Posted by D from 92.52.26.24.cfl.rr.com (24.26.52.92) on Thursday, May 29, 2003 at 7:42PM :
American and CIA involvement in the Turkish military interventions and coups d'etat is generally accepted as fact by the majority of the Turkish public. Consistent with this, in COUP, a Turkish Intelligence Agent gives the information that the 1971 coup was 'preemptive' - a tug-of-war between factions in the Armed Forces over America and Soviet spheres of influence - and was staged with American support to prevent a more left-wing coup from taking place. Several speakers tell alarmingly consistent stories about an American-sponsored Counter-Guerrilla Center and the famed Erenkoy Kiosk. A host of interviewees talk about a "Green Belt Project" spearheaded by General Alexander Haig.
Some of this is corroborated by information back in the States. Paul Henze, famously, is alleged to have reported back to the Pentagon after the 1980 coup, "Our boys have done it!" Several State Department press briefings from 1997 refer to "Operation Democracy" where "very high-level" administration and military officials met with Turkish counterparts in the days leading up to the 1997 military intervention.
Noam Chomsky provided some confirmation of this, writing us that this American behavior consistent with a 'Green Belt Project' "...didn't end in 1979. Support for Islamic fundamentalist militants became more extreme in the 1980s, both in the US and its Israeli client state. The US, as is now well-known, trained and armed some of the most fanatic Islamic fundamentalist elements in the world in its effort to impose maximal costs on the Russians in Afghanistan, probably delaying their departure (as intended), and with horrendous costs for the Afghans, still continuing. The terror network created there by the Reaganites has since extended throughout the world, with substantial "blowback" to the US. Middle East specialist John Cooley has a recent book on this, as you probably know. As for Israel, it invaded Lebanon in 1982 in the hope of destroying the secular PLO, which was becoming a serious irritant because of its pressure for diplomatic negotiations that neither the US nor Israel wanted. It ended up helping to create Hizbollah, which drove it out of most Lebanon. After that brilliant intelligence coup, Israeli intelligence proceeded to do exactly the same thing in the occupied territories, undermining the secular and much too accommodating PLO in every way it could, assisting extreme Islamic fundamentalist elements, and finally ending up with Hamas on its hands. That's by no means the whole story."
These statements, while often consistent, have not been and probably never can be publicly proven or adequately refuted by any authorities. But whether they are actually true in fact, the prevailing existence of such a belief throughout Turkey gives them a life of their own
-- D
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