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Argos Media

Editorial - Mr. Obama and Turkey - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...04sat1.html

Turkey US EU Armenia

shared by Argos Media on 04 Apr 09 - No Cached
  • The Justice and Development Party scored an impressive re-election in 2007 after pursuing market-oriented policies that brought economic growth and more trade ties with the European Union. That conservative Muslim party also expanded human rights and brought Turkish law closer to European standards.
  • Those reforms have since stalled — partly because of opposition from civilian nationalists and generals who still wield too much clout. (The trial of 86 people accused of plotting a military coup is a reminder of the dark side of Turkish politics.)
  • But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also seems to have lost enthusiasm for the European Union bid and the reforms that are the price of admission.
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  • President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has been especially unhelpful, making clear that he will do all he can to keep Turkey out of the European Union.
  • Mr. Obama must persuade Mr. Sarkozy and others that admitting Turkey — a Muslim democracy — is in everyone’s interest. And he must persuade Ankara that the required reforms will strengthen Turkey’s democracy and provide more stability and growth.
  • We are concerned about Mr. Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic tendencies. His government’s decision to slap the media mogul Aydin Dogan with a $500 million tax bill smacks of retaliation against an independent press that has successfully exposed government corruption.
  • Ankara has played a positive role, mediating indirect talks between Israel and Syria. With Washington’s encouragement, Mr. Erdogan could also use his relationships with Iran, Sudan and Hamas to encourage improved behavior.
  • Turkey’s cooperation with Iraqi Kurds has vastly improved. There are also reports that Turkey and Armenia may soon normalize relations.
  • We have long criticized Turkey for its self-destructive denial of the World War I era mass killing of Armenians. But while Congress is again contemplating a resolution denouncing the genocide, it would do a lot more good for both Armenia and Turkey if it held back. Mr. Obama, who vowed in the presidential campaign to recognize the event as genocide, should also forbear.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Papers alter Israel cabinet photo - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7982146.stm

Israel Ultra-orthodox Media

shared by Argos Media on 04 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Two ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspapers have altered a photo of Israel's new cabinet, removing two female ministers.
  • Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver were grouped with the rest of the 30-member cabinet for their inaugural photo. But Yated Neeman newspaper digitally changed the picture by replacing them with two men. The Shaa Tova newspaper blacked the women out.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | US finds new Afghan supply route - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7901071.stm

US Afghanistan Kyrgyzstan Manas Air Base

shared by Argos Media on 03 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The US will be able to take non-military supplies bound for Afghanistan through Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, a US commander has said.
  • The US had previously announced it intended to transport supplies to Uzbekistan through Russia and Kazakhstan.
  • "Tajikistan has given permission to use its railways and roads for the transit of non-military cargoes to Afghanistan," Harnitchek told Tajik state media. "We plan to transport 50 to 200 containers every week from Uzbekistan to Tajikistan and further to Afghanistan."
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  • The US recently invested millions of dollars in a bridge connecting Tajikistan and Afghanistan, which will almost certainly be used to transport the supplies.
  • The announcement follows a decision by Kyrgyzstan to close a US air base - the only US military base in Central Asia.
  • It comes after Kyrgyzstan accused the US of not paying enough to rent the air base at Manas, near the capital city of Bishkek.
  • The licence to close the base was signed into law this week by Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. The Kyrgyz foreign ministry said on Friday that it had officially issued an eviction notice giving the US 180 days to vacate the area.
  • Analysts have suggested that Kyrgyzstan's leaders will not carry out their threat to evict the US, but are using the law as a bargaining chip to get more rent money from Washington. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates sought to play down the Kyrgyz spat on Thursday, saying the US was open to negotiation on the rent. "We are prepared to look at the fees and see if there is justification for a somewhat larger payment," he told a news conference.
Argos Media

Hearsay: IDF Releases Findings of Investigation Regarding Remarks Made at Rabin Center - 0 views

dover.idf.il/...3001.htm

Israel War Crimes

shared by Argos Media on 01 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The Military Advocate General, Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit, made the decision to close the case in which the Criminal Investigation Department of the Military Police investigated statements made by soldiers at the Rabin Military Preparation Center in reference to Operation Cast Lead.
  • he Military Advocate General, Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit, made the decision to close the case in which the Criminal Investigation Department of the Military Police investigated statements made by soldiers at the Rabin Military Preparation Center in reference to Operation Cast Lead.
  • This decision was made after the Military Police investigation found that the crucial components of their descriptions were based on hearsay and not supported by facts. In particular, the investigation addressed two alleged incidents that raised suspicion of acts in which uninvolved non-combatants were fired upon.
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  • The investigation was initiated by the Military Advocate General after reviewing claims made during a conference at the Rabin Military Preparation Center at which soldiers who participated in Operation Cast Lead were present.
  • The investigation concluded, based on evidence from the soldiers that participated in the conference, that the stories told were purposely exaggerated and hyperbolic in order to reinforce a point amongst the conference participants.
  • For example, one story made the claim that a soldier was allegedly given orders to fire at an elderly woman. However, upon investigation, it was found that the soldier witnessed no such thing, and was only repeating a rumor that he had heard from an unknown source.
  • No evidence to justify further legal procedures was discovered in this context. When the case did not offer sufficient evidence, it was decided that the case should be closed.”
  • This same soldier admitted that he had not witnessed the additional disrespectful and immoral incidents he had described during the conference and that they were based on rumors.
  • A claim made by a different soldier who had supposedly been ordered to open fire at a woman and two children was also determined to be an incident that he had not witnessed. After checking the claim, it was found that during this incident, a force had opened fire in a different direction—specifically, towards two suspicious men who were unrelated to the civilians in question.
  • During the aforementioned investigations, the participants at the Rabin Center explicitly stated that they had based their claims relating to the use of phosphorous munitions on what they had heard in the media and not on their own personal knowledge.
  • In an unrelated investigation, it was found that in a similar incident, a woman, suspected of being a suicide bomber, approached IDF forces. After trying to convince her to cease all movement and to stop advancing toward the forces, they then opened fire.
  • The Military Advocate General, Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit, concluded the findings of the Military Police investigation: "It is unfortunate that none of the speakers at the conference was careful to be accurate in the depiction of his claims, and even more so that they chose to present various incidents of a severe nature, despite not personally witnessing and knowing much about them. It seems that it will be difficult to evaluate the damage done to the image and morals of the IDF and its soldiers, who had participated in Operation Cast Lead, in Israel and the world."
Argos Media

IDF ends Gaza probe, says misconduct claims are 'rumors' - Haaretz - Israel News - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1074981.html

Israel War Crimes

shared by Argos Media on 01 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Police investigation into the testimonies revealed that they "were based on hearsay and not first-hand experience.
  • The probe was launched earlier this month after IDF soldiers were quoted as telling a military cadet academy that combat troops in Gaza fired at unarmed Palestinian civilians and vandalized property during Operation Cast Lead. The army has barred those soldiers from speaking to the press. The allegations first surfaced in the media on March 19.
  • The testimonies include a description by an infantry squad leader of an incident where an IDF sharpshooter mistakenly shot a Palestinian mother and her two children.
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  • Another squad leader from the same brigade told of an incident where the company commander ordered that an elderly Palestinian woman be shot and killed; she was walking on a road about 100 meters from a house the company had commandeered. IDF investigators said the soldier who alleged that a comrade was given orders to shoot an elderly woman had not witnessed such an event and "was only repeating a rumour he had heard". They noted, on the other hand, that a woman who approached troops and was suspected of being a suicide bomber had been fired upon repeatedly to try to stop her advancing at them.
Argos Media

Gaza probe / Either troops are liars, or the IDF is pure as snow - Haaretz - Israel News - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1075001.html

Israel War Crimes Avichai Mendelblit

shared by Argos Media on 31 Mar 09 - Cached
  • One would be hard-pressed not to express astonishment at the speed and efficiency demonstrated by the Military Advocate General, Brigadier-General Avichai Mendelblit, and the Military Police investigation unit in probing the "combat soldiers' testimonials affair" that took place at the Rabin pre-military training academy.
  • the military advocate general needed just 11 days (including two Saturdays) to probe the accounts of combat soldiers in order to completely dispel the allegations.
  • The military advocate general picks apart the testimonials brick by brick. Not only does he present alternative versions to the two most damning claims - the alleged shooting of a Palestinian mother and her children as well as the killing of an elderly Palestinian woman - but he also expends great effort in concealing a series of other allegations of improper behavior, from spitting on home photographs of Palestinian families to uprooting orchards to the use of white phosphorus bombs. Apparently, soldiers informed military police investigators of two more incidents in which civilians were mistakenly shot to death. Mendelblit retroactively provides a rationale for the soldiers' predicament in these cases as well.
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  • Given the international firestorm ignited by the intial media stories of the accounts and the dilemma which the soldiers found themselves in vis-a-vis their commanders, it is as if the soldiers chose a reasonable exit strategy: they can claim that their accounts were based on rumors so as not to open themselves up to charges that they ratted out their comrades. This is pure conjecture, of course. The soldiers were not permitted to speak with journalists. In other units, commanders have warned their soldiers to speak with anyone outside of the army about what they witnessed in the Gaza Strip.
  • here is another factor that must be taken into consideration. The investigation is based solely on one side of the equation - the Israeli side. An Associated Press reporter who was in Gaza last week interviewed Palestinians about the incidents in question. Their recollections to some extent corroborate the descriptions of the alleged shootings as initially recalled by the soldiers.
Argos Media

How Barack Obama refrained from using the 'g' word in Turkey | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...menia-genocide-us-turkey-obama

Obama US Turkey Armenian Genocide Armenia

shared by Argos Media on 07 Apr 09 - Cached
  • During last year's presidential election campaign, Obama had no doubt. "The Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence."
  • Obama, with Turkey's president Abdullah Gul and before parliament yesterday, refrained from using what the Turkish media call "the g word". It was not because his views had changed, he said, but because of ongoing talks between Turkey and Armenia, they no longer matter. "What I want to do now is not focus on my views but on the views of the Turkish and Armenian people," he said.
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