Kurdishinfo-Last Friday there appeared a small article in the Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram announcing the pending sale of 30 new F-16 fighters to Turkey. According to the article, the Pentagon had already notified Congress of the deal and if there are no congressional objections in 15 days, the sale will be approved automatically. Lockheed Martin, the world's largest arms manufacturer, will produce the fighter jets, but other members of the American defense contractor's establishment will also stand to gain in the deal, with General Electric, Boeing, L-3 Communications Holdings, Raytheon, and BAE Systems contributing to the production, according to Market Watch.
<snip>
“In fact, based on Human Rights Watch interviews with U.S. military personnel, it appears that Pentagon representatives in Ankara are more eager than ever to sell Turkey U.S. weapons, including M-60 tanks, helicopter gunships, cluster bombs, ground-to-ground missiles and small arms. The U.S. is also involved in co-production agreements with the Turkish defense industry, most notably helping to build the F-16 fighter-bomber, which the U.S. State Department acknowledged may have been used indiscriminately to kill Kurdish civilians, and a new armored personnel carrier. (3)
<snip>
The rejection of a political settlement was echoed by the US PKK coordinator, Joseph Ralston, in Ankara:
“Days before the declaration of the truce, the United States publicly said that a PKK cease-fire would have little value and that the terrorist group instead should lay down its arms and renounce violence. 'Cease-fire sort of implies an act that is taken between two states, two actors, to do that. And I don't want to confer that kind of status on the PKK by saying a cease-fire,' Joseph Ralston, the newly appointed U.S. special envoy for countering the PKK, said here last Wednesday.” (8)
What is most interesting about former USAF General Joseph Ralston are not the words he speaks or what is reported about him in the press as Washington's PKK coordinator. The most interesting thing about Joseph Ralston is that he is a member of the Board of Directors of Lockheed Martin, 9 the same corporation whose deal for the sale of 30 F-16's sits in the venerable halls of Congress at this very moment. The conflict of interest becomes more obscene by the fact that both Joseph Ralston and Lockheed Martin are closely tied to the Turkish lobby organization, the American Turkish Council (ATC). Joseph Ralston is a member of the 2006 ATC Advisory Board,10 while a former Lockheed Martin executive, George Perlman, is a member of the 2006 ATC Officers and Board of Directors.(11)
http://www.kurdmedia.com/articles.asp?id=13383
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
