More Influence Buying By Countries. This Time It Is The British.

Clintons' charities got £50million of British aid cash: UK government accused of trying to buy influence with US power family

• The charity's board includes former president Bill and candidate Hillary  
• It has had £48.9million from the UK - more than £20million last year alone 
• Critics say its a symptom of controversial pledge on foreign aid spending
• Some claim charity is inefficient and taxpayers could simply be funding management charges 

By DANIEL MARTIN and GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 18:53 EST, 24 July 2015 | UPDATED: 08:20 EST, 25 July 2015

 
 
 
 
 

3.9kshares

528

View comments

Tens of millions of pounds of UK aid money has been siphoned through charities linked to Hillary Clinton, it emerged last night.

British politicians – including Gordon Brown – stand accused of diverting huge amounts of cash through the organisations after falling under the spell of the US presidential candidate and her husband Bill.

At least £50 million of taxpayer-funded foreign aid money has gone to Clinton charities, which are at the centre of allegations in the US that foreign governments used donations to buy influence.

The UK is one of the biggest donors, handing over more than £20 million last year alone to the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), an organisation chaired by former President Bill, 68, and whose board includes the couple's daughter Chelsea, 35. Since 2011, a total of £48.9 million has gone into the coffers of this charity alone.

+1

Controversy: At least £50 million of taxpayer-funded foreign aid money has gone to Clinton charities, which are at the centre of allegations in the US that foreign governments used donations to buy influence

Tory backbenchers say the revelation is symptomatic of the fact that the Department for International Development has so much money to spend that large amounts have to be simply handed to global charities, often leading to huge amounts of waste.

The Clinton charities are involved in running projects receiving some £107 million from DfID since 2009 – although not all of this money went to their organisations.

But critics are concerned that waste at CHAI is so high that British taxpayers may end up paying millions of pounds of management charges – money which they say would be much better spent on front-line disaster relief.

RELATED ARTICLES

• Previous
• 1
• Next

• Five airlines under investigation for price gouging after...Barack Obama's plea for UK to stay in the EU infuriates Tory...

SHARE THIS ARTICLE

Share

Britain spends £12 billion a year on overseas aid, thanks to a new law which commits the Government to spending 0.7 per cent of national income on international development.

CHAI spends its funds on improving the treatment of HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis in the developing world, mainly in Africa.

But a new book claimed that foreign governments and individuals received favourable treatment from the US government in return for donations to Clinton family charities. The revelations have proved an embarrassment for Mrs Clinton, 67, who has moved to distance herself from the charities.

DAVE'S LAST-MINUTE £415MILLION HANDOUT JUST TO MEET 0.7% FOREIGN AID SPENDING TARGET

Aid officials wrote a cheque for nearly half a billion pounds to an international charity in a desperate effort to meet David Cameron's spending target, it emerged last night.

The extraordinary sum was rushed to the Swiss-based Global Fund with only days left to go to ensure the Government met its controversial pledge to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on aid.

It meant Britain ended up providing more than a fifth of the organisation's total budget – twice the planned scale of donation, it was claimed last night.

The Global Fund pays its 600 staff an average salary package of almost £130,000, and has also recently commissioned an expensive new lakeside headquarters in Geneva. The body was set up by the G8 to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria.

Details of the enormous pledge in December 2013 were made public in a National Audit Office report.

Last night a Department for International Development spokesman said the report concluded the timing of the donation 'made no impact on the scale of our investment'.

He added: 'With our support, the Global Fund will save a life every three minutes.'

In 2008, Mr Brown addressed a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. The Clinton Foundation, the main family charity, revealed that the UK Government had been making donations since the following year – when Mrs Clinton took office as US Secretary of State.

The UK's donations to the Clinton charities took off after then International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell met Mrs Clinton at a UN summit in New York in 2010.

An examination of published payments over £500 made by DfID in 2014 reveals that CHAI received £20.2 million, with £4.8million spent up to the end of May this year. In 2013, £13.1 million was handed over, with £9.6 million going to CHAI in 2012 and £1.1 million in 2011.

Before this date there are no published figures. It is not known how much went to the Clinton Foundation.

Philip Davies, the Tory MP for Shipley, said: 'The fact we are spending more and more on aid when we are massively in debt is bad enough, but when it is being tossed away for vanity reasons to ingratiate UK politicians with the rich and powerful in the US … I think most people would find that distasteful and unacceptable.'

Jonathan Isaby, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'The ludicrous aid target means all too often DfID officials are desperate to spend money in any way they can, which is nothing more than irresponsible. We need DfID to provide far more transparency.'

A DFID spokesman said: 'The Department for International Development does not fund the Clinton Foundation. DFID does fund the Clinton Health Access Initiative, an independent NGO founded in 2010.' 

The Clinton Foundation said: 'All contributions from DfID have gone to CHAI. We can confirm that DfID donated to CHAI pre-2010 when it was part of the Clinton Foundation. CHAI is an independent, affiliated entity.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3174033/Clintons-charities-got-50million-British-aid-cash-UK-government-accused-trying-buy-influence-power-family.html#ixzz3h2EyUuqf
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Hillary's Respect For Margaret Sanger Will Come Back To Haunt Her In Light Of Her Support For The Organization And The Videos Exposing Their Lack Of Empathy For The Babies They Killed.

CARSON: HILLARY'S 'AWE' OF SANGER A 'TICKING BOMB'

'That quotation that she just said will come back'

 BOB UNRUH 

Hillary Clinton

President Barack Obama’s advocacy for abortion has been unparalleled by any American president in history – he’s on record, while he was a state senator, of even opposing instructing doctors to try to save an infant who survives an abortion procedure.

But the “awe” possible Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has for the woman who is credited with launching Planned Parenthood is nothing less than a “ticking time bomb,” according to surgeon and GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson.

Planned Parenthood has been in the headlines over the last two weeks because of undercover videos that revealed two executives discussing the prices for the body parts of unborn babies.

One of those executives even said that while prices didn’t really matter much, “I want a Lamborghini.”

So the issue arose recently for 2016 presidential candidate Ben Carson, who was being interviewed on a Des Moines, Iowa, radio show.

According to a report at Truth Revolt, Carson was asked by a WHO radio host to comment on an Obama speech from a short time ago when he said, “Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you.”

“You wonder if he actually knows the history of Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger, who was trying to eliminate black people,” Carson said. “That was the whole purpose of it.”

“Abortion Free” is the manual for removing abortions from America, one community at a time.

He also recalled Hillary Clinton’s appearance from 2009 before a Planned Parenthood audience.

“I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision,” Clinton said. “I am really in awe of her.”

“I am delighted to have her saying that on tape because if I am a nominee and we are in the race, believe me, that quotation that she just said will come back and it will be in a context that people can understand. She has done us a great favor right there… That is a ticking time bomb and of course, her whole relationship with Saul Alinsky,” Carson said.

See Clinton’s comments:

While Sanger often is praised by progressives as the impetus behind the launch of Planned Parenthood, the actual details of her work often are overlooked.

Not, however, by Arina Grossu, of the Center for Human Dignity in Washington.

“Sanger shaped the eugenics movement in America and beyond in the 1930s and 1940s. Her views and those of her peers in the movement contributed to compulsory sterilization laws in 30 U.S. states that resulted in more than 60,000 sterilizations of vulnerable people, including people she considered ‘feeble-minded,’ ‘idiots’ and ‘morons,’” Grossu found.

“She even presented at a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1926 in Silver Lake, N.J. She recounted this event in her autobiography: ‘I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan … I saw through the door dim figures parading with banners and illuminated crosses … I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak … In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose.’”

Grossu uncovered a 1939 letter, Sanger wrote, “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

She also said, “The main objects of the Population Congress would be to apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring[;] to give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization.”

Grossu noted even now, nearly 80 percent of Planned Parenthood’s surgical abortion facilities are located within walking distance of black or Hispanic communities.

And she noted figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show from 2007 to 2010, more than one third of all abortions destroyed unborn black babies. That’s even though black Americans make up only 13 percent of the population.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/carson-hillarys-awe-of-sanger-a-ticking-bomb/#oYhfCzzdmtIKTEvM.99

Gay Movement Gets Another Victory.Another Act Against Religious Organizations

FEDERAL 'GAY' MANIA SPARKS PUSH FOR CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

'When we come to a lawless phase, at some point in time we just have to resist'

Published: 15 hours ago

image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2014/02/gcorombos_avatar-96x96.jpg

 GREG COROMBOS 

A key government agency says the landmark Civil Rights Act forbids employers from firing or refusing to hire people based on their sexual orientation, a ruling critics say has no basis in law and threatens to erode Americans’ most basic liberties. And now one prominent critic suggests civil disobedience may be the proper response in the face of tyranny and lawlessness.

On July 16, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on biological sex, also ought to apply to sexual orientation. The decision follows a 2012 ruling that extended similar protections to transgender employees and applicants. The only exception is extended to business with 15 or fewer employees.

“This ruling is absolutely absurd,” said Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver. “It’s certainly not based upon the statute, and so this is lawlessness in the process. This is an activist agency dominated by appointments from President Barack Obama that has a homosexual agenda that trumps not only Title VII and any other statutory law but even the First Amendment.”

Staver said there is no rational way to conclude members of Congress in 1964 intended the Civil Rights Act to cover sexual orientation.

“Title VII is what Congress said it is, and what Congress said it is is very specific. It’s about sex discrimination,” he said. “That’s whether you’re male or female, not whether you’re engaging in a certain kind of sexual behavior.

“They’re not trying to protect a pedophile or a homosexual or a transsexual or a pederast or someone else that has some other sexual fetish or abnormal activity. They’re trying to deal with the difference between a male and a female,” said Staver, who argued that the EEOC is ignoring the law to advance its agenda.

“This is just three people pretending to have authority which they don’t,” he said. “Their authority has to interpret the federal Title VII. Title VII does not include homosexuality or any other kind of sexually aberrant behavior.”

Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Mathew Staver:

What will be the impact on the workplace? Staver contends that if employees keep their sex lives to themselves, most working environments would remain much as they are today.

“Most people are not going to tell someone that they can’t work for them if they’re doing the job and they’re not pushing their sexual activity into the face of other individuals,” he said. “They’re not going to inquire about what they do when they’re not at the workplace in most situations.”

The problem, Staver said, is that homosexuals often call attention to themselves because their sexual orientation is critical to their overall identity.

“They’re not content just having this as something that they do outside of the workplace,” he explained. “No, this is part of who they want you to understand they are. It is front and center. It is a very sexualized culture. They bring that sexualized culture into the workplace. They talk about it. They put it into your face.”

There are no exceptions in the EEOC decision for churches or faith-based organizations, and Staver said complaints based on religious freedom will fall on deaf ears.

“If you’re relying upon the EEOC, there is no religious freedom protection,” Staver said. “In fact, the the head of the EEOC appointed by President Obama, Chai Feldblum, says that if there is a collision between homosexual rights and the First Amendment free exercise of religion, you would think that the First Amendment wins. She says no. Homosexual rights win.”

What options does this leave for employers seeking greater freedom in their hiring? Staver said the time for civil disobedience is here.

“We’re entering into a lawless phase,” he said. “The 3-2 decision by the EEOC is an example. The 5-4 opinion by the Supreme Court on marriage is another example. When we come to a lawless phase, at some point in time we just have to resist and say, ‘We’re not going to allow three people on the EEOC or five people on the Supreme Court to destroy this religious mission and ministry. We’re not going to allow it, and we’ve got to push back.”

In fact, Staver believes the failure to push back now and over the long haul will put Americans’ most cherished liberties in peril.

“We’ve come to a different place in our history,” he said. “We’ve come to a place of revolution, where we need to revolt against this tyranny of a few people who, despite what the Constitution and the courts’ precedents say and despite what natural law and the Bible says, they come out with this opinion.

“They expect 320 million Americans to walk like the Pied Piper and follow them over the cliff. If that’s what happens, then God help us, because we’ve lost our country. We’ve lost our liberty.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/federal-gay-mania-sparks-push-for-civil-disobedience/#GVSfRwUM1EZ4GF7K.99

Pakistani Christian Woman In Prison For Six Years For "Insulting" Muhammad.

Islamist "Justice": Slow Painful Death for Christian Mother in Pakistan

by Raymond Ibrahim
July 26, 2015 at 4:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6224/islamist-justice-pakistan

41

Comment

• While working as a farm laborer on a hot day, Asia Bibi was told to fetch water. When she returned, Muslim coworkers refused to drink from the water, saying it was unclean because a Christian had touched it.
• Six years later, Asia Bibi still has not been executed. Instead, sick, isolated, and regularly beaten by both prison guards and Muslim inmates, she has evidently been left to rot to death.
• Every time any Western organization calls for her release, Pakistani Muslims threaten to take Sharia law into their own hands. One mosque prayer leader has even offered $6000 to anyone who kills her -- a strong incentive, since many in Pakistan would probably kill her for free.
• According to Islamic law, the word of a Christian is not valid against the word of a Muslim. Accusations of blasphemy against Christians by Muslims routinely result in the Christians being imprisoned, beaten, and sometimes killed -- in some cases even without evidence. Pakistan does not require proof of a crime, only allegations -- often made for extraneous reasons, and totally unfounded.

Pakistan's authorities appear to have found a solution to at least one of their problems in the international arena: Aasiya Noreen -- or "Asia Bibi" -- a 50-year-old Christian woman and mother of five, who has been on death row for six years for allegedly insulting Muhammad.
Instead of executing Asia Bibi and further advertising to the international community that theirs is a savage and backwards nation -- and instead of releasing her and provoking millions of angry Muslims to turn on the government and accuse it of supporting "apostasy" -- Pakistan's authorities appear to be letting time, wretched conditions, severe maltreatment, and beatings slowly kill her.

Asia Bibi and two of her five children, pictured prior to her imprisonment.

Recent reports state that she is deathly ill and "so weak she could hardly walk." Mission Network News says that Asia Bibi has "internal bleeding, abdominal pain, and is vomiting blood. If she does not receive immediate medical care, she could die."
According to Bruce Allen of Forgotten Missionaries International, "She suffers terrible pain, and she can hardly eat. ... Here's this woman, languishing in a prison under this death sentence for a crime that she vehemently denies."
In June 2009, while working as a farm laborer on a hot day, Asia Bibi was told to fetch water. Because she had drunk some of the water, the Muslim workers refused it: both the cup and the water were, they said, unclean because a Christian had touched them. (See this video of an Egyptian cleric saying how disgusted he is by Christians and how he could not drink from a cup that was merely touched by a Christian.)
Before the "cup" incident, it seems, a feud between Asia and one of her Muslim neighbors concerning property damage had existed.
After the "cup" incident, her enemies and some of the Muslim workers complained to a Muslim cleric. They accused Asia Bibi of making insulting statements about the Muslim prophet, Muhammad. Her official "crime," therefore, which she vehemently denies, is "insulting" the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
Shortly after the complaint was registered, a mob stormed her home and severely beat her and her family, including her children. They put a noose around her neck and dragged her through the streets. She was then arrested; and in November 2010, a Punjabi court fined her and sentenced her to death by hanging, in accordance to Section 295-C, which prohibits on pain of death any insult against the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
Because her case attracted attention and condemnation from the international community, six years later, she still, mercifully, has not been executed. Instead, however, sick, isolated and regularly beaten by prison guards and Muslim inmates, she has evidently been left to rot to death.
In late 2011, a female prison-officer -- assigned to provide security for Asia -- was discovered beating her, "allegedly because of the Muslim officer's anti-Christian bias, while other staff members deployed for her security looked on in silence."
In late December 2013, Asia Bibi, a Catholic, sent a message to Pope Francis, saying that, "only God will be able to free me. ... I also hope that every Christian has been able to celebrate the Christmas just past with joy. Like many other prisoners, I also celebrated the birth of the Lord in prison in Multan, here in Pakistan... I would have liked to be in St. Peter's for Christmas to pray with you, but I trust in God's plan for me and hopefully it will be achieved next year."
It was not. In 2014, a Pakistani court upheld her death penalty. Recently, Pope Francis called for clemency for Asia Bibi while the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom pressed the Obama administration to designate Pakistan a "country of particular concern."
Last year, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, citing Asia Bibi in particular, as well others, called for the use of the $900 million in U.S. aid to Pakistan as leverage to help persecuted religious minorities. If these funds are not used as leverage, nearly $1 billion in U.S. aid can be seen as "rewarding" Pakistan for being openly unjust to its minorities.
Christian minorities are still arrested for "defaming Muhammad" -- that is, if a Muslim mob does not get to them first and burn them alive, as happened to a Christian couple last year, and as was recently attempted against a mentally disabled Christian man.
According to Wilson Chowdhry of the British Pakistani Christian Association:

Asia Bibi is by no means the only Christian on death row for blasphemy in Pakistan. There are a number of others, and there are also other Christians who are in there for crimes they did not commit, and are in effect in there because they are Christians.
People have to contact leaders of their nations and ask them to engage on dialogue with the Pakistani government for humanitarian rights alone renew the primary place of human rights when they engage in dialogue with foreign governments which habitually violate them. We see what happens when someone tries to challenge the blasphemy laws in Pakistan, it got two key politicians killed.

In a country with such animosity against Christians, I don't believe a Supreme Court judge will be brave enough to exonerate her.

A report from 2012 found that "Since 1990 alone, fifty-two people have been extra-judicially murdered on charges of blasphemy" in Pakistan.

Yet every time any Western entity calls for her release, Pakistani Muslims threaten to take Sharia law into their own hands and murder her. Five years ago, a mosque prayer leader announced that anyone who manages to kill her would be rewarded with $6,000. It is a strong incentive, considering that many in Pakistan would probably kill her for free.
As Asia Bibi's husband, Ashiq Masih, puts it:

"The Maulvis [clerics] want her dead. They have announced a prize of Rs 10,000 to Rs 500,000 (£60 to £3,200) for anyone who kills Asia. They have even declared that if the court acquits her they will ensure the death sentence stands.
"I am planning our protection. If she is set free I hope we are moved to a safer country, as Pakistan cannot protect her.
"She has not made any mistake. We all know she has not committed any crime. We all know how Pakistan treats Christians. She was framed, she never committed any crime."

Even some of those who have stood up for Asia Bibi have been murdered: two of her most prominent advocates, Governor Salmaan Taseer and Minority Affairs Minister Shabaz Bhatti, were both slaughtered. Taseer was shot twenty-seven times by Mumtaz Qadri -- his own bodyguard -- as he left his mother's home. The bodyguard cited as his motive that the governor was supportive of a Christian woman accused of blasphemy.
After the murder, more than 500 Muslim clerics voiced support for the crime, and further pushed for a general boycott of Taseer's funeral. Supporters of Mumtaz Qadri blocked police who were attempting to arrest him, and some supporters showered him with rose petals.
As for Bhatti, a Christian, Taliban-linked Muslims murdered him for his outspoken position against Pakistan's blasphemy law and his support for Asia Bibi. His car was ambushed and sprayed with bullets. A letter left at the scene said that anyone who tried to tamper with Pakistan's blasphemy law would suffer the same fate.
Bhatti, who received innumerable death threats, predicted his own murder. In a prerecorded video released after his death, he said, "I believe in Jesus Christ who has given his own life for us ... and I am ready to die for a cause ... I am living for my community ... and I will die to defend their rights."
The investigation into his murder was so lax (a series of suspects were freed) that it has been suggested that the Pakistani government may have been involved in -- or at least sympathetic to -- his assassination, for being a Christian and opposed to the blasphemy law.
Pakistan does not require proof of a crime, only allegations -- often made for extraneous reasons, and totally unfounded.

Pakistanis' extreme sensitivity to any potential insult to Muhammad is reflected in several laws in the nation's penal code. Section 295-C reads:

Whoever by words, either spoken or written or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.

Because non-Muslims -- particularly Christians, who by definition are known to reject Muhammad's prophecy -- are more likely to be suspected of blasphemy, and because,according to Islamic law, the word of a Christian is not valid against the word of a Muslim, blasphemy accusations by Muslims against Christians routinely result in the Christians being imprisoned, beaten and killed. Sometimes the accused is killed even when there is no evidence.
In Pakistan, this scenario plays itself out over and over again. Christians, who reportedly make up less than one percent of the population in Pakistan, are especially vulnerable to charges of blasphemy.
Years before Asia Bibi was falsely accused, in 1994, Amnesty International reported:

Several dozen people have been charged with blasphemy in Pakistan over the last few years; in all the cases known to Amnesty International, the charges of blasphemy appear to have been arbitrarily brought, founded solely on the individuals' minority religious beliefs. . . . The available evidence in all these cases suggests that charges were brought as a measure to intimidate and punish members of minority religious communities . . . hostility towards religious minority groups appeared in many cases to be compounded by personal enmity, professional or economic rivalry or a desire to gain political advantage. As a consequence, Amnesty International has concluded that most of the individuals now facing charges of blasphemy, or convicted on such charges, are prisoners of conscience, detained solely for their real or imputed religious beliefs in violation of their right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

The British Pakistani Christian Association has started a petition calling for Bibi's release, and offers more ways to help Asia's case and help her husband Ashiq with legal fees.
In a recent interview, Asia Bibi's husband said:

"I really love her and miss her presence. I cannot sleep at night as I miss her. I miss her smile; I miss everything about her. She is my soulmate. I cannot see her in prison. It breaks my heart. Life has been non-existent without her. ... My children cry for their mother, they are broken. But I try to give them hope where I can."

Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War in Christians(published by Regnery in cooperation with Gatestone Institute, April 2013).

Turkey Is Not A Friend Of The Only Group Fighting ISIS--The Kurds

Turkey Uses ISIS as Excuse to Attack Kurds

by Uzay Bulut
July 26, 2015 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6223/turkey-isis-kurds

77

Comment

• It appears as if the Turkish government is using ISIS as a pretext to attack the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party).
• Turkey just announced that its air base at Incirlik will soon be open to coalition forces, presumably to fight ISIS. But the moment Turkey started bombing, it targeted Kurdish positions in Iraq, in addition to targeting ISIS positions in Syria.
• In Turkey, millions of indigenous Kurds are continually terrorized and murdered, but ISIS terrorists can freely travel and use official border crossings to go to Syria and return to Turkey; they are even treated at Turkish hospitals.
• If this is how the states that rule over Kurds treat them, why is there even any question as to whether the Kurds should have their own self-government?

Turkey's government seems to be waging a new war against the Kurds, now struggling to get an internationally recognized political status in Syrian Kurdistan.
On July 24, Turkish media sources reported that Turkish jet fighters bombed Kurdish PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) bases in Qandil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria.
Turkey is evidently unsettled by the rapprochement the PKK seems to be establishing with the U.S. and Europe. Possibly alarmed by the PKK's victories against ISIS, as well as its strengthening international standing, Ankara, in addition to targeting ISIS positions in Syria, has been bombing the PKK positions in the Qandil mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, where the PKK headquarters are located.
There is no ISIS in Qandil.
As expected, many Turkish media outlets were more enthusiastic about the Turkish air force's bombing the Kurdish militia than about bombing ISIS. "The camps of the PKK," they excitedly reported, "have been covered with fire."
It appears as if Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is using ISIS as a pretext to attack the PKK. Ankara just announced that its air base at Incirlik will soon be open to coalition forces, presumably to fight ISIS, but the moment Turkey started bombing, it targeted Kurdish positions. Those attacks not only open a new era of death and destruction, but also bring an end to all possibilities of resolving Turkey's Kurdish issue non-violently.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced that

"a second wave operation against Daesh [ISIS] in Syria was started. Just after that, a very comprehensive operation was carried out against the camps of the terrorist organization PKK in northern Iraq. I am glad that the targets were hit with great success. We have given instructions to start a third wave operation in Syria and a second wave operation in Iraq."

The "great success" of the Turkish military has brought much damage and injury to even Kurdish civilians -- including children. The Kurdish newspaper Rudaw reported that two Kurdish villagers in Duhok's Berwari region were carried to hospital in the aftermath of a Turkish artillery bombardment in the Amediye region. One of the victims was 12 years old. The second victim lost a leg in an airstrike. Four members of the PKK were killed and several others were injured.
Shortly after military operations against the PKK started, access to the websites of pro-Kurdish newspapers and news agencies was denied "by decree of court." These websites -- including Fırat News Agency (ANF), Dicle News Agency (DIHA), Hawar News Agency (ANHA), Ozgur Gundem newspaper, Yuksekova News, Rudaw and BasNews -- are still blocked in Turkey.
ISIS, meanwhile, has not so far made any statement regarding Turkey's so-called bombings of ISIS in any of its media outlets.
Had Turkish military attacked the PKK alone, and not in addition to attacking ISIS, it would probably have received widespread international condemnation. So to add "legitimacy" to its attacks against the Kurdish PKK -- whose affiliate Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria and its armed wing, the Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG) have been resisting ISIS and other Islamist terrorist groups since 2013 -- Turkey declared that it will also attack ISIS. This would give it cover for its attacks against Kurdish fighters.
In 2014, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the plan he wanted to carry out in Syria and Iraq: "The problem in Syria should be taken into account. Iraq too should be considered similarly. Moreover, there needs to be a solution that will also deal with the Syrian wing [PYD] of the separatist terrorist organization [PKK]."
The AKP government, dissatisfied with the results of last month's parliamentary elections, also seems to want to hold new elections, to push the mainly Kurdish HDP Party below the required 10% threshold, and thus force them out of parliament. Perhaps the government thinks that bombing the PKK will generate Turkish nationalist enthusiasm that will work in the AKP's favor to help it regain a majority in early elections.
Apparently, Turkey does not need Kurdish deputies in its parliament. Apparently, the state prefers to slaughter or arrest the Kurds -- as it has done for decades. Why hold talks and reach a democratic resolution when you have the power to murder people wholesale?[1]
Sadly, Turkey has preferred not to form a "Turkish-Kurdish alliance" to destroy ISIS. First, Turkey has opened its borders to ISIS, enabling the growth of the terrorist group. And now, at the first opportunity, it is bombing the Kurds again. According to this strategy, "peace" will be possible only when Kurds submit to Turkish supremacism and abandon their goal of being an equal nation.
In the meantime, Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkish minister of foreign affairs, said that the Incirlik air base in Turkey has not yet been opened for use by the U.S. and other coalition forces, but that it will be opened in the upcoming period.
Kurdish forces, therefore, are the only forces that are truly resisting the Islamic State.
They have been repressed by Baghdad and murdered by Turkey and Iran.
If this is how the states that rule over Kurds treat them, why is there even any question as to whether the Kurds should have their own self-government?
As a result of the ISIS attacks in the region, the Kurdish PKK -- as well as its Syrian Kurdish affiliate, Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG) -- have emerged as the America's most effective battlefield partners against ISIS. Ever since ISIS became a major force in Syria, the U.S. has apparently relied heavily on YPG to stop ISIS from advancing. According to Henri Barkey, a former State Department specialist on Turkey, "The U.S. has become the YPG's air force and the YPG has become the U.S.'s ground force in Syria."

* * *

Attacks on the Kurds were already under way last week. On July 20, a bomb attack in the Kurdish town of Suruc (Pirsus) in Turkey killed 32 people during a meeting of young humanitarian activists, who were discussing the reconstruction of the neighboring Kurdish town of Kobane.

The scene of the suicide bombing in Suruc, Turkey. An ISIS suicide bomber murdered 32 people and wounded more than 100 others in a July 20 attack on Kurdish humanitarian activists. (Image source: VOA video screenshot)

The blast took place while the activists were making a statement to the press in the garden of a cultural center. At least 100 others, mostly university students, were wounded. (Graphic video of the explosion)
The suicide bomber was identified through DNA testing, according to reports in the Turkish news media. Seyh Abdurrahman Alagoz was reportedly a 20-year-old Turkish university student, recently returned from Syria, and believed to have had ties to ISIS.
Alagoz targeted a meeting 300 secular activists, members of the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations (SGDF), who gathered at a cultural center in the province of Urfa, opposite the Kurdish town of Kobane in Syrian Kurdistan. As part of an effort to rebuild Kobane, they were preparing to provide aid, give toys to the children there and build a hospital, school, nursery, children's park, library and a memorial forest for those who had lost their lives in Kobane.
"Work on the building of hospitals and schools needs to be done," Oguz Yuzgec, the co-president of the federation, said before the explosion. "One of the things we will do is to build a children's park in Kobane. We will name it after Emre Aslan, who died fighting in Kobane. We are collecting toys. We will participate in the construction of the nursery that the canton of Kobane is planning to build. We have the responsibility of helping the nursery function. We need everybody who knows how to draw and can teach children."
Mazlum Demirtas, a survivor of the attack, said: "The main one responsible for this incident is the state of Turkey, the AKP fascism, the AKP dictatorship. ... It attacked us with its gunmen and gangs. Since yesterday, parents have been collecting the dismembered body parts of their children. They are trying to identify the dismembered bodies. This is called fascism, inhumanity and barbarity."
Pinar Gayip, another survivor of the attack, said in a telephone interview on the pro-government Haberturk TV that, "Instead of helping the wounded, the murderer-police of the murderer-AKP threw tear gas at the vehicles with which we carried the wounded." She was taken off the air.
All across Turkish Kurdistan, there were protests condemning the massacre and the government's alleged involvement in it. Police in Istanbul used plastic bullets and water cannons against people who gathered to remember those murdered in Suruc.
The Turkish authorities briefly blocked access to Twitter last Wednesday to prevent the people from viewing photos of the bombing in Suruc. Officials admitted that Turkey had asked Twitter to remove 107 URLs (web addresses) with images related to the bombing; before the ban, Twitter had already removed 50.
Selahattin Demirtas, the co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Party (HDP), said that state surveillance activities were intensive in Suruc, and that the intelligence service was recording the identity of everyone traveling to and from Suruc.
As Demirtas's own convoy had recently not been permitted to enter Suruc, he emphasized the extent of state surveillance in the town, and said that nobody could argue that someone could have managed to infiltrate the crowd and carry out the suicide attack without state support.
"Today, we have witnessed in Suruc yet again what an army of barbarity and rape, an army that has lost human dignity, can do," Demirtas said. "Those who have been silent in the face of ISIS, who have not dared even raise their voice to it, as well as the officials in Ankara who threaten even the HDP every day but caress the head of ISIS, are the accomplices of this barbarity."
In the meantime, Mehmet Gormez, the head of the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), announced on its Twitter account that the perpetrators of the Suruc attack do not have religion.
However, three days before the massacre in Suruc, about 100 Islamists -- alleged to be ISIS sympathizers -- had performed mass Islamic Eid prayers in Istanbul. They demanded Islamic sharia law instead of democracy. ISIS sympathizers had performed the same Eid prayers at the same place the year before, as well.
Over the border in Syrian Kurdistan, shortly after the blast in Suruc, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb at a checkpoint in Kobane. Two Kurdish fighters were killed in the explosion, according to Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Last month, a deadly blast hit the Kurdish province of Diyarbakir in Turkey, during an election rally of the pro-Kurdish HDP that was attended by tens of thousands of people. Just before the HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtas was going to speak, two bombs exploded at different places. Four people were killed, and more than 100 people are estimated to have been wounded. One of the wounded, Lisa Calan, 28, a Kurdish art director from Diyarbakir, lost both legs in the explosion.
As the wounded were being carried to hospitals, police used tear gas against people trying to run from the area in panic
The bomber was reported to be a member of ISIS.

* * *

In Turkey, millions of indigenous Kurds are continually terrorized and murdered, while ISIS terrorists can freely travel and use official border crossings to go to Syria and return to Turkey; they are even treated at Turkish hospitals. Emrah Cakan, for instance, a Turkish-born ISIS commander wounded in Syria, got medical treatment at the university hospital in Turkey's Denizli province in March.
The Denizli governor's office issued a written statement on 5 March:

"The treatment of Emrah C. at the Denizli hospital was started upon his own application. The procedural acts concerning his injury were conducted by our border city during his entry to our country and they still continue. And his treatment procedures continue as a part of his right to benefit from health services just like all our other citizens have."

The "compassion" and hospitality that many Turkish institutions have for ISIS members is not even hidden. The silence of the West is mystifying and disappointing.
The U.S. government cooperates with oppressive regimes -- including the terrorist regime of Iran, under which Kurds are forced to live -- to the detriment of the Kurds, to the detriment other persecuted peoples, and to the detriment of the future of the West.
Many Middle Eastern regimes are ruled by Islamist, often genocidal governments -- so there is not much to expect from them in terms of human rights and liberties.
The Kurds need real support, real arms and real recognition. Otherwise, there does not seem to be much difference between the dictatorial, genocidal Middle Eastern regimes and the West, which used to represent democracy and freedom.

Uzay Bulut, born and raised a Muslim, is a Turkish journalist based in Ankara.

---

[1] The so-called "peace process" was reportedly started in 2012 and through it, Kurds and the Turkish government were to resolve the Kurdish issue through negotiations.)