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In this mailing:
by Burak Bekdil
• October 26, 2015 at 5:00 am
- As in
1908-1912, journalists are at the center of the government's rage.
- "They
[journalists from Turkey's leading newspaper, Hurriyet] had
never had a beating before. Our mistake was that we never beat them
in the past. If we had beaten them..." — Abdurrahim Boynukalin,
Member of Parliament from the governing AKP Party.
- Last week,
Ahmet Hakan, Hurriyet's popular columnist, who has 3.6
million Twitter followers, was beaten by four men, three of whom
happened to be AKP members. Hakan had to undergo surgery. Of the
seven men involved in allegedly planning and carrying out the
attack, six were immediately released.
- The mob
confessed to the police that they had been commissioned to beat
Hakan on orders from important men in the state establishment,
including the intelligence agency and "the chief."
- Hundreds of Turkish
and Western politicians have publicly condemned the attack on Hakan.
Except President Erdogan. Hardly surprising.
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Abdurrahim Boynukalin (center of left image), a
Turkish Member of Parliament from the ruling AKP Party, leads a mob in
front of the offices of Hurriyet newspaper, September 6, 2015. At
right, the shattered windows of the building's lobby, after the mob hurled
stones.
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In 1908, the Ottoman Empire, under the new name of The Committee of
Union and Progress (CUP), transformed into an autocratic establishment
openly threatening its critics, especially journalists. In 1910, three
prominent journalists, Hasan Fehmi, Ahmet Samim and Zeki Bey, who were
leading opponents of the regime, were murdered. Several other journalists
were beaten by thugs commissioned by the CUP.
In the election three years later, when the party lost its
parliamentary majority, its leaders declared that election null and void.
Soon mobs, often holding batons in their hands, "guarded"
ballot boxes. Miraculously, the CUP vote rose to 94 percent! Victory,
however, did not bring good fortune to the party. Its leaders would
eventually have to flee the country.
by Peter Huessy
• October 26, 2015 at 4:00 am
- So radical is
this proposal that -- while Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are
arming themselves to the gills and seizing territory -- it would
reduce America's nuclear "assets" from over 500 missiles,
bombers and submarines to less than a handful of nuclear-armed
submarines.
- "To my
knowledge, our unilateral disarmament initiatives have done little
to promote similar initiatives in our potential adversaries, and at
the same time, they have reduced our arms control negotiating
leverage." -- Admiral Richard Mies (Ret.), former Commander of
the United States Strategic Command
- America's
nuclear deterrent is roughly 35-40 years old. By the time there has
been a complete modernization (by 2020) of the Russian nuclear
missile force, the U.S. will not have yet built a single new
strategic nuclear weapon for its arsenal.
- To help with
modernization, Congress and administration needs to get rid of the
defense budget caps. Removing them should be America's #1 arms
control and nuclear deterrent priority in the nation.
- Congress should
approve, and potential presidential candidates should announce,
their support to fund and accelerate the modernization of the U.S.
nuclear deterrent, including capabilities that strengthen tactical
nuclear deterrence especially in Europe. The modern U.S. nuclear
deterrent umbrella over more than 30 NATO allies is one of the prime
reasons most of them have not sought to build nuclear weapons
themselves -- the U.S. makes them feel safe.
- Most
importantly, with the North Korean, Chinese and Russian nuclear and
missile capabilities in mind, the U.S. and its allies should as
quickly as possible protect our country and its electrical grid from
missile delivered nuclear electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) threats. The
U.S. should also adopt a global missile defense plan, including
enhanced U.S.-based missile defenses that can deal with EMP threats.
Of particular concern is that the U.S. has no missile radar
capability looking south from the continental United States.
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The U.S. nuclear "triad" consists of
nuclear warheads mounted on platforms based at sea, in the air and on
land.
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The United States may have come to the end of traditional nuclear
arms control. Since 1972 the United States and Russia have signed seven
major nuclear weapons treaties, beginning with the SALT I agreement in
1972 and concluding with the 2010 New Start treaty; however, upwards of
65% of all nuclear warheads in the world still remain under no treaty
limits, mainly because countries with such arsenals have no interest in
agreeing to nor the technical means to verify, such controls.
Between 1972 and 2015, the number of U.S. and Russian deployed
strategic nuclear weapons peaked at roughly 13,000 in each country's
arsenal, then declined to between 1,800-2,500. This reduction represents
a cut of more than 80% in their respective deployed arsenals, a
remarkable accomplishment.[1]
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