by Bananiot » Sun Oct 29, 2006 10:02 pm
This is what Patroklos had to say on the matter:
"WASHINGTON-BASED super-journalist Michalis Ignatiou has struck again with another myth, packaged as an authoritative news-story. His latest mega-scoop alleged that Greeks and Greek Cypriots missing since 1974 had been used human guinea pigs for the testing of chemical weapons by the Turkish military, between 1984 and ’88.
This was the lead story on the Mega TV news a week last Saturday and in Phileleftheros the following day. The self-important Ignatiou also appeared on a radio show to talk about his shocking findings the next morning. There was about as much evidence to back these revelations as there was for his claims that many millions of bucks had been paid to Greek Cypriots by the Yanks during the referendum.
The source of the mega-scoop was an American nutcase conspiracy theorist by the name of Gregory Copley, who runs a US-based joke of an organisation called the ‘International Strategic Studies Association’ that nobody with half a brain would take seriously. The Association publishes a journal, Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategy Policy, which even those with no brain would not take seriously.
Ignatiou, on the other hand, has a fully operating whole brain, so why did he take Copley’s claims seriously, causing unnecessary distress to the relatives of the missing. Had these unfortunate people not suffered enough over the last 32 years without having to be served with more unsubstantiated claims guaranteed to cause anguish and pain?
Copley admitted he had no concrete evidence to back his guinea pig claims, so why did Ignatiou feel obliged to report them insist that they had been confirmed. The two points his allegations were trying to make – that the Turks are bloodthirsty barbarians capable of all types of savagery and that Ignatiou is the greatest journalist ever produced by Cyprus – have already been proved beyond reasonable doubt. So why cause pain to the relatives of the missing by repeating them?
GREGORY Copley is a darling of our Ethnarch’s government, with several of his articles posted on the website of our embassy in Washington. One internet writer, said “the ISSA is an archconservative US group providing conspiracy theories and thwarted strategic analyses to those wanting this input.”
The same writer described Copley, as “a self-styled ‘strategic analyst’ whose favourite projects include downplaying Serbian slaughtering of Muslims in the Yugoslavian war and maximising the security threat against the United States by Islamist groups and the axis of evil.”
The most recent predictions by ISSA’s Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy journal was that there would have been a regional crisis last September extending from the Aegean to north Kurdistan. The August 2006 issue of the rag spoke of an attack by Turkey on northern Iraq on September 10 and a “settling of accounts with Greece and Cyprus”. There was also a possibility that Turkey would attack Greece to end Greek control of the Aegean Sea. It suffices to say that today is October 29 and none of the great strategic analyst’s predictions have materialised.
Copley may be a nutcase, but he has quite a following among our intelligentsia. Apart from Ignatiou, the President of the American Hellenic Institute Gene Rossides is also a great fan, describing the ISSA journal as “highly authoritative”. He had invited Copley to attend several of the Institute’s seminars, at which the great man spoke about his conspiracy theories.
Another fan of Copley’s is the Director General of the Intercollege Reasearch department, Professor Dr Andreas Theophanous, whose picture attending an ISSA seminar is featured on the Association’s website. I think enough said".
Maybe they are right but the pro Turkey journalists can not be trusted. They always support Turkey. We have to wait and see what reliable sources will say before we come to any conclusions. This is a very serious matter to just take the word of some Patroklos!
