Turkey's rulers seek a "pious generation" amidst a threatening region

Turkey continues to present a mosaic of contradictory policies and positions to the world as its June 7 parliamentary elections near. The elections will decide the makeup of the 550 members of the Grand National Assembly, and the elected members will form the 25th Parliament of Turkey.


Turkey has a population of nearly 75 million people, compared to Egypt's 82 million and Germany's 80 million. The country sits strategically between Europe and the Arab world, and it has a turbulent history with its neighbors. Graphic from thesmokingnun.wordpress.com

From wikipedia, we read, "The governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) will seek a fourth consecutive term in government. Its leader, Ahmet Davutoğlu, will seek a full term as Prime Minister of Turkey in his own right, having taken over from Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in August 2014. The AKP's goal is likely to be to win more than 330 seats in order to have the right to put constitutional changes to a referendum, or more ideally 367 seats to bypass a referendum and change the constitution directly within parliament."

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, campaigning for his AKP party which is expected to gain a majority of seats in the June 7th election. Such a majority in turn would allow him to adjust the country's constitution to reflect his own vision of the nation and Turkey's leadership in the region. Photo from The Economist with the article here.

So what direction is Erdogan, with his party, wanting to take Turkey?

As a recent BBC article (found here) put it, "Under the 12-year rule of the Islamist-rooted AK Party, constitutionally-secular Turkey has fundamentally changed. There is now a push to raise a "pious generation"

The article continues, "The government has constantly stressed its vision of stay-at-home mothers, urging three children per family. Last year, the deputy prime minister told women not to laugh in public; the president recently insisted that men and women were "not made equal".

And from the Economist article noted above, "seen against the background of his recent behaviour, Mr Erdogan’s plans for a strong presidency are troubling. He has dismantled checks on his power. His approach is majoritarian and divisive: so long as his party wins elections, it can trample any critics. Critical newspaper groups have been subjected to capricious tax fines. Columnists have been fired. Turkey had more journalists in jail than any other country until the middle of last year, when a clutch of 40 were let out. Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group, ranks it 149th of 180 countries for press freedom, above Russia but below Venezuela.

The authorities have often tried to close off access to critical websites and social media. In the second half of 2014, Turkey filed 477 requests to Twitter to remove content, five times more than any other country. And since Mr Erdogan became president, 105 people have been indicted for insulting the head of state.

Attacks on the media and a harsh crackdown on the protests in Gezi Park in Istanbul two years ago deepened a rift with the supporters of Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim preacher. The Gulenists, formerly Mr Erdogan’s allies against the army and the secular establishment, have now become enemies. The battle with them intensified after tape recordings of AK officials taking bribes were leaked. Mr Erdogan promptly reassigned hundreds of policemen, prosecutors and judges who were looking into cases of alleged graft."


President Erdogan has raised the debate with Fethullah Gulen, a former imam, who is self-exiled in the U.S. Gulen, who has millions of Turkey supporters, "teaches an Anatolian version of Islam, deriving from Sunni Muslim scholar Said Nursî's teachings. Gülen has stated that he believes in science, interfaith dialogue among the People of the Book, and multi-party democracy. He has initiated such dialogue with the Vatican and some Jewish organizations" according to Wikipedia. Photo from The Guardian

Gülen is actively involved in the societal debate concerning the future of the Turkish state, and Islam in the modern world. He has been described in the English-language media as an imam "who promotes a tolerant Islam which emphasises altruism, hard work and education"

Turkey's contradictions and tensions abound.

Even as Erdogan states clearly where his citizens should head, there is increasing discord by a variety of minorities within Turkey itself. Izmir, Turkey's third largest city and on its westernmost coast, is home to the opposition CHP party, which is the party of modern Turkey's founding father, Kemal Ataturk. The party is adamantly secular, strongly pro-women's rights, and nervous about the AKP's push to Islamicize the population. It made recent news by holding women bicycle rallies to offer a different vision for women rather than accepting a subservient Islamic role.


Izmir women on bicyles - a threat to Erdogan's pious generation? Photo from the BBC


Not to be outdone, President Erdogan also rode a bicycle with a few of his friends and bodyguards during a recent 51st Presidential tour. Photo from http://www.demotix.com

At that same time, it is unclear as to how Erdogan's party will interact with its restive Kurdish population in the east of the country. Most readers will remember the outrage in Turkey over Erdogan's passiveness as Kurds in Kobane were under siege by ISIS. His inaction over Kobane undermined his bright spot over the past decade in attempting to better integrate Turkish Kurds into the country as a whole. The still potent separatist Kurdish PKK remains firmly secular with both men and women serving equally in its ranks, and is unlikely to line up behind Erdogan's piety.

Regarding Turkey's neighbors in an increasingly broken region of the world, Erdogan continues to confound his allies and potential partners.

Erdogan has become hostile towards Israel, a recent ally, while savagely opposing Syria's Assad. Yet while Turkey spends 2.4 % of its gross national product - about $18 billion - on its military, a number that puts it among the countries that spend the most on their militaries (and shames most European countries who have let themselves grow woefully weak in their ability to meaningfully confront Russia's aggressiveness in Ukraine and the Baltic nations), the country is aloof in participating in a Sunni-led alliance against the Syrian leader.


The Turkey-Syria Akcakale border in southern Sanliurfa province. One of many flashpoints that face Turkey as the Syrian civil war lumbers tragically towards a somber conclusion. Photo from Australian Broadcasting Company

Erdogan was borderline hysterical with indignation at the recent movement - from the UN to western media - to accept the definition of genocide by Turkey 100 years ago towards Armenians, leaving many would-be allies unsure of the nation's ability to confront its own history.

Time will tell through the rest of 2015 where Turkey heads, there are the elections in just less than a week, a possible end game in Syria between Hezbollah and Assad vs ISIS and other rebel groups, a restive Kurd population with new discomforts with Erdogan and a long affinity with the Kurds of Iraq. Whither Erdogan's hope for his pious generation.

Turkey follows its own course: disappointing the West, infuriating its Kurdish citizens

One hesitates to write even MORE on the ISIS attack on a Syrian town, Kobani (or Korbane), located on the border with Turkey, but there are a few points worth emphasizing.

The situation

The town sits on the Turkey/Syria border - quite a new city, beginning in 1912 as a railway station. Before the Syrian civil war erupted nearly three years ago, its population was 44,000 and distributed among Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, and Armenians. Of interest, it was built by Germany, as part of the Berlin-Baghdad railway. (As the first World War raged, Armenians fleeing vicious fighting in eastern Turkey found shelter here - setting up a fascinating sidetrip into the raging controversy about an Armenian genocide by Turkey of old.) In 2012, as Syria was disintegrating,Syrian Kurds took control of the city as a base from which to fight against President Assad, as well as fend off the more extreme of the Islamist groups.


Called Ayn al-Arab by Arabs, and Kobani by Kurds, pictures of this town before the recent ISIS attacks are not easy to find ... Photo from hereandnow.wbur.org

Today, of course, the whole world is aware that the town is under siege by ISIS forces, who have already overrun the many villages around the region. The result, so far, is 400,000+ residents of the region are now on the move (internally displaced refugees), with 100,000+ of that number having fled across the border into Turkey.


As in any conflict, the fleeing precedes the fighting. Here Kobani residents (and from the surrounding countryside) stack up against the border with Turkey, waiting to get in. Photo from johnib.wordpress.com

If one just accepts the main thrust of Western coverage of this situation, we will be pulling our hair out, asking why our Western ally Turkey - a NATO member, and EU candidate - isn't leaping to the defense of the mainly Kurdish fighters in the city defending it against the ISIS advance. Subsequently, we are exasperated and bewildered by Turkey's lack of response.

And we've been treated again and again to three major types of images: Refugees watching their city falling slow motion to the fanatical ISIS, a rather lethargic line of U.S. jets merely pestering ISIS with a take-out of a vehicle here and there, and finally, a row of Turkish tanks squatting on the same hillside awaiting further orders.


A view of the hostilities from inside the Turkish border. Photo from www.novosti.rs


An explosion from a U.S jet strike in the city. Photo from www.ekurd.net


The most baffling, and well photographed, image of the past two weeks. Turkish tanks in a line near the border of Syria, facing Kobani. Meant to intimidate ISIS?, project potent power to the world?, or simply content (on order of the government in Ankara) to watch two of Turkey's foes fight each other. Photo from matometesimaxtuta.blog.fc2.com

What is going on?

The Turkish calculation

Simply put, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan doesn't view ISIS as his most immediate threat. Rather, he views Turkey's Kurdish population as potentially a bigger concern, most likely to his own power.

Turkey President Erdogan, walking a tightrope between the Syrian conflict (he wants Assad out); ISIS (he wants Western allies to handle it), and the defense of Kobani (he's not in a hurry to help the PKK Kurds).

Turkey's current boundaries, as so many others in the Middle East, are arbitrary, and in this country's case, include a broad swath of ethnic Kurd lands. Their inclusion in Turkey for nearly 100 years (based in the agreements after World War 1) has long been a struggle. Wikipedia puts it thus, "During the 1970s, the [Kurdish] separatist movement coalesced into the Marxist–Leninist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has since been listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and a number of allied states and organizations around the world, including the United States, NATO, and the European Union. From 1984 to 1999, the Turkish military was embroiled in a conflict with the PKK." With the capture of the PPK leader, Abdullah Öcalan in 1999, the violence has since then tapered off, with desultory efforts by the government to unite the country in various manners.


Kobani, Syria - a Kurdish city located right on the border with Turkey. Go south from the "Y" in Turkey, heading to the "R" in Syria, and the town is right where that little bump is in the border. It is being defended by Kurds primarily aligned with the PKK. But one must admit that in spite of almost breathless Western concern for the city and its population, most of the residents have long fled, and the city isn't an ancient one.

From a Voice of America article, "Kobani was a test case for Kurdish autonomy, said Professor Ibrahim Sirkeci of Regents University in London. “They set up communes there. So it was kind of a little self-rule case study,” said Sirkeci. ... Kurds in Turkey have reacted angrily to Ankara’s stance and accuse the government of supporting the Islamic State. Riots in several cities have killed scores of people.

Kurdish separatists known as the PKK fought a decades-long war against the Turkish state, until peace talks began last year. Professor Sirkeci said Ankara is wary of strengthening the Kurds. “If you support PKK or fight against ISIS today in northern Syria, that will mean directly strengthening the PKK, and making it a stronger party in the negotiations, particularly within Turkey as part of the peace process,” he said.

Ankara does not share the Western view of the Kurds as allies, according to [Michael Stephens, head of the Royal United Services Institute in Qatar]. “They have made a calculation that ISIS and the administration of Kurdish Syria are both bad guys, and if ISIS wins it’s probably the lesser of two evils,” ...

He said allowing the fall of Kobani would backfire on Turkey. “I think in the long run it’s a disastrous policy simply because there are two other Kurdish cantons [in Syria], much larger with much better defenses, which won’t be taken. And are those going to be friendly to Turkey in the future? Absolutely not,” said Stephens."

P.S.

The PKK has labeled its forces People's Protection Units (YPG) while the Kurdish fighters in Iraq are called Peshmerga. Kurds across the two lands - the autonomous Kurd region in Iraq, and the eastern portion of Turkey - both freely utilize women as fighters and support personnel (similar to Israel).


Female YPG fighters and commanders in the PKK. Photo from revolution-news.com

For women fighters or for men, there is no mercy shown to any captured by ISIS.


A reminder of the brutish savagery of ISIS. Here a happy extremist holds the head of a female Syrian Kurd fighter. Photo from en.shiapost.com

So, there we stand.

* The Kurds of Turkey (and apparently those in Northern Syria) are NOT those of the Kurdish lands of Iraq.

* Erdogan has already angered Turkish Kurds by preventing a flow of Kurdish fighters wanting to cross back into Syria to defend Kobani, as well as controlling the extent of arms and ammunition heading to the Kurds in the besieged town.

* Though Turkey has provided safe haven for hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, including Syrian Kurds, Erdogan has now sent the message to the Kurds of Turkey that the Kurds of Syria are NOT worth Turkish blood.

* Thus he risks a general re-alienation of the eastern portion of his country negating prior efforts to integrate Kurds into the mainstream of Turkish society.

* Kobani may yet be lost to ISIS, a massacre of the remaining population in the city may or may not happen. Journalists report that several hundred elderly remain trapped in the city, but solid numbers and facts are hard to come by.

* The fate of Kobani is hardly the end of the conflict with ISIS, but it may represent the beginning of a much bigger internal problem for Turkey.

ISIS, boundaries, and porous borders

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, the Middle East was a place of calm and brotherly-love. All the boundaries between nations accurately reflected ethnic concentrations and had done so since ages past (except for the arbitrary borders of a vast region on the Mediterranean sea occupied by the warlike Zionist entity).

Peaceful and wise governance could be found everywhere – Saddam Hussein did not gas his own people in the village of Halabja in 1988, he did not invade and terrorize Kuwait in 1991, he did not slaughter over 100,000 Shiites in the aftermath of that war that didn't happen, he was not a major funding source for the families of brave Palestinian suicide martyrs fighting against the lone evil in the region – aggressive, oppressive Israel - and finally he did not send rockets into said Israel during the 1991 war that did not happen.

But in 2003, US forces at the order of President George W Bush and his Vice President Cheney, invaded and occupied the long-time secure and sensible boundaries of Iraq where Kurds, Sunnis and Shias lived in geographically connected harmonious bliss, ruled by what might be conceded the firm but fatherly hand of Saddam Hussein. And since that single unprecedented day, and those dreadful years following till 2009 when Bush left office, that peaceful land has not been able to recover, nor any of the nations of the Arab world. Indeed, across all the Arab lands, little divisions have sprung up and coalesced, through no fault of any, into extremist factions of various kinds, where not one existed before (except those groups of would-be martyrs who were only seeking to right the wrongs perpetrated by Israeli occupation of the sacred-since-ages-past, inviolate land of Palestine).

And thus IS (ISIS, ISIL), the most evil result of them all, has surfaced – the consummate end product of the Bush-Cheney imperialist adventure.


The new Islamic State's caliphate - sacred national Arab boundaries be damned. Graphic from jackspotpourri.blogspot.com

The atrocities of IS speak volumes and are clear enough for anyone who wants to take note. Massacres, crucifixions, torture, rape, beheadings, kidnappings of women for wedding prizes - all are amply reported on, though somewhat jarring to reconcile with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (now calling himself “Caliph Ibrahim”) invitation to Muslims to migrate to his land. Though the kindly call for doctors and engineers to build the caliphate has been extended, as noted in an article by the UK Daily Mail, "not a single Muslim country has seen a mass exodus of people keen to live under his version of sharia."


The latest Islamic psychopath, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (aka "Caliph Ibrahim”) apparently likes his Rolex ... Photo from news.nationalpost.com

National Arabic boundaries

If nothing else, the IS caliphate shows the myth of secure and ethnically sensible boundaries in the Arab world. This group doesn't care, and it scorns the placement of borders by European powers nearly 100 years previous. Yet the larger story is that everywhere in the world, borders have been placed arbitrarily, the result of conflicts or negotiation, or some combination thereof, and has little to do with how the modern governments of any region decide to work with neighbors - friendly or hostile.

Regarding the Middle East, one can start with the Ottoman Empire that was essentially broken up at the end of World War I. The first two maps below show the Middle East in rapid change from 1914 to 1940, while the third map highlights the one and only set of borders (of Israel) that is intolerable to all the other entities whose borders were arbitrarily drawn at the same time ...


The Arab world - before World War I. Graphic from lostislamichistory.com (which is also a very worthwhile website)



The Arab world - before World War II. Graphic from lostislamichistory.com


Yes, that thorn in the Arab side has just as long a history of existence as do virtually all the boundaries of its neighbors. Graphic from forthegrandchildren.blogspot.com


National boundaries today. Graphic from www.hotelsinthemiddleeast.com

So the boundaries of the Middle East nations are suddenly being exposed as fragile and arbitrary as they are - the real challenge is governance. Have the Kurds, based on their relatively sound governance in the midst of a broken Iraq, suddenly found an opening to assert their own entity?

Just for fun, here's how a map of the Middle East might look if it were more representative of major ethnic groupings. Click on the image to see a larger, more readable version.


Ralph Peters, a former United States Army Lieutenant Colonel drew a map in 2006, which created quite an outcry at the time. But note, according to a post at www.geographictravels.com "how the proposal for Syria mirrors what is going on now with the Kurds going their own way and the coastal area becoming an Alawite enclave aligned with Hizbollah in Lebanon." Graphic from www.geographictravels.com

Porous borders

We've talked at length in various posts about refugees and internally displaced peoples around the world and in trouble spots. But the borders Teatree speaks of is in regard to the many young ISIS jihadists from across Europe who have gone to the Middle East, gaining expertise in killings and mayhem, and who also have passports to return home. While ISIS currently terrorizes the lands of Syria and Iraq (both likely to disintegrate), the concern of Western and indeed other Muslim nations' intelligence agencies is how to track hundreds of fighters who hold the option of returning to their own lands over the next few years.

British Islamists protest outside the French Embassy in London January 12, 2013. Reuters. Photo from rt.com


Possible returnees by the numbers. Graphic from USNews.com


In the UK, according to an article in www.jihadwatch.org, "Communities have been bombarded with the posters, which read: “˜You are entering a Sharia-controlled zone ““ Islamic rules enforced.” The bright yellow messages daubed on bus stops and street lamps have already been seen across certain boroughs in London and order that in the “˜zone” there should be “˜no gambling”, “˜no music or concerts”, “˜no porn or prostitution”, “˜no drugs or smoking” and “˜no alcohol”." Photo from www.jihadwatch.org

The cauldron continues to roil, the heat is still rising.

Iraq, left on its own, backed to the edge

The news from Iraq this week has been bad. Very bad. A growing body of Islamic extremists, gathered from a territory carved out of Eastern Syria during the ongoing Syrian civil war, calling themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has exploded into Sunni lands in eastern Iraq.

Taking advantage of the poor and divisive governance by Iraqi leader Maliki, ISIS has played on the resentment of Sunnis, chasing a shocked Iraqi army from several cities including Iraq's second largest city, Mosul.

The interesting presentation in this BBC graphic, shows thin little yellow lines as the controlled territory of ISIS. What is really is showing is that the Iraqi population and cities of Western Iraq are for the most part along waterways, the vacant land inbetween is simply empty desert.

Click on image for full picture
Al Raqqa, Syria, has long been in the hands of anti-Assad rebels, and has become, unfortunately, the urban headquarters for ISIS, one of the most ruthless factions of Islamic extremists. Photo from www.timesofisrael.com

So, the first point suggested by Teatree to muse upon, is that due to Western inaction to support moderate Syrian opposition, extremists have consolidated their control of the anti-Assad forces. Not only do they want to remove Assad - the chemical weapons user who has just manipulated his third Presidential term - but more importantly establish their own "Caliphate." Just as the Taliban gained an actual footprint in ruling Afghanistan in the 1990s, ISIS now has a base, and it has gained it in the middle of the Syrian civil war.

Iraq, left to itself, sinks into sectarianism

In the West, the US and UK in particular, the shocking collapse of Iraq has quickly degenerated to large degree into a rehash of whether President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair are either completely, or mainly to blame.

What can at least be said is that Iraqi President Maliki has done nothing, really, to attempt to create a big house government, including Sunnis and the Kurds in the past 8 or so years. Becoming more sectarian, ie, favoring his fellow Shiites, Maliki has by neglect lost most of the country (For a detailed description of Maliki's rule, read the New York Time link in the comment section). The Sunnis are hostile, and unfortunately choosing badly in accepting (or tolerating) ISIS gains. The Kurds, on the other hand, have never felt part of a national Iraqi identity, and in the midst of this recent chaos have quickly moved to consolidate their hold on Kurd land in Northeast Iraq.

Click on image for full picture
Kurds have consolidated their hold in Iraq's northeast, Sunnis have marginalized themselves to the west, and dabble dangerously with ISIS (or alternatively ISIL), while the Shia homeland in SE Iraq is in danger of becoming a vassal of Shia Iran. Graphic taken from a CBC.ca article

One point of debate

US President Obama, fulfilling a political campaign promise, quickly pulled all US troops out of Iraq within three years of being in office. One could say, and many do, that he left a fragile - clearly fragile - nascent democracy surrounded by hostile or indifferent neighbors and plenty of internal strife. Yet no stabilizing force at all could be left there, the White House explains, because the two countries could not agree on future immunity for US forces if they were to remain in the country. Teatree will only point out that it seems the US was excruciatingly polite in negotiations to so quickly give in to this one country. Given the US propensity during the same time and continuing to this day, to strike targets repeatedly at will with drones in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia, with or without those nation's official approval, one can only wonder whether a political promise was the major reason for such a complete hasty Iraqi withdrawal, regardless of the consequences which we are now witnessing.

In contrast, after the Balkan war ended in the mid-90s, nearly 50,000 NATO troops stayed to ensure the peace, building fragile bridges between wounded and wary ethnic populations for several years, before slowly winding down their presence. Even today, 20 years later, over 5000 troops remain. One could highlight the value of stabilizing forces in South Korea, Japan, and even Germany for decades, but that would belabor the point.

KFOR troops in Kosovo, keeping the fragile peace between neighboring Serbia and Muslim Kosovans, and earlier between a number of nations, Croatia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, etc. Photo from fredbellomy.com

Iran steps closer to Shia arc
Iran, already pleased with Maliki in Iraq, have offered him assistance in fighting ISIS. With this opening to create a closer relationship with Iraq, Iran moves towards its long term goal of establishing an arc of influence: from Iran into Syria where it supports Assad, and linking with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Now with Iraq on the edge, the possibility of an uninterrupted arc is within reach. And while Russia has robustly supported chemical-weapons man Assad in Syria, in contrast the West timidly continues its searches for appropriate groups it might support among the Syrian opposition. (Hint - these moderate groups have long since left the building ...).

The current three - Hezbollah's Nasrullah, left; Iran's Rouhani, center; and chemical-man Assad from Syria on the right. Suddenly the three buddies have half of Iraq in their pocket, with just ISIS rabble to clear out in-between. Poster photo from irannewsupdate.com

What's ahead?
Aside from sectarian bloodletting on a scale we've not seen yet even in Syria or during the US occupation of Iraq, we are possibly seeing a preview of what lies ahead in Afghanistan as soon as the US pulls its combat troops out by the end of this year, and even the trailing training force of 10,000 within a year after that.

What else? Under this current US administration, the West is likely to retreat to a limp posture of the past - lobbing a few tomahawk missiles here and there, and launching more drone strikes safely from a distance, though no doubt without anyone's permission. That fastidiousness of gaining permission was reserved for the former Iraq alone.

Click on image for full picture
Drone strikes are apparently the US default strategy (permission granted or not), with no chance for immediate battlefield death or injury for US armed forces. But doesn't it appear that the U.S. might be losing a bit of the "hearts and minds" battle? Photo from org.salsalabs.com

Certainly there will be no large scale commitment of US combat troops back into the Iraqi theater - that ship has sailed. Though how US troops in Kuwait will somehow remain exempt from extremist attacks remains to be seen. And our erstwhile allies Jordan and Israel may also believe our reassurances of steadfast US support leaves something to be desired.

And onward the world moves ...

Egypt swirls, Syria sinks - and a corruption index?

Unfortunately, if one is attempting to note "the news," the chaotic Middle East is hard to ignore. Once again, Egypt and Syria dominate the more dramatic detail developments - though the general trend of what and why is drearily well-known.

Syria, left to its own devices, continues to disintegrate. Fighting has now spread to the capital Damascus. The capital city's airport has been closed periodically, the country's internet service has likewise been shut down and restarted, etc. Reports are that Western countries - in lieu of anything more direct - are pushing the "opposition" to take stronger form and become more "legitimate" in order for the West to be ready to deal with a new Syrian government should the current one collapse.

Significant fighting in Sunni neighborhoods of Damascus itself is becoming commonplace ...

In parts of Northeast Syria no longer controlled by Assad, Syrian Kurdish women integrate into defensive units.

The Kurds - some 25-30 million strong - are one wild card in the region, bringing in larger governance concerns in Turkey and Iran, as well as Iraq where some degree of autonomy for the ethnic group has been formally recognized.

At the same time, warnings from the West continue to stream along. The latest concern voiced is again over Syria's (ie. President Bashar al Assad's regime) stockpile of chemical weapons. There are unsubstantiated reports that canisters of these chemicals have been loaded into bombs, though the bombs have not been weaponized (activated) or attached to fighter jets or helicopters, etc.

Sporadic clashes continue as spillover into Lebanon, Turkey has been promised defensive missile batteries by NATO, and there is relative silence from Iran and Hezbollah - Assad's unabashed supporters.

Egypt , already attempting to broker negotiations between Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Israel, has its own crisis. Egyptian President Morsi, by declaring dictatorial power for himself - though he insists it is temporary and only to allow the revolution to continue - has roused anger on the Egyptian street.

Over 100,000 protestors at Tahrir Square on December 4, miles from the palace itself where tens of thousands are also camped out. Nearly three months ago, Egyptians were breaching the US Embassy on 9/11, now it is their own government which is the target

Rocks fly, protestors converge, and at one point in the past few days the presidential palace was facing such large numbers of protestors that the President might have been evacuated by his security forces to prevent any awkward encounters. Egyptian judges have organized one-day boycotts of their own legal work as a protest against the Morsi decrees, and in some cases have postponed their work indefinitely.

Egyptian tanks now deployed in defense of the Presidential palace

Arab Spring at least in these two countries has not gone as envisioned by the West.

Corruption Index

As Ynet news summarizes, "The Global Corruption Report, produced by the Transparency International (TI) organization, ranks the world's countries according to perceived levels of public corruption. The ranking is based on interviews with businesspeople and politicians inside and outside the reviewed country, and surveys conducted by research institutes, economic institutions and universities worldwide.

A country or territory’s score indicates the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0-100, where 0 means that a country is perceived as highly corrupt and 100 means it is perceived as very clean."

The 2012 report was issued December 5, and Denmark, Finland and New Zealand tie for first place with scores of 90. These high scores are derived by confidence among the nations' respective business and political leaders, "helped by strong access to information systems and rules governing the behavior of those in public positions."

Sweden ranks fourth with a score of 88, followed by Singapore (87), Switzerland (86), Australia and Norway (85), and Canada and the Netherlands (84). In the Middle East, Israel has a score of 60, Jordan a score of 48, Egypt with its score of 32 falls to 118th place in the 170 nations ranked, while Lebanon is in 128th place (30), and Syria in 144th place (26).

Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia once again are found at the bottom of the index with tied scores of 8.

Click on image for full picture

The full index and discussion can be found at http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview The US ranks 19th with a score of 79, Japan has a score of 73, China has a score of 39, Russia ranks 133rd with a score of 28. Pakistan has a score of 27.

The point one might make is this - do corruption and instability correlate, or as one astute Pacific Northwest observer notes on another matter, "Coincidence?? I don't think so"