Terror Bombing of Peace Rally in Turkey: Terrorism or STATE Terrorism?

That's the question that has been avoided so far in the latest terrorist attack on a peaceful demonstration in Turkey. But anyone familiar with modern Turkish history would be dishonest to evade a serious consideration of it.

What NPR, for example, dismisses as ”conspiracy theory” on the part of presumably paranoid Turks, is in fact reasonable theorizing about the crime. [1]

So far, the evidence is mixed. But this much is already clear: Whoever is behind it are mass murdering scum.
The Turkish regime of autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will only admit to 97 deaths, whereas the true number is apparently 128 or more, according to the rally organizers. Another 250 people or so were wounded in the suicide bombings. The bombings occurred at the start of a peace march including Kurds.

Some bodies were blasted beyond recognition.

The vicious attack was cunningly planned. After the first bomb went off, people ran into the second explosion timed for seconds later, and apparently placed with murderous precalculation.

Police then immediately attacked the survivors with tear gas. And the Turkish media was banned from reporting the event.

The editor of the main English-language Turkish journal was arrested the same day for "insulting" Erdogan in a tweet. One man interviewed said his friend died when police prevented him from taking his friend to a hospital. The police blocked ambulances from reaching the scene for 45 minutes. [2]

These facts, together with the political context, throw the gravest suspicion on the Erdogan regime.

Many think the government allowed the attacks to occur, or at a minimum were negligent. Given the violent assault on the survivors, and the repression imposed simultaneously, at the very least there seems to be government foreknowledge.

Turkish governments have a long history of domestic terrorism and alliances with gangsters. For a time a major fascist organization, the Grey Wolves, was used to murder large numbers of progressives and suppress their organizing, with the complicity of the secret police and military. (As always with right-wing terror states, the U.S. looked kindly on these events, and generously supplied the Turkish military with arms and ordnance. The CIA played its usual malign role.)

So far Erdoğan and his minions have been blaming both the Kurds and ISIS. (This obvious contradiction doesn't seem to faze them. It can't be both, of course, plus the Kurds and ISIS are in a war to the death with each other in Syria and Iraq, which would rule out a cooperative terrorist plot.)

In trying to unravel the mystery of who the culprits are, we must ask the question, Cui bono? Who benefits?

The bombings occurred three weeks before new parliamentary elections Erdoğan imposed because he's a sore “loser.” He expected to win a super-majority in the parliamemtary elections that were held in June, but the opposition and heavily-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) won 13%, depriving him of a Hitler-Reichstag style legislature that would rubber-stamp new dictatorial powers he seeks by mutilating the Turkish constitution. The HDP organized the peace march that was just bombed before it could even get underway.

The night before the June 7 elections there was another terrorist bombing, for which there was never “a proper investigation,” according to BBC Newsday. That adds to the suspicion that Erdoğan is behind these events. Erdoğan benefits, or hopes to, by presenting himself as the protector of the nation against the mysterious terrorists planting bombs and rallying people around him as the symbol of the nation and of law and order.. He also terrorizes Kurds and opponents, which might depress their participation in voting.

This terrorism on Turkish soil is occurring in the context of Erdoğan renewing war against the armed Kurdish Workers' Party, long the bête noire of the Turkish state which caused the guerrilla movement by its decades of oppression of Kurds, including even outlawing the Kurdish language. The PKK is deemed a “terrorist” organization by Turkey's allies, the U.S. and the ducks that reliably line up behind the U.S. on international political matters, the Europeans. (The U.S. has dominated Europe since World War II, and that has even increased since the Soviet Union suddenly shattered into pieces.) Erdoğan used the cover of claiming to attack ISIS in Syria to launch aerial bombing attacks against Kurdish camps there. In response, a Kurdish peace rally on the Syria border was organized, which also was terror-bombed. Somebody's been busy! Cui bono? Who benefits from suppressing rallies against Erdoğan's renewed warfare against the Kurdish PKK? Who stands to gain if peacniks are terrorized from the streets? Why, Erdoğan does!

This type of terror fits the classic pattern of the so-called “strategy of tension,” whereby hidden and malign political forces seek to create a crisis atmosphere in society. We saw it in Europe under the Gladio program, for example. The aim there and in some other cases is for fascist forces within the state to grab more power. It occurred in the U.S. on September 11, 2001. The fact that the Erdoğan regime has barred journalists from even reporting on the terror attack, much less trying to investigate, can only constitute damning evidence against him and his regime as plausible if not probable culprits in this latest atrocity against those who want peace.

1] NPR being the U.S. government domestic radio propaganda network. It goes without saying that the      U.S. corporate media is completely disinterested in investigating and exposing the possible role of the Turkish government. In fact they won't even report the police attacks on the survivors, and very little about media repression in Turkey. This should be no surprise. The U.S. media is always only interested in repression in enemy states, such as Russia and Iran.

2] “Shock & Panic in Turkey: Deadliest Terrorist Attack in Country’s History Leaves as Many as 128 Dead,” Democracy Now!, October 12, 2015.