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Damage Control Firm Takes Quiet Interest
as Former US General Is Charged with Turkish
Profiteering
1.11.2006 |
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November
1, 2006
“We are indeed all friends here, friends of a great
relationship.”
-Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
to the American-Turkish Council, March 18, 2002
A major Kurdish diaspora group is calling for the
head of a former American general recently
dispatched to
Turkey. The general, Joseph Ralston, has been
accused of using his new role as ‘special envoy’ to
the Turkish
government to ensure that American defense giant
Lockheed Martin – of which Ralston is a board member
– will
get to continue supplying the Turkish military with
fighter planes.
On 26 October, the
Kurdish National Congress of North America
issued a press release demanding “the
immediate
resignation” of the former USAF General Ralston
as the Bush administration’s point man on the
Turkish campaign against Kurdish guerrillas in the
country’s southeast. |
U.S Retired Gen. Joseph Ralston |
Two months earlier, with little fanfare, the State
Department had announced Ralston’s appointment to a
position that does indeed seem curiously unique-
“Special Envoy for Countering the Kurdistan Worker’s
Party (PKK).” Although there are scores of simmering
conflicts in countries around the globe, there are
not so many to which Washington sends an official
military advisor to oversee the fighting.
Indeed, as the Kurdish group discloses, “Ralston’s
appointment came at a time when Turkey was
finalizing the sale of 30 new Lockheed Martin F-16
aircraft (approx. $3 billion) and as Turkey was due
to make a decision on the $10 billion purchase of
the new Lockheed Martin F-35 JSF aircraft. The sale
for the F-16’s was approved by Congress in
mid-October and Turkey’s decision in favor of the
F-35 JSF was announced on October 25, shortly after
Ralston’s recent stay in Ankara, ostensibly to
counter the PKK.”
Ralston’s affiliations with American companies and
Turkish-American lobby groups that stand to gain
financially from his current activities were exposed
in the press release:
“General Ralston is a vice-chairman of The Cohen
Group, a private lobby firm with close ties to the
American Turkish Council (ATC) and Lockheed Martin.
According to an article in the Washington Post in
May of this year, Lockheed Martin acknowledged it
was a client of The Cohen Group, and paid some
$500,000 to The Cohen Group for services rendered in
2005. General Ralston is also a member of the 2006
Advisory Board of the ATC, as well as a current
member of the Board of Directors of Lockheed Martin.
Lockheed Martin is also a member of the ATC.”
The American-Turkish Council, it should be
remembered, is the high-powered lobbying interest in
Washington which has been fingered as an
intermediary and incubator for espionage within the
FBI from Turkish employees. It “wasn’t the sort of
group just anyone could belong to,” pointed out
former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, who was fired
in spring 2002 after complaining about infiltration
of the FBI and blocking of criminal investigations
into related individuals.
A corrupted Air Force man and former military
procurement officer to Turkey and the Central Asian
states, Douglas Dickerson, and his Turkish-born wife
Can Dickerson, tried unsuccessfully to recruit
Edmonds into their espionage ring and promised
membership in the hallowed ATC as one of the rewards
for cooperation. According to Edmonds, Dickerson
implied this to her husband, averring that “…all you
have to do is tell the [ATC] where your wife works
and what she does, and they will let you in like
that.” All the translator had to do was keep the FBI
off the trail of
suspects under investigation for espionage regarding
defense-related issues. When she refused, the
Dickerson’s became hostile and threatening.
Kurdish supporters are not angry just because
Ralston and his corporate cronies might make money
from yet another international arms deal. They
further charge that even though the Kurdish rebel
group has extended an olive branch to the Turkish
government, the US and Turkey have no interest in
making peace, as peace would in the long-term lessen
the justifications for Turkey to maintain such a
large military arsenal- and thus be bad for
‘business.’ The Kurds suspect that, in order for
American defense companies to keep bringing home the
bacon, the conflict should sizzle for as long as
possible- regardless of how many Kurdish civilians
and Turkish servicemen die.
Indeed, while a unilateral PKK ceasefire went into
effect on October 1, Ralston assured the Turks that
there would be no compromises, no negotiations, and
even no communications with the Kurdish rebels- in
other words, business as usual. Speaking before the
Eurasian Strategic Research Center (ASAM) in
Istanbul, Ralston said:
“I want to be clear on this point: The U.S. will not
negotiate with the PKK. We will not ask Turkey to
negotiate with the PKK. And I pledge to you that I
will never meet with the PKK.”
When asked whether the US had a vision of any “IRA
solution” for the Kurds, Ralston stated that any
comparison of the Irish unity struggle and the
Kurdish independence one was akin to “mixing apples
with oranges.” Spinning the Kurdish campaign as part
of the broader ‘war on terror,’ the US envoy said,
“…we will use all of the tools at our disposal: law
enforcement, intelligence, diplomacy, financial
pressure. And we have not taken any other option off
the table.”
The Kurds know from experience what “other options”
means. The civil conflict that began in 1983 –
according to author Daniele Ganser, allowing corrupt
state security forces and Kurdish smugglers to
profit from the heroin trade – has claimed over
30,000 lives and resulted in the destruction of over
3,000 Kurdish villages. Indeed, as the former Air
Force general noted with satisfaction, “the U.S. has
done more to assist Turkey in its fight against the
PKK than any other country.” And, if Ralston and his
military-corporate friends have anything to say
about it, this “assistance” will continue for years
to come as Turkey builds up its military arsenal.
Of course, the special military liaison’s role in
Turkey has been complicated by extenuating foreign
policy concerns. Turkish public opinion regarding
the US since the Iraq invasion has gone from wary to
hostile over the Kurdish issue. Turks believe that
the renewed turbulence in the southeast since 2003
is a direct result of the US’ “liberation” of Iraqi
Kurds in the bordering region, whose taste for
freedom, Turks fear, has rubbed off on their own
restive Kurdish minority.
Ralston’s visit is only the latest in a diplomatic
drive to mend fences and assuage hurt feelings in
Turkey. The former general emphasized that “the PKK
is a terrorist organization, not a tool of U.S.
foreign policy. We are not using and will not use
the PKK in any way in Iraq.” As a means of
reaffirming this goodwill, Ralston and his fellow
Lockheed Martin shareholders pledge to help the
Turkish government put down the Kurdish revolt- even
if it means they have to profit at the same time.
Such altruism is truly noble.
Enter the Damage Control Experts: Public Strategies
Inc. Ponders a Response
The Kurdish lobby group’s press release has captured
the attention of the relevant damage-control
companies. Mizgin Yilmaz, a Kurdish activist who
carried the press release on her blog, Rastî,
provided Balkanalysis.com with the following tidbit:
“we had a forty-minute visit from a company called
Public Strategies, Inc, first for five minutes and
another twenty minutes later, for a little over
thirty minutes.” PSI did not immediately respond to
our request for information regarding its current
relationship with Ralston or Lockheed Martin.
According to Source Watch, “Public Strategies has
helped many corporations involved in high-profile
crises successfully weather the storm and better
prepare for the possibility of future turbulence.”
The company proudly maintains that it is many
corporations’ first phone call for crisis response.”
The PSI website states:
“with significant shareholder value at stake,
forward-thinking companies know that the best
defense against crisis is a good offense: be
prepared… companies also call on us when they get
blindsided. In any crisis, the first 48 hours are
critical. Our experts help clients mobilize a rapid,
centralized response aimed first at stabilizing the
situation and then at managing through it.”
The question is, who made the call to PSI after the
press release on General Ralston and his escapades
in Turkey?
Although it is not stated, strong suspicions point
to Lockheed Martin as the entity whose “significant
shareholder value” was at stake. In one of its case
studies, PSI proudly points out a prior success:
“as the federal government began to consider
proposals for the next generation of
state-of-the-art fighter jets, Public Strategies was
called to develop subtle-but-effective tactics to
direct the government’s selection in the favor of a
major aeronautics manufacturer… Public Strategies
crafted a tactical communications campaign designed
to create a favorable environment for the company
and its proposal.”
In the end, the company discloses, “the U.S.
Department of Defense awarded our client the largest
military contract in history, worth $200 billion.”
Although it is not stated explicitly, it’s no secret
that the winning bidder was none other than
Lockheed-Martin.
In October 2002, the Texas Comptroller of Public
Accounts released a report noting that the Fort
Worth-based company would receive a combined,
multi-year federal contract worth some $200 billion.
The contract was for the next – and perhaps final –
generation of US fighter planes, the F-35 Joint
Strike Fighter (JSF), “one of the most sophisticated
and deadly objects ever devised by man.”
In the future, the veracity of this claim could be
decided by a focus group conducted somewhere in say,
southeast Turkey.
Just think! PSI or the Cohen Group could organize
the focus group, supported of course by federal
funds, as part of a new “military assistance”
package to Ankara. And then we could all learn just
how sophisticated and deadly the F-35 really is. A
win-win situation for everyone!
balkanalysis com
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan".
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan but
unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is
banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it is
a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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