riots in Turkey

Grow up Ginger, you've been on this planet long enough to know how these things work. Its not too long ago you were bragging about your revolutionary actions in your younger days and getting your name taken by the suits so unless you believe that everything is straight up and that govts are not inventing new dirty tricks everyday then continue in Lala Land whistling Dixie.

Do you really think newsrooms are not heavily influenced by company's commercials in between? And that these companies aren't in the White House everyday lobbying for this that and the other? And that deals aren't done between The White House, Commercial interests and News Corps?

Are you asking me if Wolf Blitzer is on Obama's speed dial?

 

I like you, I love your writing style, but I don't find your political beliefs to be completely evidence based so I'll not be going back to read your conclusions about Obama controlling Erdogan. Let's just talk about your claims here, in particular your claim that Turkey's government is using "chemical weapons" against the population.

Over here, chemical weapons means lethal gasses like Sarin. It doesn't mean teargas. There's no evidence Turkey has used lethal chemical weapons.

That's all well and good but it's no more than a blogger's claims. There are no sources cited for the information. There's a claim a group was arrested in Turkey on their way to attack a city with gas. Assuming that's true, how does it follow that we should believe what the blogger claims, "The presumed purpose of that bomb plot was to create a “false flag” event that would be blamed on Syrian government forces, thereby giving NATO a pretext to mount a direct military intervention in Syria."

Why stop the group then and arrest them, foiling the plot? How is NATO supposed to use the incident to invade Syria if the event was stopped? And I hardly think NATO needs to kill a bunch of innocent civilians with a gas attack in Turkey in order to start dropping bombs in Syria. It makes no logical sense. I see no reason to think that blogger is credible at this point.

 

You seem to be having trouble answering.

Not exactly what I said but it's a red herring so not relevant.

I don't see any specific mechanics in that rant. Yes, I'm asking you if the White House contacted CNN to give them directions on how to cover the riots in Turkey. Does CNN employ the mind readers? What if they get it wrong? How do the editors at CNN know what the latest White House wishes for Turkey are?

 

Blogger? Ok... Keep your blinkers on Ginger, clap happy in lala land and maybe NATO will sprinkle fairy dust on multi coloured unicorns for you.

You ask for proof or at least answers to your questions, when you get them you don't like them, try think of another angle to come at. When that doesn't work you take another turn, call journalists bloggers - here is the bio for the guy who wrote that piece because I know you didn't read it - if you had, your questions would have been answered...

Finian Cunningham, originally from Belfast, Ireland, was born in 1963. He is a prominent expert in international affairs. The author and media commentator was expelled from Bahrain in June 2011 for his critical journalism in which he highlighted human rights violations by the Western-backed regime. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For many years, he worked as an editor and writer in the mainstream news media, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. He is now based in East Africa where he is writing a book on Bahrain and the Arab Spring. He co-hosts a weekly current affairs programme, Sunday at 3pm GMT on Bandung Radio. More articles by Finian Cunningham

Calling him a "blogger" is like calling Neil Armstrong a Thunderbirds fan.

 

George W Bush has a degree from Harvard and Yale and was President of the US for 8 years. That doesn't mean I'd take his word for anything in a blog. I'm off to work but I'll look closer at your source later.

In the meantime you might want to think about why you believe something that you cannot describe when asked for the details of how it works.

 

and you might want to stop trolling

 

Don't worry, it's not about coup d'etat.

 

The French Revolution As It Appeared To Enthusiasts At Its Commencement
William Wordsworth

Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!—Oh! times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights...

Thought I'd raise the tone. There is no leader in this, but the young people...they are being incredible, really. I must say, I love them. Even if it's a tad depressing to have everything at work, like assignments and finals become meaningless all of a sudden. These are weird days, it's like finding ourselves in the final scene of Les Mis.

Oh yeah, the gas? It's maybe not Orange, but it isn't all like normal pepper spray either, sometime it seems to make people numb for a couple of seconds. Unless this is an allergic effect.

Be careful of the blogs, though, especially those written in bad English. There are plenty of people with agendas to sell the country down the river.

 

The gas the police are spraying in people's faces are just a numbing gas and maybe it's bad luck that some are allergic to it? Really?

 

Not everyone suffers so badly. Not saying this is good/bad, whatever, just trying to describe what's happening. Sometimes it's not too bad, it seems like regular pepper spray.

 

Maybe it's lynx...

 

Hey, I'm a man with agenda here.

 

I think one has be a KGB agent or something to give you details on that, and you probably have to pay a lot of money to get that info

Circumstantial evidence: I know Bush refer correspondence of popular american news channels by their first name during press conferences. May be Obama does it too, but then I have stopped watching CNN and other american news channels a long time ago.

 

I didn't ask for an investigation, I asked for a hypothetical means of achieving the conspiracy erebh claims exists.

Are you also suggesting the US government directly controls or at a minimum directly interferes with the broadcast news content?

Let's back up here:

Obviously erebh is not going to answer, because he can't. It doesn't happen the way he believes it does. But the more I try to pin him down on the flaws in the conspiracy he believes in, the discussion deteriorates into name calling (troll, grow up, etc.) and the further the discussion strays from the topic and the issues surrounding the riots in Turkey.

So I'm going to drop this discussion here, but reserve the right to bring it up again seeing as I've not gotten the answer I asked, just how does that work, how does the US government exercise this control over our 'free press'?


This is a separate issue from the quality of mainstream news, BTW.

 

Ok Ginger, Obama sends Blitzer a facebook message, sometimes when they are being extra devious, he codes it into his status.

Now before trying to make out like the downtrodden, poor me cant get an answer, let's back up. You've questioned everything I've said and I've answered everything to your satisfaction, if not you would have questioned it again. You ask for proof, I send you a link and you can't be bothered to read it. You called a world class journalist a blogger and tucked your tail back between your legs when I posted his biog. Now you are asking about the mechanics and probably names of go-betweens, things the Russians don't even know and then cry when I say stop trolling - not to same as calling you a troll but if the cap fits....

Enough people here have already said they wont take this merry-go-round with you, I will Ginger so put on your red shoes, and let's dance the blues

 

I don't think this is an accurate account. It's close, but such is the nature of people on a forum who fit square posts into round brain receptors: where the posts don't fit the edges are shaved.

Here's my view of the same events: I asked one question, "How does that work"? After multiple posts avoiding answering you now suggest Obama personally controls CNN via Facebook messages. How should I interpret that? Sarcasm and a continued avoidance of the answer? Or you seriously believe the Obama administration has direct influence on individual broadcasters.

So, are Blitzer and his colleagues fair weather friends? Did they unfriend John McCain when he failed to win the election and send Obama a friend request and an apology for any negative coverage? Is it only the President who has this power? Do the top Republicans and top Democrats vie for pals on the news networks? And what about Rupert Murdoch and his anti-Democratic Party news network? Do Murdoch and Obama meet at the gentlemen's club chuckling in secret over the ignorant public that believes Fox News is really anti-Obama? Maybe Clinton was in on the take when the news media raked in the ad bucks playing the Monica Lewinsky BJ story on a continuous loop?

I am trying to get you to think about your beliefs. There are plenty of real conspiracies without making up the fictional secret cabals that make interesting reading but aren't possible in the real world of human incompetence.

———————————————————————————

As for your second issue above, I asked for the source of one claim (a far cry from "everything"). You provided your source. I'm satisfied you answered. I read the link, don't know why you think I didn't. Your source did not support your claim and I explained why I believed that with another question, if the secret plot was to provide a Gulf of Tonkin incident giving NATO cover to start dropping bombs in Syria, where are the bombs? Your evidence of the scheme is that the men involved were arrested before they could kill a slew of innocent people. It's not logical that Erdogan was in on a scheme then arrested the actors.

The US has a long history of doing really bad things, Allende, Mosaddegh, the WMD fraud, the list is sickeningly long. Those are real conspiracy theories (sorry JJ_Maxx, if that last one irks you but that's what the evidence supports). And if the US wanted to see military intervention in Syria, it wouldn't surprise me if they engineered an excuse. I just think the engineered excuse you believe was planned using poison gas on innocent Turkish civilians is far less than remotely possible.

The riots caught the US off guard, I believe, and they put John Kerry on the task. I'd love to see the leaked State Department Cables, such a shame there won't be another Bradley Manning anytime soon. I'm pretty sure Obama hasn't been sending any Turkish police to the School of the Americas (renamed in 2000 as if that made it go away**). In this country it's pretty clear Obama (and the majority of the population) are against military intervention in Syria. It's only John McCain and a handful of leftover Bush Neocons that want to send in the bomber jets. The new Republicans, aka the TEA Party, are strong on Libertarians who don't want to spend the money on Syria.




**Here's a conspiracy thought for you, do you suppose the Bush administration consulted with Frank Luntz to pick a new name for the School of the Americas that didn't roll off the tongue quite as easily? "Close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation" is not so easy to say. I think they picked that name with 'hard to say' specifically in mind. The Republicans in this country know what they're doing when they pick names for things.

 

ok is too short a message to send (Vbull) and needs a minimum 4 letters so okay

 

Thank you for reading my post that I took the time to reply to you.

 

All we hear here in Europe is how swiftly Cameron, Hollande and Erdogan want to get into Syria and only Putin and the Chinese guy are saving Assad, and that Obama is sitting with his finger over the button till the so-called red line is crossed. Cameron even quoting the American term 'game-changer' at any given opportunity. We had footage of John McCain in photo ops with the Syrian Rebels on Sunday more or less handing over a US cheque for $125 million signed by Obama to be spent on non-lethal aid such as water pistols, tickling sticks and giant q-tips.

RT.com had a list of the rival rebel groups competing for a cut of the money and two of the groups who will get a few bob are both on the US Most Wanted list, the Al Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham, the leader of the latter was the guy who ate the heart from a Syrian soldier last week.

Moscow by the way say the Syrian weapons order hasn't left Russia yet and the Chinese are tight lipped on their arms orders too. The only thing stopping the West entering Syria is they know Assad is fighting Islamists intent on turning the region into a Sharia Law area. Cameron and Hollande are chasing oil and Erdogan wants into the EU.

 

Actually, Erdogan, and Turkey generally, are not bothered about EU entry--in fact many would oppose it now. It's simply a prestige thing for a minority of people. NATO is very important for Turkey, though. I'm also not sure that Erdogan, Cameron et al have the energy and time to pursue all these heinous deals you think they are after. Erdogan craves adoration from his home base, he's never really been all that interested in what foreigners (or the intelligensia in Turkey) make of him.

 

Not many of us Europeans are bothered about EU membership either. In Ireland we voted twice to against the Nice and Lisbon Treaties which held up the whole project. It was a case of all in or nobody and the Irish spoilsports said 'Nobody'. So the EU changed one or two things and brought us back to the poling stations with a different name for the treaty and made us vote a third time. By this point people just didn't care, less than half of voters voted and they squeezed in a 'yes'.

 

You think they don't have the time or energy to snap up some free or cheap oil?

If Erdogan didn't want cheap fuel, why has he got Obama to lift and extend the embargos on Iranian oil - just for Turkey?

 

May I say something about tear gas (or whatever it is they use)? It's bad, it's dangerous, it stays on your skin (and the atmosphere) for days and it should be banned. I can't testify against water cannons, because they are not used in Greece, but tear gas...

Anyway, the way we hear it in our media the count is: 3 dead and over 4.000 with health problems (the hospitals gave that number, not the goverment).

 

I think that's about right. But there are not crowds of injured in hospitals (my uni is next to one of the biggest state hospitals and I have many doctor friends). There are many walking wounded.

 

Well this is great. The protests were dying down a bit, and last night was a holy night called "kandil" so the protesters and police were actually sharing cakes and so on together, a bit like the Christmas Day football match in WW1 I suppose. Then the PM gave another of his speeches about how everyone's a terrorist and we will have to like his plans for Taksim or lump it.

So much for rapprochement. It's not exactlly fanned the flames to full height again but it certainly squirted a bit of benzine on the embers.

He's due home tonight, so it looks like there are an interesting few more days ahead.

It's been fascinating to see this demonstration of how determination and single-mindedness can change from being positive to very negative qualities in a leader. Humility is really under-rated by politicians.