The priests voice echoed off the crumbling plasterwork of the sanctuary, as only two worshippers took part in a recent Sunday service in Istanbuls Meryem Ana Church. The low turnout is typical these days. The Turkish Orthodox Church is possibly the countrys smallest Christian denomination, and certainly its most controversial.
Turkish prosecutors allege the church, which traces its roots to the upheaval surrounding the founding of the Turkish republic, is connected to an ultra-nationalist movement, known as Ergenekon, which reportedly plotted to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Church spokesperson Sevgi Erenerol, sister of the current patriarch, has been imprisoned since 2008 on charges that include establishing and directing an armed terrorist organization as part of the supposed Ergenekon conspiracy. A host of ultra-nationalist groups established in 2004 and 2005 had the same founders, and they were all gathering at the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate, claimed Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a human rights lawyer.
Meanwhile, Vural Ergül, a lawyer for Erenerol, calls the governments case fake and imaginary. Ergül acknowledged the churchs links to prominent ultra-nationalists, including Ergenekon co-defendant Veli Küçük, who has been linked to the 2007 murder of three Christian missionaries in the eastern town of Malatya, but maintained that both his client and the Turkish Orthodox Church are victims of government persecution.
Members of the church are scared and anxious, Ergül said. It is impossible not to see [Prime Minister Erdoğans] intolerance against the church.
On May 29, 2009, President Obama gave a speech at the National Archives in which he said the following:
Now let me be clear: We are indeed at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates. We do need to update our institutions to deal with this threat. But we must do so with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process; in checks and balances and accountability. For reasons that I will explain, the decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable -- a framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass.
The president went on to trumpet the fact that he banned the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, saying, "I know some have argued that brutal methods like waterboarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more." Mr. Obama argued that (among other things) they undermine the rule of law. And during the 2008 campaign and shortly thereafter, Obama insisted that his policies would "regain America's moral stature in the world." This was a common Obama theme: He would act in ways that respect international law and human rights and remove the stain from America's reputation.
I thought of all of this in light of this report by NBC's Michael Isikoff. Thanks to Isikoff, we've learned that "a confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be 'senior operational leaders' of al-Qaida or 'an associated force' even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S."
#3
Normally I'd offer an opinion about drone strikes. But I got some sorta message today from an outfit calling itself "SkyNet" that says I've reached obsolescence.
Alright ... guess I'll go deal with it. There sure is a lot of noise coming from the sky this morning.
#2
The issue with the drone program is -- and I have no problem with killing Americans overseas, who are a part of a terrorist organization. This issue is, is this the beginning of a slippery slope that we don't see any real boundaries to? How long does it take to go from killing Americans overseas with drones to killing Americans here in this country with drones? This is prettey much it for me too. Dangers exist when a President acts unilaterally, ignores the Constitution, and tries to find ways to dodge the checks and balances provided by Congress and the Courts. Currently, drones are being used by some police departments in the U.S. for surveillance. Is the next step, the targeting of criminals and suspected terrorists in the U.S.? Suppose the police run into a situation where mistaken identity occurs and some innocent gets killed? Waco and Ruby Ridge, it seems to me were over reaches of Federal power. Is the Constitution an outdated useless piece of paper or is it the law? The left demonized George W. Bush. However, he sought Congressional approvals to go into Afghanistan and Iraq. He sought and received a wider international approval for actions conducted by the U.S. Congressional oversight existed in the House and Senate for actions by the President. Do we have checks and balances on the President now?
#4
With the exception [heretofore] being the military, anyone who believes the gov't can run something more efficiently than the private sector is delusional. All of this has absolutely nothing to do with healthcare and everything to do with CONTROL!
#5
Yur right, the only jobs for govt are the icky no-win slogs that nobody else in their right mind would want (like fighting a war). But there has been considerable mission creep in almost every agency in the time since WWII.
#6
Isn't that why the US is copying the France in temporarily letting the Debt Ceiling free-fall for two years - the US Deficit, Debt burden is so huge the Fed is hoping MORE DEFICIT SPENDING + BORROWING WILL BRING IN ENUFF REVENUES TO PAY NEAR-TERM OR VERY-NEAR-TERM ACCOUNTS PAYABLE, AS OPPOSED TO THOSE IN LONG-TERM.
> STATE SOCIALISM = NEW "SOVEREIGNTY", ETC. UNDER OWG + NAU 2015???
> STILL-DEEP-IN-THE-RED DEFICIT/DEBT REDUCTION = NEW "BUDGET SURPLUS"???
POTUS Obama = POTUS CLinton = lower the deficit or debt burden via USDOD cuts - IOW,
"SEQUESTRATION" CUTS M-U-S-T OCCUR NO MATTER ANY PUBLIC RHETORIC TO THE CONTRARY???
ADVANTAGE = RISING CHINA + RISING IRAN + RADICAL ISLAM [Nuclear Jihad-Islamism].
SUB-IOW, NO WAR AGZ CHINA ANDOR IRAN, ETC. BECAUSE THE USDOD CAN NO LONGER AFFORD TO GET THERE "FURSTEST WID THE MOSTEST" [Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest].
* "We're ruined' > And thus, Virgina, we learn why in 2014, one year after 2013, a number of US State-Local Govts voted to formally secede from the OWG Mighty USSA = OWG Weak USRoAmerika Global SSR.
@ Sultan Knish
First they came for the Cakemakers.
Over in Oregon, two lesbians came to Sweet Cakes and demanded a wedding cake. The owner let them know that he only does cakes for men and women looking to get married. No sooner did the door close than the Oregon Department of Justice, which had already solved all the other crimes in the state, began an investigation.
Aaron and Melissa Klein, their 3 kids and their little cake shop (caramel pecan cheesecake available) had run afoul of the political establishment. "I'd rather have my kids see their dad stand up for what he believes in," Klein said, "then to see him bow down because one person complained."
Bowing down is the expected position these days. You either bow down or get fined and prosecuted to death.
The latest wave of laws on abortion and gay marriage are meant to make it impossible to hold beliefs, religious or otherwise, in contradiction to those of the state. That's a somewhat new phenomenon in the United States, but a familiar one in Europe. And the consequence of these Orwellian measures is the stratification of these societies into three categories.
The Party - This is the group whose dogma is legislated into law in a thousand formal and informal ways. Its members may belong to the government or non-profits that act as a collective political movement pushing to enact and implement even the most radical elements of that dogma. Or they may still work actual jobs. But it doesn't really make much of a difference. He outlines two more 'classes': the People and the Ghetto. It seems to echo some of the things VDH has written about how Mexifornia works, and while you can be bureaucratized to death in the coastal areas, they don't really try to enforce things in much of the interior.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain ||
02/07/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11123 views]
Top|| File under:
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
