Sunday 25 March 2007

Use of USA provided F16's conditionality on Turkey


Regarding "Turkey suspends F-16 purchase from US over Cyprus" ...

How amazing that this item over allowable, or rather of non-allowable use of weapons provided by the US to other countries, should suddenly surface now (see Zaman report detailed below).

Amazing because such conditionality over use of US-provided weapons applies as much to Israel in its use of US-supplied weapons in the Lebanon during the 2006 war (and in many years previously) as WELL as to Turkey in almost ALL its military operations in Cyprus, during 1964, in 1967 and of course during the invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

The flagrant violation of the conditionalities attached to the use of weapons provided by the US to Turkey has been a very long-standing grievance on the part of the people of Cyprus against US Government hypocricy for many years. Repeated questions by journalists to many US Government Spokesmen on such matters have always drawn non-commital answers.

The use of American-provided aircraft to drop bombs, including napalm bombs in 1964 by Turkey against Cyprus was documented at the time.

The BBC video archives provide a video item online about Turkey having dropped napalm bombs using American provided planes during 1964. Click on "The BBC's Charles Wheeler reports from Cyprus - one doctor says napalm was used on civilians - interview with Archbishop Makarios" available from the BBC video archives.

OK, so how do we retrospectively prove that the use of US provided weapons in Turkey's military actions against Cyprus were all illegal, and that therefore the specific people in power within succeeding US administrations as well as the generals who ordered such illegal use by Turkey can be held personally as well as collectively responsible for such violations in the terms under which the weapons were sold?

The press-item which has caused the above comments to be made can be found in full at:

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=106289



"Turkey has reportedly suspended negotiations with the US over the purchase of an additional 30 F-16 fighters after Washington set the condition that they not be flown over the divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

"Military sources close to the Turkish Air Force Command (THK) told Today's Zaman that US technology restrictions, including a ban on their usage by Turkey over Cyprus, irked Ankara. "The US condition that fighters should not be used over Cyprus made us mad," said a source at the THK."

Wednesday 14 March 2007

The Faux Press :Dan Rather interview, and other media links

Spent a good part of the early afternoon watching a replay (only 1 of 4 or so from the archive) of the 14/03/07 Videoblogging FlashMeeting, from a link at http://flashmeeting.open.ac.uk/fm/fmm.php?pwd=64cbe5-7673

Then decided it would be worth following through some of the links that arose out of that ... one of which was to visit the Faux Press website, where I found an interview with Dan Rather (Anchorman with CBS News, I think it is) and thought I'd create a first link from my newly created weblog to this interview ....
The Faux Press :: Politics, Law, Media & Marketing: Dan Rather interview

Other links arising from watching the video were the views expressed about the future of advertising on the web, and rather liked the attitude expressed, and therefore provide a link to the website by Jen Simmons

Other links, which I note here in order to come back for further 'look-in' at those sites in future, were: node101 - cafn8ed - The teaching section at Jen's website - and finally BetterBadNews .

I had earlier done some follow-up research on the climatechange series I've been involved in creating at www.veoh.com/series/climatechange and found with some considerable interest an outstanding interview at YouTube, and so I will end this first ever posting at my new blog by making a recommendation that any readers interested with world politics should take a look at the 26 minute interview with David Kortn available through the excellent efforts of Peakmoment.tv ... here

Monday 12 March 2007

aspects and grokked were already taken

Oh well, that will teach me to be a late-comer to blogging ... heh!