Surviving Capitalism (Not) : ‘OK, big brother’: Turkish military cooperate with ISIS on border, telephone calls reveal

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

‘OK, big brother’: Turkish military cooperate with ISIS on border, telephone calls reveal

Click here to access article from RT.

Further proof of ties between the Turkish military and Islamic State fighters operating on the Syrian-Turkish border has been revealed in the Cumhuriyet newspaper, which published more transcripts of telephone calls between the jihadists and officers.

The documents are said to come from an ongoing court case on Islamic State at the Ankara 3rd High Criminal Court. The investigation was reportedly prompted after six Turkish citizens reported to police that their relatives had joined the terrorists. At least 19 people came under surveillance as a result and prosecutors then charged 27 individuals. The daily published the first batch in December.

The new transcripts published by the daily Monday are said to be conversations between Turkish officers and Mustafa Demir, a member of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS) who is a leading figure on the Syrian-Turkish border.

You may have read or heard about Turkey's President Erdogan attacks on journalists--this article reports on how Turkish journalists are bravely trying to reveal Erdogan's support of terrorists in Syria. The journalists were promptly arrested and jailed, have since been released by a court order but still face government prosecution. Here is the latest report on the situation of the journalists from a German newspaper, Deutsche Welle.

The two journalists still face possible life sentences at a trial due to start on March 25. They are banned from leaving the country until the end of the hearings.

Erdogan had personally laid the charges against the two journalists and said that he would "not forgive such reporting," vowing that Dundar would "pay the price" for reporting on the story.