US Teen Executed by Israelis on Gaza Aid Ship

Gaza activists on flotilla executed with gunshot wounds to the head at close range

UPDATE: Global Research: Was the Obama Administration involved in the attack on the Freedom Flotilla?

See Global Research article at: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19573

By Brenda Norrell

Narcosphere (udpate Sunday)

A US teen with a video camera, Furkan Dogan, 19, was executed by Israeli commandos during Israel's bloody massacre of human rights activists on the Freedom Flotilla. Furkan was shot five times, including in the face at close range, from 18 inches away. The nine victims on the Freedom Flotilla were shot 30 times. Five died from gunshot wounds to the head, according to the autopsy report.

The strategy of attacking and murdering innocent people, then using doctored video in an immediate public relations campaign to sway public opinion, is a military special ops strategy. These are questions that must be asked: What was the role of the US and US Navy Seals? The US Navy Sixth Fleet operates in those waters. Was the US part of the planning to murder and execute these humanitarians, including a US teen, then avoid prosecution by seeking a coverup during the controlled investigation? Israel has now admitted that the videos it released, as the victims were dying and hospitalized, were doctored. The Guardian reported that the US pressured the United Nations to halt an independent investigation of the massacre.

The Guardian and the Wall Street Journal reported the horrifying details of Israel's bloody massacre and from the funeral of the US teen, Furkan Dogan, 19, a bright student with a video camera who liked to play chest.

Ahmet Dogan, 49, an assistant professor of accounting at Kayseri University, said no one has been able to shed light on his son's final moments. He thinks Furkan may have drawn the Israelis soldiers' attention with the video camera he took with him to document the voyage, the Wall Street Journal reported.

"He thought his American passport would protect him-he thought the Israelis wouldn't harm an American," said Mr. Dogan.

According to friends and relatives, Furkan was the smart kid of the family-a freshly minted high-school graduate with good enough marks to study medicine at university. He subscribed to "Young Brains," a Turkish magazine with puzzles and articles on new technology, and liked to play chess.

The Guardian reported that the autopsy results on the victims showed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. Two other men were shot four times. Five of those killed were shot either in the back of the head or in the back.

In addition to those killed, 48 others suffered gunshot wounds and six activists are still missing.

"Israeli commandos shot passengers at the rate of one a minute during the bloody raid on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza, a Briton on board the main vessel said," The Press Association reported.

Ismail Patel, chairman of Leicester-based Palestinian rights group Friends of Al Aqsa, said one of the nine people killed during the assault was shot just two feet in front of him.

He said the commandos had a "shoot to kill" policy during the initial phase of the attack on the Mavi Marmara, with live rounds being fired on the vessel from a helicopter hovering above.

The news brought a profound sadness during a long week of sadness, as another aid ship, the Rachel Corrie, headed for Gaza, with the goal of ending the blockade and bringing humanitarian aid to Palestine and was halted.

Reflecting on this week, it is interesting how a chance meeting, and good friends, can change one's life.

This week, every hour, all day every day, after the Freedom Flotilla was attacked, I searched Google News in hopes of finding out what had happened to Ann Wright. It was not until Thursday afternoon, that I finally found an article saying she was released from an Israeli prison and on her way home.

A few years ago, Ann came to Tucson to speak out during gatherings against US torture and the torture training at the Army base at Fort Huachuca, the torture training that led to torture in Abu-Ghraib.

I was too tired to go to the program that night, but a friend came to my home and insisted. It was this chance meeting that led me to spend four days looking for news of what had happened to Ann Wright, a retired Army Reserves Col. and State Dept. official, who resigned in protest of the Iraq war. More recently, she was denied entrance into Canada, a sure sign that she was on the right track.

As I searched for news of Ann each day, the horrifying events of the attack on the Turkish aid ship to Palestine unfolded. Equally horrifying was the twisted and distorted news coverage, President Obama's silence and the United States pressure on the United Nations to protect Israel and halt an independent investigation of the facts.

It was clear that playing politics was more important than human life to Obama. This became clearer when the news came that a 19-year-old US citizen, Furkan Dogan, had been shot in the forehead by an Israeli soldier. Surely Obama would break his silence. But at the same time that wounded and dead US citizens were arriving in Turkey and Greece, Obama was frolicking with Paul McCartney in the White House.

An Israeli politician on board the flotilla said activists were executed by soldiers and left to bleed to death. British and Australian women said they were tasered and beaten by Israeli soldiers.

At this point, Obama's silence became the crime of complicity.

It is clear now that the United States is sleeping with the enemy. It is clear that neither sincere compassion for the victims, nor truth about Israel will come from the President or US government.  

In response to Israel's massacre of humanitarians, the people and governments of the world must answer this question, a question that is often asked by simple country people: "What do you do with a dog that has gone mad?"

David Sugar, ambassador of the provisional government of the Republic of Lakotah, said Lakota are watching with the rest of the world and are concerned for the people of Gaza and the humanitarians delivering aid. Sugar said the people of Palestine and Lakota share a common history of oppression, occupation by a colonial power and concentration camps.

Statement by David Sugar, ambassador of the provisional government of the Republic of Lakotah

Mitakuye Oyasin (to all my relations),

First, of course my deepest sympathies go out to those who have lost their lives to this act of criminal piracy, and to their families. I use the term piracy because when unarmed merchant vessels are fired upon, boarded, and hijacked in international waters, this most clearly falls under the definition of piracy. Those who choose to stand up and defend themselves in the face of this criminal action should be praised for their courage, not condemned for their legitimate acts of self defense. Furthermore, I would seek those responsible for this criminal act of piracy to be both identified and fullyprosecuted under international law.

I am pleased that so many peace loving and humanitarian nations have expressed their outrage at this crime. Naturally the people of Lakota are deeply concerned, as our nation has over 150 years of experience with what it means to be held in forced captivity under occupation of a hostile and ruthless foreign colonial power in concentration camps called reservations, with experiencing the murder of our people through massacres and extra-judicial killings, with the forced removal and killing of our children in their boarding schools, with our beliefs and practices outlawed, and with the constant seizure of our lands. As a humanitarian nation we are deeply concerned when any of these kinds of things happen elsewhere, and in this shared experience we do find some common understanding of the suffering of the people of Palestine.

I further assert as a fundamental principle of international justice that in fact the duty of an occupying nation to a captive population is actually greater than to it's own people since even in the best of circumstances a captive people do not have the freedom to choose or change the government ruling over them or even to make basic choices about how they would live, something presumably the people occupying them enjoy. The blockade of Gaza, a criminal act of collectively punishing a people as a whole, must be ended.