Emrah Goker on Istanbul bombings

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

My home is in Ankara, but I just talked to a friend on the phone, and
learned that a mutual close friend was wounded in the HSBC bombing.
Luckily, only slight cuts of broken glass. Small relief amidst a
horrific disaster. I can tell from some of the message trafficking on
Turkish e-forums that Istanbul is very nervous, to say the least.
Another fresh observation might be that most people won't be buying the
usual "national security" bullshit: The causal link to the US
destabilization efforts is clear in many people's heads. So it may not
be easy to frame this as "Turkey's 9/11" for the powers that be.

Still, the dogs of antiterrorism might again be unleashed, considering
that most of the Army's terrorist networks lay dormant since the end of
the civil war with PKK. I wouldn't speculate at this moment on how the
government would want to respond. The AKP is a pragmatist party (perhaps
the "best" since 1987), they may not want to use the November bombings
as Turkey's "9/11" and go along with increased militarization. The
government gained at least some ground against the Army's power over
politics, they may not want to give up that ground. Yet there will be a
lot of pressure from both civilian and military wings of Turkish
militarist-secularist groups.

I never would exaggerate the Army's surveillance/intelligence powers,
but I was quite shocked by the cluelessness of the intelligence
community. It is well-known that the Army financed some fractions of the
Turkish Hezbollah and IBDA/C (Islamist Great Eastern Raiders/Front, this
latter terrorist group claimed responsibility for November bombings)
against PKK in the 80s and 90s, but since 1997, they have eradicated
almost all of the cells they helped organize. So, the Army should have
enormous amount of intelligence about radical Islamist activities in
Turkey, and their surveillance efforts have intensified after 2001. How
Al Qaida pulled out these attacks, using obviously a lot of Turkish
contacts, is a big mystery.

emrah


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