of Article 15s and was on his way out of the Army.  However, he probably did have the standard USIC clearance package and access to codeword-level computer systems.  Lesson (re)learned here:  if you're going to take an adverse action against somebody with that kind of access, you probably need to terminate permanently the access before you take the action so revenge can't, at least as easily as  it may have here, take the form of an intentional compromise)
 
Pentagon rushes to block release of classified files on Wikileaks

By Jerome Taylor

Saturday, 12 June 2010

Visit WikiLeaks

It has the ingredients of a spy thriller: an American military analyst turned whistleblower; 260,000 classified government documents; and rumours that the world's most powerful country is hunting a former hacker whom it believes is about to publish them.

 Pentagon and State Department officials are desperately trying to discover whether Bradley Manning, a US army intelligence officer currently under arrest in Kuwait, has leaked highly sensitive embassy cables to Wikileaks.org, an online community of some 800 volunteer cyber experts, activists, journalists and lawyers which has become a thorn in the side of governments and corrupt corporations across the globe.

Reports in the US say officials are seeking to apprehend Julian Assange, the website's founder who has pioneered the release of the kind of information the mainstream media are either unwilling or unable to publish.

 . . . . . . .

Manning, 22, an intelligence analyst from Potomac, Maryland, who had been serving in Iraq, was revealed earlier this week as the source behind a highly damning leak earlier in the year that showed harrowing cockpit footage of an American Apache helicopter gunning down unarmed civilians in Baghdad three years ago.

But the Apache video may have proven to be one leak too far. Adrian Lamo, a former US hacker turned journalist who had been conversing with Manning online and later gave up his name to the authorities, said he also claimed to have handed 260,000 classified US embassy messages to Wikileaks.

According to Mr Lamo, Manning said the documents showed “almost-criminal political back dealings” made by US embassies in the Middle East which, if true, would cause enormous embarrassment to key allies in a notoriously volatile area of the world. Mr Lamo claims Manning said that “Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public”.

 READ THE FULL STORY

Phi Beta Iota:  The US Military may at some point — using open sources of information — discover that Mr. Assange is the confirmed keynote speaker at Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE), taking place at the Hotel Pennsylvania in NYC, 18-20 July 2010.  He will be followed by the founder of OSS.Net, Earth Intelligence Network, and Phi Beta Iota, Mr. Robert Steele, who is now in seclusion in Latin America, but has never missed this event, for which he was the first keynote speaker in 1994.  On Friday the 18th Steele will provide a 30 minute presentation on his new book, “Hacking Humanity,” on Saturday the 19th he will do SPY IMPROV from 2200 until the audience runs out of questions–the record is four hours.  As with past sessions, video will be provided online for those who cannot stay up late.

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Journal: Correction To Spinney Piece Makes It Stronger

08 Wild Cards
Chuck Spinney Sends

All … Please be advised, a reader from Toronto correctly informed me that I made a serious error of fact in my last piece in Counterpunch, “Obama as Moral Dupe: Will Erdogan Blink?”

I stated that the threat to sink any Gaza aid ship or escorting warship carrying Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan was made by Deputy of Staff Uzi Dayan. In fact, Dayan is not the currrent Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, but a former DCS. He is now a member of Likud Party in the Knesset. He is not a member of the Netanyahu government, however.

Therefore, the threat to sink any ship carrying Erdogan was not technically made by the Netanyahu government. However, given the fact that Dayan is a member in good standing of the Israeli generals club; the fact that being Moshe Dayan's nephew, he is a prominent member of the Israeli military aristocracy; and the facts that the Jerusalem Post and Army Radio are known mouthpieces for the Israeli Government, I suspect this threat was an exercise in “strategic ambiguity” to hype tensions in the hope of deterring the Erdogan government, while leaving the door open for the Netanyahu government to distance itself from the remarks, should that become necessary. It is also possible Dayan had domestic political reasons for making this statement. And, of course, he may have been a loose cannon.

Whatever the case, imagine a prominent US senator saying the US must take a military action that could kill the prime minister of a rival country, and the President taking no action to disavow those remarks. I have searched the internet to find a statement disavowing Dayan's comments by the Netanyahu government and found none to date.

I should have included wording to this effect — and paradoxically, I think a correction these lines would have made my argument stronger, because it is more illustrative of the kind of psychology at work in a march to a folly reminiscent of that in 1914.

Also, apropos the question of Erdogan blinking, the Turks do not seem deterred and on the contrary appear to be ratcheting up the pressure, if the following quotes attributed to Turkish President Gul in this Ha'aretz report are accurate.

“On Friday Turkish President Abdullah Gul told the French daily Le Monde that Israel must make amends to be forgiven for a commando assault on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, including apologizing for the attack and paying compensation.

Gul added that if Israel made no move to heal the rift, then Turkey could even decide to break diplomatic relations.

In an interview published on Friday, Gul said the Israeli attack at the end of May, which killed nine activists, was a “crime” which might have been carried out by the likes of al-Qaida rather than a sovereign state.

“It seems impossible to me to forgive or forget, unless there are some initiatives which could change the situation,” Gul was quoted as saying by Le Monde.

Asked what these might be, he said: “Firstly, to ask pardon and to establish some sort of compensation.” He added that he also wanted to see an independent inquiry into the botched raid and a discussion on lifting Israel's blockade of Gaza.”

In my opinion, statements like Dayan's and Gul's illustrate how this crisis could evolve in to a more serious crisis than the Cuban Missile Crisis. I say more serious, because in the Cuban crisis, both sides had militaries armed with nuclear weapons that we now know were controlled by rational civilian leaders, whereas in this crisis is inherently more unstable, because only one side has nuclear weapons, and that side's politics are dominated by the military, its political and military leaders have a belligerent history preemptive wars, and it has a national outlook that is governed by an increasingly disconnected sense of self-righteous victimhood that has, in Henry Siegman's words, lost its moral imagination. An the other side is equally stubborn and it senses it has the moral high ground. And the US is in this up to its neck, because it has tight connections to both sides of the quarrel.

Sorry for any confusion caused by my mistake.
Chuck Spinney

noble gold