Turkish Delight

An outrage, an emblem
ill-placed or ill-timed
spies playing soldiers
to identify them. ((This week photographs emerged showing US “soldiers” wearing uniforms sporting the emblem of the People’s Defense Units (YPG). In fact, Special Operations assets are not soldiers in terms of the international laws of land warfare (Hague and Geneva Conventions) but mercenaries and spies. It has been at least 50 years since the CIA created the People’s Self-defense Force (PF) in Vietnam as paramilitary terror organisation to “Vietnamise” the US regime’s counter-insurgency at village level. These units were ostensibly popular based but doctrine and operational guidance came from the CIA, often through US Special Forces personnel. The model remains the same, the names are not even changed– but then there are no innocent to protect.))
Diplomatic notes
indignation strained
pretence and pretext
insurgency maintained,
hiding scapegoats
comforting throats. ((The revelations led the Turkish government under Erdogan to protest apparent US regime support for armed elements of the PKK, the Kurdish political party banned in Turkey and treated as a terrorist organization by Ankara. However, it has been standard practice of those at Langley to support elements on all sides of a conflict as a means of maintaining leverage. The extent of duplicity is hard to measure here, though certainly exorbitant.))
CIA bureaucrats dressed
in camouflage coats.
Glucose mixed ((The typically Middle-Eastern confection lokum, commonly called “Turkish delight”, is made today with glucose. Historically it was made with honey or molasses mixed with flour to create what was also called a “throat comforter”.))
with silent grenades
dusted with uranium
for people’ protection
to keep them from sticking
to support and advise
till November’s election,
brings fusillades
Erdogan’s demise
with sweet pandaemonium.

T.P. Wilkinson, Dr. rer. pol. writes, teaches History and English, directs theatre and coaches cricket between the cradles of Heine and Saramago. He is author of Unbecoming American: A War Memoir and also Church Clothes, Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa. Read other articles by T.P..