Let the Turks Vote for Christmas

Would the armed forces of any EU country threaten their democratically elected politicians? This is what has happened in Turkey, a would be EU member. The Turkish armed forces have threatened to take action if the democratically elected Grand National Assembly chose an Islamist as President.

It is their business if the democratically elected representatives of the Turkish people choose an Islamist as their President. It is not for the Turkish armed forces to interfere with democracy, even if the constitution, written under the military dictatorship rule in 1982, allows them to do so.

It is some one thousand years since the Turks left their homeland in Central Asia and marauded their way through north west Asia and eastern Europe. They massacred millions and destroyed numerous civilisations. It seems that the Turks have not changed a great deal in the past thousand years.

They show complete contempt for non-Turks. They continue to deny their genocide of the Armenians and Kurds. They continue to suppress the cultures of all non-Turks living in Turkey. They refuse to give the Kurds self determination. Their politicians are subservient to their military.

Turkey must not be allowed to become a member of the EU until the Turks discard their fascist tendencies and become civilised.

Darfur: The Forgotten Genocide

Over 1/4 million murdered. More than 2 million made refugees. Millions of girls and women raped. Thousands of villages burnt to the ground. It is now four years since the genocide in Darfur began.

It is ironic that the genocide in Darfur started at the same time as the attack on Iraq. After it was exposed that Iraq contained no WMD's and didn't pose a threat to any other countries, the apologists for the attack on Iraq excused it by saying that it was helping the people of Iraq. What about the people of Darfur? Why has the "international community" turned a blind eye to the genocide in Darfur?

The first reason was of course that the attack on Iraq wasn't done to help the people of Iraq. The second reason is oil. Many countries, especially China and Russia, import a great deal of oil from Sudan. They don't want to risk this by helping the people of Darfur.

And what of the organisation which is meant to prevent such genocide? During the last four years the UN has passed 16 resolutions on Darfur but it hasn't enforced a single one of them. Why? What makes Darfur so different from Kuwait, Congo, Lebanon, Kashmir, East Timor, Bosnia, Cyprus, Kosovo, Liberia, Ivory Coast etc? It is this kind of picking and choosing which has discredited the UN in the eyes of so many people in the world.

The UN may be the sum of it's members and it is true that it cannot do anything without the full support of the five permanent members. But when members, such as China and Russia, prevent it from doing its job merely out of self interest, why do other members and the Secretary General keep quiet? Why don't they expose the outrageous hypocrisy and double standards?

Instead of intervening themselves to protect the people of Darfur, the "international community" and the UN expect the African Union to do it. This would be the same corrupt, impotent African Union who's members include Mugabe's Zimbabwe and, er, Sudan.

Boris Yeltsin: The Tsar of Opportunists

What a blinkered view of history some people have. Boris Yeltsin was no hero. He was an opportunist.

He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for nearly 30 years. It was by virtue of being a member of the CPSU that he was able to climb the political ladder to become president of communist Russia. But, like so many communists in Eastern Europe, when he saw that communism's days were numbered, he suddenly switched sides and became a "democrat". When hard line communists staged a coup in 1991 Yeltsin, being at the right place at the right time, was able label himself a "democrat" and seize power for himself. But Yeltsin was no "democrat".

In 1993 the democratically elected Russian parliament refused to give Yeltsin dictatorial powers. Yeltsin replied by using tanks to shell the parliament. What a "democrat"! This wasn't the end of Yeltsin's brutality.

In 1994 Yeltsin ordered the military invasion of Chechnya. The Russian army laid waste to Chechnya, especially its capital Grozny. Over one hundred thousand civilians were murdered by the Russian army, millions were made refugees. This barbarism by the Russian army against the Muslim Chechnyans was to leave a long lasting legacy that is still being felt by the world.

Some of the most devastating crimes committed by Yeltsin were economic. He handed over Russia's nationalised industrial assets and vast natural wealth to a handful of people at a knockdown price. These handful of people became multi-billionaires overnight. But millions of ordinary Russians were plunged into economic misery. Millions lost their jobs as factories were closed. The country was hit by hyperinflation. The brave Russian people, whose stoic resistance had saved the world from Nazi rule, were forced to beg in the streets and rummage through bins for scraps of food. Many tried to drown their misery at the bottom of a bottle of vodka.

Under Yeltsin's rule the Russian mafia grew to eclipse the Italian mafia. The Russian mafia is now responsible for organised crime in every corner of the world. Most of the drug trafficking, prostitution, human trafficking and internet fraud committed in the world is being organised by the Russian mafia. The Russian mafia is so big now that it controls thousands of "legitimate" companies across the world, ranging from energy companies to football clubs (Chelski FC).

The Russia Yeltsin built was a shadow of the country that defeated Hitler. The gap between the rich and poor is worse than under the rule of the Tsars. Before Yeltsin took power the Russian health service was one of the best and most advanced in the world. Today most Russians don't have access to health care. Millions of Russians are addicted to vodka. Life expectancy is actually falling. This, coupled with the low birth rate, means that Russia's population is expected fall significantly over the coming decades.

But perhaps Yeltsin's worst crime, a crime that history will never forgive him for, is that he gave the world Vladimir Putin!