Turkey's lady in red being sprayed by US tear gas?

[Warlord]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/06/05/article-2335924-1A27E39A000005DC-168_964x389.jpg

Horrifying image of 'woman in red' being sprayed with tear gas becomes symbol of Turkish protests



Photograph of the woman turning from the tear gas has become defining image of Turkey's days of violent protest
Women feel threatened by official promotion of the Islamic headscarf and concerns about women's rights
Many have joined in the street fighting raging in Turkey since Friday
Deputy Prime Minister apologised for police brutality as Ankara appeared to soften its stance against protestors
Bulent Arinc due to meet protest organisers today in bid diffuse tensions after days of heated demonstrations
Large trade union due to stage walkout today as protest movement gathers support
Turkish police arrest 25 people for 'spreading untrue information' on Twitter and provoking protest



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2335924/Turkey-Protests-Horrifying-image-woman-red-sprayed-tear-gas-symbol-unrest.html#ixzz2VKkpMGR1

[J_White]

Turkish Spring...yay.
wait, Erdogan is our friend - that lady must be a "T" then !

[LibertyEagle]

Where does it say it is US tear gas?

[Warlord]

Where does it say it is US tear gas?

Hence question mark. I'm interested to know where their tear gas is manufactured. A lot of is done in the US.

[LibertyEagle]

Hence question mark. I'm interested to know where their tear gas is manufactured. A lot of is done in the US.

You are making an implication with your title and that is why you did it. There is nothing in that article that indicates it is US tear gas. Your title is misleading.

[Warlord]

Turkey imported 62 tons of teargas and pepper spray in 12 years – report
June 04, 2013 11:15

Turkey has bought $21 million in tear gas and pepper spray – mainly from US and Brazil – over the past 12 years, Turkish media reported. The US is known for its exports of crowd control munitions to countries rocked by widespread protest.


http://rt.com/news/turkey-teargas-import-us-208/

-

Turkey imported $21 million worth of teargas and pepper spray between 2000 and 2012, Turkish daily Sözcü reported on Monday.

In total, Turkey imported 62 tonnes of teargas and pepper spray over the past 12 years, the paper alleged.

The main exporters to Turkey, according to the newspaper, are the US and Brazil.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/3/0/73104/Business/0/Ankara-imported--mn-of-teargas-over-past--years-Tu.aspx

[Warlord]

US a major dealer of crowd control munitions

The US has a history of selling tear gas and other crowd control munitions to countries wracked by widespread protest. Amnesty International harshly criticized the US State Department for approving export licenses for the shipment of crowd control munitions and tear gas to Egypt amidst the violent and often lethal crackdowns on protesters by security forces in 2011.

Amnesty confirmed that one US companies had shipped 21 tons of ammunition to Egypt – enough for 40,000 rounds of tear gas grenades and canisters – in addition to a separate shipment of 17.9 tons.

In 2013 alone, Egypt's Interior Ministry ordered 140,000 teargas canisters from US, amounting to nearly $2.5 million. Egypt's opposition has said the purchase recalls the rule of ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak

[Warlord]

Anna Feigenbaum, lecturer at Bournemouth University and an expert on the tear gas industry, calls the events in Turkey only the most recent example of a long history in which governments—and sometimes private industry—violently suppress popular uprisings by employing such weapons. Writing at Common Dreams on Tuesday, Feigenbaum explains (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/04-9):


It is not difficult to trace these tear gas deployments back to corporate profiteers. The majority of the world's tear gas trade comes from the United States, along with Brazil and Israel. The tear gas industry was founded on alliances between military officers, university chemists and businessmen. Take the example of Federal Laboratories, a major tear gas supplier started by a WWI veteran back in the 1920s with donated samples from the US Chemical Warfare Service. Marketed to local police forces with the help of enlisted PR experts, tear gas was first used on a mass scale to break down worker’s strikes and quell uprisings in colonized territories. Today, as US leaders publicly condemn the so-called ‘weaponization’ of tear gas abroad, its corporations continue to cash in on the profits of mass uprising.

Protests in Turkey once again expose these links between capitalist interests and police violence at the heart of tear gas history. The all too familiar images of streets covered in poison clouds should echo as a message from the trenches. Those soldiers knew all too well that when tear gas filled the air, there was likely something more deadly to follow. Far from a humanitarian weapon, it is time that we see tear gas as a sign of just how inhumane capital-driven visions of peace-keeping have become.

[Warlord]

Tracking Tear Gas

Here is an overview of some of the main tear gas manufacturers whose products have been documented in recent protest zones.

1. Defense Technology/Federal Laboratories/BAE

Defense Technology is headquartered in Casper, Wyoming. Along with U.S. company Federal Laboratories, with which it shares a product line, it is linked to the U.K. arms giant BAE Systems through BAE’s ownership of U.S. arms company Armor Holdings. Defense Technology and Federal Laboratories tear gas has been used in Oakland, Palestine, Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia and Yemen.

The Yemeni government regularly uses Defense Technology and Federal Laboratories tear gas against pro-democracy protesters, who have been demonstrating since February. On October 25, 2011, police used massive amounts of Defense Technology product against Occupy Oakland. Iraq Veterans Against the War member Scott Olsen was critically injured when police fired tear gas at close range, hitting him in the head. The police also fired tear gas directly onto the people who came to Olsen’s aid.

Defense Technology also provides tear gas to the Israeli police, and its canisters have been found in East Jerusalem. Previously, Federal Laboratories provided tear gas to the Israeli—this deal was the subject of protests and lawsuits during the first intifada.

2. NonLethal Technologies

Based in Homer City, Pennsylvania, NonLethal Technologies is the primary provider of tear gas to the government of Bahrain, a country which has just marked the first anniversary of its peaceful mass protests. Today, protests continue almost daily despite protesters having been jailed, tortured, killed, maligned, fired from work and expelled from school, according to Bahraini activist Fahud Desmukh (aka Chan’ad, in Jadaliyya, December 9, 2011).

In Sitra last August, fourteen-year-old Ali al-Shiekh was killed when police fired a tear gas canister at close range into the back of his neck. He died almost instantly. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times observed that NonLethal Technologies canisters were regularly littered across the ground after pro-democacy demonstrations there.

3. Combined Systems, Inc.

Headquartered in Jamestown, Pennsylvania, Combined Systems Inc. (CSI)—often manufacturing under the brand name Combined Tactical Systems (CTS)—supplies Tunisia, Yemen, Germany, Netherlands, India, East Timor, Hong Kong, Argentina, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Cameroon, and Sierra Leone, as well as its most high-profile clients as of late— Egypt and Israel. They are owned by Point Lookout Capital and the Carlyle Group, with the former, whose offices are located in New York City, holding the controlling shares. On Point Lookout’s portfolio page, the section on CSI reads: “The company’s CTS branded product line is the premiere less-lethal line in the industry today.”

CSI is the primary supplier of tear gas to the Israeli military as well as a provider to Israel’s police (and border police) for use in occupied Palestine. (CSI even used to fly the Israeli flag at its Jamestown headquarters, but in advance of the Martin Luther King Day protest there, the company replaced it with a Pennsylvania state flag.) There is extensive written documentation of CSI sales and shipments to Israel; moreover CTS-brand canisters are ubiquitous at Palestinian protests, including the regularly recurrent nonviolent demonstrations at Bil’in, Ni’lin and Nabi Saleh.

Palestinian protesters recently killed by tear gas include Mustafa Tamimi, from the small village Nabi Saleh, on December 9, 2011. An Israeli soldier inside an armored jeep fired a tear gas canister at close range directly into his face. Jawaher Abu Rahma of Bil’in suffocated on tear gas at a protest in January of last year. His brother, Bassem Abu Rahma, died in April 2009 when an Israeli soldier fired a tear gas canister directly into his chest.

There have also been countless injuries. The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, a coordinating body for unarmed demonstrations in the West Bank, noted in a 2010 report: “According to Palestinian Red Crescent records in Bil’in and Ni’ilin, 18 people have been directly shot at and hit by the high velocity projectiles since their introduction, in these two villages alone.”

Photos and news reports have shown that CSI is a major tear gas provider for the Tunisian military. A Tunisian protester and a photographer from France were recently killed by impacts from tear gas canisters fired at close range.

The company’s tear gas is the primary one used by the Egyptian security forces in its attempt to crush demonstrations there, which still continue. Amnesty International documented three shipments of tear gas from CSI (in the U.S.) to Egypt in 2011 that were approved by the U.S. State Department, despite the Egyptian security forces’ record of using of tear gas to kill and injure protesters. In the months following Mubarak’s ouster, Human Rights Watch also reported excessive use of force against peaceful demonstrations, including illegally shooting tear gas into the crowd at shoulder height, on February 25, March 9, April 9, June 28 and 29, August 1 and October 9.

In the November protests around the election, tear gas was fired repeatedly—often into enclosed spaces, including into field hospitals. And again, canisters were fired directly at protesters. Egyptian human rights groups have reported that between November 19 and November 23, at least 40 protesters were killed and more than 2,000 injured. At least four people died from tear gas asphyxiation.

HOW DOES IT GET THERE?

How does tear gas get from American manufacturers to various governments overseas? You could see it as a sort of triangular relationship between the U.S. government, U.S. corporations, and other governments. These three points are always involved. The fungible path of money and weaponry follows various routes and takes different forms at different points in the process. One thing to emphasize here is the complicity between state and corporate interests: government policies actively work in war profiteers’ favor. Even when it’s a commercial sale, tear gas (like any other weapon) is subject to export controls, so U.S.-made tear gas cannot be shipped abroad without government approval.

Here are some of the ways by which tear gas moves from manufacturers to clients in different countries. The U.S. government’s role usually consists of one or more of the following: authorizing a sale, arranging a sale, subsidizing it, or funding it directly with taxpayer money.

1. FMS (foreign military sales)

These are government-to-government transactions, administered by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency in the Pentagon. FMS requests are initiated by the purchasing country, and handled initially by the U.S. embassy in the client country. The Pentagon handles the entire transaction, but the State Department can also approve, reject or halt any purchase.

The military articles sold through this program can come from either Pentagon stocks or new production. In the latter case, the Defense Department contracts with U.S. arms manufacturers to actually build the weapons and, in some cases, provide related services. But the Pentagon takes care of all of the paperwork.

The top three buyers in FMS for fiscal year 2010 were Egypt ($2.45 billion); Israel ($3.95 billion); and Kuwait ($1.6 billion).

2. DCS (direct commercial sales)

These are purchases negotiated directly between the client country and the manufacturer. The U.S. State Department approves each and every DCS. Compared to FMS, this route is usually quicker, sometimes cheaper and always entails less government oversight. In addition, the State Department is much less transparent about DCS than the Pentagon is about FMS. Minimal information about price and quantity is classified as “confidential business information” and kept from the public. This secrecy undermines the ability of Congress and the interested press and public to exercise proper oversight on industry-direct arms transfers. The existence of these two separate programs also makes gaining an accurate count of arms exports in a given year exceedingly difficult. This is the best information we have:

The top DCS totals for fiscal 2009: Egypt ($458,000 for tear gas and other riot control agents, $101 million total); Israel ($1.05 million for tear gas and other riot control agents, $602.6 million total); and Kuwait ($1.24 million for tear gas and other riot control agents, $923 million total).

3. FMF (foreign military financing)

The U.S. government does more than just approve sales. American taxpayers directly finance foreign governments’ purchases of U.S. military products via “military aid”—essentially grants and loans to foreign governments for arms purchases. In most cases, financing is available only for the sale of U.S.-made products. So, in effect, these are taxpayer-financed subsidies of private weapons manufacturers and defense contractors. In some exceptions, such as those made for Israel, a recipient country can use the a limited portion of the aid to fund purchases of its own domestic products.

Foreign military financing is regularly applied to FMS purchases and is relatively well documented. But because transparency is lacking when it comes to DCS purchases, it’s harder to accurately associate FMF funds with these purchases.

In 2009 Egypt received $1.3 billion, Israel $2.55 billion. In 2011 Egypt requested $1.3 billion, Israel $3 billion. (A footnote in the available documentation suggests it’s assumed they will get the amount they ask for.)

[talkingpointes]

Tracking Tear Gas

Why do you hate America? I'll just ask for LE.

Why must you point out her failings? Do you need reeducation?

[Warlord]

Why do you hate America? I'll just ask for LE.

Why must you point out her failings? Do you need reeducation?

Warlord is a client of Combined Tactical Systems and will happily test their latest product on LE :

Non-Lethal Special Gas: Canisters consist of tiny droplets of moisture released as a fog or a spray into the air. Classified by law enforcement officials as a “non-lethal weapon,” or as a “riot-control agent,” the gas causes chocking, burning, vomiting and eye watering.

[RonPaulFanInGA]

If this was a non-U.S. ally in the Middle East, we'd be hearing about a "Turkish Spring" and how the government has lost the legitimacy to lead and blah, blah, blah.

[Warlord]

If this was a non-U.S. ally in the Middle East, we'd be hearing about a "Turkish Spring" and how the government has lost legitimacy and blah, blah, blah.

Assad should buy some tear gas from Combined Tactical Systems and pump it all over rebel held towns. If he did that then they could accuse him of using chemical weapons and we can drone strike Obama for selling them to him

[LibertyEagle]

Thanks Warlord. That is the substantiation I wanted to see.

[CPUd]

http://i.imgur.com/4dn69LN.gif

[angelatc]

Thanks Warlord. That is the substantiation I wanted to see.


Sure, but I agree with you. If he had said that there was a significant chance the tear gas was manufactured here because blah blah blah, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Besides - free markets and all that.

[green73]

//

[V3n]

Now Brazil:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02593/brazil-protest-spr_2593006b.jpg

[oyarde]

Hence question mark. I'm interested to know where their tear gas is manufactured. A lot of is done in the US.

Well , in Bahrain they buy Korean ( Deakwang ) , I only buy American ( CSI in Pennsylvania ) which is what is used in the West Bank.

[oyarde]

I just huff it while I drink my beer.

[oyarde]

Buy American :)