No Drones to Turkey campaign in U.S.

[kirkuki]

Kurdish organizations in the United States have launched a joint campaign with anti-war organizations to call upon all those who respect human rights and seek a sustainable regional peace to help block the proposed U.S. arms sale to Turkey. The proposal has emerged at a time when Turkey has demonstrated a great lack of commitment to both human rights and regional peace.

The people running the campaign send a letter to their representatives and urge them to oppose the sale of armed aerial drones to Turkey on the concerns that the proposed deal would put civilians in Turkey at great risk and generate new security problems in the region.

The sample letter sent to representatives in the scope of the campaign says that;

“In December 2011, the Turkish military launched an operation using U.S.-supplied F-16 jets that resulted in the killing of 34 civilian Kurdish boys and young men along the Turkey-Iraq border. As reported by mainstream outlets such as the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Associated Press, the attack was guided by predator drone intelligence that was provided to the Turkish military. The Turkish government has demonstrated grave irresponsibility by continuing to avoid a public investigation, threatening members of the victims’ families, and disallowing them to file cases with the courts.”

The letter also reads that “The proposed sale of arms to Turkey comes at a time when Turkey has repeatedly violated human rights, brutally oppressed its Kurdish population, and adopted a belligerent attitude towards regional countries. Turkey’s military operations have resulted in numerous civilian casualties in Turkey as well as in Iraq.”

The organizations supporting the campaign are California Kurdish Community Center, Kurdish Human Rights Watch, Kurdish National Congress of North America, American Kurdish Council, American Kurdish Association, New England Kurdish Association, Kurdish Cultural Center of Atlanta and Kurdish Human Rights Campaign.

Turkey seeks to purchase armed predator drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) from the U.S. to use in the war it has waged against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) forces. The Obama administration is trying to convince the US Congress to approve the sale of spy drones to Turkey for its campaign against Kurdish guerrillas.

The campaign can be reached from the website No Drones To Turkey

 

[waltky]

Now there's clothing to evade drones...

Stealth Hoodie Hides Wearer From Drones
Jan 18, 2013 - Surveillance cameras are ubiquitous, especially in the U.K.. and in the United States, Congress has already approved the use of drones for domestic surveillance. Then there’s the “Stingray” tool used by the FBI to track cell phones. It’s enough to make even those who’ve gotten nothing hide feel nervous.

New York-based artist Adam Harvey doesn’t like it one bit. So he’s taken it upon himself to design anti-surveillance clothing to foil government snoopers.
An Invisibility Cloak For Heat Harvey has been looking at the effects of such surveillance on culture for some time. Last year he designed a kind of face makeup called CVDazzle to avert face-recognition software.

In the spirit of fooling cameras – and messing with surveillance – Harvey has now come out in a set of hoodies and scarves that block thermal radiation from the infrared scanners drones use. Wearing the fabric would make that part of the body look black to a drone, so the image would appear like disembodied legs. He also designed a pouch for cell phones that shields them from trackers by blocking the radio signals the phone emits. For those airport X-ray machines, he has a shirt with a printed design that blocks the radiation from one’s heart.

Libyan Rebels Flying High With Minidrone

The materials the clothes are made are specialized and expensive, so these aren’t the kinds of fashions that the local discount store will have – at least not yet. Harvey does plan to offer the clothes for sale, though. He sees the designs as a kind of conversation about surveillance in society at large. If we’re going to be watched all the time, shouldn’t we find a way to deal with that?

Stealth Hoodie Hides Wearer From Drones : Discovery News

 

[Bill Angel]

These anti drone demonstrators were planning to walk from Baltimore (near Johns Hopkins University) down to the CIA headquarters in Washington, dragging this model of a drone the entire way. The walk is to honor Brian Terrell, who was imprisoned because of his protests against the US drone program and is currently serving six months in the federal prison in Yankton, S.D.

No Drones Walk 5

No Drones Walk 1

 

[Kurdistani4ever]

Advanced weaponry must not fall into the hands of genocidal people! But sadly it already has.

 

[waltky]

Turkey accuses Syria of war crimes...

Turkey: Syrian regime's actions equal war crimes
January 23, 2013 -- Syria's bombardment of its citizens should be declared a war crime and aid groups must be given greater access to the millions suffering there, Turkey's foreign minister told the World Economic Forum.

Syria has seen a rise in violence recently, including a government rocket attack Wednesday, in the two-year-old conflict the U.N. says has killed more than 60,000 people. The seemingly unstoppable carnage in Syria was one of the major topics Wednesday at the global gathering of corporate and political leaders in the Swiss resort of Davos. "There should be a clear signal to the Syrian regime that what they have been doing, bombarding cities by airplanes, is a war crime," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, adding that he expected the U.N. Security Council to step in "to stop this bloodshed." "People are dying in Syria ... How long will we wait? ... The silence of the international community is killing people," he added.

At other sessions, Arab officials and Middle East observers echoed a theme of exasperated dismay combined with a lack of clarity about what exactly should be done. "What's happening in Syria goes beyond tragedy," said Saudi Prince Turki Al Faisal, a former intelligence chief and ambassador to the United States. "It is truly a shameful situation where the world sits by and people are being killed every day, and nobody is ready to put a stop to it." His country is a rival of Iran, one of the main backers of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Faisal identified another problem, saying the Arab world "doesn't have the means to get involved... It doesn't have the air force, the navy, the army, the intelligence-gathering machinery to go and surgically stop this fighting." U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Ann Amos, meanwhile, emphasized how urgent the need was in Syria. "The humanitarian situation in Syria is already catastrophic and it's clearly getting worse," said Amos. "What we are seeing now are the consequences of the failure of the international community to unite to resolve the crisis."

The world has been grappling with how to deal with the Syrian war ever since protests against Assad erupted in March 2011. But beyond calls and symbolic gestures such as last fall's recognition by many countries of the opposition as the legitimate government of Syria, there has been no intervention on the ground. Russia has given Assad's embattling regime significant diplomatic cover - which has of late has been eroding - and there has been widespread reluctance in the West to arm the rebels due to concerns about the influential role of anti-Western jihadi elements in the rebellion.

MORE

 

[APO]

Shut up, Turkey. Your hypocrisy is hard to swallow. You provide weapons and tanks to Islamists to kill Kurdish civilians in Sere Kaniye (Ras Al-Ayn). If anyone's comitting war crimes, it is Turkey! Results of this terrorist state:

https:// pbs. twimg. com/media/BBDpep1CMAIDPh7.jpg

 

[waltky]

Patriot missiles ready in Turkey...

NATO: Patriot missile battery operational on Syrian border
January 28th, 2013 - 129 die nationwide on Saturday, a network of opposition activists reports; 8 children among 16 killed in aerial bombing near Aleppo, another group says; The first of six planned NATO missile batteries arrives in Turkey, not far from Syria; Report: A senior Iranian official says an attack on Syria would be seen as a strike on Iran

The first of six Patriot missile batteries intended to protect Turkey from Syrian threats is operational along the countries' shared border, NATO said Saturday. The other five batteries, which NATO says are to be for defensive purposes only, are expected to be in place in coming days. NATO foreign ministers decided in December to deploy the batteries after Syria launched Scud missiles near the Turkish border. In October, errant Syrian artillery shells hit the Turkish border town of Akcakale.

The operational missile battery is in the city of Adana. Patriot systems will also be deployed to help protect the Turkish cities of Kahramanmaras and Gaziantep, NATO said. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said this month that the missile batteries will stay only as long as there is a threat. Their arrival came on yet another day of bloodshed in Syria, where the United Nations said recently that more than 60,000 have been killed since the conflict began nearly two years ago.

At least 129 people were killed across the country Saturday, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a network of opposition activists. Forty-four of the deaths were in Aleppo province, 40 in Damascus and its suburbs, and 18 in Homs province. The group reported fierce shelling by the regime in the Damascus suburbs. Injuries were reported after aircraft dropped cluster bombs near Aleppo, the group said. Another opposition group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported attacks by Syrian warplanes in cities and villages.

Some of the deadliest aerial bombardments took place in Manjab in Aleppo's suburbs, where the Observatory reported eight children and two women were among 16 killed. The group also said 13 unidentified civilians had been killed "by regime forces' gunfire" around Daraya, the Damascus suburb where opposition activists had reported at least 245 people found dead over one August weekend. CNN cannot independently verify many claims from Syria, as the government has severely restricted access by international journalists.

Despite widespread condemnation among world leaders, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad still has his supporters. On Saturday, a senior Iranian official said an attack on Syria would be regarded as a strike against Iran and its allies, according to Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency. Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, also praised Syria's logistical support for the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, which the United States lists as a terrorist organization.

NATO: Patriot missile battery operational on Syrian border - CNN.com