WAR Erdogan's Syria Invasion Begins: Turkish Jets Filmed Bombing Kurdish Targets
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Monty
Veteran Member
That's an awful strange was to say go ahead and feel free to slaughter our allies. I think Trump may be starting to have a breakdown and the scary thing is who the hell is going to even know the difference.
TheSearcher
Are you sure about that?
A thought: Consider if you will that this is a bit of misdirection. The President is not stupid, he had to know the media and derp-staters would go apeshit when he pulled the troops. So they're looking there when we're about to do something else?
TheSearcher
Are you sure about that?
To what ally do you refer?
intothatgoodnight
. . .
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/22/deciphering-confusion-about-the-kurds/
Deciphering Confusion About The Kurds
By Lee Smith
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
U.S. foreign policy hands are concerned that President Trump’s withdrawal from Syria is likely to encourage Turkey to prosecute a military campaign against the Kurds. Many fear that abandoning a partner in the campaign against the Islamic State will show that America does not stand by its allies.
Mr. Trump has vowed to protect the Kurds, warning Turkey that he will destroy its economy should it lay siege to them. Hence, Washington and Ankara are trying to work out details of a buffer zone separating Kurdish and Turkish forces.
However, short of a permanent deployment, there is little the United States can do to shelter the Kurds long-term, never mind ensure an independent Kurdish state in northern Syria. That the Kurds will now turn toward other powers — like Iran and Russia — is a natural fact of history and geography, i.e. geopolitics.
Even analysts and journalists appear to be confused about the Kurds — including the nomenclature used to describe them. The Kurds are a Middle Eastern minority spread out from Syria in the West, through Turkey and Iraq, to Iran in the east, and further divided into various political groupings.
But this is not what the foreign policy establishment is referring to in the Syria debate. Rather, they are talking about a specific Kurdish political institution in northern Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and its military wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). This is the Syrian franchise of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been at war with Turkey for 35 years, and is a U.S.-designated terrorist group inspired by Marxist doctrine.
How the United States came to ally with such an organization in the first place was a function of Barack Obama’s grand strategy for the Middle East — to realign U.S. interests with Iran.
Mr. Obama never wanted to intervene in Syria, fearing that it might jeopardize his blossoming relationship with Iran, patron of Syrian president Bashar Assad. But the White House felt pressured to step in after ISIS murdered American journalists. The trick was to avoid turning the intervention against ISIS into an instrument that would help anti-Assad rebels and Turkey.
“The PKK was the perfect partner for the Obama White House,” says Tony Badran, senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “Not only were they not interested in pursuing an anti-Assad agenda but they would also create an irritant for Turkey that would distract or even block Ankara from fighting Assad.”
Mr. Obama’s military alliance with the PKK naturally angered then-Prime Minister and now President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The group presents Ankara with its most vital national security concern, threatening Turkish peace at home, and is hence Mr. Erdogan’s greatest political liability.
Mr. Erdogan initiated a peace process with the PKK as early as 2012, which was stalled in part by the 2014 U.S. intervention. With the White House at its back, the PKK was convinced it had enough leverage to walk away from peace talks to acquire more, by carving out territory in northern Syria — with American support. Mr. Erdogan is a difficult U.S. ally, distrusted by both Democrats and Republicans. However, the idea that Washington should swap out a NATO member and replace it with the PKK is strategically wanton.
In spite of the PKK’s proven military abilities, it is no substitute for a nation-state with an army, an important air base at Incirlik, and naval bases on major waterways. As Mr. Trump’s Syria envoy James Jeffrey recently said, “the United States does not have permanent relationships with substate entities.”
Sympathetic Westerners believe that the PKK in Syria deserves a state. But merit does not factor into geopolitics: You have a state if you can keep it.
A map shows why that is unlikely. The Syrian PKK is land-locked, with Assad regime forces to the west, Sunni Arabs to the south, Turkey to the north, and to its east another Kurdish party in Iraq that is hostile to them, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, a longstanding U.S. ally with Turkish ties.
Kurdish politics are historically shaped by the fact of the two regional powers, Turkey and Iran, from whom they must chose a patron. As a Turkish PKK adviser once put it: “Iran influences the PKK because the PKK is based on the Iranian border. When you fight a party, you have to find support from some other party.”
Unless the PKK comes to its senses and reaches an American-brokered compromise with Turkey that satisfies the latter’s national security interests, it has no choice but to partner with Iran and its axis, which now includes Russia. The United States’ temporary alliance with the PKK only delayed the inevitable.
As it is, the United States empowered the PKK beyond its wildest imagination. By funding, training and arming a substate actor, Washington made the PKK the envy of substate actors the world over. Any of which would welcome the same munificence, even though they know, as the PKK did, that the United States will someday return home, far over the horizon.
Now that Mr. Trump has decided it is time to leave, the PKK, grateful to the United States for having buttressed its negotiating position, would be wise to re-initiate peace talks with Turkey.
Lee Smith is the author of “The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations."
Deciphering Confusion About The Kurds
By Lee Smith
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
U.S. foreign policy hands are concerned that President Trump’s withdrawal from Syria is likely to encourage Turkey to prosecute a military campaign against the Kurds. Many fear that abandoning a partner in the campaign against the Islamic State will show that America does not stand by its allies.
Mr. Trump has vowed to protect the Kurds, warning Turkey that he will destroy its economy should it lay siege to them. Hence, Washington and Ankara are trying to work out details of a buffer zone separating Kurdish and Turkish forces.
However, short of a permanent deployment, there is little the United States can do to shelter the Kurds long-term, never mind ensure an independent Kurdish state in northern Syria. That the Kurds will now turn toward other powers — like Iran and Russia — is a natural fact of history and geography, i.e. geopolitics.
Even analysts and journalists appear to be confused about the Kurds — including the nomenclature used to describe them. The Kurds are a Middle Eastern minority spread out from Syria in the West, through Turkey and Iraq, to Iran in the east, and further divided into various political groupings.
But this is not what the foreign policy establishment is referring to in the Syria debate. Rather, they are talking about a specific Kurdish political institution in northern Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and its military wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). This is the Syrian franchise of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been at war with Turkey for 35 years, and is a U.S.-designated terrorist group inspired by Marxist doctrine.
How the United States came to ally with such an organization in the first place was a function of Barack Obama’s grand strategy for the Middle East — to realign U.S. interests with Iran.
Mr. Obama never wanted to intervene in Syria, fearing that it might jeopardize his blossoming relationship with Iran, patron of Syrian president Bashar Assad. But the White House felt pressured to step in after ISIS murdered American journalists. The trick was to avoid turning the intervention against ISIS into an instrument that would help anti-Assad rebels and Turkey.
“The PKK was the perfect partner for the Obama White House,” says Tony Badran, senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “Not only were they not interested in pursuing an anti-Assad agenda but they would also create an irritant for Turkey that would distract or even block Ankara from fighting Assad.”
Mr. Obama’s military alliance with the PKK naturally angered then-Prime Minister and now President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The group presents Ankara with its most vital national security concern, threatening Turkish peace at home, and is hence Mr. Erdogan’s greatest political liability.
Mr. Erdogan initiated a peace process with the PKK as early as 2012, which was stalled in part by the 2014 U.S. intervention. With the White House at its back, the PKK was convinced it had enough leverage to walk away from peace talks to acquire more, by carving out territory in northern Syria — with American support. Mr. Erdogan is a difficult U.S. ally, distrusted by both Democrats and Republicans. However, the idea that Washington should swap out a NATO member and replace it with the PKK is strategically wanton.
In spite of the PKK’s proven military abilities, it is no substitute for a nation-state with an army, an important air base at Incirlik, and naval bases on major waterways. As Mr. Trump’s Syria envoy James Jeffrey recently said, “the United States does not have permanent relationships with substate entities.”
Sympathetic Westerners believe that the PKK in Syria deserves a state. But merit does not factor into geopolitics: You have a state if you can keep it.
A map shows why that is unlikely. The Syrian PKK is land-locked, with Assad regime forces to the west, Sunni Arabs to the south, Turkey to the north, and to its east another Kurdish party in Iraq that is hostile to them, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, a longstanding U.S. ally with Turkish ties.
Kurdish politics are historically shaped by the fact of the two regional powers, Turkey and Iran, from whom they must chose a patron. As a Turkish PKK adviser once put it: “Iran influences the PKK because the PKK is based on the Iranian border. When you fight a party, you have to find support from some other party.”
Unless the PKK comes to its senses and reaches an American-brokered compromise with Turkey that satisfies the latter’s national security interests, it has no choice but to partner with Iran and its axis, which now includes Russia. The United States’ temporary alliance with the PKK only delayed the inevitable.
As it is, the United States empowered the PKK beyond its wildest imagination. By funding, training and arming a substate actor, Washington made the PKK the envy of substate actors the world over. Any of which would welcome the same munificence, even though they know, as the PKK did, that the United States will someday return home, far over the horizon.
Now that Mr. Trump has decided it is time to leave, the PKK, grateful to the United States for having buttressed its negotiating position, would be wise to re-initiate peace talks with Turkey.
Lee Smith is the author of “The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations."
intothatgoodnight
. . .
https://twitter.com/Doranimated/status/1181125761203408897
Mike
@Doranimated
We aligned under Obama not with “the Kurds,” but with the PKK, the sworn enemy of the Turkish Republic, our ally. We were sowing the seeds of a Turkish-PKK war with that policy. We were also driving Turkey toward Russia.
https://twitter.com/GrayConnolly/status/1181124549510750208
Gray Connolly
@GrayConnolly
Replying to @Doranimated
How does this end? The Kurds, whatever their political panjandrums, have been reliable allies. I note we come to the 100th anniversary of the Sevres treaty next year, in which the Kurds were promised a plebiscite.
Mike
@Doranimated
We aligned under Obama not with “the Kurds,” but with the PKK, the sworn enemy of the Turkish Republic, our ally. We were sowing the seeds of a Turkish-PKK war with that policy. We were also driving Turkey toward Russia.
https://twitter.com/GrayConnolly/status/1181124549510750208
Gray Connolly
@GrayConnolly
Replying to @Doranimated
How does this end? The Kurds, whatever their political panjandrums, have been reliable allies. I note we come to the 100th anniversary of the Sevres treaty next year, in which the Kurds were promised a plebiscite.
Monty
Veteran Member
This one from last Oct....
Conflicting U.S. messages have put the Kurds on guard at times, and they worry Washington may ultimately put its ties with fellow NATO member Turkey first.
“We do get along great with the Kurds. Don’t forget, that’s their territory,” Trump told a news conference at the United Nations general assembly last week. “We have to help them. I want to help them...They fought with us. They died with us.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...sh-leaders-see-new-u-s-interest-idUSKCN1MD1AR
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TheSearcher
Are you sure about that?
Hm. I see. So, pulling back a couple of dozen U.S. troops equates to telling Erdo to feel free to slaughter the Kurds? I read that very differently. Erdo was coming in with a force much larger than those ground troops could handle, whether they had to actually fight Erdo back, or even just get caught hunkered down in the crossfire.
Should we just let our people get erased out of a show of solidarity?
To me, it sounds like President Trump has learned the lesson of Benghazi...
Monty
Veteran Member
Nah, they fought with us, died with us...we didn't owe them anything. It's all good.
Turret Buster
Gruntpa
gave?
TheSearcher
Are you sure about that?
We don't owe them a couple of dozen dead soldiers for no good reason.
Armored column versus a squad. Do the math. If we are to defend the Kurds, we will, just not with guaranteed cannon fodder.
Shop your concern troll crap somewhere else.
Cacheman
Ultra MAGA!
The NATO charter says an attack on one is an attack on all. Technically, we are violating the NATO charter if in any way we help the Kurds against the NATO country, Turkey. The PKK terrorists (and recognized as terrorists by the US among many nations) have launched terrorist attacks on Turkey for over 30 years.
Like it or not Turkey is an ally by treaty and the Kurds aren't. Colonel Douglas MacGregor (interviewed on Fox tonight) says the Kurds will align their self with anyone that will further their agenda and also said Trump is finally putting some strategy back in foreign defense policy.
Are the Kurds also training others to create havoc in the west? Seems a whole lot of so-called "Freedom Fighters" fighting with them from the west happen to be ANTIFA and the PKK/YPG are recruiting, when NPR show's a photo showing it they let their guard down, search the internet yourself I'll post the pic, not the article but the link, use your judgement if you read it).
As my Cousins and a nephew told me after coming back from those hell-holes, we should stay the F out of there, they could hate us at anytime and love us a day later...just depends what they need. They don't care what we've done for them in the past, if they don't get their way (like most Islamist's they'll just kill you)
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/15/593895655/dozens-of-westerners-join-kurds-to-fight-isis-in-syria
Like it or not Turkey is an ally by treaty and the Kurds aren't. Colonel Douglas MacGregor (interviewed on Fox tonight) says the Kurds will align their self with anyone that will further their agenda and also said Trump is finally putting some strategy back in foreign defense policy.
Are the Kurds also training others to create havoc in the west? Seems a whole lot of so-called "Freedom Fighters" fighting with them from the west happen to be ANTIFA and the PKK/YPG are recruiting, when NPR show's a photo showing it they let their guard down, search the internet yourself I'll post the pic, not the article but the link, use your judgement if you read it).
As my Cousins and a nephew told me after coming back from those hell-holes, we should stay the F out of there, they could hate us at anytime and love us a day later...just depends what they need. They don't care what we've done for them in the past, if they don't get their way (like most Islamist's they'll just kill you)
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/15/593895655/dozens-of-westerners-join-kurds-to-fight-isis-in-syria
Attachments
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Monty
Veteran Member
You use "troll" like the libs use "racist...lol...has lost all meaning...and by my count, I've been here longer so peddle your crap somewhere else.
I've got no desire for us to lose another US soldier over there but Trumps words in 2018 were proven hollow as I expect his threats today against Turkey will be as well and there's nothing to be proud about there. Maybe the right strategy but our execution sucked.
TheSearcher
Are you sure about that?
When you say stuff like this:
"I think Trump may be starting to have a breakdown and the scary thing is who the hell is going to even know the difference."
That's pretty classic Concern Troll, if that was your intention. But if you are sincere, then I submit that you are following someone else's narrative and manufactured outrage. And as I said earlier, a lot of us still burn over what happened in Benghazi, what the President just did avoided a repeat. What Erdogan is throwing down, it's definitely more than 24-25 soldiers can handle. Being allies with the Kurds (or anyone else) is one matter, THROWING AWAY our people isn't appropriate.
As for how long each of us have been here, I've been around for well more than a decade. Who cares at that point?
Tell you what, let's take it down a notch. I do admit to being a bit harsh with you, and I apologize for that.
I disagree with your opinion. As I said earlier, we can and may still defend the Kurds, just not with those particular forces that the President extracted. I would suspect that our air power could handle Erdo's forces quite well, thought it's likely to kick off escalation. We may be in a box there, no matter what we do.
Then again, things change, and a year ago the picture about Kurdish training of Antifa blackshirts may not have been so clear. If the Kurds are training our domestic enemies, why in Hell would we defend them?
Have you actually thought about what you said?
Those troops werent there to directly pound it out with anyone. They were the observers, coordinators and directors.
They have the capability to instantly call in dozens of airstrikes and hundreds of cruise missiles.
Yes, even to a civilian, it should be clear what was the purpose of those troops .
Remember a few months ago when hundreds of Russian merc/soldiers were wiped out because they dared to get to close to those American "troops"?
Further more, yes we screwed the Kurds repeatedly for decades.
We repeatedly promised them support for independence and their own country if they'd only fight and die for us. One thing I learned in the military is to say exactly what you mean and don't make promises you won't or can't keep..
Same crap we did in Vietnam with other groups of people who fought for us. Then we ran out on them with our tail between our legs and left them to their fate. My friend who I trained with, Nugyen van Cou [sp] of the Vietnamese Navy is dead because of it.
Point is, we sure as hell shouldn't be making promises and commitments we cant or don't intend to keep.
The other point is, that we havent won a war since WWII. Fought a lot of them, lost hundreds of thousands, probably killed millions, but haven't won one.
I do agree with whoever said that when we send military force we should fight to win, whatever the consequences, but we won't do that.
So we either continue on with our little military actions in dozens of hotspots, or we withdraw into our little bubble and wait a few years for the next all out world war. That is the alternative.
Finally my first post on this thread was about the President's tweet.
“As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!).”
This statement is not how the man I voted for should be talking. He may be smart in politics, but militarily he is not. Didnt even know what our nuclear triad was in the final debates.
I voted for Trump and will vote for him again, but he shouldn't delude himself that he is all that. He's a tool that I and many others want to use to bring this country back to some semblence of reality. My loyalty is not to Trump, it is to the Costitution and to the United States of America and I voted for him to try and get that back. He should not forget that in his "great and unmatched wisdom".
Also when the hell did he totally destroy and obliterate the economy of Turkey like he said he did in his tweet?
TheSearcher
Are you sure about that?
My most general answers to what you wrote are as follows:
1. Yes, the Kurdish people have had a hard complicated road.
2. Yes, the USA has indeed screwed them over the years. In particular, the issue of pledging to back up their independence and the resulting failure to do so was shameful. I have said so myself.
3. There is some doubt as to the reciprocation of the alliance with the Kurds over the years, so they are not lily white. They have been downright nasty to their own people in the past, while crying victim.
4. If Cacheman's info is correct, they may not even be an ally at all at this point anyway, so providing them with advisors is moot. And frankly foolish.
5. After two decades in country with them, they STILL can not coordinate their own defense? Does this not sound fishy to you?
6. I don't think he meant that he had messed up the economy of Turkey before, but that he had messed up other countries before.
ETA:
7. I wholeheartedly agree, if we are going to go in with our people, go IN. Get it done. Then keep it done. The holding actions are like picking at a scab, it never heals.
Monty
Veteran Member
I've got no energy for the rest of it left tonight but in all seriousness, what the heck is a "Concern Troll"? Guess of my forum terminology ignorance is showing. LOL
TheSearcher
Are you sure about that?
As I said, I want to turn down the mania, and don't wish to fight with you. It's counterproductive. But I will give you a short definition: A Concern Troll muddies forum topics by showing "concern" that is really a means to discredit the subject.
"Your view X is very extreme, I'm concerned that maybe you don't believe in God. We better explore that, or your soul is in jeopardy!"
"Are you sure that's how that unrelated detail works? We really should concentrate on proving to me that you are right, instead of focusing on the actual topic."
"For some reason, a statement somebody made could be misconstrued. I'm concerned it might even be racist or something. We don't want the forum to be known like that, do we?"
"Gosh, I think the President is losing it, I'm concerned."
Anybody getting whiplash trying to follow this back and forth?
Also, according to this, Trump is withdrawing any troops from Syria.
He is just moving them to another part of Syria so Erdogan can go in a kill the kurds.
How is that a withdrawal from Syria. It just sounds more like caving to a dictator called Erdogan.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world-r...-to-reverse-syria-decision-following-backlash
Trump Administration Appears to Reverse Syria Decision Following Backlash
An official speaking for the administration pushed back on Trump’s claims the U.S. was withdrawing from Syria.
By Paul D. Shinkman, Senior Writer, National Security Oct. 7, 2019, at 6:04 p.m.
A senior administration official on an organized call with reporters appeared to contradict President Donald Trump about Syria policy late Monday, refuting interpretations of his statements from earlier in the day that prompted broad outrage from supporters and opponents alike.
The U.S. is not removing its forces from Syria in the face of a Turkish incursion, said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Rather, the president ordered roughly 50 special operations troops in northern Syria to relocate to a different part of the country after he learned that Turkey has planned an offensive against U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria. The official said that offensive had not yet begun.
{So Turkey said they were going to go into Syria and kill the Kurds and would President Trump kindly withdraw American troops in the area and put them somewhere else in Syria? and the President said OK. How is this consistent with lobbing 80 or so cruise missiles into Syria because of fake gas attack accusations.?}
he latest assertion, however, appears to conflict with a flurry of tweets the president issued Monday, further explaining a White House statement late Sunday that first announced the withdrawal, but offered few details.
"It is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home," Trump wrote in one tweet.
The idea of the U.S. withdrawing any of its roughly 1,000 troops still in Syria – even just from the front lines where they operate with Kurdish allies – prompted widespread outrage on Capitol Hill, including from some of the president's staunchest allies like Sen. Lindsay Graham and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. They feared that the decision amounted to abandoning the Kurds, who have been instrumental in defeating the Islamic State group, but which Turkey has labeled as terrorists and vowed to attack.
Republicans Break From Trump on Syria
In rare rebukes, senior Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, blasted Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw support for Kurdish allies amid Turkish threats.
Paul D. ShinkmanOct. 7, 2019
The senior administration official did not address whether his comments represented a shift in White House policy following the massive backlash.
He did, however, refute claims that Trump did not first consult top officials at the departments of State and Defense – despite multiple news reports and confirmation from senior lawmakers that Trump's decision blindsided Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon.
Trump has previously announced policy via Twitter without first consulting his top advisers, including his first attempt to withdraw the U.S. from Syria late last year – prompting the resignation of then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis – and the overturn of the Pentagon's policy toward transgender service members.
Also, according to this, Trump is withdrawing any troops from Syria.
He is just moving them to another part of Syria so Erdogan can go in a kill the kurds.
How is that a withdrawal from Syria. It just sounds more like caving to a dictator called Erdogan.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world-r...-to-reverse-syria-decision-following-backlash
Trump Administration Appears to Reverse Syria Decision Following Backlash
An official speaking for the administration pushed back on Trump’s claims the U.S. was withdrawing from Syria.
By Paul D. Shinkman, Senior Writer, National Security Oct. 7, 2019, at 6:04 p.m.
A senior administration official on an organized call with reporters appeared to contradict President Donald Trump about Syria policy late Monday, refuting interpretations of his statements from earlier in the day that prompted broad outrage from supporters and opponents alike.
The U.S. is not removing its forces from Syria in the face of a Turkish incursion, said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Rather, the president ordered roughly 50 special operations troops in northern Syria to relocate to a different part of the country after he learned that Turkey has planned an offensive against U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria. The official said that offensive had not yet begun.
{So Turkey said they were going to go into Syria and kill the Kurds and would President Trump kindly withdraw American troops in the area and put them somewhere else in Syria? and the President said OK. How is this consistent with lobbing 80 or so cruise missiles into Syria because of fake gas attack accusations.?}
he latest assertion, however, appears to conflict with a flurry of tweets the president issued Monday, further explaining a White House statement late Sunday that first announced the withdrawal, but offered few details.
"It is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home," Trump wrote in one tweet.
The idea of the U.S. withdrawing any of its roughly 1,000 troops still in Syria – even just from the front lines where they operate with Kurdish allies – prompted widespread outrage on Capitol Hill, including from some of the president's staunchest allies like Sen. Lindsay Graham and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. They feared that the decision amounted to abandoning the Kurds, who have been instrumental in defeating the Islamic State group, but which Turkey has labeled as terrorists and vowed to attack.
Republicans Break From Trump on Syria
In rare rebukes, senior Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, blasted Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw support for Kurdish allies amid Turkish threats.
Paul D. ShinkmanOct. 7, 2019
The senior administration official did not address whether his comments represented a shift in White House policy following the massive backlash.
He did, however, refute claims that Trump did not first consult top officials at the departments of State and Defense – despite multiple news reports and confirmation from senior lawmakers that Trump's decision blindsided Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon.
Trump has previously announced policy via Twitter without first consulting his top advisers, including his first attempt to withdraw the U.S. from Syria late last year – prompting the resignation of then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis – and the overturn of the Pentagon's policy toward transgender service members.
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Your cousins and nephew??
I guess that's why more than a couple US military vets (Marines, Army and a few Navy SEALs) have gotten out of the military and gone back to Syria on their own to fight with the Kurds. We had a thread on that a couple of years ago, but according to you and your cousin these American soldiers who have actually been there don't know what they are talking about.
Also you are lumping every Kurd regardless of the group into one and attaching them to the group that actually is attacking Turkey.
This is not the case at all, and you probably know this.
Your defense of Turkey is also odd. Do you actually think Turkey is an ally? Especially with Erdogan in charge?
How many of our allies are buying Russian missile systems?
How many of our allies have arrested way over a hundred thousand of their own people.
How many of our allies have asked us to kindly remove our military so they can go in an massacre an ethnic group of people in another country?
How many allies that are sitting square on the border with Syria and have a massive military, have just set there and allowed and even helped ISIS carry out it's murder of Christians and others, including Americans. Turkey provided aid and assistance to ISIS allowing their country to be used as a pipeline for material aid and medical care for wounded ISIS.
Also Turkey turned their guns on Syrian government troops instead of helping them wipe out ISIS.
Basically Turkey doesn't give a shit about ISIS and the 8000 ISIS prisoners being held by the Kurds will probably go free to regroup and fight again once Turkey kills the Kurds.
The only thing we probably agree on is that we shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place. But we did, and we made commitments and now are prepared to renege on those commitments. Something we have a history of doing.
I do find it interesting that the same people who were praising the Kurds on this forum several years ago are now convinced they are the bad guys. It's nice to wash your hands of people once you finish using them.
TheSearcher
Are you sure about that?
Your cousins and nephew??
I guess that's why more than a couple US military vets (Marines, Army and a few Navy SEALs) have gotten out of the military and gone back to Syria on their own to fight with the Kurds. We had a thread on that a couple of years ago, but according to you and your cousin these American soldiers who have actually been there don't know what they are talking about.
Also you are lumping every Kurd regardless of the group into one and attaching them to the group that actually is attacking Turkey.
This is not the case at all, and you probably know this.
Your defense of Turkey is also odd. Do you actually think Turkey is an ally? Especially with Erdogan in charge?
How many of our allies are buying Russian missile systems?
How many of our allies have arrested way over a hundred thousand of their own people.
How many of our allies have asked us to kindly remove our military so they can go in an massacre an ethnic group of people in another country?
How many allies that are sitting square on the border with Syria and have a massive military, have just set there and allowed and even helped ISIS carry out it's murder of Christians and others, including Americans. Turkey provided aid and assistance to ISIS allowing their country to be used as a pipeline for material aid and medical care for wounded ISIS.
Also Turkey turned their guns on Syrian government troops instead of helping them wipe out ISIS.
Basically Turkey doesn't give a shit about ISIS and the 8000 ISIS prisoners being held by the Kurds will probably go free to regroup and fight again once Turkey kills the Kurds.
The only thing we probably agree on is that we shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place. But we did, and we made commitments and now are prepared to renege on those commitments. Something we have a history of doing.
I do find it interesting that the same people who were praising the Kurds on this forum several years ago are now convinced they are the bad guys. It's nice to wash your hands of people once you finish using them.
I know you weren't talking to me, but I do agree with you, Turkey is no ally in reality. On paper, that is, by treaty, they are, as stupid as that may be. That's what I think Cacheman was saying, if I understood him. We're stuck with a legally-binding alliance that we agree is harmful, that's different from defending Turkey. They should have been kicked out of NATO long ago.
For my part, as I said earlier, when we pledged to help the Kurds become free, we should have honored that way back when. Now, it seems they have not stayed a good ally with us, and may even being backstabbing us via enabling enemies of the West, while our treaty-bound alliance with Turkey has soured. It is one hell of a mess.
night driver
ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
And in some special tavern, an elderly man, still as trim as when he pinned on his Stars, though not wearing any now, orders 2 doubles of VERY high dollar single malt scotch. He pulls a lighter out of his pocket, tips one opf the drinks over and lights it with the lighter. While that pool burns, the man once praised as "King David" drinks the second drink and salutes absent friends and warriors.
General Garner, it's OK. The Kurds knew who to listen to and who to trust.
General Garner, it's OK. The Kurds knew who to listen to and who to trust.
AlfaMan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Turkey is, on paper at least an ally of the US.
But, the offer to sell Patriot missile systems to the Turks has been withdrawn, and Turkish pilots scheduled to train here on F-35's are probably on their way back to Turkey by now. Turkey was supposed to build parts for the F-35; think those contracts have been moved to another country (Canada/ Bombardier aerospace).We still have basing rights there, for now as well as overflight rights. Those will probably disappear in the not too distant future. I would think C-17's would ramp up moving equipment out of Incirclik AB very shortly. Specifically emptying the igloos at the east end of Incirclik's runway. Erdogan wants to ressurect the Ottoman empire, and I think he's going to pull a France on us with regards to NATO (France pulled out of NATO in 1966).
The moves to get our troops out of harm's way was a good one in my estimation. We have buggered the Kurds on and off since 1991 at least, at least this time around they're better armed and equipped than in the past. They will put up a fight against the Turks, although the Kurds don't have air support (a la South Vietnam in 1974-75. Could have made all the difference in the world). One hopes the Kurds give the Turks a bloody nose this time around.
And as far as Erdogan-regime change sounds like a REAL good idea . He's dangerous to the Turks and everyone else he deals with, including his own citizens.
But, the offer to sell Patriot missile systems to the Turks has been withdrawn, and Turkish pilots scheduled to train here on F-35's are probably on their way back to Turkey by now. Turkey was supposed to build parts for the F-35; think those contracts have been moved to another country (Canada/ Bombardier aerospace).We still have basing rights there, for now as well as overflight rights. Those will probably disappear in the not too distant future. I would think C-17's would ramp up moving equipment out of Incirclik AB very shortly. Specifically emptying the igloos at the east end of Incirclik's runway. Erdogan wants to ressurect the Ottoman empire, and I think he's going to pull a France on us with regards to NATO (France pulled out of NATO in 1966).
The moves to get our troops out of harm's way was a good one in my estimation. We have buggered the Kurds on and off since 1991 at least, at least this time around they're better armed and equipped than in the past. They will put up a fight against the Turks, although the Kurds don't have air support (a la South Vietnam in 1974-75. Could have made all the difference in the world). One hopes the Kurds give the Turks a bloody nose this time around.
And as far as Erdogan-regime change sounds like a REAL good idea . He's dangerous to the Turks and everyone else he deals with, including his own citizens.
desertvet2
Veteran Member
VALLHALLA!!!!!
ANYTHING LESS IS FOR SHEEP, GOATS,.AND THE MEN WHO SERVICE THEM...
HOOAH!
ANYTHING LESS IS FOR SHEEP, GOATS,.AND THE MEN WHO SERVICE THEM...
HOOAH!
SuElPo
Veteran Member
I agree, and a person with real wisdom doesn't talk like that. God is on the throne. Scripture says he puts up and he takes down. We all need to be in daily prayer.
Susan
Ragnarok
On and On, South of Heaven
Oookay... Odd AND annoying...
I posted a large recap of Erdogan's recent moves on the large thread and it all disappeared.
I'll try again here because it is important that we all remember, he is no friend.
Erdoğan's logo ignites debate over political abuses of religion
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's presidential campaign logo has Arabic calligraphy of the Prophet Muhammad's name
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-352...debate-over-political-abuses-of-religion.html
Turkey: Prime Minister “Heals” Sick Woman on Campaign Trail
Politicians do all sorts of things to ingratiate themselves to voters: They shake their hands, kiss their babies and sometimes even pretend to like their local cuisine.
And then there’s Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He’s not only the country’s most successful politician, but he’s also apparently a spiritual healer, a Muslim Pat Robertson of sorts.
Earlier this week, the mustachioed prime minister was speaking to a large audience on a hot day in Istanbul when a woman fainted. Someone put her on a stretcher, and the crowd carried her to the front of the stage where Erdogan was standing. The prime minister quickly knelt down and touched her with his magic wizard hands, and the woman almost instantly lifted her head and exclaimed: “God bless you.”
The crowd loved it, and a video of the miraculous moment has since gone viral in Turkey. On social media, however, Erdogan’s critics were quick to deride the prime minister, calling him a charlatan and a quack. (Erdogan hasn’t publicly commented on the incident).
The public’s polarized response is to be expected in Turkey, where half the country loves Erdogan and the other half hates him. It also comes at an interesting time. Turkey’s teflon prime minister hasn’t lost an election in the past 10 years, and now he’s running for president, which many suspect he will soon transform into the nation’s highest office
http://www.vocativ.com/world/turkey-world/tayyip-ergodan/
Turkey’s New Territorial Claims Threaten NATO
A significant claim is being pushed by the Turkish government, one that could redraw the lines of the old Ottoman Empire:
Ulgen went on to point out that Turkey has historical claims not only to Mosul, currently contested in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS). Both Mosul and oil-rich Kirkuk were part of the original design of the modern-day Turkey. The Turks’ traditionalists and nationalists view the treaty that gave them away as having been forced on them at the end of World War I.
If Russian diplomacy can broker a deal that allows Turkey to expand into Iraq and Syria, it could cement Turkey’s move into Russia’s sphere. Until recently, that looked unlikely at best. Last year, Turkmen fighters shot down a Russian jet over repeated incursions by the Russian air force. At that time, relations between the two nations became quite tense. Russia is backing Iran’s play in the region, apparently in the hope that a powerful Shi’a Iran will create a buffer zone between Russia and the Sunni jihadist forces that have acted to inflame Muslim minorities in Central Asia. Likewise, the war in the Middle East draws attention away from Russia’s strategic moves in Eastern Europe, such as last week’s deployment of nuclear missiles on the very borders of Poland and the Baltic States.
Turkey’s latest move appears likely to inflame Iraq’s government, and Russia’s ally Iran intends to control Iraq at the end of this conflict. Surrendering territory, especially oil-rich territory, may be a difficult negotiation. On the other hand, Kirkuk is also disputed with the Kurds, and whichever government formally holds it after the war is going to have to fight to keep it. Iran may be willing to be persuaded to concede the fight to Turkey in return for a more firmly-controlled corridor between Tehran and the Levant.
That will require some subtle diplomacy to negotiate, but right now Russia is having significant success in its diplomatic moves. In the wake of a new energy deal between Turkey and Russia, the Russian diplomatic corps seems to have a lot of momentum on its side. Turkey was already looking away from NATO and Europe in the wake of its Islamist purge following an alleged attempted coup. Should Russia be able to get a process of negotiation going between Turkey, Iraq and Iran on the issue of Turkish territorial expansion, Russia would assume the leadership role in the region. Should it actually resolve the negotiations successfully, it could expect Turkey to become part of the Russian sphere of influence. That would potentially derail NATO, as NATO’s decisions must be taken by a unanimous vote. If Turkey becomes as strong a Russian ally as China, NATO could become as useless an organ for opposing Russian ambition as the United Nations Security Council (on which Russia has a veto).
American diplomacy is meanwhile spinning its wheels. The United States broke off talks with Russia, and then called for war crimes investigations into Russia and Assad for their campaign in Syria. American Secretary of State John F. Kerry also accused Russia of interfering with America’s elections. However, it appears that Kerry now wants a new push for a cease-fire in Aleppo, which would require Syria and Russia to sign on.
American diplomatic weakness is partially a function of American military weakness in the region. Russian diplomatic success is partially likewise a function of its deployment of air and naval-gunnery forces, as well as its so-far successful alliance with Iran. Better American leadership might help, but for now, the situation is rapidly sliding away from America and towards the Russians.
http://counterjihad.com/turkeys-new-territorial-claims-threaten-nato
Turkey’s Erdoðan goes after the pope and the Vatican
The ongoing tension between Turkey and the Vatican at the political level that has been simmering beneath the surface for some time is largely attributed to the hatred and animosity long harbored by the xenophobic Turkish Islamist pack led by the top Islamist, President Recep Tayyip Erdoðan, against Christians in general and the Holy See in particular. This is yet another underreported development in Turkey that needs to be studied, analyzed and carefully monitored.
From the incessant attacks against the Vatican, often displayed in public remarks delivered by Erdoðan as well as his propaganda machine in the media, one would naturally conclude that this special blend of an Islamist group that effectively seized all the levers of power in Turkey has a strong distaste for the pope and the Vatican. That means the divide runs deeper than the sheer political manifestations of this lingering mistrust that were seen even before controversial remarks on April 12, 2015 by Pope Francis, who described the 1915 mass killings of Armenians as the first genocide of the 20th century.
The genocide controversy that led to the recall of the Turkish ambassador before he was allowed to return in February 2016 continued when the pope delivered similar remarks during his visit to Armenia in June. Although the Turkish Foreign Ministry claimed the pope’s remarks reflected his personal opinion, not that of the Vatican, this was nothing but a face-saving measure to comfort the opposition in Turkey. The real reason for the change of winds in the Vatican is Erdoðan’s strong diatribe against the Vatican, an open manifestation of his deep-rooted grudge towards Christians in general and his harsh public treatment of the pope during his official visit to Turkey. Clearly Erdoðan has been itching for a confrontation with the pope, and he apparently got one, although not the way he thought would elicit a response but rather the way the Holy See considered best to challenge Erdoðan on its own terms. Perhaps the Vatican’s subtle approach in dealing with crises made an exception in Erdoðan’s case, using the genocide issue as an opportunity to fire a shot across the bow of the Turkish ship.
In a deliberate move, Erdoðan has decided to take on the Vatican because he wanted to position himself as sort of an undeclared caliph, protector of all Muslims in the world against what he considers “modern crusaders.” Perhaps one of the best ways to achieve this, he imagined, was to challenge the pope, who has the respect of some 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. According to the original plan, this would help him score some points among Muslims in Turkey and in other countries, consolidate his power base, fire up core Islamist supporters and eventually turn him into a hero who did not shy away from locking horns with the Vatican. The loyalist partisan bunch in the government followed suit with former EU Affairs Minister Volkan Bozkýr accusing Argentina (the pope’s home country) of welcoming the “leading executors of the Jewish Holocaust, Nazi torturers, with open arms” in the past.
The leaked email messages of Erdoðan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak, who is also the energy minister, reveal how the president and his family members were intimately involved in pope-bashing and how they plotted to bring a smear campaign against the Vatican into the Turkish criminal justice system by means of false complaints. First, Mehmet Barlas, the lead government propagandist at the Sabah daily, controlled by the Erdogan family enterprise, published an op-ed claiming that the Armenians paid the pope $25 billion for his genocide remarks without offering any evidence to back that up. Then, a criminal complaint was filed by a man named Hüseyin Kamil Akarsu, a shopkeeper in the western province of Muðla who alleged that the Vatican harbors secret plans against Turkey and aims to convert the whole of Asia to Christianity.
This absurd complaint, taken seriously by the Erdogan-controlled judiciary and later included in an official indictment by a Turkish prosecutor, also alleged that leading interfaith advocate and prominent Muslim intellectual Fethullah Gülen — a critic of Erdoðan for massive corruption schemes and the president’s blatant abuse of Islam for political gains and personal enrichment – is a secret cardinal at the Vatican. Akarsu cited Gülen’s meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1998, part of the Muslim cleric’s outreach and dialogue efforts among faiths, as evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The leaked emails show the complaint was sent to Egemen Baðýþ, the disgraced former EU minister who had to resign after a graft probe that revealed he took $1.5 million in cash from an Iranian man named Reza Zarrab in exchange for government favors. Bagýþ shared the complaint against the Vatican with Berat and his brother Serhat Albayrak, who manages government mouthpiece the Sabah daily. All these preposterous claims were laid out in an orchestrated complaint and later extensively covered by pro-government dailies including Sabah.
It was not just Gülen who was slammed by Erdoðan for meeting with the pope, but his opponent in the 2014 presidential race, former Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Ekmeleddin Ýhsanoðlu, who also received his fair share of bashing by Erdoðan, who criticized the head of the largest intergovernmental organization after the UN for meeting with the pope. Deciding to throw his weight behind this negative campaigning against the pope, then-Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoðlu even accused the Vatican of joining an axis of evil against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, which is rooted in a hostile brand of political Islam.
Lies, deceits, half-truths and deliberately misleading statements are often used by the Turkish president in his attacks on the Vatican and Christians. In his usual diatribe against the UN, Erdoðan often says all five permanent members of the UN Security Council are Christian nations (not true, of course) and laments that no Muslim country is represented in the key UN executive body.
In October, speaking to thousands of people in his hometown of Rize in northeastern Turkey, Erdoðan targeted Iraq’s Yazidi (Ezidi) minority, accusing them of cooperating with terrorists and being involved in wrongdoing. He said Turkey had opened its borders to fleeing Yazidis despite the fact that they are Christians (well, they are not Christians, but who cares). The Turkish president’s lead theologian and fatwa (religious edict) giver, Hayrettin Karaman, openly wrote that the Jewish and Christian West has always gotten the world into trouble, while Erdoðan’s chief advisor Yiðit Bulut said that Turkey does not have to get along with the West, which he claims is based on a Greek-Christian synthesis.
It is clear that Erdoðan has unleashed a beast in Turkey that now rears its ugly head every time something bad happens in the country. Instead of accepting responsibility and acting in line with principles of accountability and good governance, Turkish Islamists have always found a scapegoat to shift the blame onto others. The Vatican has unfortunately become a victim of such patterns in Erdoðan’s Turkey. Even after a failed coup on July 15, the Turkish president maintained that foreign countries were behind the attempt, prompting government media to start naming the Vatican among the other usual suspects, which included the US, the EU, and Israel.
Moreover, there seems to be a deliberate attempt on the part of the Erdoðan regime to associate Christians with terrorism. In an unusual statement from the governor’s office in Turkey’s southeastern province of Mardin on Aug. 1, 2016, it was claimed that a crucifix was found around the neck of a woman who was killed and was alleged to have had links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU. In late August, thugs chased and attacked Asian tourists in Turkey’s southeastern city of Gaziantep, where Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) cells are known to be quite active. In video footage posted on the Internet, thugs were seen shouting at the tourists and calling them “infidels” and “Christian missionaries.” Instead of arresting the posse, police detained the Asian tourists and reportedly had them deported.
Furthermore, the government has dropped the ball on finding the real perpetrators of murders of Christians in Turkey and in fact released the killers in one case despite an abundance of incriminating evidence. Three Christians, including German national Tilmann Ekkehart Geske, who operated the Zirve Publishing House, which prints Bibles and other Christian literature in the southeastern city of Malatya, were brutally murdered in 2007. All the suspects except for one were released pending trial in 2014 when the prosecutors and judges involved in the case were abruptly removed by the government-controlled judicial council.
Catholic priest Andrea Santoro, who served at the Santa Maria Church in Trabzon, was shot to death on Feb. 5, 2006. At the time, 16-year-old suspect Oguzhan Akdin was captured and received an 18-year prison sentence. But the real perpetrators were never found. A high-profile Nusra militant of Russian nationality identified as Magomed Maghomedzakirovich Abdurrahmanov (aka Abu Banat) who decapitated three Christian clerics in Syria on April 22, 2013 will be set free next year by Turkey. Abu Banat, designated by the US State Department on Oct. 29, 2015 as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” and listed on the sanctions list by the UN Security Council Sanction Committee on Oct. 2, 2015, has admitted to having links to the Turkish intelligence agency.
This rampant anti-Vatican and anti-Christian narrative is being fed to millions of people, generously funded by the state resources available to Turkey’s Islamist rulers, from public schools to media outlets, from state-run mosques to mushrooming Islamist associations.
Considering just one government agency called the Diyanet (Religious Affairs Directorate), which controls 150,000 staff members in more than 80,000 mosques across the country, gives some idea of how much damage Erdoðan-led Turkey can inflict on dialogue efforts by disseminating this hateful narrative against Christians through sermons that are being delivered in mosques every Friday. It is time to confront the Erdoðan regime, name and shame it, slap the patronage network he has built in order to survive with targeted sanctions, thwart his regional and global initiatives, and further isolate and insulate him to limit the damage he can inflict on world peace, understanding and respect.
https://www.turkishminute.com/2016/11/11/opinion-turkeys-erdogan-goes-pope-vatican/
Turkey Builds International Islamic University to Challenge Al-Azhar as Seat of Sunni Authority
Ragnarok: Ohhh.... Interesting. Erdogan taking more steps to make Turkey the focal point of Islam in the future
http://www.yenisafak.com/en/news/istanbul-the-capital-ofislamic-knowledge-2768213
Erdogan Of Turkey Literally Resurrects The Image Of The Ottoman Beast
Erdogan erected a giant image symbolizing his victory and “Turkey’s unification,” he then had his people come to visit the image as a symbol of pledging allegiance to him. It was topped by a crescent, carried by seven statues signifying Turkey’s seven regions united. Tek Devlet “One State” the image said
http://shoebat.com/2017/07/18/erdog...-vows-that-all-who-defy-him-will-be-beheaded/
Turkish President Erdogan erects image of a revived Ottoman Empire
http://hightimetoawake.com/2017/07/...gan-erects-image-of-a-revived-ottoman-empire/
Turkey: Erdogan unveils monument to commemorate coup attempt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIJ0ILZOjc0&feature=youtu.be
Does Erdoğan have something big in mind?
A number of developments in the last few days, mostly moves by President Tayyip Erdoğan, might be signs that he has something big in mind at the planning stage
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/do...mind.aspx?pageID=517&nID=116052&NewsCatID=409
Erdogan: Kurds Are ‘Collaborators in the Postmodern Crusades’
http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...ogan-kurds-collaborators-postmodern-crusades/
Erdogan: Syria offensive could expand as far as Iraq border
Ragnarok: Sounding more and more like a Hitleresque type...
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/01/26/550230/Syria-Turkey-Iraq-United-States-Kurds-Afrin
Turkish operations in Syria to reach up to Manbij and Iraqi border: Erdoğan
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/tu...-up-to-manbij-and-iraqi-border-erdogan-126331
Erdogan: Obama administration cheated Turkey in Syria
The administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama “failed to keep its promises” to Turkey in Syria, not following up its pledge to “leave Manbij to its rightful owners,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/er...nbij-to-thwart-games-along-its-borders-126224
Erdogan vows to expand military operation from Afrin to Manbij
Ragnarok: This is reminding me of another period in time where a world leader promised he would not make any further territorial demands after the return of the Sudentenland
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/Ne...-military-operation-from-Afrin-to-Manbij.html
Erdogan: Islamic Education Will Forge ‘Pious Generation’ to Build ‘New Civilization’ for Turkey
http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...ous-generation-build-new-civilization-turkey/
Erdogan is on a crash course with the US
The offensive against the Kurds in Syria is a red line. Experts say the latest Turkish provocation is bringing a confrontation closer
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/241176
Erdogan to Trump: US should withdraw from Syria’s Manbij
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/Ne...p-US-should-withdraw-from-Syria-s-Manbij.html
ERDOGAN TO US: GET OUT OF THE WAY SO WE CAN KILL KURDS
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/26...-way-so-we-can-kill-kurds-kenneth-r-timmerman
Turkish religious authority calls for ‘conquest’ sermon in support of military
http://gnnliberia.com/2018/01/21/turkish-religious-authority-calls-conquest-sermon-support-military/
Erdogan Makes Good on Threats to ‘Suffocate’ US
https://clarionproject.org/erdogan-suffocate-threats-us/
Turkey renovating historic Ottoman-era sites in Sudan
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/tu...an-era-sites-on-suakin-island-in-sudan-126228
Turkish Prime Minister Says Turkey ‘Will Fight’ U.S. If Necessary, After Erdogan Threatens ‘Ottoman Slap’
Turkey’s prime minister has warned his country “will fight” the United States if it stands in the way of its anti-Kurdish operations, shortly before U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to meet with the country’s president.
Binali Yıldırım, who serves as prime minister under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, told Deutsche Welle that the U.S. is violating its NATO obligations by fighting alongside the “terrorists” of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) against the Islamic State.
“We have a problem with the YPG,” he said. “But if the United States begins warring against us by the side of the YPG, we will fight them as well.”
The warning follows Erdoğan threatening that U.S. forces would receive an “Ottoman slap” if they came into conflict with the Turkish forces which have invaded Syria — a reference to the Turk-led Ottoman Empire which once conquered much of the Middle East and Europe, including Cyprus, Greece, Serbia, and Hungary.
Tuesday: Erdogan warns US about “Ottoman slap”
Wednesday: pic.twitter.com/ccsbN8dcNP
— Piotr Zalewski (@p_zalewski) February 14, 2018
“It is clear that those who say ‘we will respond aggressively if you hit us’ have never experienced an Ottoman slap,” Erdoğan had said, after Lt. Gen. Paul Funk had warned, “You hit us, we will respond aggressively. We will defend ourselves,” while inspecting U.S. troops in Manbij, just yards away from Turkish-backed forces.
“We will destroy every terrorist we have seen, starting with the ones standing by [the Americans’] side,” added the Turkish leader.
“Then they will understand that it is better for them to not to stand alongside the terrorists.”
US rubbishes Erdogan's 'Ottoman slap' threat as 'funny' https://t.co/btEpgCb60a
— Rachel Middleton (@NewswithRachel) February 15, 2018
The war of words comes during a period of heightened Turkish aggression in Europe, with a Turkish ship ramming a Greek patrol boat in the Aegean Sea in what retired Greek admiral Grigoris Demestichas as “an intentional act of aggression … part of a design to lead to a heated episode”.
Turkish warships are also blocking an Italian drilling rig from reaching its drill site in Cypriot waters, claiming they are protecting the interests of settlers in the north of the island, which was illegally occupied by Turkey following its invasion of the Greek-speaking island in the 1970s.
The Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) which rules in Turkey appears to be spoiling for a showdown with the West, with Erdoğan adviser Yiğit Bulut allegedly suggesting that the U.S. is trying to encourage Greece to take on Turkey — but warning that this would be akin to “a fly picking a fight with a giant”.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/02/15/turkey-fight-us-erdogan-threatens-ottoman-slap/
I posted a large recap of Erdogan's recent moves on the large thread and it all disappeared.
I'll try again here because it is important that we all remember, he is no friend.
Erdoğan's logo ignites debate over political abuses of religion
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's presidential campaign logo has Arabic calligraphy of the Prophet Muhammad's name
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-352...debate-over-political-abuses-of-religion.html
Turkey: Prime Minister “Heals” Sick Woman on Campaign Trail
Politicians do all sorts of things to ingratiate themselves to voters: They shake their hands, kiss their babies and sometimes even pretend to like their local cuisine.
And then there’s Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He’s not only the country’s most successful politician, but he’s also apparently a spiritual healer, a Muslim Pat Robertson of sorts.
Earlier this week, the mustachioed prime minister was speaking to a large audience on a hot day in Istanbul when a woman fainted. Someone put her on a stretcher, and the crowd carried her to the front of the stage where Erdogan was standing. The prime minister quickly knelt down and touched her with his magic wizard hands, and the woman almost instantly lifted her head and exclaimed: “God bless you.”
The crowd loved it, and a video of the miraculous moment has since gone viral in Turkey. On social media, however, Erdogan’s critics were quick to deride the prime minister, calling him a charlatan and a quack. (Erdogan hasn’t publicly commented on the incident).
The public’s polarized response is to be expected in Turkey, where half the country loves Erdogan and the other half hates him. It also comes at an interesting time. Turkey’s teflon prime minister hasn’t lost an election in the past 10 years, and now he’s running for president, which many suspect he will soon transform into the nation’s highest office
http://www.vocativ.com/world/turkey-world/tayyip-ergodan/
Turkey’s New Territorial Claims Threaten NATO
A significant claim is being pushed by the Turkish government, one that could redraw the lines of the old Ottoman Empire:
Ulgen went on to point out that Turkey has historical claims not only to Mosul, currently contested in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS). Both Mosul and oil-rich Kirkuk were part of the original design of the modern-day Turkey. The Turks’ traditionalists and nationalists view the treaty that gave them away as having been forced on them at the end of World War I.
If Russian diplomacy can broker a deal that allows Turkey to expand into Iraq and Syria, it could cement Turkey’s move into Russia’s sphere. Until recently, that looked unlikely at best. Last year, Turkmen fighters shot down a Russian jet over repeated incursions by the Russian air force. At that time, relations between the two nations became quite tense. Russia is backing Iran’s play in the region, apparently in the hope that a powerful Shi’a Iran will create a buffer zone between Russia and the Sunni jihadist forces that have acted to inflame Muslim minorities in Central Asia. Likewise, the war in the Middle East draws attention away from Russia’s strategic moves in Eastern Europe, such as last week’s deployment of nuclear missiles on the very borders of Poland and the Baltic States.
Turkey’s latest move appears likely to inflame Iraq’s government, and Russia’s ally Iran intends to control Iraq at the end of this conflict. Surrendering territory, especially oil-rich territory, may be a difficult negotiation. On the other hand, Kirkuk is also disputed with the Kurds, and whichever government formally holds it after the war is going to have to fight to keep it. Iran may be willing to be persuaded to concede the fight to Turkey in return for a more firmly-controlled corridor between Tehran and the Levant.
That will require some subtle diplomacy to negotiate, but right now Russia is having significant success in its diplomatic moves. In the wake of a new energy deal between Turkey and Russia, the Russian diplomatic corps seems to have a lot of momentum on its side. Turkey was already looking away from NATO and Europe in the wake of its Islamist purge following an alleged attempted coup. Should Russia be able to get a process of negotiation going between Turkey, Iraq and Iran on the issue of Turkish territorial expansion, Russia would assume the leadership role in the region. Should it actually resolve the negotiations successfully, it could expect Turkey to become part of the Russian sphere of influence. That would potentially derail NATO, as NATO’s decisions must be taken by a unanimous vote. If Turkey becomes as strong a Russian ally as China, NATO could become as useless an organ for opposing Russian ambition as the United Nations Security Council (on which Russia has a veto).
American diplomacy is meanwhile spinning its wheels. The United States broke off talks with Russia, and then called for war crimes investigations into Russia and Assad for their campaign in Syria. American Secretary of State John F. Kerry also accused Russia of interfering with America’s elections. However, it appears that Kerry now wants a new push for a cease-fire in Aleppo, which would require Syria and Russia to sign on.
American diplomatic weakness is partially a function of American military weakness in the region. Russian diplomatic success is partially likewise a function of its deployment of air and naval-gunnery forces, as well as its so-far successful alliance with Iran. Better American leadership might help, but for now, the situation is rapidly sliding away from America and towards the Russians.
http://counterjihad.com/turkeys-new-territorial-claims-threaten-nato
Turkey’s Erdoðan goes after the pope and the Vatican
The ongoing tension between Turkey and the Vatican at the political level that has been simmering beneath the surface for some time is largely attributed to the hatred and animosity long harbored by the xenophobic Turkish Islamist pack led by the top Islamist, President Recep Tayyip Erdoðan, against Christians in general and the Holy See in particular. This is yet another underreported development in Turkey that needs to be studied, analyzed and carefully monitored.
From the incessant attacks against the Vatican, often displayed in public remarks delivered by Erdoðan as well as his propaganda machine in the media, one would naturally conclude that this special blend of an Islamist group that effectively seized all the levers of power in Turkey has a strong distaste for the pope and the Vatican. That means the divide runs deeper than the sheer political manifestations of this lingering mistrust that were seen even before controversial remarks on April 12, 2015 by Pope Francis, who described the 1915 mass killings of Armenians as the first genocide of the 20th century.
The genocide controversy that led to the recall of the Turkish ambassador before he was allowed to return in February 2016 continued when the pope delivered similar remarks during his visit to Armenia in June. Although the Turkish Foreign Ministry claimed the pope’s remarks reflected his personal opinion, not that of the Vatican, this was nothing but a face-saving measure to comfort the opposition in Turkey. The real reason for the change of winds in the Vatican is Erdoðan’s strong diatribe against the Vatican, an open manifestation of his deep-rooted grudge towards Christians in general and his harsh public treatment of the pope during his official visit to Turkey. Clearly Erdoðan has been itching for a confrontation with the pope, and he apparently got one, although not the way he thought would elicit a response but rather the way the Holy See considered best to challenge Erdoðan on its own terms. Perhaps the Vatican’s subtle approach in dealing with crises made an exception in Erdoðan’s case, using the genocide issue as an opportunity to fire a shot across the bow of the Turkish ship.
In a deliberate move, Erdoðan has decided to take on the Vatican because he wanted to position himself as sort of an undeclared caliph, protector of all Muslims in the world against what he considers “modern crusaders.” Perhaps one of the best ways to achieve this, he imagined, was to challenge the pope, who has the respect of some 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. According to the original plan, this would help him score some points among Muslims in Turkey and in other countries, consolidate his power base, fire up core Islamist supporters and eventually turn him into a hero who did not shy away from locking horns with the Vatican. The loyalist partisan bunch in the government followed suit with former EU Affairs Minister Volkan Bozkýr accusing Argentina (the pope’s home country) of welcoming the “leading executors of the Jewish Holocaust, Nazi torturers, with open arms” in the past.
The leaked email messages of Erdoðan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak, who is also the energy minister, reveal how the president and his family members were intimately involved in pope-bashing and how they plotted to bring a smear campaign against the Vatican into the Turkish criminal justice system by means of false complaints. First, Mehmet Barlas, the lead government propagandist at the Sabah daily, controlled by the Erdogan family enterprise, published an op-ed claiming that the Armenians paid the pope $25 billion for his genocide remarks without offering any evidence to back that up. Then, a criminal complaint was filed by a man named Hüseyin Kamil Akarsu, a shopkeeper in the western province of Muðla who alleged that the Vatican harbors secret plans against Turkey and aims to convert the whole of Asia to Christianity.
This absurd complaint, taken seriously by the Erdogan-controlled judiciary and later included in an official indictment by a Turkish prosecutor, also alleged that leading interfaith advocate and prominent Muslim intellectual Fethullah Gülen — a critic of Erdoðan for massive corruption schemes and the president’s blatant abuse of Islam for political gains and personal enrichment – is a secret cardinal at the Vatican. Akarsu cited Gülen’s meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1998, part of the Muslim cleric’s outreach and dialogue efforts among faiths, as evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The leaked emails show the complaint was sent to Egemen Baðýþ, the disgraced former EU minister who had to resign after a graft probe that revealed he took $1.5 million in cash from an Iranian man named Reza Zarrab in exchange for government favors. Bagýþ shared the complaint against the Vatican with Berat and his brother Serhat Albayrak, who manages government mouthpiece the Sabah daily. All these preposterous claims were laid out in an orchestrated complaint and later extensively covered by pro-government dailies including Sabah.
It was not just Gülen who was slammed by Erdoðan for meeting with the pope, but his opponent in the 2014 presidential race, former Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Ekmeleddin Ýhsanoðlu, who also received his fair share of bashing by Erdoðan, who criticized the head of the largest intergovernmental organization after the UN for meeting with the pope. Deciding to throw his weight behind this negative campaigning against the pope, then-Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoðlu even accused the Vatican of joining an axis of evil against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, which is rooted in a hostile brand of political Islam.
Lies, deceits, half-truths and deliberately misleading statements are often used by the Turkish president in his attacks on the Vatican and Christians. In his usual diatribe against the UN, Erdoðan often says all five permanent members of the UN Security Council are Christian nations (not true, of course) and laments that no Muslim country is represented in the key UN executive body.
In October, speaking to thousands of people in his hometown of Rize in northeastern Turkey, Erdoðan targeted Iraq’s Yazidi (Ezidi) minority, accusing them of cooperating with terrorists and being involved in wrongdoing. He said Turkey had opened its borders to fleeing Yazidis despite the fact that they are Christians (well, they are not Christians, but who cares). The Turkish president’s lead theologian and fatwa (religious edict) giver, Hayrettin Karaman, openly wrote that the Jewish and Christian West has always gotten the world into trouble, while Erdoðan’s chief advisor Yiðit Bulut said that Turkey does not have to get along with the West, which he claims is based on a Greek-Christian synthesis.
It is clear that Erdoðan has unleashed a beast in Turkey that now rears its ugly head every time something bad happens in the country. Instead of accepting responsibility and acting in line with principles of accountability and good governance, Turkish Islamists have always found a scapegoat to shift the blame onto others. The Vatican has unfortunately become a victim of such patterns in Erdoðan’s Turkey. Even after a failed coup on July 15, the Turkish president maintained that foreign countries were behind the attempt, prompting government media to start naming the Vatican among the other usual suspects, which included the US, the EU, and Israel.
Moreover, there seems to be a deliberate attempt on the part of the Erdoðan regime to associate Christians with terrorism. In an unusual statement from the governor’s office in Turkey’s southeastern province of Mardin on Aug. 1, 2016, it was claimed that a crucifix was found around the neck of a woman who was killed and was alleged to have had links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU. In late August, thugs chased and attacked Asian tourists in Turkey’s southeastern city of Gaziantep, where Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) cells are known to be quite active. In video footage posted on the Internet, thugs were seen shouting at the tourists and calling them “infidels” and “Christian missionaries.” Instead of arresting the posse, police detained the Asian tourists and reportedly had them deported.
Furthermore, the government has dropped the ball on finding the real perpetrators of murders of Christians in Turkey and in fact released the killers in one case despite an abundance of incriminating evidence. Three Christians, including German national Tilmann Ekkehart Geske, who operated the Zirve Publishing House, which prints Bibles and other Christian literature in the southeastern city of Malatya, were brutally murdered in 2007. All the suspects except for one were released pending trial in 2014 when the prosecutors and judges involved in the case were abruptly removed by the government-controlled judicial council.
Catholic priest Andrea Santoro, who served at the Santa Maria Church in Trabzon, was shot to death on Feb. 5, 2006. At the time, 16-year-old suspect Oguzhan Akdin was captured and received an 18-year prison sentence. But the real perpetrators were never found. A high-profile Nusra militant of Russian nationality identified as Magomed Maghomedzakirovich Abdurrahmanov (aka Abu Banat) who decapitated three Christian clerics in Syria on April 22, 2013 will be set free next year by Turkey. Abu Banat, designated by the US State Department on Oct. 29, 2015 as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” and listed on the sanctions list by the UN Security Council Sanction Committee on Oct. 2, 2015, has admitted to having links to the Turkish intelligence agency.
This rampant anti-Vatican and anti-Christian narrative is being fed to millions of people, generously funded by the state resources available to Turkey’s Islamist rulers, from public schools to media outlets, from state-run mosques to mushrooming Islamist associations.
Considering just one government agency called the Diyanet (Religious Affairs Directorate), which controls 150,000 staff members in more than 80,000 mosques across the country, gives some idea of how much damage Erdoðan-led Turkey can inflict on dialogue efforts by disseminating this hateful narrative against Christians through sermons that are being delivered in mosques every Friday. It is time to confront the Erdoðan regime, name and shame it, slap the patronage network he has built in order to survive with targeted sanctions, thwart his regional and global initiatives, and further isolate and insulate him to limit the damage he can inflict on world peace, understanding and respect.
https://www.turkishminute.com/2016/11/11/opinion-turkeys-erdogan-goes-pope-vatican/
Turkey Builds International Islamic University to Challenge Al-Azhar as Seat of Sunni Authority
Ragnarok: Ohhh.... Interesting. Erdogan taking more steps to make Turkey the focal point of Islam in the future
http://www.yenisafak.com/en/news/istanbul-the-capital-ofislamic-knowledge-2768213
Erdogan Of Turkey Literally Resurrects The Image Of The Ottoman Beast
Erdogan erected a giant image symbolizing his victory and “Turkey’s unification,” he then had his people come to visit the image as a symbol of pledging allegiance to him. It was topped by a crescent, carried by seven statues signifying Turkey’s seven regions united. Tek Devlet “One State” the image said
http://shoebat.com/2017/07/18/erdog...-vows-that-all-who-defy-him-will-be-beheaded/
Turkish President Erdogan erects image of a revived Ottoman Empire
http://hightimetoawake.com/2017/07/...gan-erects-image-of-a-revived-ottoman-empire/
Turkey: Erdogan unveils monument to commemorate coup attempt
Does Erdoğan have something big in mind?
A number of developments in the last few days, mostly moves by President Tayyip Erdoğan, might be signs that he has something big in mind at the planning stage
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/do...mind.aspx?pageID=517&nID=116052&NewsCatID=409
Erdogan: Kurds Are ‘Collaborators in the Postmodern Crusades’
http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...ogan-kurds-collaborators-postmodern-crusades/
Erdogan: Syria offensive could expand as far as Iraq border
Ragnarok: Sounding more and more like a Hitleresque type...
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/01/26/550230/Syria-Turkey-Iraq-United-States-Kurds-Afrin
Turkish operations in Syria to reach up to Manbij and Iraqi border: Erdoğan
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/tu...-up-to-manbij-and-iraqi-border-erdogan-126331
Erdogan: Obama administration cheated Turkey in Syria
The administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama “failed to keep its promises” to Turkey in Syria, not following up its pledge to “leave Manbij to its rightful owners,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/er...nbij-to-thwart-games-along-its-borders-126224
Erdogan vows to expand military operation from Afrin to Manbij
Ragnarok: This is reminding me of another period in time where a world leader promised he would not make any further territorial demands after the return of the Sudentenland
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/Ne...-military-operation-from-Afrin-to-Manbij.html
Erdogan: Islamic Education Will Forge ‘Pious Generation’ to Build ‘New Civilization’ for Turkey
http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...ous-generation-build-new-civilization-turkey/
Erdogan is on a crash course with the US
The offensive against the Kurds in Syria is a red line. Experts say the latest Turkish provocation is bringing a confrontation closer
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/241176
Erdogan to Trump: US should withdraw from Syria’s Manbij
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/Ne...p-US-should-withdraw-from-Syria-s-Manbij.html
ERDOGAN TO US: GET OUT OF THE WAY SO WE CAN KILL KURDS
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/26...-way-so-we-can-kill-kurds-kenneth-r-timmerman
Turkish religious authority calls for ‘conquest’ sermon in support of military
http://gnnliberia.com/2018/01/21/turkish-religious-authority-calls-conquest-sermon-support-military/
Erdogan Makes Good on Threats to ‘Suffocate’ US
https://clarionproject.org/erdogan-suffocate-threats-us/
Turkey renovating historic Ottoman-era sites in Sudan
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/tu...an-era-sites-on-suakin-island-in-sudan-126228
Turkish Prime Minister Says Turkey ‘Will Fight’ U.S. If Necessary, After Erdogan Threatens ‘Ottoman Slap’
Turkey’s prime minister has warned his country “will fight” the United States if it stands in the way of its anti-Kurdish operations, shortly before U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to meet with the country’s president.
Binali Yıldırım, who serves as prime minister under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, told Deutsche Welle that the U.S. is violating its NATO obligations by fighting alongside the “terrorists” of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) against the Islamic State.
“We have a problem with the YPG,” he said. “But if the United States begins warring against us by the side of the YPG, we will fight them as well.”
The warning follows Erdoğan threatening that U.S. forces would receive an “Ottoman slap” if they came into conflict with the Turkish forces which have invaded Syria — a reference to the Turk-led Ottoman Empire which once conquered much of the Middle East and Europe, including Cyprus, Greece, Serbia, and Hungary.
Tuesday: Erdogan warns US about “Ottoman slap”
Wednesday: pic.twitter.com/ccsbN8dcNP
— Piotr Zalewski (@p_zalewski) February 14, 2018
“It is clear that those who say ‘we will respond aggressively if you hit us’ have never experienced an Ottoman slap,” Erdoğan had said, after Lt. Gen. Paul Funk had warned, “You hit us, we will respond aggressively. We will defend ourselves,” while inspecting U.S. troops in Manbij, just yards away from Turkish-backed forces.
“We will destroy every terrorist we have seen, starting with the ones standing by [the Americans’] side,” added the Turkish leader.
“Then they will understand that it is better for them to not to stand alongside the terrorists.”
US rubbishes Erdogan's 'Ottoman slap' threat as 'funny' https://t.co/btEpgCb60a
— Rachel Middleton (@NewswithRachel) February 15, 2018
The war of words comes during a period of heightened Turkish aggression in Europe, with a Turkish ship ramming a Greek patrol boat in the Aegean Sea in what retired Greek admiral Grigoris Demestichas as “an intentional act of aggression … part of a design to lead to a heated episode”.
Turkish warships are also blocking an Italian drilling rig from reaching its drill site in Cypriot waters, claiming they are protecting the interests of settlers in the north of the island, which was illegally occupied by Turkey following its invasion of the Greek-speaking island in the 1970s.
The Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) which rules in Turkey appears to be spoiling for a showdown with the West, with Erdoğan adviser Yiğit Bulut allegedly suggesting that the U.S. is trying to encourage Greece to take on Turkey — but warning that this would be akin to “a fly picking a fight with a giant”.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/02/15/turkey-fight-us-erdogan-threatens-ottoman-slap/
Ragnarok
On and On, South of Heaven
CONTINUED...
Erdogan: “What kind of NATO membership is this? What kind of NATO alliance is this?”
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who always likes to tell us what he really thinks, is at it again. Last year he accused the people of Germany — and of the Netherlands too — of being “Nazis” for not allowing political rallies targeted at Turkish residents in Germany. He also called Angela Merkel guilty of “Nazism” for suggesting that the EU reconsider its relationship with Turkey — i.e., possibly end the talks about Turkish accession to the group. “What happened is Nazism,” said Erdogan in response. “What happened is fascism.” And the Germans were called “Nazis” yet again because, according to Erdogan, they refused Turkish requests for help in suppressing Kurdish separatists that had been made, he preposterously claimed, 4,500 times. “Mrs Merkel, you are supporting terrorists,” he said. And now he threatens to deliver an “Ottoman slap” to the Americans if they continue to fund the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Unit) in Syria. But that’s only the latest of many threats he’s made about the YPG.
In January, he accused the U.S of supporting “an army of terror” because it wants the Kurdish fighters of the YPG in northeastern Syria, who proved to be the most effective force against ISIS, to be a major component of the border forces guarding the frontier between Syria and Turkey. They would be there as well to help suppress any possible resurgence of ISIS. For Erdogan, any Kurdish group anywhere could help the Kurdish separatists inside Turkey, and has to be suppressed. For Erdogan, all Kurds are “terrorists” — it doesn’t matter that the Syrian Kurds were the best fighters against the most dangerous of real terrorists, those of ISIS. And in his view, if his attack on the Syrian Kurds goes directly against American policy — well, Erdogan doesn’t give a fig for the Americans. His forces have been let loose on the Kurds in Syria; this occurred after the Americans had made clear they wanted 30,000 Syrian Kurdish troops to guard the Syria-Turkey border. To mark the moment when the Turkish forces moved into Syria to attack the Kurds directly, worshippers in 90,000 mosques in Turkey prayed the Surah al-Fath, the 48th chapter of the Qur’an, in which those engaged in Jihad are promised material rewards taken from those they defeat; the Speaker of the Turkish Parliament called the Turkish attack on the Kurds in Afrin a “jihad.” In Erdogan’s orchestra, no one sounds a secular Kemalist note.
And then, taking things to a still higher level of hostility, Erdogan’s men promised that American troops in Syria may be hit. “Accusing the US fighters of wearing ‘terrorists’ clothes’ (i.e, YPG uniforms) that may be hard to distinguish, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag warned that anyone fighting alongside the Kurds ‘is our target.’”
He added that “there is no chance that we will make a distinction at this point” between the Kurds and the US fighters.
He might have said something else. He might have said that “we will do our best to avoid hitting American fighters. It is certainly going to be difficult. Nonetheless, we will try.” A different tone, a different emphasis. But instead, he — and his boss Erdogan — wanted to be as tough as possible on the Americans. This is not the behavior one expects from a NATO ally.
After that warning, the commander of American troops in Syria, Lieutenant General Paul Funk, speaking in Manbij, a city that the YPG holds and that the Turks now threaten to in invade, issued his own warning to Erdogan:
“You hit us, we will respond aggressively. We will defend ourselves,” the U.S. commander, Lieutenant General Paul Funk, said in a direct warning to Turkey in the interview published on Feb. 7.
Then, an enraged Erdogan came back on February 13 with his “Ottoman slap” remark.
“It’s obvious that those who say, ‘If you hit us, we’ll hit back hard,’ have never in their lives gotten an Ottoman slap,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech at parliament on Tuesday [February 13] responding to remarks by the top U.S. commander in Syria to the New York Times. “If those who come and go as they like through Turkey think they’re going to go stirring things up in places without paying for it, they’ll soon see that’s not the case.” (He is referring to American forces using the air base at Incirlik.)
The comments mark an escalation in rhetoric against the U.S., whose backing of the Syrian Kurdish YPG has enraged Turkey, which labels the group as a terrorist organization and has invaded Syria to combat it. That incursion has created an unprecedented military face-off between the two largest armies in NATO, with U.S. forces fighting alongside the YPG while Turkey attacks it, first in Afrin and soon, if we are to believe its threats, in Manbij.
How did we get here, with Turkey, the NATO member that now calls other NATO members “Nazis,” “terrorists,” and supporters of an “army of terror,” that further threatens to “target” any American troops fighting alongside Kurds in Syria, and by way of enraged reply to Lt. General Funk’s warning that if American forces are hit (by the Turks), they (the Americans) will respond in kind, warns that the Americans will get “an Ottoman slap”? Let’s consider the political trajectory of the outrageous Recip Tayyip Erdogan.
In 2003, Recep Tap Erdogan was elected Prime Minister of Turkey, a post he held until 2014. In that year, he was elected President of Turkey, a post he still holds. As Prime Minister, he required that the military — the ultimate guarantor of Turkish secularism — be reined in, made subject to greater civilian control. To this end, he exploited two supposed coup attempts by the military, to gain control over the army by arresting, and putting on trial, senior officers. These two coups — “Sledgehammer” and “Ergenekon” — were both fabrications, but Erdogan cleverly exploited the fear generated by these supposed plots in order to weaken the military. When hundreds of officers were arrested and put on trial, that discouraged others, even if, in the end, those officers were all exonerated in both “Sledgehammer” and “Ergenekon.”
A real coup d’etat was attempted on July 15, 2016, when military men in Ankara and Istanbul tried to seize power (over 300 people, including fellow soldiers, died), but was quickly put down. Those involved called themselves the Peace At Home Council, and they proclaimed their anxiety over the erosion of secularism, the elimination of democratic rule, and the disregard for human rights. But few joined the original plotters, and Erdogan quickly rounded them up. He accused them of doing the bidding of Fethulleh Gulen, supposedly organizing the coup from his exile in Pennsylvania. Erdogan had more than 140,000 people detained and more than 50,000 arrested. Tens of thousands lost their jobs. No link of this abortive coup to Gulen has been proven, which has not stopped Erdogan from constantly denouncing the dark sinister forces he wants us to believe are headquartered in rural Pennsylvania. That the Americans won’t hand Gulen over to him is one of his many grievances against his NATO “ally.”
Erdogan has been bolstered, and so has his party, the AKP, because the Turkish economy is doing well. He has not been shy about rewarding himself. He has had built as his presidential residence the Ak Saray, or White Palace, with more than 1100 rooms, that cost $630 million to build. Sixteen Turkish soldiers, each dressed in a costume representing a different period of Turkish history, line an interior staircase of this palace. It is clear that Erdogan dreams of rivaling the Ottoman despots. He is well on his way, having outsmarted the army and outmaneuvered his civilian opponents.
Erdogan has also been busy re-islamizing secularist Turkey. Here are some of the things he has managed to accomplish, taking care not to trigger a military coup, both while Mayor of Istanbul and as Prime Minister:
1. Between 2002 and 2013, the Turkish government built 17,000 new mosques. Many more have been built since, and more still are now being planned. In addition, thousands of Ottoman-era mosques have been repaired and refurbished. Erdogan is building a gigantic mosque on the Asian side of the Bosporus, which can accommodate 30,000 worshippers.
2. When Erdogan first came to power, women working in the public sector were still banned from wearing the hijab, including teachers, lawyers, parliamentarians and others working in state-run institutions. In recent years, the Justice and Development Party has lifted bans on wearing the hijab in schools and all state institutions. Now those teachers, lawyers, parliamentarians are not merely allowed, but encouraged, to wear the hijab by the AKP. Even female ministers and judges have taken to wearing hijabs. The wives of Erdogan, Gul (the former president of Turkey), and other ministers all appear in public ostentatiously hijabbed.
3. After traditional madrasas were banned by Ataturk, Imam-Hatip schools were set up to take their place. These are vocational education institutions designed to provide religious education and train imams, but now offering a regular academic curriculum as well, open to students who are not training to be imams. The clergy in Turkish mosques are government appointed and many imams are trained in Imam-Hatip schools.
In 2002, there were 65,000 students involved in Imam-Hatip schools. That number grew by ten times, to 658,000 in 2013, and it was recently announced that the number of Imam-Hatip students has now reached more than one million. The islamization of young minds proceeds apace.
4. Compulsory religious education in schools has been introduced. Courses on “the life of Prophet Muhammad” and “the Qur’an” have also been made mandatory.
5. The lower age-limit for taking courses on the Qur’an has been eliminated. Until now, children had to be at least 12 years old before they could attend Qur’an classes. This has been abolished by Erdogan’s government, allowing Qur’an courses even for preschoolers.
6. Bans on alcohol advertising are now in place, whereas secular Turkey always allowed them. The AKP passed a bill in 2013 that banned any advertising of alcohol within 100 meters of a mosque or school.
Blurring out depictions of alcohol on television and in films has also been made mandatory.
The selling of alcohol has now been banned from student dormitories, health institutions, sports clubs, educational institutions and gas stations. All sale of alcohol anywhere is now banned after 10pm.
7. Sharia-compliant Islamic banking has greatly expanded, and the state-owned Ziraat Islamic bank now has more than 200 branches.
At every turn, Erdogan has managed to best his perceived enemies, and to deal ruthlessly with them. There have been mass firings and arrests of military men, university professors, journalists, doctors, lawyers, even high school teachers, all ostensibly because of their roles in the attempted coup Erdogan insists was masterminded by Fethulleh Gulen. Almost 10,000 of those arrested have been military officers, including many of the highest rank. He’s used the coup to crush all potential opposition. And now Erdogan seems more secure than ever in his powerful post.
What this history of Turkey in recent years makes clear is that while Ataturk’s reforms once seemed to be forever, it was not Kemalism, but rather its nemesis, Islam, that appears to be prevailing, under the relentlessly re-islamizing despot Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Right now he has completely cowed his secularist opposition. He has dealt with his opposition as ruthlessly as Vladimir Putin has dealt with his.
Turkey has always been held up in the West as an example of a Muslim country that could successfully tame Islam, limit its role in society and politics, and make possible the modernization, through systematic secularisation, of the country in every important respect. That’s how Turkey appeared to be going for more than seventy years, in the direction Ataturk had set, until Erbakan and, much more thoroughly, Erdogan and his AKP party, arrived on the scene to re-escort Islam back onto the center of the Turkish stage. There is no moral in tow, no lesson to be derived here, other than recognizing that the secularists grew too confident and complacent, having come to believe that after 70 years, Kemalism would remain forever. They ceased to watch like a hawk the forces of a newly-invigorated Islam, and assumed that the army would always step in if the forces of secularism were threatened. They did not realize how wily and dangerous Erdogan, the despot who became the standard-bearer of Turkey’s re-islamization, would turn out to be. Erdogan used the Turkish application for membership in the E.U., and the stringent human-rights requirements the country now had to meet to be considered for such membership, to weaken the Turkish military, which for 70 years had been the final guarantor of Kemalism.
Under new legislation, Erdogan could remain as President until 2029. But not everyone in Turkey is delighted with his despotic rule, nor reconciled to his incessant promotion of Islam. The secularists no longer can count on an army coup to protect them, as happened in decades past. Though they have been silenced for now, they still exist in large numbers. They can do little but bide their time. Should Erdogan overreach and stumble as self-made sultan, as could well happen, either from a military humiliation at the hands of the Syrian Kurds or, in an act of enormous folly, by taking on the Americans in Syria, delivering an “Ottoman slap” that would be returned tenfold, his popularity would suffer. His grandiose neo-Ottoman visions would now be seen as absurd, and he could become an object of amusement, no longer feared, and once such a figure receives his comeuppance, he cannot recover.
Should that happen, the secularists might manage to return to power, backed by a newly-chastened and much more wary military. The Turkish secularists, one hopes, will not repeat their previous mistakes. They took Kemalism too much for granted, and their complacency gave the wily Erdogan the opening, and time, he needed to begin to re-islamize much of Turkish society. The secularists should hold fast to the example of Ataturk, who patiently, and systematically, outmaneuvered those who opposed his reforms, in order to make sure that, should Erdogan finally lose his grip, his successor will be from the Kemalist camp. And the job of protecting Kemalism should not be a task left to the military alone, as happened in the past, but it must become the duty of every Turkish secularist, civilian and military, both to explain and to defend the legacy of Ataturk.
Right now, Turkish forces are attacking the very Kurds whom the American military has for several years supported with weapons and training, and who showed their mettle in the war against ISIS. Turkey’s military officials claimed within the first few days of their attack on the YPG in mid-January that their warplanes had struck 108 out of a total of 113 Syrian Kurdish militia targets in the Farina region, including a military airport. But after those initial strikes, the Turkish military have gotten bogged down. The town of Afrin itself (in the canton of Afrin) has been under artillery fire and attack from all sides, since January 19. Erdogan originally promised that Turkish forces in Syria will “vanquish” the Kurdish militia, and that he would “strangle” the American-backed Kurdish force “before it’s even born.” But almost a month into the conflict, those Kurdish forces have not been either vanquished or strangled, and they are still holding the city of Afrin, and the war goes on. The news reports describe Turkey as “America’s NATO ally.” This is misleading. Turkey is “a fellow member of NATO,” but over the last few years has been ever less of an American ally, and now the Erdogan regime has made Turkey into America’s foe.
It is the Kurds, not Erdogan’s Turks, who are the natural allies of the Americans. They showed it in Syria, fighting so effectively, while coordinating with the Americans, against ISIS. They showed it too in Iraq, where American soldiers were startled by the contrast between Kurds and Arabs. The openly pro-American Kurds remained deeply grateful for the air cover the Americans had provided them from 1991 on, preventing Saddam from continuing his genocidal campaign — “Operation Anfal” — against the Kurds. The Iraqi Arabs, on the other hand, both Sunni and Shi’a, remained hostile to the Americans, despite the latter having removed a monstrous dictator and his terrifying regime. American soldiers took their R-and-R in Iraqi Kurdistan, for their commanders knew they would be safe there; to this day, there has not been a single terrorist attack against the Americans in Iraqi Kurdistan. Were the Kurds to attain an independent Kurdistan, beginning with Rojava in northeastern Syria, that new polity could potentially lead to the adhesion of the six million Iraqi Kurds, 93% of whom voted for independence in the referendum held in September 2017. Then there are the six million Iranian Kurds, whose desire to join an independent Kurdistan would naturally increase if that Kurdistan were not a mere vision, but became a reality, with eight million Kurds (two million from Syria, six million from Iraq) and the land they live on.
The Iranian military would try to crush its own Kurds from seceding. But it will be harder now to suppress Iran’s Kurds than ever before. Iran’s military is now involved simultaneously in several theaters of war. In Yemen, Iran is fighting, through its Houthi proxies, the Saudis, whose bombing campaign continues without cease. In Lebanon, the Shi’a Hezbollah are another proxy of Tehran that receive money and weapons from Iran. In Syria, Iran is now fighting Israel, both through Hezbollah and Assad’s army, and increasingly, taking on Israel directly, as with the Iranian drone intrusion into Israel that triggered the recent deadly attack by the Israeli air force, not just on Syrian air defenses, but on Iranian bases in Syria. Iran, in other words, is already engaged on several fronts, and as a consequence would find it very difficult to permanently subjugate six million Iranian Kurds should they attempt to secede. An independent Kurdish state, carved out of Kurdish areas in both Syria and Iraq, has a better chance than ever to become reality, given the military and political weaknesses of the regimes in Damascus and Baghdad. Such a state could supply weapons and volunteers to Iranian Kurds — weapons that might be provided, too, by the United States or Israel, neither of which wishes Iran well and would welcome the chance to weaken it from within.
Erdogan, of course, does not want any Kurds, anywhere, to enjoy self-determination. In his worldview, that’s to be invoked only for “Palestinians.” What he sees as Turkey’s national interests flatly contradict those of the United States. Now it is time to look steadily and whole at Erdogan and not allow Turkey’s membership in NATO to give it a pass. With his mass roundup of 60,000 political opponents, and his imprisonment of journalists — Turkey has jailed more journalists than any other country in the world — Erdogan has given conclusive evidence that he is no democrat. Real democracy is about more than elections. It’s also about not jailing your opponents, it’s about allowing a free press. Erdogan fails on both counts. Real democracy is exactly what NATO was formed in 1949 to defend, against the Soviet Union. Turkey was a democracy when, in 1952, it was admitted to NATO. But it is no longer a democracy in the Western sense, even if it holds elections. Erdogan, ensconced in the 1100-room palace he has had built for himself, having jailed thousands of his political opponents and with many honest journalists still jailed, is no democrat, but a new Sultan. Continued Turkish membership in NATO — even without Erdogan’s unhinged verbal attacks on several NATO members and his threats to deliver an “Ottoman slap” to the Americans — becomes ever more grotesque, for his despotic rule violates both the letter and spirit of NATO membership.
How valuable has Erdogan’s Turkey been as a NATO ally? Turkey did not permit the American military to use the Incirlik air base in the way it wanted to during the second Iraq war. Erdogan has consistently denounced Israel, which, though not a member of NATO, is certainly a key American ally in every sense — both a Western democracy, and a powerful military ally. Erdogan has seemingly gone out of his way to ruin the former good relations Turkey had with Israel, beginning with his furious public attack on Shimon Peres at Davos, his hysterical reaction to the Mavi Marmara incident, his accusing Israel of having indiscriminately massacred innocent babies and children during its war with Hamas in Gaza, and declaring that “it isn’t anti-Semitism to criticize an administration that massacres, kills babies, children, innocent babies, children, in their homes, mosques, hospitals, schools, beaches, parks, without any discrimination.” He has been a constant defender of Hamas, which he has described as “not a terrorist organization,” has praised the Muslim Brotherhood, and has made himself the primary champion, even more than any Arab state, of the “Palestinians.” There is evidence that, back in 2006, Turkey may even have allowed Iran to move weapons through its territory to Hezbollah. He was the most vocal opponent of Trump’s Jerusalem Embassy move. Erdogan has, as one prominent Turkish exile put it, a “conspiratorial antisemitic worldview.” He’s accused Israel of “keeping Hitler’s spirit alive.” Pro-Erdogan journalists repeatedly describe Erdogan’s arch-enemy Fethulleh Gulen in antisemitic terms: “Fethullah Gülen is sharp witted. He quickly smells of money and power. Because he is a Jew. That’s the reason he loves Israel almost to the point of sickness,” Sabah columnist Erin Ramoğlu wrote in December 2016, “…where his cunning comes from, why the CIA has gotten hold of him and his love of Israel can be understood from the family of this clown [Fethulleh Gulen].” Erdogan has not distanced himself from any of this.
A despot and an antisemite, full of resentment against America, Israel, and Europe, Erdogan has no business being in NATO.
What should the Americans do now? The American government could make sure that Erdogan understands that any attack by Turkish forces in Syria that injures or kills even a single American soldier will be met by an overwhelming military response, akin to that which the Israelis just inflicted on the Syrian air defenses and Iranian bases in Syria. But that’s only one part of the response.
The Americans can end the farce of Turkey’s membership in NATO. They should call for an extraordinary meeting of NATO to discuss the behavior of this new, anti-kemalist, islamizing, despotic, anti-Western Turkey. The bill of particulars should include the fact that Turkey, alone among NATO members, has authoritarian rule rather than democracy; that Erdogan has refused to cooperate militarily with a NATO ally, when he denied the American military the use of the Incirlik air base just before the Iraq war; that he has accused Israel of “keeping Hitler’s spirit alive” while he has found nothing wrong in defending “Palestinian” terrorists; that he has jailed 60,000 political opponents, shut down 187 media outlets, forced 2,500 journalists to lose their jobs, imprisoned another 150 journalists whom he describes as “terrorists”; that he has called fellow members of NATO — Germany and the Netherlands — “Nazis” and, in his latest outrage, he is now attempting to destroy a military force, the Kurdish YPG, that for years has been the closest military ally in Syria of the Americans.
For Erdogan, that malignant but unturbanned Turk, all Kurds are terrorists, no matter whom they have been fighting or what they have accomplished. He doesn’t like the fact that the American government refuses to abandon its Kurdish allies in Syria, who were the best domestic fighters against ISIS and whom the Americans see as providing the most effective security even now on the Syrian-Turkish border. And to warnings from Washington to stop attacking the Syrian Kurds, he asks “What kind of NATO membership is this? What kind of NATO alliance is this?”
Those are exactly the right questions, but Recep Tayyip Erdogan is exactly the wrong person to be asking them.
NATO membership is not a right but a privilege. It’s a privilege that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made sure he, and Turkey, do not deserve.
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/02/...ip-is-this-what-kind-of-nato-alliance-is-this
FREE E-Book From the Center for Security Policy - Ally No More: Erdogan’s New Turkish Caliphate and the Rising Jihadist Threat to the West
“Whither Turkey?” is a question that has become one of the most pressing national security topics of our time. The available evidence – including, notably, the increasingly overt ambition of Recep Tayyip Erdogan to become the Caliph of a neo-Ottoman empire, his naked hostility toward the United States and the damage being done by Turkey to America’s vital interests and those of the rest of NATO and other allies like Israel and the Kurds – suggests the answer is alarming.
That evidence is thoughtfully assessed in a new book from the Center for Security Policy Press,Ally No More: Erdogan’s New Turkish Caliphate and the Rising Jihadist Threat to the West. Its ten essays include a detailed treatment of the presence of Turkish influence operations and infrastructure in this country that could enable the regime in Ankara not only to harm U.S. interests elsewhere, but to engage in subversion here – making it required reading for American policy-makers and the public, alike.
A group of highly respected authors/experts – notably including Harold Rhode Burak Bekdil, Uzay Bulut, David Goldman, Daniel Pipes and the Center for Security Policy’s Executive Vice President Christopher Hull and Senior Fellow Deborah Weiss – contributed chapters to this much-needed book. So did the Center’s Vice President for Research and Analysis, Clare M. Lopez, who also served as Ally No More’s editor.
This extensively footnoted collection of essay features insightful treatments of: Turkey’s own demographic and economic situation; Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic disregard for Turkey’s constitution and escalating record of human rights abuses; and the apparently not-quite-final divorce from Erdogan’s longtime jihadist collaborator, Fethullah Gulen.
Dr. Rhode’s chapter as well as two others focus on a strategic look at how Turkey is not only alienating itself from its own Ataturk legacy by pursuing a frankly jihadist agenda, but from the U.S. directly, through Erdogan’s brazen alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood on U.S. territory. Dr. Pipes offered suggestions for necessarily tough, but effective, measures for Turkey’s NATO allies to take in response to Erdogan’s overtly hostile policies.
Overall, this is a most timely and scholarly contribution to our understanding of shifting realities that must be dealt with in a clear-eyed and expeditious manner if U.S. national security priorities are to be preserved.
Upon the release of Ally No More: Erdoğan’s New Turkish Caliphate and the Rising Jihadist Threat to the West, Frank Gaffney Jr. President of the Center for Security Policy observed:
Few recent geostrategic developments are as fraught as the transformation of Turkey from a reliable, secular and democratic allied nation to one ruled by a hostile, Sharia-supremacist and increasingly despotic regime. This book maps out that trajectory and its implications – and offers astute and timely suggestions for how America must respond.
DOWNLOAD BOOK HERE:
https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Turkey_Final.pdf
Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey’s President
And while we patiently dig to find who the on and offshore “commodity trading” middleman are, who cart away ISIS oil to European and other international markets in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars, one name keeps popping up as the primary culprit of regional demand for the Islamic State’s “terrorist oil” – that of Turkish president Recep Erdogan’s son: Bilal Erdogan.
His very brief bio:
Necmettin Bilal Erdogan, commonly known as Bilal Erdogan (born 23 April 1980) is the third child of Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, the current President of Turkey.
After graduating from Kartal Imam Hatip High School in 1999, Bilal Erdogan moved to the US for undergraduate education. He also earned a Masters Degree in John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 2004. After graduation, he served in the World Bank as intern for a while. He returned Turkey in 2006 and started to his business life. Bilal Erdogan is one of the three equal shareholders of “BMZ Group Denizcilik “, a marine transportation corporation.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-25/meet-man-who-funds-isis-bilal-erdogan-son-turkeys-president
Opposition MP says ISIS is selling oil in Turkey
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/business/2014/06/turkey-syria-isis-selling-smuggled-oil.html#
NATO is harbouring the Islamic State
Turkey, a longstanding member of NATO, is not just supporting ISIS, but also other jihadist groups, including Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. “The distinctions they draw [with other opposition groups] are thin indeed,” said the official. “There is no doubt at all that they militarily cooperate with both.”
https://medium.com/insurge-intellig...lamic-state-s-backers-d24db3a24a40#.ohdpsd8gi
German deputy speaker: NATO must stop Turkey support for ISIS
http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/12102014
'ISIS Sees Turkey as Its Ally': Former Islamic State Member Reveals Turkish Army Cooperation
http://europe.newsweek.com/isis-and...rds-former-isis-member-reveals-turkish-282920
Foreign ISIL Militant Passports Have Turkish Govt Exit Stamps
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=25e_1414105309
Turkey could cut off Islamic State’s supply lines. So why doesn’t it?
http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...y-cut-islamic-state-supply-lines-erdogan-isis
Columbia University Researchers Confirm Turkey’s Links to ISIS
Documents made public on Sept. 27, 2014, revealed that Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Sultan financed the transportation of arms to ISIS through Turkey.
http://www.thecaliforniacourier.com/columbia-university-researchers-confirm-turkeys-links-to-isis/
Ret. General Wesley Clark: Turkey is interested in preserving the Islamic State
"Let's be very clear: ISIS [ISIL] is not just a terrorist organization, it is a Sunni terrorist organization. It means it blocks and targets Shia, and that means it's serving the interests of Turkey and Saudi Arabia even as it poses a threat to them. All along there’s always been the idea that Turkey was supporting ISIS in some way Someone's buying that oil that ISIS [ISIL] is selling, it's going through somewhere. It looks to me like it's probably going through Turkey, but the Turks have never acknowledged it."
http://inserbia.info/today/2015/11/...s-interested-in-preserving-the-islamic-state/
Turns Out, Russia Was Right: ISIL Oil is Going to Turkey – German Media
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151128/1030895284/Russia-Right-ISIL-OilI-Going-Turkey.html
Ankara's oil business with ISIS
https://www.rt.com/business/323391-isis-oil-business-turkey-russia/
US official: Oil smuggled into Turkey not enough to be profitable
Ragnarok: The Obama admin just ADMITTED Turkey is doing business with ISIS... Nut, "Don't worry... It's just a little business"...
http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/...nto-Turkey-not-enough-to-be-profitable-436361
Turkish journalist who revealed government run ISIS-hospitals is prosecuted
https://themuslimissue.wordpress.co...-government-run-isis-hospitals-is-prosecuted/
Recep Tayyip Erdogan: ‘Collapsing’ Europe will pay for ‘humiliating & oppressing’ Turks
In a widening diplomatic rift between Turkey and the EU, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made a new provocative statement saying that the “collapsing” Europe “will pay” for “humiliating” and “oppressing” Turks living on the continent.
“They said a century ago that we were the 'sick man.' Now they are the 'sick man.' Europe is collapsing,” the Turkish leader said, using an insult popular among European politicians in the 19th century when they talked about the collapsing Ottoman Empire.
Speaking at a rally in Turkey’s Izmir on Sunday, the president said that Europe’s economy was getting worse, its population was getting older, and the “racism disease has resurged like a virus,” Turkish Anadolu news agency reported. In Europe, which suffered two world wars in the past, millions of people are being attacked and discriminated against, he told the rally.
Erdogan claimed that Turks living in Europe were being “very oppressed” and “very humiliated,” and vowed to make Europe “accountable” for that.
“Europe will pay for what they have done. God willing, the question of the European Union will again be on the table after April 16,” he said, referring to the constitutional referendum in Turkey, which might sharply increase his ruling powers.
“You have seen what happened in Europe. Why did they go crazy? Why did they go berserk? They saw what this system will bring to Turkey. Turkey is leaping, growing. This makes them go crazy,” Erdogan explained his view on the tensions with the EU.
The Turkish leader reiterated his plans to hold a separate referendum on whether Ankara should carry on with a process to join the European Union, saying he now expects “a serious explosion in the rate of votes” to quit the EU accession bid. “I do not worry about it,” he said.
Turkey, which has been negotiating an entrance into the 28-member European bloc for decades, has consistently faced criticism from the EU for its record on human rights, democracy and freedom of the press.
Talks between Ankara and Brussels are also directly linked to a controversial €6 billion refugee deal, which Turkey repeatedly threaten to suspend. Brussels for its part says that Turkey failed to honor some of the 72 conditions set by the EU for lifting the visa requirements.
These concerns escalated in the aftermath of the attempted coup in July, which saw a mass crackdown on opposition figures including teachers, journalists and civil servants deemed sympathetic to Kurdish separatism and self-exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara says masterminded the coup.
Tensions between Turkey and EU countries have also been heightened in the run-up to the upcoming Turkish referendum which is scheduled later this week. Erdogan and his AKP party have relentlessly tried to campaign in Europe for a ‘yes’ vote in the plebiscite which could be decided by some 5.5 million Turkish citizens living abroad.
https://www.rt.com/news/384274-erdogan-turkey-europe-sick/
Erdogan: “What kind of NATO membership is this? What kind of NATO alliance is this?”
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who always likes to tell us what he really thinks, is at it again. Last year he accused the people of Germany — and of the Netherlands too — of being “Nazis” for not allowing political rallies targeted at Turkish residents in Germany. He also called Angela Merkel guilty of “Nazism” for suggesting that the EU reconsider its relationship with Turkey — i.e., possibly end the talks about Turkish accession to the group. “What happened is Nazism,” said Erdogan in response. “What happened is fascism.” And the Germans were called “Nazis” yet again because, according to Erdogan, they refused Turkish requests for help in suppressing Kurdish separatists that had been made, he preposterously claimed, 4,500 times. “Mrs Merkel, you are supporting terrorists,” he said. And now he threatens to deliver an “Ottoman slap” to the Americans if they continue to fund the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Unit) in Syria. But that’s only the latest of many threats he’s made about the YPG.
In January, he accused the U.S of supporting “an army of terror” because it wants the Kurdish fighters of the YPG in northeastern Syria, who proved to be the most effective force against ISIS, to be a major component of the border forces guarding the frontier between Syria and Turkey. They would be there as well to help suppress any possible resurgence of ISIS. For Erdogan, any Kurdish group anywhere could help the Kurdish separatists inside Turkey, and has to be suppressed. For Erdogan, all Kurds are “terrorists” — it doesn’t matter that the Syrian Kurds were the best fighters against the most dangerous of real terrorists, those of ISIS. And in his view, if his attack on the Syrian Kurds goes directly against American policy — well, Erdogan doesn’t give a fig for the Americans. His forces have been let loose on the Kurds in Syria; this occurred after the Americans had made clear they wanted 30,000 Syrian Kurdish troops to guard the Syria-Turkey border. To mark the moment when the Turkish forces moved into Syria to attack the Kurds directly, worshippers in 90,000 mosques in Turkey prayed the Surah al-Fath, the 48th chapter of the Qur’an, in which those engaged in Jihad are promised material rewards taken from those they defeat; the Speaker of the Turkish Parliament called the Turkish attack on the Kurds in Afrin a “jihad.” In Erdogan’s orchestra, no one sounds a secular Kemalist note.
And then, taking things to a still higher level of hostility, Erdogan’s men promised that American troops in Syria may be hit. “Accusing the US fighters of wearing ‘terrorists’ clothes’ (i.e, YPG uniforms) that may be hard to distinguish, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag warned that anyone fighting alongside the Kurds ‘is our target.’”
He added that “there is no chance that we will make a distinction at this point” between the Kurds and the US fighters.
He might have said something else. He might have said that “we will do our best to avoid hitting American fighters. It is certainly going to be difficult. Nonetheless, we will try.” A different tone, a different emphasis. But instead, he — and his boss Erdogan — wanted to be as tough as possible on the Americans. This is not the behavior one expects from a NATO ally.
After that warning, the commander of American troops in Syria, Lieutenant General Paul Funk, speaking in Manbij, a city that the YPG holds and that the Turks now threaten to in invade, issued his own warning to Erdogan:
“You hit us, we will respond aggressively. We will defend ourselves,” the U.S. commander, Lieutenant General Paul Funk, said in a direct warning to Turkey in the interview published on Feb. 7.
Then, an enraged Erdogan came back on February 13 with his “Ottoman slap” remark.
“It’s obvious that those who say, ‘If you hit us, we’ll hit back hard,’ have never in their lives gotten an Ottoman slap,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech at parliament on Tuesday [February 13] responding to remarks by the top U.S. commander in Syria to the New York Times. “If those who come and go as they like through Turkey think they’re going to go stirring things up in places without paying for it, they’ll soon see that’s not the case.” (He is referring to American forces using the air base at Incirlik.)
The comments mark an escalation in rhetoric against the U.S., whose backing of the Syrian Kurdish YPG has enraged Turkey, which labels the group as a terrorist organization and has invaded Syria to combat it. That incursion has created an unprecedented military face-off between the two largest armies in NATO, with U.S. forces fighting alongside the YPG while Turkey attacks it, first in Afrin and soon, if we are to believe its threats, in Manbij.
How did we get here, with Turkey, the NATO member that now calls other NATO members “Nazis,” “terrorists,” and supporters of an “army of terror,” that further threatens to “target” any American troops fighting alongside Kurds in Syria, and by way of enraged reply to Lt. General Funk’s warning that if American forces are hit (by the Turks), they (the Americans) will respond in kind, warns that the Americans will get “an Ottoman slap”? Let’s consider the political trajectory of the outrageous Recip Tayyip Erdogan.
In 2003, Recep Tap Erdogan was elected Prime Minister of Turkey, a post he held until 2014. In that year, he was elected President of Turkey, a post he still holds. As Prime Minister, he required that the military — the ultimate guarantor of Turkish secularism — be reined in, made subject to greater civilian control. To this end, he exploited two supposed coup attempts by the military, to gain control over the army by arresting, and putting on trial, senior officers. These two coups — “Sledgehammer” and “Ergenekon” — were both fabrications, but Erdogan cleverly exploited the fear generated by these supposed plots in order to weaken the military. When hundreds of officers were arrested and put on trial, that discouraged others, even if, in the end, those officers were all exonerated in both “Sledgehammer” and “Ergenekon.”
A real coup d’etat was attempted on July 15, 2016, when military men in Ankara and Istanbul tried to seize power (over 300 people, including fellow soldiers, died), but was quickly put down. Those involved called themselves the Peace At Home Council, and they proclaimed their anxiety over the erosion of secularism, the elimination of democratic rule, and the disregard for human rights. But few joined the original plotters, and Erdogan quickly rounded them up. He accused them of doing the bidding of Fethulleh Gulen, supposedly organizing the coup from his exile in Pennsylvania. Erdogan had more than 140,000 people detained and more than 50,000 arrested. Tens of thousands lost their jobs. No link of this abortive coup to Gulen has been proven, which has not stopped Erdogan from constantly denouncing the dark sinister forces he wants us to believe are headquartered in rural Pennsylvania. That the Americans won’t hand Gulen over to him is one of his many grievances against his NATO “ally.”
Erdogan has been bolstered, and so has his party, the AKP, because the Turkish economy is doing well. He has not been shy about rewarding himself. He has had built as his presidential residence the Ak Saray, or White Palace, with more than 1100 rooms, that cost $630 million to build. Sixteen Turkish soldiers, each dressed in a costume representing a different period of Turkish history, line an interior staircase of this palace. It is clear that Erdogan dreams of rivaling the Ottoman despots. He is well on his way, having outsmarted the army and outmaneuvered his civilian opponents.
Erdogan has also been busy re-islamizing secularist Turkey. Here are some of the things he has managed to accomplish, taking care not to trigger a military coup, both while Mayor of Istanbul and as Prime Minister:
1. Between 2002 and 2013, the Turkish government built 17,000 new mosques. Many more have been built since, and more still are now being planned. In addition, thousands of Ottoman-era mosques have been repaired and refurbished. Erdogan is building a gigantic mosque on the Asian side of the Bosporus, which can accommodate 30,000 worshippers.
2. When Erdogan first came to power, women working in the public sector were still banned from wearing the hijab, including teachers, lawyers, parliamentarians and others working in state-run institutions. In recent years, the Justice and Development Party has lifted bans on wearing the hijab in schools and all state institutions. Now those teachers, lawyers, parliamentarians are not merely allowed, but encouraged, to wear the hijab by the AKP. Even female ministers and judges have taken to wearing hijabs. The wives of Erdogan, Gul (the former president of Turkey), and other ministers all appear in public ostentatiously hijabbed.
3. After traditional madrasas were banned by Ataturk, Imam-Hatip schools were set up to take their place. These are vocational education institutions designed to provide religious education and train imams, but now offering a regular academic curriculum as well, open to students who are not training to be imams. The clergy in Turkish mosques are government appointed and many imams are trained in Imam-Hatip schools.
In 2002, there were 65,000 students involved in Imam-Hatip schools. That number grew by ten times, to 658,000 in 2013, and it was recently announced that the number of Imam-Hatip students has now reached more than one million. The islamization of young minds proceeds apace.
4. Compulsory religious education in schools has been introduced. Courses on “the life of Prophet Muhammad” and “the Qur’an” have also been made mandatory.
5. The lower age-limit for taking courses on the Qur’an has been eliminated. Until now, children had to be at least 12 years old before they could attend Qur’an classes. This has been abolished by Erdogan’s government, allowing Qur’an courses even for preschoolers.
6. Bans on alcohol advertising are now in place, whereas secular Turkey always allowed them. The AKP passed a bill in 2013 that banned any advertising of alcohol within 100 meters of a mosque or school.
Blurring out depictions of alcohol on television and in films has also been made mandatory.
The selling of alcohol has now been banned from student dormitories, health institutions, sports clubs, educational institutions and gas stations. All sale of alcohol anywhere is now banned after 10pm.
7. Sharia-compliant Islamic banking has greatly expanded, and the state-owned Ziraat Islamic bank now has more than 200 branches.
At every turn, Erdogan has managed to best his perceived enemies, and to deal ruthlessly with them. There have been mass firings and arrests of military men, university professors, journalists, doctors, lawyers, even high school teachers, all ostensibly because of their roles in the attempted coup Erdogan insists was masterminded by Fethulleh Gulen. Almost 10,000 of those arrested have been military officers, including many of the highest rank. He’s used the coup to crush all potential opposition. And now Erdogan seems more secure than ever in his powerful post.
What this history of Turkey in recent years makes clear is that while Ataturk’s reforms once seemed to be forever, it was not Kemalism, but rather its nemesis, Islam, that appears to be prevailing, under the relentlessly re-islamizing despot Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Right now he has completely cowed his secularist opposition. He has dealt with his opposition as ruthlessly as Vladimir Putin has dealt with his.
Turkey has always been held up in the West as an example of a Muslim country that could successfully tame Islam, limit its role in society and politics, and make possible the modernization, through systematic secularisation, of the country in every important respect. That’s how Turkey appeared to be going for more than seventy years, in the direction Ataturk had set, until Erbakan and, much more thoroughly, Erdogan and his AKP party, arrived on the scene to re-escort Islam back onto the center of the Turkish stage. There is no moral in tow, no lesson to be derived here, other than recognizing that the secularists grew too confident and complacent, having come to believe that after 70 years, Kemalism would remain forever. They ceased to watch like a hawk the forces of a newly-invigorated Islam, and assumed that the army would always step in if the forces of secularism were threatened. They did not realize how wily and dangerous Erdogan, the despot who became the standard-bearer of Turkey’s re-islamization, would turn out to be. Erdogan used the Turkish application for membership in the E.U., and the stringent human-rights requirements the country now had to meet to be considered for such membership, to weaken the Turkish military, which for 70 years had been the final guarantor of Kemalism.
Under new legislation, Erdogan could remain as President until 2029. But not everyone in Turkey is delighted with his despotic rule, nor reconciled to his incessant promotion of Islam. The secularists no longer can count on an army coup to protect them, as happened in decades past. Though they have been silenced for now, they still exist in large numbers. They can do little but bide their time. Should Erdogan overreach and stumble as self-made sultan, as could well happen, either from a military humiliation at the hands of the Syrian Kurds or, in an act of enormous folly, by taking on the Americans in Syria, delivering an “Ottoman slap” that would be returned tenfold, his popularity would suffer. His grandiose neo-Ottoman visions would now be seen as absurd, and he could become an object of amusement, no longer feared, and once such a figure receives his comeuppance, he cannot recover.
Should that happen, the secularists might manage to return to power, backed by a newly-chastened and much more wary military. The Turkish secularists, one hopes, will not repeat their previous mistakes. They took Kemalism too much for granted, and their complacency gave the wily Erdogan the opening, and time, he needed to begin to re-islamize much of Turkish society. The secularists should hold fast to the example of Ataturk, who patiently, and systematically, outmaneuvered those who opposed his reforms, in order to make sure that, should Erdogan finally lose his grip, his successor will be from the Kemalist camp. And the job of protecting Kemalism should not be a task left to the military alone, as happened in the past, but it must become the duty of every Turkish secularist, civilian and military, both to explain and to defend the legacy of Ataturk.
Right now, Turkish forces are attacking the very Kurds whom the American military has for several years supported with weapons and training, and who showed their mettle in the war against ISIS. Turkey’s military officials claimed within the first few days of their attack on the YPG in mid-January that their warplanes had struck 108 out of a total of 113 Syrian Kurdish militia targets in the Farina region, including a military airport. But after those initial strikes, the Turkish military have gotten bogged down. The town of Afrin itself (in the canton of Afrin) has been under artillery fire and attack from all sides, since January 19. Erdogan originally promised that Turkish forces in Syria will “vanquish” the Kurdish militia, and that he would “strangle” the American-backed Kurdish force “before it’s even born.” But almost a month into the conflict, those Kurdish forces have not been either vanquished or strangled, and they are still holding the city of Afrin, and the war goes on. The news reports describe Turkey as “America’s NATO ally.” This is misleading. Turkey is “a fellow member of NATO,” but over the last few years has been ever less of an American ally, and now the Erdogan regime has made Turkey into America’s foe.
It is the Kurds, not Erdogan’s Turks, who are the natural allies of the Americans. They showed it in Syria, fighting so effectively, while coordinating with the Americans, against ISIS. They showed it too in Iraq, where American soldiers were startled by the contrast between Kurds and Arabs. The openly pro-American Kurds remained deeply grateful for the air cover the Americans had provided them from 1991 on, preventing Saddam from continuing his genocidal campaign — “Operation Anfal” — against the Kurds. The Iraqi Arabs, on the other hand, both Sunni and Shi’a, remained hostile to the Americans, despite the latter having removed a monstrous dictator and his terrifying regime. American soldiers took their R-and-R in Iraqi Kurdistan, for their commanders knew they would be safe there; to this day, there has not been a single terrorist attack against the Americans in Iraqi Kurdistan. Were the Kurds to attain an independent Kurdistan, beginning with Rojava in northeastern Syria, that new polity could potentially lead to the adhesion of the six million Iraqi Kurds, 93% of whom voted for independence in the referendum held in September 2017. Then there are the six million Iranian Kurds, whose desire to join an independent Kurdistan would naturally increase if that Kurdistan were not a mere vision, but became a reality, with eight million Kurds (two million from Syria, six million from Iraq) and the land they live on.
The Iranian military would try to crush its own Kurds from seceding. But it will be harder now to suppress Iran’s Kurds than ever before. Iran’s military is now involved simultaneously in several theaters of war. In Yemen, Iran is fighting, through its Houthi proxies, the Saudis, whose bombing campaign continues without cease. In Lebanon, the Shi’a Hezbollah are another proxy of Tehran that receive money and weapons from Iran. In Syria, Iran is now fighting Israel, both through Hezbollah and Assad’s army, and increasingly, taking on Israel directly, as with the Iranian drone intrusion into Israel that triggered the recent deadly attack by the Israeli air force, not just on Syrian air defenses, but on Iranian bases in Syria. Iran, in other words, is already engaged on several fronts, and as a consequence would find it very difficult to permanently subjugate six million Iranian Kurds should they attempt to secede. An independent Kurdish state, carved out of Kurdish areas in both Syria and Iraq, has a better chance than ever to become reality, given the military and political weaknesses of the regimes in Damascus and Baghdad. Such a state could supply weapons and volunteers to Iranian Kurds — weapons that might be provided, too, by the United States or Israel, neither of which wishes Iran well and would welcome the chance to weaken it from within.
Erdogan, of course, does not want any Kurds, anywhere, to enjoy self-determination. In his worldview, that’s to be invoked only for “Palestinians.” What he sees as Turkey’s national interests flatly contradict those of the United States. Now it is time to look steadily and whole at Erdogan and not allow Turkey’s membership in NATO to give it a pass. With his mass roundup of 60,000 political opponents, and his imprisonment of journalists — Turkey has jailed more journalists than any other country in the world — Erdogan has given conclusive evidence that he is no democrat. Real democracy is about more than elections. It’s also about not jailing your opponents, it’s about allowing a free press. Erdogan fails on both counts. Real democracy is exactly what NATO was formed in 1949 to defend, against the Soviet Union. Turkey was a democracy when, in 1952, it was admitted to NATO. But it is no longer a democracy in the Western sense, even if it holds elections. Erdogan, ensconced in the 1100-room palace he has had built for himself, having jailed thousands of his political opponents and with many honest journalists still jailed, is no democrat, but a new Sultan. Continued Turkish membership in NATO — even without Erdogan’s unhinged verbal attacks on several NATO members and his threats to deliver an “Ottoman slap” to the Americans — becomes ever more grotesque, for his despotic rule violates both the letter and spirit of NATO membership.
How valuable has Erdogan’s Turkey been as a NATO ally? Turkey did not permit the American military to use the Incirlik air base in the way it wanted to during the second Iraq war. Erdogan has consistently denounced Israel, which, though not a member of NATO, is certainly a key American ally in every sense — both a Western democracy, and a powerful military ally. Erdogan has seemingly gone out of his way to ruin the former good relations Turkey had with Israel, beginning with his furious public attack on Shimon Peres at Davos, his hysterical reaction to the Mavi Marmara incident, his accusing Israel of having indiscriminately massacred innocent babies and children during its war with Hamas in Gaza, and declaring that “it isn’t anti-Semitism to criticize an administration that massacres, kills babies, children, innocent babies, children, in their homes, mosques, hospitals, schools, beaches, parks, without any discrimination.” He has been a constant defender of Hamas, which he has described as “not a terrorist organization,” has praised the Muslim Brotherhood, and has made himself the primary champion, even more than any Arab state, of the “Palestinians.” There is evidence that, back in 2006, Turkey may even have allowed Iran to move weapons through its territory to Hezbollah. He was the most vocal opponent of Trump’s Jerusalem Embassy move. Erdogan has, as one prominent Turkish exile put it, a “conspiratorial antisemitic worldview.” He’s accused Israel of “keeping Hitler’s spirit alive.” Pro-Erdogan journalists repeatedly describe Erdogan’s arch-enemy Fethulleh Gulen in antisemitic terms: “Fethullah Gülen is sharp witted. He quickly smells of money and power. Because he is a Jew. That’s the reason he loves Israel almost to the point of sickness,” Sabah columnist Erin Ramoğlu wrote in December 2016, “…where his cunning comes from, why the CIA has gotten hold of him and his love of Israel can be understood from the family of this clown [Fethulleh Gulen].” Erdogan has not distanced himself from any of this.
A despot and an antisemite, full of resentment against America, Israel, and Europe, Erdogan has no business being in NATO.
What should the Americans do now? The American government could make sure that Erdogan understands that any attack by Turkish forces in Syria that injures or kills even a single American soldier will be met by an overwhelming military response, akin to that which the Israelis just inflicted on the Syrian air defenses and Iranian bases in Syria. But that’s only one part of the response.
The Americans can end the farce of Turkey’s membership in NATO. They should call for an extraordinary meeting of NATO to discuss the behavior of this new, anti-kemalist, islamizing, despotic, anti-Western Turkey. The bill of particulars should include the fact that Turkey, alone among NATO members, has authoritarian rule rather than democracy; that Erdogan has refused to cooperate militarily with a NATO ally, when he denied the American military the use of the Incirlik air base just before the Iraq war; that he has accused Israel of “keeping Hitler’s spirit alive” while he has found nothing wrong in defending “Palestinian” terrorists; that he has jailed 60,000 political opponents, shut down 187 media outlets, forced 2,500 journalists to lose their jobs, imprisoned another 150 journalists whom he describes as “terrorists”; that he has called fellow members of NATO — Germany and the Netherlands — “Nazis” and, in his latest outrage, he is now attempting to destroy a military force, the Kurdish YPG, that for years has been the closest military ally in Syria of the Americans.
For Erdogan, that malignant but unturbanned Turk, all Kurds are terrorists, no matter whom they have been fighting or what they have accomplished. He doesn’t like the fact that the American government refuses to abandon its Kurdish allies in Syria, who were the best domestic fighters against ISIS and whom the Americans see as providing the most effective security even now on the Syrian-Turkish border. And to warnings from Washington to stop attacking the Syrian Kurds, he asks “What kind of NATO membership is this? What kind of NATO alliance is this?”
Those are exactly the right questions, but Recep Tayyip Erdogan is exactly the wrong person to be asking them.
NATO membership is not a right but a privilege. It’s a privilege that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made sure he, and Turkey, do not deserve.
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/02/...ip-is-this-what-kind-of-nato-alliance-is-this
FREE E-Book From the Center for Security Policy - Ally No More: Erdogan’s New Turkish Caliphate and the Rising Jihadist Threat to the West
“Whither Turkey?” is a question that has become one of the most pressing national security topics of our time. The available evidence – including, notably, the increasingly overt ambition of Recep Tayyip Erdogan to become the Caliph of a neo-Ottoman empire, his naked hostility toward the United States and the damage being done by Turkey to America’s vital interests and those of the rest of NATO and other allies like Israel and the Kurds – suggests the answer is alarming.
That evidence is thoughtfully assessed in a new book from the Center for Security Policy Press,Ally No More: Erdogan’s New Turkish Caliphate and the Rising Jihadist Threat to the West. Its ten essays include a detailed treatment of the presence of Turkish influence operations and infrastructure in this country that could enable the regime in Ankara not only to harm U.S. interests elsewhere, but to engage in subversion here – making it required reading for American policy-makers and the public, alike.
A group of highly respected authors/experts – notably including Harold Rhode Burak Bekdil, Uzay Bulut, David Goldman, Daniel Pipes and the Center for Security Policy’s Executive Vice President Christopher Hull and Senior Fellow Deborah Weiss – contributed chapters to this much-needed book. So did the Center’s Vice President for Research and Analysis, Clare M. Lopez, who also served as Ally No More’s editor.
This extensively footnoted collection of essay features insightful treatments of: Turkey’s own demographic and economic situation; Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic disregard for Turkey’s constitution and escalating record of human rights abuses; and the apparently not-quite-final divorce from Erdogan’s longtime jihadist collaborator, Fethullah Gulen.
Dr. Rhode’s chapter as well as two others focus on a strategic look at how Turkey is not only alienating itself from its own Ataturk legacy by pursuing a frankly jihadist agenda, but from the U.S. directly, through Erdogan’s brazen alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood on U.S. territory. Dr. Pipes offered suggestions for necessarily tough, but effective, measures for Turkey’s NATO allies to take in response to Erdogan’s overtly hostile policies.
Overall, this is a most timely and scholarly contribution to our understanding of shifting realities that must be dealt with in a clear-eyed and expeditious manner if U.S. national security priorities are to be preserved.
Upon the release of Ally No More: Erdoğan’s New Turkish Caliphate and the Rising Jihadist Threat to the West, Frank Gaffney Jr. President of the Center for Security Policy observed:
Few recent geostrategic developments are as fraught as the transformation of Turkey from a reliable, secular and democratic allied nation to one ruled by a hostile, Sharia-supremacist and increasingly despotic regime. This book maps out that trajectory and its implications – and offers astute and timely suggestions for how America must respond.
DOWNLOAD BOOK HERE:
https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Turkey_Final.pdf
Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey’s President
And while we patiently dig to find who the on and offshore “commodity trading” middleman are, who cart away ISIS oil to European and other international markets in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars, one name keeps popping up as the primary culprit of regional demand for the Islamic State’s “terrorist oil” – that of Turkish president Recep Erdogan’s son: Bilal Erdogan.
His very brief bio:
Necmettin Bilal Erdogan, commonly known as Bilal Erdogan (born 23 April 1980) is the third child of Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, the current President of Turkey.
After graduating from Kartal Imam Hatip High School in 1999, Bilal Erdogan moved to the US for undergraduate education. He also earned a Masters Degree in John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 2004. After graduation, he served in the World Bank as intern for a while. He returned Turkey in 2006 and started to his business life. Bilal Erdogan is one of the three equal shareholders of “BMZ Group Denizcilik “, a marine transportation corporation.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-25/meet-man-who-funds-isis-bilal-erdogan-son-turkeys-president
Opposition MP says ISIS is selling oil in Turkey
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/business/2014/06/turkey-syria-isis-selling-smuggled-oil.html#
NATO is harbouring the Islamic State
Turkey, a longstanding member of NATO, is not just supporting ISIS, but also other jihadist groups, including Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. “The distinctions they draw [with other opposition groups] are thin indeed,” said the official. “There is no doubt at all that they militarily cooperate with both.”
https://medium.com/insurge-intellig...lamic-state-s-backers-d24db3a24a40#.ohdpsd8gi
German deputy speaker: NATO must stop Turkey support for ISIS
http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/12102014
'ISIS Sees Turkey as Its Ally': Former Islamic State Member Reveals Turkish Army Cooperation
http://europe.newsweek.com/isis-and...rds-former-isis-member-reveals-turkish-282920
Foreign ISIL Militant Passports Have Turkish Govt Exit Stamps
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=25e_1414105309
Turkey could cut off Islamic State’s supply lines. So why doesn’t it?
http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...y-cut-islamic-state-supply-lines-erdogan-isis
Columbia University Researchers Confirm Turkey’s Links to ISIS
Documents made public on Sept. 27, 2014, revealed that Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Sultan financed the transportation of arms to ISIS through Turkey.
http://www.thecaliforniacourier.com/columbia-university-researchers-confirm-turkeys-links-to-isis/
Ret. General Wesley Clark: Turkey is interested in preserving the Islamic State
"Let's be very clear: ISIS [ISIL] is not just a terrorist organization, it is a Sunni terrorist organization. It means it blocks and targets Shia, and that means it's serving the interests of Turkey and Saudi Arabia even as it poses a threat to them. All along there’s always been the idea that Turkey was supporting ISIS in some way Someone's buying that oil that ISIS [ISIL] is selling, it's going through somewhere. It looks to me like it's probably going through Turkey, but the Turks have never acknowledged it."
http://inserbia.info/today/2015/11/...s-interested-in-preserving-the-islamic-state/
Turns Out, Russia Was Right: ISIL Oil is Going to Turkey – German Media
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151128/1030895284/Russia-Right-ISIL-OilI-Going-Turkey.html
Ankara's oil business with ISIS
https://www.rt.com/business/323391-isis-oil-business-turkey-russia/
US official: Oil smuggled into Turkey not enough to be profitable
Ragnarok: The Obama admin just ADMITTED Turkey is doing business with ISIS... Nut, "Don't worry... It's just a little business"...
http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/...nto-Turkey-not-enough-to-be-profitable-436361
Turkish journalist who revealed government run ISIS-hospitals is prosecuted
https://themuslimissue.wordpress.co...-government-run-isis-hospitals-is-prosecuted/
Recep Tayyip Erdogan: ‘Collapsing’ Europe will pay for ‘humiliating & oppressing’ Turks
In a widening diplomatic rift between Turkey and the EU, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made a new provocative statement saying that the “collapsing” Europe “will pay” for “humiliating” and “oppressing” Turks living on the continent.
“They said a century ago that we were the 'sick man.' Now they are the 'sick man.' Europe is collapsing,” the Turkish leader said, using an insult popular among European politicians in the 19th century when they talked about the collapsing Ottoman Empire.
Speaking at a rally in Turkey’s Izmir on Sunday, the president said that Europe’s economy was getting worse, its population was getting older, and the “racism disease has resurged like a virus,” Turkish Anadolu news agency reported. In Europe, which suffered two world wars in the past, millions of people are being attacked and discriminated against, he told the rally.
Erdogan claimed that Turks living in Europe were being “very oppressed” and “very humiliated,” and vowed to make Europe “accountable” for that.
“Europe will pay for what they have done. God willing, the question of the European Union will again be on the table after April 16,” he said, referring to the constitutional referendum in Turkey, which might sharply increase his ruling powers.
“You have seen what happened in Europe. Why did they go crazy? Why did they go berserk? They saw what this system will bring to Turkey. Turkey is leaping, growing. This makes them go crazy,” Erdogan explained his view on the tensions with the EU.
The Turkish leader reiterated his plans to hold a separate referendum on whether Ankara should carry on with a process to join the European Union, saying he now expects “a serious explosion in the rate of votes” to quit the EU accession bid. “I do not worry about it,” he said.
Turkey, which has been negotiating an entrance into the 28-member European bloc for decades, has consistently faced criticism from the EU for its record on human rights, democracy and freedom of the press.
Talks between Ankara and Brussels are also directly linked to a controversial €6 billion refugee deal, which Turkey repeatedly threaten to suspend. Brussels for its part says that Turkey failed to honor some of the 72 conditions set by the EU for lifting the visa requirements.
These concerns escalated in the aftermath of the attempted coup in July, which saw a mass crackdown on opposition figures including teachers, journalists and civil servants deemed sympathetic to Kurdish separatism and self-exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara says masterminded the coup.
Tensions between Turkey and EU countries have also been heightened in the run-up to the upcoming Turkish referendum which is scheduled later this week. Erdogan and his AKP party have relentlessly tried to campaign in Europe for a ‘yes’ vote in the plebiscite which could be decided by some 5.5 million Turkish citizens living abroad.
https://www.rt.com/news/384274-erdogan-turkey-europe-sick/
Ragnarok
On and On, South of Heaven
CONCLUSION
TURKEY'S ERDOGAN HAS EYE ON BECOMING GLOBAL CALIPH
Expands Muslim outreach to 39 African embassies, boasts of talks with pope, Macron, Putin
There are increasing signs that Turkey’s dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, aims to turn his nation into the dominant component of a new Islamic caliphate, controlling even more territory than the Ottoman Empire.
Islam expert and author Joel Richardson wrote shortly after Turkey’s controversial election in which Erdogan was given virtually unrestricted power that analysts in recent years tried “to shout down warnings that Erdogan has a desire to return to the Ottoman era.”
“Today those same critics are taking a fresh look at the man they once made excuses for and even championed,” he wrote.
On the day Erdogan won the referendum allowing him to rewrite the Turkish constitution, effectively ending the secular democratic Republic of Turkey as envisioned by Ataturk, he made “a very symbolic statement,” Richardson wrote.
“Not only did he specifically avoid visiting the tomb of Ataturk (who turned Turkey into a secular government), but instead, he visited the tomb of Sultan Selim I.”
Richardson explained that Selim the Grim ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520 and was most remembered for his expansionist conquest over Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
“Erdogan was sending a very clear message. The era of Ataturk is over. There is a new Sultan Selim the Grim in power,” Richardson wrote.
Erdogan’s intentions are becoming clearer. He told an interviewer during a recent trip to Africa, for example, his nation now has 39 embassies on the continent, up from 13.
He’s also boasted of his one-on-one talks with Pope Francis, French President Emmanuel Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders.
The Turkish leader discussed his recent trip to Sudan, Chad and Tunisia, Muslim-majority nations in Africa.
The trip brought to 24 the number of African countries Erdogan has visited, the report said.
“We still hope we can prevail in every country of the African continent through our embassies, and we are going to achieve that because we are very determined,” Erdogan said in the interview.
“We are always trying to explore new ways of solidifying our relations with the African nations,” he continued. “We have many commonalities.”
The issue of President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel came up immediately in the questioning, with the interviewer speculating about Erdogan’s response to Africa’s “more than 500 million” Muslims on the issue.
“For the Islamic world, Al-Aqsa Mosque is very important important … and of course, Al-Quds (the Arabic word for Jerusalem) is very important for Christians,” Erdogan said.
The Turkish leader said he’s discussed the conflict – the Palestinians insist Jerusalem will be the capital of a future Palestinian state – with many Muslims and others.
“I’ve called his holiness the pope and I’ve shared my thoughts and opinions with him. … And praise Allah, he is thinking alike. I’ve spoken to the German chancellor, and similarly President Macron of France; I’ve talked to him. And I’ve also talked to President Putin of Russia.”
He said Jerusalem “is not an outstanding problem for the Muslims of the world. This is an outstanding issue for all of us.”
Erdogan said the world should look back to 1967, when there was “the possibility of recognizing Eastern Jersualem as the capital of the state of Palestine.”
However, it was Israel’s neighbors who initiated the Six-Day War in 1967 in which the Jewish state regained Jerusalem.
He cited the recent vote in the U.N. by 128 countries to condemn the U.S. decision recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Ergodan said that going forward, Trump must “review the situation that he is in” and he “needs” to “say yes to two-state solution in Palestine.”
“But if we’re not defending peace and if we want the Middle East to get pushed into a further conflict and turmoil, then the price will be upon President Trump and Israel,” he threatened.
He said Trump actually isn’t important to the process.
“The step to be taken forward after this moment is all about the 128 countries siding with Palestine and all of the countries which had reservations. We should get together and take up an initiative. Palestine should be recognized as an independent and sovereign state by all of these nations that voted in favor this afternoon at the U.N. And after that is accomplished, the U.S., willingly or non-willingly, will have to interpret this situation accurately.”
Erdogan expressed a commitment to “cooperate” with all of Africa.
“Whether it be culture or whether it be business-related or whether it would be political, we are ready and committed to cooperate with all of our friends across the African continent. And the number-one priority for us is solidarity with our African brothers and sisters in all of these areas I have listed previously.”
He complained that the U.S. has not turned over to him his chief political opponent and critic, Fethullah Gulen, and said if there are terrorists in his country that the U.S. wants, he also would say no to extradition.
Erdogan said he opposes slave markets in Muslim nations, because they are “prohibited internally by our religion.”
Richardson, who wrote “Islamic Antichrist: The Shocking Truth about the Real Nature of the Beast,” cited the Old Testament in warning that a “last-days invasion of Israel that would specifically be led by Turkey.”
“In my book ‘Mideast Beast,’ I carefully work through Ezekiel’s prophecy to show how the Bible doesn’t point to a last-days Russian-led invasion of Israel, but instead points to an invasion led by Turkey. For the false perceptions of the early 21st century to become the grim reality described in the Bible, however, much had to change. These changes, as we’ve now witnessed, took far less time than most could have ever imagined. As recently as 2012, President Obama named Turkey’s current President Erdogan as one of his top three closest friends among world leaders. A quick five years later, Erdogan has emerged as one of the most dangerous dictators of our day.”
Richardson pointed out that since Erdogan “has assumed complete control of Turkey, there are now more journalists in prison there than any other nation on the earth.’
“The AKP-led government has assumed complete control over virtually every media outlet in the nation. The president has even sought to arrest his critics in nations as far abroad as Germany and the United States. Erdogan openly stated that he has imprisoned foreign citizens to use as bargaining chips in his hope that foreign governments will extradite his critics to Turkey for punishment. Well over a hundred thousand of its own citizens have either been indefinitely imprisoned or fired from their jobs on suspicion of supporting opposition perspectives. Throughout the nation, men and woman continue to disappear randomly and suddenly, literally snatched off the streets simply for suspicion of holding critical views of the president. The elderly, those with incapacitating illnesses, pregnant women and even babies are now routinely incarcerated. The current national roundup of Erdogan’s enemies, or political opponents, is eerily reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Yet this is just the beginning.”
He cites Erdogan’s threats to Europe, his attacks on U.S. allies in northern Syria and Iraq, and how he “openly brags about it, taunting us to do anything about it.”
http://www.wnd.com/2017/12/look-whos-got-eye-on-becoming-global-caliph/
A New Asia-to-Europe Railway Route Is Opening Up
Azerbaijan opened a long-delayed railway through the Caucasus region that’s intended to become a new transport corridor for goods carried between Asia and Europe
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-railway-planned-as-new-europe-china-corridor
Germany prepares for business forum with Azerbaijan
https://www.azernews.az/business/119973.html
Turkey Is Building A Gigantic Railway Network That Will Connect Europe With Asia
http://shoebat.com/2017/12/23/turke...s-erdogan-works-to-revive-the-ottoman-empire/
Turkey will rebuild a ruined Ottoman port city on Sudan’s Red Sea coast and construct a naval dock to maintain civilian and military vessels
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...d-sea-port-and-build-naval-dock-idUSKBN1EK0ZC
Turkey sets up largest overseas army base in Somalia
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/...erseas-army-base-somalia-171001073820818.html
Turkey Is Reviving The Ottoman Empire And Biblical Cush Is Welcoming Turkey In Submission, As The Government Of Sudan Is Now Allowing Turkey To Expand Its Military Into Sudan
http://shoebat.com/2017/12/27/turke...ing-turkey-to-expand-its-military-into-sudan/
Saudi king receives, holds talks with Turkish prime minister
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/Ne...-holds-talks-with-Turkish-prime-minister.html
Turkey’s Erdogan Calls Syria’s Assad a Terrorist, Says Impossible to Continue With Him
https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/12/...rrorist-says-impossible-to-continue-with-him/[/QUOTE]
Erdogan: Kurds Are ‘Collaborators in the Postmodern Crusades’
http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...ogan-kurds-collaborators-postmodern-crusades/
Erdogan: Syria offensive could expand as far as Iraq border
Ragnarok: Sounding more and more like a Hitleresque type...
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/01/26/550230/Syria-Turkey-Iraq-United-States-Kurds-Afrin
Turkish operations in Syria to reach up to Manbij and Iraqi border: Erdoğan
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/tu...-up-to-manbij-and-iraqi-border-erdogan-126331
Erdogan: Obama administration cheated Turkey in Syria
The administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama “failed to keep its promises” to Turkey in Syria, not following up its pledge to “leave Manbij to its rightful owners,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/er...nbij-to-thwart-games-along-its-borders-126224
Erdogan vows to expand military operation from Afrin to Manbij
Ragnarok: This is reminding me of another period in time where a world leader promised he would not make any further territorial demands after the return of the Sudentenland
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/Ne...-military-operation-from-Afrin-to-Manbij.html
Erdogan: Islamic Education Will Forge ‘Pious Generation’ to Build ‘New Civilization’ for Turkey
http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...ous-generation-build-new-civilization-turkey/
Erdogan is on a crash course with the US
The offensive against the Kurds in Syria is a red line. Experts say the latest Turkish provocation is bringing a confrontation closer
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/241176
Erdogan to Trump: US should withdraw from Syria’s Manbij
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/Ne...p-US-should-withdraw-from-Syria-s-Manbij.html
ERDOGAN TO US: GET OUT OF THE WAY SO WE CAN KILL KURDS
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/26...-way-so-we-can-kill-kurds-kenneth-r-timmerman
Turkish religious authority calls for ‘conquest’ sermon in support of military
http://gnnliberia.com/2018/01/21/turkish-religious-authority-calls-conquest-sermon-support-military/
Erdogan Makes Good on Threats to ‘Suffocate’ US
https://clarionproject.org/erdogan-suffocate-threats-us/
Turkey renovating historic Ottoman-era sites in Sudan
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/tu...an-era-sites-on-suakin-island-in-sudan-126228
Erdogan’s Military Advisors Announce Their Hidden Plan To Invade Jerusalem By A Massive Invasion Of The Muslims
The article by Turkey’s main government media Yeni Safak was intended to encourage the Muslim populace to unity and the map (in green) reveals the flying dragon honing on the red little spec (Israel)
https://www.yenisafak.com/gundem/israile-karsi-islam-ordusu-kurulsa-2906245
Translation of the above article can, also, be found at MEMRI:
Turkish Newspaper Close To President Erdogan Calls To Form Joint Islamic Army To Fight Israel
On December 12, 2017, ahead of the summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, the Turkish daily Yeni Şafak, which is close to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling AKP party, published an article titled "A Call for Urgent Action,"[1] which also appeared on the paper's website under the title “What If an Army of Islam Was Formed against Israel?"[2] The article called on the 57 member states of the OIC to form a joint "Army of Islam" to besiege and attack the state of Israel. It notes that such a joint army will greatly exceed the Israeli army in manpower, equipment and budget, and presents statistics to prove this. It also advocates establishing joint bases for the army's ground, air and naval forces that will arrive from all over the Muslim world to besiege Israel, while noting that Pakistan, as the only nuclear country, has "a special status" among the OIC countries. An interactive map provides information on military forces stationed in various locations and the role they can play in the potential joint Muslim attack on Israel.
The main points of the article are taken from the website of the Turkish SADAT International Defense and Consulting Company, which provides consultancy on defense and warfare, both conventional and unconventional, and on military organization, training and gear. The company has an agenda of promoting pan-Islamic military cooperation. According to its mission statement, it seeks "to establish defense collaboration and defense industry cooperation among Islamic countries, to help the Islamic world take its rightful place among the superpowers by providing... strategic consultancy and training services to the militaries and homeland security forces of Islamic countries."[3]
According to Israeli security sources, the SADAT company is involved in aiding Hamas, and seeks to assist – with funds and military gear – the creation of a "Palestine Army" to fight Israel.[4]
The SADAT company was founded by Erdoğan’s senior advisor on military affairs, retired general Adnan Tanrıverdi, and is chaired by his son, Melih Tanrıverdi. Adnan Tanrıverdi (b. 1944) served in the Turkish army's Artillery Corps and headed the Home Front Command in northern Cyprus. He is an expert on assymetric warfare, and was dismissed from the Turkish military in 1996 for his Islamists leadnings. A former Turkish army officer, Ahmet Yavuz, described him as "an enemy of Atatürk" and stated that his dismissal from the army was not surprising.[5]
The Yeni Şafak article is based on a PDF booklet featuring a number of articles by Tanrıverdi, as well as other materials, that appeared on the homepage of SADAT's website and has since been removed.[6] Some of the articles are virulently anti-Israel and promote the goal of arming the Palestinians and forming an Army of Islam to eliminate Israel.
One of these articles, titled "SADAT and the Future of the Muslim World" describes Israel as "the outpost of the new Crusade and a dagger in the heart of Islam," and "the eyes, ears and fist of the Christian World." A second article, titled "How to Solve the Palestinian Question?" emphasizes the need to utilize the OIC as the basis for a permanent defense cooperation committee, and also describes his vision of establishing military bases for the purpose of liberating Palestine. An article titled "Palestine Too Should Have an Army" articulates Tanrıverdi's vision of forming a Palestinian army equipped with tanks and other heavy weaponry, and adds that this army, along with a united Army of Islam, can bring about Israel's military defeat within 10 days and its diplomatic defeat within 20 days.
The fact that Yeni Şafak echoes Tanrıverdi's articles indicates that regime-associated media is promoting an agenda of attacking Israel.
Tanrıverdi Associate Arrested In Israel On Suspicion Of Aiding Hamas
Recently, Israel became aware of Tanrıverdi's activities after it arrested a Turkish academic, Cemil Tekeli, on suspicion of aiding Hamas terrorists in Turkey. According to the Israeli paper Makor Rishon, Tekeli, who has since been deported to Turkey, is a close associate of Adnan Tanrıverdi. The Makor Rishon report featured a photo of him with both Adnan and Melih Tanrıverdi:[7]
The following are excerpts from the Yeni Şafak article, along with some of the images and infographics that accompanied it. Bold text was highlighted in the original :
"This Wednesday, Istanbul will host an extraordinary summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, at which decisions on military and economic issues will presumably be made. In this framework, it becomes evident that the member states' [joint] military might greatly exceeds that of Israel. Moreover, in a possible military operation, this superiority [can] be realized on the ground by [setting up] joint military bases for ground, air and naval forces. Below are a map and statistics presenting a comparison between Israel and the [proposed] Army of Islam…
"What If An Army Of Islam Was Formed Against Israel?
"If the OIC member states unite and form a joint military force, it will be the largest army in the world. These countries' total population is 1,674,526,931. The number of soldiers in active service in these countries is at least 5,206,100. Their [overall] military defense budget, of $174,728,420, is also worthy of emphasis.
"Half Of Istanbul
"As for Israel, it is significantly inferior. The population of this country, which attempted to occupy Jerusalem while surrounded by Muslim states, is 8,049,314. Note that the population of Istanbul alone exceeds 14 million. The number of soldiers in active service in the [Israeli] occupation forces is 160,000, and [Israel's] defense budget is approximately $15, 600,000,000.
Infographic comparing the OIC countries with the Israel:
"Defense Budget: OIC: $174,728,420; Israel: $15,600,000. Population: OIC: 1,674,526,931; Israel: 8,049,314. Soldiers: OIC: 5,206,100; Israel: 160,000"
"Islamic Countries Will Lay Siege To Israel
"Among the decisions that can be taken at the OIC [summit] is to form a 'Jerusalem Task Group.' In this framework, military steps are likely to be taken. The [Muslim] armies, ranging from Africa to Asia, surpass the Israeli [army in might]. So if an Islamic army is formed, Israel will be under a siege.
"At The First Stage: 250 Thousand Soldiers
"In a possible military operation, the first step is expected to involve 250,000 soldiers, and the establishment of joint land, air and naval bases for use in the short term.
"500 tanks and armored vehicles, 100 war planes, 500 attack helicopters and 50 warships and submarines can be mobilized.
Interactive map providing information on particular bases and missions in a possible operation against Israel. Clicking on various locations provides the following information, for example:
"Eskişehir – Konya - Kilis: In case of a military operation, air bases in various locations will house 100 planes and 500 attack helicopters, and also serve as reinforcement and supply bases. 250,000 military staff, including pilots, will be ready for duty.
[Northern] Cyprus: In case of a military operation, the 50 warships and submarines stationed in naval bases can take an active role [in the fight] against Israel in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The Turkish navy, among others, will participate in the operation. Together the forces will comprise 250,000 men.
"Military Bases Close to Israel Available For Immediate Action
"The war planes that will be dispatched to the region from greater distances will be stationed in airbases [closer to Israel]. Israel will most likely to be besieged by the naval fleets that will be sent to the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
"The Necessary Equipment Exists
"The military capability of the OIC member states is considerable. These armies have the necessary equipment to carry out a military operation on land, sea and air.
"Even Turkey Alone Is Superior [To Israel]
"Turkey will serve as an important headquarters during the operation, due to its land, air and naval infrastructures. The Turkish army, which carried out 'Operation Euphrates Shield' [in Syria in 2017] with great success, is now ranked the world’s seventh strongest army, and the second largest army among the NATO powers. Turkey has approximately 4,000 tanks and 1,000 war planes and other aircraft. Its navy made significant progress during the last years, with 194 vessels at its disposal.
"As the only country which possesses nuclear weapons, Pakistan has an important status among the 57 Muslim [OIC] countries...
"Those who believe that they are the owners of Jerusalem today will not find a single tree to hide behind tomorrow"
"Asia's Military Defiance
"In a statement, Malaysian Defense Minister [Hishammuddin] Hussein described Trump’s recognition [of Jerusalem as Israel's capital] as a blow to Muslims, and added: 'The Malaysian armed forces are ready to fulfill their duty regarding Jerusalem.'
"Turkey Is Forming Alliances
"In recent years, Turkey has launched a series of collaborations with [OIC] member states. The joint military drill with our Iraqi neighbors conveyed a clear message to the terrorists, and Turkey is [also] engaging in new collaborations with Qatar, Somalia and other Gulf and African countries. In this context it should be underlined that Turkey is taking steps to realize the model of the 'Army of Islam,' forging alliances with many Muslim countries to increase its military mobility."
[1] Yeni Şafak (Turkey), December 12, 2017.
[2] Yenisafak.com, December 12, 2017.
[3] Sadat.com.tr/about-us/our-mission.html.
[4] Shabak.gov.il, February 14, 2018.
[5] Cnnturk.com, August, 17,2016.
[6] The booklet is available from MEMRI upon request.
[7] Makor Rishon (Israel), February 18, 2018.
https://www.memri.org/reports/turki...ls-form-joint-islamic-army-fight-israel#_edn2
Report Affirms That Turkey Is Purging Afrin Of All Christians And Is Going To Replace Them With Syrian Refugees
Christian activists warn that 1 million Syrian civilians will face certain slaughter in northwestern Afrin, where they allege Turkey and its militant allies have already carried out "war crimes" and "ethnic cleansing."
They have appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump and top U.S. officials to stop the bloodshed, warning that failure to act jeopardizes the hard-fought U.S.-led military campaign against Islamic State in Syria.
Civilians from other parts of Syria and outside the country have reportedly offered to stand as "human shields" between the Kurdish-backed fighters and Turkish forces set to storm Afrin.
Cardinal Mario Zenari, apostolic nuncio to Syria, said, "I have never seen so much violence as in Syria." In remarks March 9, he likened the situation to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The nuncio called the situation in the war-ravaged land "hell on earth," especially for vulnerable children.
In March, Syria's conflict entered its eighth year. More than 350,000 people have died, 5 million are refugees and 6.3 million civilians are displaced within the country.
Syria is currently "one of the most dangerous places for children," Cardinal Zenari said. "It's terrible. I always say, it's a massacre of the innocents."
Two Christian activists, Bassam Ishak and Lauren Homer, told Catholic News Service of the relentless assault by Turkey and militants from hardline jihadist movements, including the so-called Islamic State.
"Turkey has committed war crimes and ethnic cleansing already in Afrin and the Federation of Northern Syria," or FNS, they told CNS.
Ishak heads the Syriac National Council and is a member of the political bureau of the Syrian Democratic Council. He is a graduate of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Homer, an Anglican, is a Washington, D.C.-based international human rights lawyer.
"Turkey has already 'cleared' villages of Yazidis, Kurds, Christians and others, promising to replace them with Syrian refugees. In fact, Afrin already has enlarged its population by 50 percent to house (internally displaced) Syrians, who are among those being killed, injured or captured," they said.
People in and around Afrin are facing the warplanes, tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons of NATO's second-largest standing army, Turkey.
A local health authority reported more than 220 dead and 600 civilians injured in this mainly Kurdish area of northwestern Syria, some 30 miles from Aleppo.
Videos and photos from Afrin taken by both Kurds and members of the Turkish forces depict bombed-out houses, mangled bodies of children killed by the blasts and civilians being herded away.
Largely untouched by Syria's deadly conflict until recently, this part of the Federation of Northern Syria succeeded in creating a nonsectarian, pluralist, inclusive government system not seen elsewhere in the Middle East in which there is religious freedom and equal rights are granted to all.
Activists are calling for an immediate no-fly zone over Afrin, enforced by U.S. drones or warplanes; implementation of the Feb. 24 U.N. Security Council resolution requiring a cease-fire by Turkey in Afrin; humanitarian aid and safe passage out for civilians; and mediation of a long-term cease-fire and withdrawal of Turkish troops to its own borders -- potentially with promises of U.S. or U.N. border monitors.
Meanwhile, the Kurdish council that governs Afrin demanded the U.N. Security Council establish a no-fly zone over Afrin and forcibly respond to the Turkish offensive.
"This U.N. and U.S. and NATO inaction will go down in infamy as an inconceivable abandonment of our 'allies' the SDF and the FNS. Genocide seems to be only something we are interested in in retrospect, to mourn and wring our hands over," Homer warned.
Anti-aircraft weapons are needed to stop the attacks, observers say, but the Syrian Democratic Forces, composed of Kurdish and Christian fighters, were never given the necessary arms. At this point, U.S. aerial patrols would be needed. The Kurds and Christian fighters largely won the U.S.-led battle against Islamic State in Syria.
"Military solutions are no real solutions. Taking Afrin will not solve any problems, neither the internal problems for Turkey in the long run, nor will it help solve any issue that is part of the Syrian question," Ishak told CNS. Turkey says it is battling Kurdish "terrorists" as its pretext for invading Afrin.
"Instead, it will just further complicate the situation and increase the level of competition between actors jockeying for influence in Syria," Ishak said.
Meanwhile, the Syrian military, backed with Russian airpower, carried out intensive ground and aerial assaults on the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. Syrian government forces have reportedly captured more than half of the area.
The international medical charity Doctors Without Borders said more than 1,000 civilians have been killed in the area since late February, while almost 400,000 residents are living under heavy bombardment, after having been subjected to nearly five years of siege, lacking food and medicines.
Pope Francis has repeatedly called on the international community to intervene in Syria to help end the violence. Calling the war in Syria "inhumane," Pope Francis urged for an end to the fighting, immediate access to humanitarian aid and the evacuation of the injured and infirm.
http://www.catholicnews.com/service...of-slaughter-of-syrian-civilians-in-afrin.cfm
Turkey’s quickly growing influence in Europe is an underestimated threat
Turkish increasing influence and power over the Turks and the Muslims in Europe is the single most imminent threat to European security.
The European establishment is looking the other way, while the Turks are slowly increasing their foothold in Europe. the EU prefers to mock Putin rather than confront Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP. Meanwhile the Turkish state and especially its ministry of the religious affairs uses the Turkish diaspora in Europe to acquire political power on the continent.
There is no separation between state and religion in Turkey. The religious organization Diyanet that operates under the Turkish ministry of religious affairs has about 2000 outposts in Europe. The Gefira team located about 1300 of them, mostly mosques. There is no other political or religious organization in Europe with leaders from outside it that has such a widespread network across the European Union, and whose ideology is alien to the native Europeans.
Diyanet, the Directorate of Religious Affairs, was established in 1924 to keep control over the religious communities in Turkey. The Kemalists created Diyanet as a replacement for the Shaykh al-Islam, which was the most important spiritual organization within the Ottoman Empire. Since the rise to power of the AKP, the role of religion has been restored in the Turkish domestic and foreign policy. President Tayyip Erdoğan sees the Turks as heirs to Osman Gazim, the founder of the Ottoman empire. Diyanet is the religious organisation that has taken over the role of Shayk al-Islam. Western political strategists should not underestimate the power of Islam and nationalism in a combination with Neo-Ottoman ambitions. The head of the Turkish religious organization, Professor Dr Ali Erbaş, tweeted on 6 April: “The fundamental purpose of our existence is to dominate the world”.
During the 1980s the plan was to integrate Turkey with Europe. When in the 1990s,the European establishment accepted mass immigration the media, academia and political class assured the people that migrants from North Africa and Central Asia would become British, German, French or Dutch; that they were coming to Europe to enjoy European lifestyle, and values. The Turks had a specials status because they were slated for becoming an EU member state. Not only was it envisaged that the Turks would become Europeans, but Asian Minor would become Europe.
It may come as no surprise that the Turks have another plan. The hostilities between the Turks and the Europeans trace back to the First Crusade when the Turkic Seljuks arrived in the old Christian East Roman Empire, Byzantium. Since then there have been continuous wars between the Europeans and the Ottoman Turks. The Ottomans conquered the Balkans and even reached Vienna. At the end of the First World War their empire was nearly destroyed by the Great Powers, and the Sultan had to abdicate. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk took power and began to modernise the country, doing away with the Arabic influence.
Western analysts believed that Turkey was on its way to morph into the Western culture, democracy, universal human right, secularism and market capitalism. A thousand years after they entered Anatolia and provoked the First Crusade, the Turkish history seemed to have reached its end. A thousand years of hatred and cultural difference between Europeans now seemed to belong to the past. It was just a matter of time and the Seljuks would accept transgender toilets, neo-liberal capitalism run by Wall Street, gay marriage, endless Brussels enforced regulations and gender equality. At least this is what the European civil servants believed in.
Many western ill-informed academics travelled to Istanbul to portray the city as the bridge between modern Europe and the Islamic world. German state television keeps telling its viewers how the peasants from Anatolia have moved to Istanbul and transformed into cosmopolitan Western-oriented global citizens. The reality is that this mass movement of Turkish Muslims from the countryside into Istanbul converted Istanbul into the launch pad for Erdoğan’s Islamic-Nationalistic party the AKP. The AKP want to re-established Turkey as an Ottoman Islamic country. The Ottoman empire was never limited to Anatolia. When the Seljuk Turks, the predecessors of the Ottomans, arrived from Central Asia into the Byzantine Empire, they never became a majority. Rather, they took advantage of the fact that the societies and tribes in Asia Minor lacked coherence and a uniting religion. This situation resembles present-day Europe.
Diyanet is nowadays a pan-European political and religious force that not only attracts Islamic and nationalistic Turks but also appeals to other Muslims who live in Europe. While the Arab rulers despise the Turks, one should not forget that the Turks ruled Mecca and Medina for centuries. Many Muslims in Europe prefer the Turks as their rulers to the native Westerners. The Ottomans in Ankara are trying to unite all Muslim migrants in Europe under the Turkish banner, and they will also have broad support from the less devoted Turkish nationalists.
We do not pretend that we know the exact motivations and strategy of the Turkish ruling establishment; however, their action in combination with common sense gives us some direction. There is a continuous tension between the Muslim community in Europe and the native Europeans. The European governments cannot afford to have an outright military confrontation with Muslims on the European continent.
A war between the Orthodox Christians on the Balkans, whether it is between Serbia and Albania or Greece and Turkey, will have its repercussions in the Islamic communities in the suburbs of Berlin, Paris and Amsterdam. The Islamic population will unconditionally side with their Islamic brethren whether they are Moroccans Turks or Algerians. In such a conflict any Islamic suffering will stir protests and riots in Western European cities. This divide among the European inhabitants will prevent European leadership from standing by the European Union’s allies Greece and Cyprus, and will force them to refrain from granting support to any party in the current conflict between Greece, Cyprus and Turkey.
We believe that Diyanet (and through it Ankara) will become the sole mediator between European Islamic communities and the Western authorities. Diyanet is growing to a social-religious organization within the local communities of Europe. Without the aid from Diyanet or other foreign religious organizations European authorities will not be able to enforce law and order in the Islamic suburbs of Paris, Toulouse or large and small cities in Germany and the Netherlands in the near future. When Diyanet has established itself as the social representative of the many local communities in Europe, regional and national authorities can only keep control over the neighbourhoods through the Directorate of Religious Affairs in Ankara.
Within 10 to 20 years the European cities will be occupied by a majority of non-Western citizens while the European countryside will have a white population. The lack of national identity on the one hand in Europe and the emergence of the political Islam on the other gives the Turks the possibility to gain power on the Old Continent.
For most Westerners the idea that Hanover or Rotterdam will become Turkish territory sounds as incredible as for most Chinese in 1840 the idea that Hong Kong would become a British enclave. The populations of Rotterdam, Hanover or Marseilles may at one day hold a referendum that hands over the power of these cities from Berlin, the Hague or Paris to Ankara.
Like the separatists in Crimea who got the support of Moscow, such separatist movements will find full support of the rulers of the modern-day Ottoman empire. While such a scenario seems miles away, those who understand history, geopolitics and demographics realize that it could happen within two or three decades.
https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/05/t...luence-in-europe-is-an-underestimated-threat/
Erdogan: Borders of Turkish province stretch from Vienna to Adriatic and China
https://www.nordicmonitor.com/2019/...ch-to-vienna-adriatic-and-china-erdogan-says/
( 1:25 ) Erdogan Izmir rally speech for his party convention on Jan.5, 2019 ( Turn on Subtitles )
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the borders of Turkish province in his heart starts from Vienna, Adriatic Sea, Eastern Turkistan, China's the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the north of Black Sea.
Speaking to his faithful followers in Turkey’s western province Izmir on Saturday, he said the borders of Izmir province is so vast and deep in his heart that they cannot be restricted to physical borders.
“For us the borders of Izmir province starts from Vienna, Adriatic Sea, Eastern Turkistan and the north of Black Sea”’ he remarked.
“We see Izmir as the heart of not only Turkey but also this geography in our heart”, he emphasized, adding to that “the pulse that is being beating in this [convention] hall is the pulse of this geography”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1uBXtdW03Q
TURKEY'S ERDOGAN HAS EYE ON BECOMING GLOBAL CALIPH
Expands Muslim outreach to 39 African embassies, boasts of talks with pope, Macron, Putin
There are increasing signs that Turkey’s dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, aims to turn his nation into the dominant component of a new Islamic caliphate, controlling even more territory than the Ottoman Empire.
Islam expert and author Joel Richardson wrote shortly after Turkey’s controversial election in which Erdogan was given virtually unrestricted power that analysts in recent years tried “to shout down warnings that Erdogan has a desire to return to the Ottoman era.”
“Today those same critics are taking a fresh look at the man they once made excuses for and even championed,” he wrote.
On the day Erdogan won the referendum allowing him to rewrite the Turkish constitution, effectively ending the secular democratic Republic of Turkey as envisioned by Ataturk, he made “a very symbolic statement,” Richardson wrote.
“Not only did he specifically avoid visiting the tomb of Ataturk (who turned Turkey into a secular government), but instead, he visited the tomb of Sultan Selim I.”
Richardson explained that Selim the Grim ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520 and was most remembered for his expansionist conquest over Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
“Erdogan was sending a very clear message. The era of Ataturk is over. There is a new Sultan Selim the Grim in power,” Richardson wrote.
Erdogan’s intentions are becoming clearer. He told an interviewer during a recent trip to Africa, for example, his nation now has 39 embassies on the continent, up from 13.
He’s also boasted of his one-on-one talks with Pope Francis, French President Emmanuel Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders.
The Turkish leader discussed his recent trip to Sudan, Chad and Tunisia, Muslim-majority nations in Africa.
The trip brought to 24 the number of African countries Erdogan has visited, the report said.
“We still hope we can prevail in every country of the African continent through our embassies, and we are going to achieve that because we are very determined,” Erdogan said in the interview.
“We are always trying to explore new ways of solidifying our relations with the African nations,” he continued. “We have many commonalities.”
The issue of President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel came up immediately in the questioning, with the interviewer speculating about Erdogan’s response to Africa’s “more than 500 million” Muslims on the issue.
“For the Islamic world, Al-Aqsa Mosque is very important important … and of course, Al-Quds (the Arabic word for Jerusalem) is very important for Christians,” Erdogan said.
The Turkish leader said he’s discussed the conflict – the Palestinians insist Jerusalem will be the capital of a future Palestinian state – with many Muslims and others.
“I’ve called his holiness the pope and I’ve shared my thoughts and opinions with him. … And praise Allah, he is thinking alike. I’ve spoken to the German chancellor, and similarly President Macron of France; I’ve talked to him. And I’ve also talked to President Putin of Russia.”
He said Jerusalem “is not an outstanding problem for the Muslims of the world. This is an outstanding issue for all of us.”
Erdogan said the world should look back to 1967, when there was “the possibility of recognizing Eastern Jersualem as the capital of the state of Palestine.”
However, it was Israel’s neighbors who initiated the Six-Day War in 1967 in which the Jewish state regained Jerusalem.
He cited the recent vote in the U.N. by 128 countries to condemn the U.S. decision recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Ergodan said that going forward, Trump must “review the situation that he is in” and he “needs” to “say yes to two-state solution in Palestine.”
“But if we’re not defending peace and if we want the Middle East to get pushed into a further conflict and turmoil, then the price will be upon President Trump and Israel,” he threatened.
He said Trump actually isn’t important to the process.
“The step to be taken forward after this moment is all about the 128 countries siding with Palestine and all of the countries which had reservations. We should get together and take up an initiative. Palestine should be recognized as an independent and sovereign state by all of these nations that voted in favor this afternoon at the U.N. And after that is accomplished, the U.S., willingly or non-willingly, will have to interpret this situation accurately.”
Erdogan expressed a commitment to “cooperate” with all of Africa.
“Whether it be culture or whether it be business-related or whether it would be political, we are ready and committed to cooperate with all of our friends across the African continent. And the number-one priority for us is solidarity with our African brothers and sisters in all of these areas I have listed previously.”
He complained that the U.S. has not turned over to him his chief political opponent and critic, Fethullah Gulen, and said if there are terrorists in his country that the U.S. wants, he also would say no to extradition.
Erdogan said he opposes slave markets in Muslim nations, because they are “prohibited internally by our religion.”
Richardson, who wrote “Islamic Antichrist: The Shocking Truth about the Real Nature of the Beast,” cited the Old Testament in warning that a “last-days invasion of Israel that would specifically be led by Turkey.”
“In my book ‘Mideast Beast,’ I carefully work through Ezekiel’s prophecy to show how the Bible doesn’t point to a last-days Russian-led invasion of Israel, but instead points to an invasion led by Turkey. For the false perceptions of the early 21st century to become the grim reality described in the Bible, however, much had to change. These changes, as we’ve now witnessed, took far less time than most could have ever imagined. As recently as 2012, President Obama named Turkey’s current President Erdogan as one of his top three closest friends among world leaders. A quick five years later, Erdogan has emerged as one of the most dangerous dictators of our day.”
Richardson pointed out that since Erdogan “has assumed complete control of Turkey, there are now more journalists in prison there than any other nation on the earth.’
“The AKP-led government has assumed complete control over virtually every media outlet in the nation. The president has even sought to arrest his critics in nations as far abroad as Germany and the United States. Erdogan openly stated that he has imprisoned foreign citizens to use as bargaining chips in his hope that foreign governments will extradite his critics to Turkey for punishment. Well over a hundred thousand of its own citizens have either been indefinitely imprisoned or fired from their jobs on suspicion of supporting opposition perspectives. Throughout the nation, men and woman continue to disappear randomly and suddenly, literally snatched off the streets simply for suspicion of holding critical views of the president. The elderly, those with incapacitating illnesses, pregnant women and even babies are now routinely incarcerated. The current national roundup of Erdogan’s enemies, or political opponents, is eerily reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Yet this is just the beginning.”
He cites Erdogan’s threats to Europe, his attacks on U.S. allies in northern Syria and Iraq, and how he “openly brags about it, taunting us to do anything about it.”
http://www.wnd.com/2017/12/look-whos-got-eye-on-becoming-global-caliph/
A New Asia-to-Europe Railway Route Is Opening Up
Azerbaijan opened a long-delayed railway through the Caucasus region that’s intended to become a new transport corridor for goods carried between Asia and Europe
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-railway-planned-as-new-europe-china-corridor
Germany prepares for business forum with Azerbaijan
https://www.azernews.az/business/119973.html
Turkey Is Building A Gigantic Railway Network That Will Connect Europe With Asia
http://shoebat.com/2017/12/23/turke...s-erdogan-works-to-revive-the-ottoman-empire/
Turkey will rebuild a ruined Ottoman port city on Sudan’s Red Sea coast and construct a naval dock to maintain civilian and military vessels
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...d-sea-port-and-build-naval-dock-idUSKBN1EK0ZC
Turkey sets up largest overseas army base in Somalia
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/...erseas-army-base-somalia-171001073820818.html
Turkey Is Reviving The Ottoman Empire And Biblical Cush Is Welcoming Turkey In Submission, As The Government Of Sudan Is Now Allowing Turkey To Expand Its Military Into Sudan
http://shoebat.com/2017/12/27/turke...ing-turkey-to-expand-its-military-into-sudan/
Saudi king receives, holds talks with Turkish prime minister
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/Ne...-holds-talks-with-Turkish-prime-minister.html
Turkey’s Erdogan Calls Syria’s Assad a Terrorist, Says Impossible to Continue With Him
https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/12/...rrorist-says-impossible-to-continue-with-him/[/QUOTE]
Erdogan: Kurds Are ‘Collaborators in the Postmodern Crusades’
http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...ogan-kurds-collaborators-postmodern-crusades/
Erdogan: Syria offensive could expand as far as Iraq border
Ragnarok: Sounding more and more like a Hitleresque type...
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/01/26/550230/Syria-Turkey-Iraq-United-States-Kurds-Afrin
Turkish operations in Syria to reach up to Manbij and Iraqi border: Erdoğan
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/tu...-up-to-manbij-and-iraqi-border-erdogan-126331
Erdogan: Obama administration cheated Turkey in Syria
The administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama “failed to keep its promises” to Turkey in Syria, not following up its pledge to “leave Manbij to its rightful owners,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/er...nbij-to-thwart-games-along-its-borders-126224
Erdogan vows to expand military operation from Afrin to Manbij
Ragnarok: This is reminding me of another period in time where a world leader promised he would not make any further territorial demands after the return of the Sudentenland
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/Ne...-military-operation-from-Afrin-to-Manbij.html
Erdogan: Islamic Education Will Forge ‘Pious Generation’ to Build ‘New Civilization’ for Turkey
http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...ous-generation-build-new-civilization-turkey/
Erdogan is on a crash course with the US
The offensive against the Kurds in Syria is a red line. Experts say the latest Turkish provocation is bringing a confrontation closer
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/241176
Erdogan to Trump: US should withdraw from Syria’s Manbij
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/Ne...p-US-should-withdraw-from-Syria-s-Manbij.html
ERDOGAN TO US: GET OUT OF THE WAY SO WE CAN KILL KURDS
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/26...-way-so-we-can-kill-kurds-kenneth-r-timmerman
Turkish religious authority calls for ‘conquest’ sermon in support of military
http://gnnliberia.com/2018/01/21/turkish-religious-authority-calls-conquest-sermon-support-military/
Erdogan Makes Good on Threats to ‘Suffocate’ US
https://clarionproject.org/erdogan-suffocate-threats-us/
Turkey renovating historic Ottoman-era sites in Sudan
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/tu...an-era-sites-on-suakin-island-in-sudan-126228
Erdogan’s Military Advisors Announce Their Hidden Plan To Invade Jerusalem By A Massive Invasion Of The Muslims
The article by Turkey’s main government media Yeni Safak was intended to encourage the Muslim populace to unity and the map (in green) reveals the flying dragon honing on the red little spec (Israel)
https://www.yenisafak.com/gundem/israile-karsi-islam-ordusu-kurulsa-2906245
Translation of the above article can, also, be found at MEMRI:
Turkish Newspaper Close To President Erdogan Calls To Form Joint Islamic Army To Fight Israel
On December 12, 2017, ahead of the summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, the Turkish daily Yeni Şafak, which is close to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling AKP party, published an article titled "A Call for Urgent Action,"[1] which also appeared on the paper's website under the title “What If an Army of Islam Was Formed against Israel?"[2] The article called on the 57 member states of the OIC to form a joint "Army of Islam" to besiege and attack the state of Israel. It notes that such a joint army will greatly exceed the Israeli army in manpower, equipment and budget, and presents statistics to prove this. It also advocates establishing joint bases for the army's ground, air and naval forces that will arrive from all over the Muslim world to besiege Israel, while noting that Pakistan, as the only nuclear country, has "a special status" among the OIC countries. An interactive map provides information on military forces stationed in various locations and the role they can play in the potential joint Muslim attack on Israel.
The main points of the article are taken from the website of the Turkish SADAT International Defense and Consulting Company, which provides consultancy on defense and warfare, both conventional and unconventional, and on military organization, training and gear. The company has an agenda of promoting pan-Islamic military cooperation. According to its mission statement, it seeks "to establish defense collaboration and defense industry cooperation among Islamic countries, to help the Islamic world take its rightful place among the superpowers by providing... strategic consultancy and training services to the militaries and homeland security forces of Islamic countries."[3]
According to Israeli security sources, the SADAT company is involved in aiding Hamas, and seeks to assist – with funds and military gear – the creation of a "Palestine Army" to fight Israel.[4]
The SADAT company was founded by Erdoğan’s senior advisor on military affairs, retired general Adnan Tanrıverdi, and is chaired by his son, Melih Tanrıverdi. Adnan Tanrıverdi (b. 1944) served in the Turkish army's Artillery Corps and headed the Home Front Command in northern Cyprus. He is an expert on assymetric warfare, and was dismissed from the Turkish military in 1996 for his Islamists leadnings. A former Turkish army officer, Ahmet Yavuz, described him as "an enemy of Atatürk" and stated that his dismissal from the army was not surprising.[5]
The Yeni Şafak article is based on a PDF booklet featuring a number of articles by Tanrıverdi, as well as other materials, that appeared on the homepage of SADAT's website and has since been removed.[6] Some of the articles are virulently anti-Israel and promote the goal of arming the Palestinians and forming an Army of Islam to eliminate Israel.
One of these articles, titled "SADAT and the Future of the Muslim World" describes Israel as "the outpost of the new Crusade and a dagger in the heart of Islam," and "the eyes, ears and fist of the Christian World." A second article, titled "How to Solve the Palestinian Question?" emphasizes the need to utilize the OIC as the basis for a permanent defense cooperation committee, and also describes his vision of establishing military bases for the purpose of liberating Palestine. An article titled "Palestine Too Should Have an Army" articulates Tanrıverdi's vision of forming a Palestinian army equipped with tanks and other heavy weaponry, and adds that this army, along with a united Army of Islam, can bring about Israel's military defeat within 10 days and its diplomatic defeat within 20 days.
The fact that Yeni Şafak echoes Tanrıverdi's articles indicates that regime-associated media is promoting an agenda of attacking Israel.
Tanrıverdi Associate Arrested In Israel On Suspicion Of Aiding Hamas
Recently, Israel became aware of Tanrıverdi's activities after it arrested a Turkish academic, Cemil Tekeli, on suspicion of aiding Hamas terrorists in Turkey. According to the Israeli paper Makor Rishon, Tekeli, who has since been deported to Turkey, is a close associate of Adnan Tanrıverdi. The Makor Rishon report featured a photo of him with both Adnan and Melih Tanrıverdi:[7]
The following are excerpts from the Yeni Şafak article, along with some of the images and infographics that accompanied it. Bold text was highlighted in the original :
"This Wednesday, Istanbul will host an extraordinary summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, at which decisions on military and economic issues will presumably be made. In this framework, it becomes evident that the member states' [joint] military might greatly exceeds that of Israel. Moreover, in a possible military operation, this superiority [can] be realized on the ground by [setting up] joint military bases for ground, air and naval forces. Below are a map and statistics presenting a comparison between Israel and the [proposed] Army of Islam…
"What If An Army Of Islam Was Formed Against Israel?
"If the OIC member states unite and form a joint military force, it will be the largest army in the world. These countries' total population is 1,674,526,931. The number of soldiers in active service in these countries is at least 5,206,100. Their [overall] military defense budget, of $174,728,420, is also worthy of emphasis.
"Half Of Istanbul
"As for Israel, it is significantly inferior. The population of this country, which attempted to occupy Jerusalem while surrounded by Muslim states, is 8,049,314. Note that the population of Istanbul alone exceeds 14 million. The number of soldiers in active service in the [Israeli] occupation forces is 160,000, and [Israel's] defense budget is approximately $15, 600,000,000.
Infographic comparing the OIC countries with the Israel:
"Defense Budget: OIC: $174,728,420; Israel: $15,600,000. Population: OIC: 1,674,526,931; Israel: 8,049,314. Soldiers: OIC: 5,206,100; Israel: 160,000"
"Islamic Countries Will Lay Siege To Israel
"Among the decisions that can be taken at the OIC [summit] is to form a 'Jerusalem Task Group.' In this framework, military steps are likely to be taken. The [Muslim] armies, ranging from Africa to Asia, surpass the Israeli [army in might]. So if an Islamic army is formed, Israel will be under a siege.
"At The First Stage: 250 Thousand Soldiers
"In a possible military operation, the first step is expected to involve 250,000 soldiers, and the establishment of joint land, air and naval bases for use in the short term.
"500 tanks and armored vehicles, 100 war planes, 500 attack helicopters and 50 warships and submarines can be mobilized.
Interactive map providing information on particular bases and missions in a possible operation against Israel. Clicking on various locations provides the following information, for example:
"Eskişehir – Konya - Kilis: In case of a military operation, air bases in various locations will house 100 planes and 500 attack helicopters, and also serve as reinforcement and supply bases. 250,000 military staff, including pilots, will be ready for duty.
[Northern] Cyprus: In case of a military operation, the 50 warships and submarines stationed in naval bases can take an active role [in the fight] against Israel in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The Turkish navy, among others, will participate in the operation. Together the forces will comprise 250,000 men.
"Military Bases Close to Israel Available For Immediate Action
"The war planes that will be dispatched to the region from greater distances will be stationed in airbases [closer to Israel]. Israel will most likely to be besieged by the naval fleets that will be sent to the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
"The Necessary Equipment Exists
"The military capability of the OIC member states is considerable. These armies have the necessary equipment to carry out a military operation on land, sea and air.
"Even Turkey Alone Is Superior [To Israel]
"Turkey will serve as an important headquarters during the operation, due to its land, air and naval infrastructures. The Turkish army, which carried out 'Operation Euphrates Shield' [in Syria in 2017] with great success, is now ranked the world’s seventh strongest army, and the second largest army among the NATO powers. Turkey has approximately 4,000 tanks and 1,000 war planes and other aircraft. Its navy made significant progress during the last years, with 194 vessels at its disposal.
"As the only country which possesses nuclear weapons, Pakistan has an important status among the 57 Muslim [OIC] countries...
"Those who believe that they are the owners of Jerusalem today will not find a single tree to hide behind tomorrow"
"Asia's Military Defiance
"In a statement, Malaysian Defense Minister [Hishammuddin] Hussein described Trump’s recognition [of Jerusalem as Israel's capital] as a blow to Muslims, and added: 'The Malaysian armed forces are ready to fulfill their duty regarding Jerusalem.'
"Turkey Is Forming Alliances
"In recent years, Turkey has launched a series of collaborations with [OIC] member states. The joint military drill with our Iraqi neighbors conveyed a clear message to the terrorists, and Turkey is [also] engaging in new collaborations with Qatar, Somalia and other Gulf and African countries. In this context it should be underlined that Turkey is taking steps to realize the model of the 'Army of Islam,' forging alliances with many Muslim countries to increase its military mobility."
[1] Yeni Şafak (Turkey), December 12, 2017.
[2] Yenisafak.com, December 12, 2017.
[3] Sadat.com.tr/about-us/our-mission.html.
[4] Shabak.gov.il, February 14, 2018.
[5] Cnnturk.com, August, 17,2016.
[6] The booklet is available from MEMRI upon request.
[7] Makor Rishon (Israel), February 18, 2018.
https://www.memri.org/reports/turki...ls-form-joint-islamic-army-fight-israel#_edn2
Report Affirms That Turkey Is Purging Afrin Of All Christians And Is Going To Replace Them With Syrian Refugees
Christian activists warn that 1 million Syrian civilians will face certain slaughter in northwestern Afrin, where they allege Turkey and its militant allies have already carried out "war crimes" and "ethnic cleansing."
They have appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump and top U.S. officials to stop the bloodshed, warning that failure to act jeopardizes the hard-fought U.S.-led military campaign against Islamic State in Syria.
Civilians from other parts of Syria and outside the country have reportedly offered to stand as "human shields" between the Kurdish-backed fighters and Turkish forces set to storm Afrin.
Cardinal Mario Zenari, apostolic nuncio to Syria, said, "I have never seen so much violence as in Syria." In remarks March 9, he likened the situation to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The nuncio called the situation in the war-ravaged land "hell on earth," especially for vulnerable children.
In March, Syria's conflict entered its eighth year. More than 350,000 people have died, 5 million are refugees and 6.3 million civilians are displaced within the country.
Syria is currently "one of the most dangerous places for children," Cardinal Zenari said. "It's terrible. I always say, it's a massacre of the innocents."
Two Christian activists, Bassam Ishak and Lauren Homer, told Catholic News Service of the relentless assault by Turkey and militants from hardline jihadist movements, including the so-called Islamic State.
"Turkey has committed war crimes and ethnic cleansing already in Afrin and the Federation of Northern Syria," or FNS, they told CNS.
Ishak heads the Syriac National Council and is a member of the political bureau of the Syrian Democratic Council. He is a graduate of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Homer, an Anglican, is a Washington, D.C.-based international human rights lawyer.
"Turkey has already 'cleared' villages of Yazidis, Kurds, Christians and others, promising to replace them with Syrian refugees. In fact, Afrin already has enlarged its population by 50 percent to house (internally displaced) Syrians, who are among those being killed, injured or captured," they said.
People in and around Afrin are facing the warplanes, tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons of NATO's second-largest standing army, Turkey.
A local health authority reported more than 220 dead and 600 civilians injured in this mainly Kurdish area of northwestern Syria, some 30 miles from Aleppo.
Videos and photos from Afrin taken by both Kurds and members of the Turkish forces depict bombed-out houses, mangled bodies of children killed by the blasts and civilians being herded away.
Largely untouched by Syria's deadly conflict until recently, this part of the Federation of Northern Syria succeeded in creating a nonsectarian, pluralist, inclusive government system not seen elsewhere in the Middle East in which there is religious freedom and equal rights are granted to all.
Activists are calling for an immediate no-fly zone over Afrin, enforced by U.S. drones or warplanes; implementation of the Feb. 24 U.N. Security Council resolution requiring a cease-fire by Turkey in Afrin; humanitarian aid and safe passage out for civilians; and mediation of a long-term cease-fire and withdrawal of Turkish troops to its own borders -- potentially with promises of U.S. or U.N. border monitors.
Meanwhile, the Kurdish council that governs Afrin demanded the U.N. Security Council establish a no-fly zone over Afrin and forcibly respond to the Turkish offensive.
"This U.N. and U.S. and NATO inaction will go down in infamy as an inconceivable abandonment of our 'allies' the SDF and the FNS. Genocide seems to be only something we are interested in in retrospect, to mourn and wring our hands over," Homer warned.
Anti-aircraft weapons are needed to stop the attacks, observers say, but the Syrian Democratic Forces, composed of Kurdish and Christian fighters, were never given the necessary arms. At this point, U.S. aerial patrols would be needed. The Kurds and Christian fighters largely won the U.S.-led battle against Islamic State in Syria.
"Military solutions are no real solutions. Taking Afrin will not solve any problems, neither the internal problems for Turkey in the long run, nor will it help solve any issue that is part of the Syrian question," Ishak told CNS. Turkey says it is battling Kurdish "terrorists" as its pretext for invading Afrin.
"Instead, it will just further complicate the situation and increase the level of competition between actors jockeying for influence in Syria," Ishak said.
Meanwhile, the Syrian military, backed with Russian airpower, carried out intensive ground and aerial assaults on the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. Syrian government forces have reportedly captured more than half of the area.
The international medical charity Doctors Without Borders said more than 1,000 civilians have been killed in the area since late February, while almost 400,000 residents are living under heavy bombardment, after having been subjected to nearly five years of siege, lacking food and medicines.
Pope Francis has repeatedly called on the international community to intervene in Syria to help end the violence. Calling the war in Syria "inhumane," Pope Francis urged for an end to the fighting, immediate access to humanitarian aid and the evacuation of the injured and infirm.
http://www.catholicnews.com/service...of-slaughter-of-syrian-civilians-in-afrin.cfm
Turkey’s quickly growing influence in Europe is an underestimated threat
Turkish increasing influence and power over the Turks and the Muslims in Europe is the single most imminent threat to European security.
The European establishment is looking the other way, while the Turks are slowly increasing their foothold in Europe. the EU prefers to mock Putin rather than confront Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP. Meanwhile the Turkish state and especially its ministry of the religious affairs uses the Turkish diaspora in Europe to acquire political power on the continent.
There is no separation between state and religion in Turkey. The religious organization Diyanet that operates under the Turkish ministry of religious affairs has about 2000 outposts in Europe. The Gefira team located about 1300 of them, mostly mosques. There is no other political or religious organization in Europe with leaders from outside it that has such a widespread network across the European Union, and whose ideology is alien to the native Europeans.
Diyanet, the Directorate of Religious Affairs, was established in 1924 to keep control over the religious communities in Turkey. The Kemalists created Diyanet as a replacement for the Shaykh al-Islam, which was the most important spiritual organization within the Ottoman Empire. Since the rise to power of the AKP, the role of religion has been restored in the Turkish domestic and foreign policy. President Tayyip Erdoğan sees the Turks as heirs to Osman Gazim, the founder of the Ottoman empire. Diyanet is the religious organisation that has taken over the role of Shayk al-Islam. Western political strategists should not underestimate the power of Islam and nationalism in a combination with Neo-Ottoman ambitions. The head of the Turkish religious organization, Professor Dr Ali Erbaş, tweeted on 6 April: “The fundamental purpose of our existence is to dominate the world”.
During the 1980s the plan was to integrate Turkey with Europe. When in the 1990s,the European establishment accepted mass immigration the media, academia and political class assured the people that migrants from North Africa and Central Asia would become British, German, French or Dutch; that they were coming to Europe to enjoy European lifestyle, and values. The Turks had a specials status because they were slated for becoming an EU member state. Not only was it envisaged that the Turks would become Europeans, but Asian Minor would become Europe.
It may come as no surprise that the Turks have another plan. The hostilities between the Turks and the Europeans trace back to the First Crusade when the Turkic Seljuks arrived in the old Christian East Roman Empire, Byzantium. Since then there have been continuous wars between the Europeans and the Ottoman Turks. The Ottomans conquered the Balkans and even reached Vienna. At the end of the First World War their empire was nearly destroyed by the Great Powers, and the Sultan had to abdicate. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk took power and began to modernise the country, doing away with the Arabic influence.
Western analysts believed that Turkey was on its way to morph into the Western culture, democracy, universal human right, secularism and market capitalism. A thousand years after they entered Anatolia and provoked the First Crusade, the Turkish history seemed to have reached its end. A thousand years of hatred and cultural difference between Europeans now seemed to belong to the past. It was just a matter of time and the Seljuks would accept transgender toilets, neo-liberal capitalism run by Wall Street, gay marriage, endless Brussels enforced regulations and gender equality. At least this is what the European civil servants believed in.
Many western ill-informed academics travelled to Istanbul to portray the city as the bridge between modern Europe and the Islamic world. German state television keeps telling its viewers how the peasants from Anatolia have moved to Istanbul and transformed into cosmopolitan Western-oriented global citizens. The reality is that this mass movement of Turkish Muslims from the countryside into Istanbul converted Istanbul into the launch pad for Erdoğan’s Islamic-Nationalistic party the AKP. The AKP want to re-established Turkey as an Ottoman Islamic country. The Ottoman empire was never limited to Anatolia. When the Seljuk Turks, the predecessors of the Ottomans, arrived from Central Asia into the Byzantine Empire, they never became a majority. Rather, they took advantage of the fact that the societies and tribes in Asia Minor lacked coherence and a uniting religion. This situation resembles present-day Europe.
Diyanet is nowadays a pan-European political and religious force that not only attracts Islamic and nationalistic Turks but also appeals to other Muslims who live in Europe. While the Arab rulers despise the Turks, one should not forget that the Turks ruled Mecca and Medina for centuries. Many Muslims in Europe prefer the Turks as their rulers to the native Westerners. The Ottomans in Ankara are trying to unite all Muslim migrants in Europe under the Turkish banner, and they will also have broad support from the less devoted Turkish nationalists.
We do not pretend that we know the exact motivations and strategy of the Turkish ruling establishment; however, their action in combination with common sense gives us some direction. There is a continuous tension between the Muslim community in Europe and the native Europeans. The European governments cannot afford to have an outright military confrontation with Muslims on the European continent.
A war between the Orthodox Christians on the Balkans, whether it is between Serbia and Albania or Greece and Turkey, will have its repercussions in the Islamic communities in the suburbs of Berlin, Paris and Amsterdam. The Islamic population will unconditionally side with their Islamic brethren whether they are Moroccans Turks or Algerians. In such a conflict any Islamic suffering will stir protests and riots in Western European cities. This divide among the European inhabitants will prevent European leadership from standing by the European Union’s allies Greece and Cyprus, and will force them to refrain from granting support to any party in the current conflict between Greece, Cyprus and Turkey.
We believe that Diyanet (and through it Ankara) will become the sole mediator between European Islamic communities and the Western authorities. Diyanet is growing to a social-religious organization within the local communities of Europe. Without the aid from Diyanet or other foreign religious organizations European authorities will not be able to enforce law and order in the Islamic suburbs of Paris, Toulouse or large and small cities in Germany and the Netherlands in the near future. When Diyanet has established itself as the social representative of the many local communities in Europe, regional and national authorities can only keep control over the neighbourhoods through the Directorate of Religious Affairs in Ankara.
Within 10 to 20 years the European cities will be occupied by a majority of non-Western citizens while the European countryside will have a white population. The lack of national identity on the one hand in Europe and the emergence of the political Islam on the other gives the Turks the possibility to gain power on the Old Continent.
For most Westerners the idea that Hanover or Rotterdam will become Turkish territory sounds as incredible as for most Chinese in 1840 the idea that Hong Kong would become a British enclave. The populations of Rotterdam, Hanover or Marseilles may at one day hold a referendum that hands over the power of these cities from Berlin, the Hague or Paris to Ankara.
Like the separatists in Crimea who got the support of Moscow, such separatist movements will find full support of the rulers of the modern-day Ottoman empire. While such a scenario seems miles away, those who understand history, geopolitics and demographics realize that it could happen within two or three decades.
https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/05/t...luence-in-europe-is-an-underestimated-threat/
Erdogan: Borders of Turkish province stretch from Vienna to Adriatic and China
https://www.nordicmonitor.com/2019/...ch-to-vienna-adriatic-and-china-erdogan-says/
( 1:25 ) Erdogan Izmir rally speech for his party convention on Jan.5, 2019 ( Turn on Subtitles )
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the borders of Turkish province in his heart starts from Vienna, Adriatic Sea, Eastern Turkistan, China's the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the north of Black Sea.
Speaking to his faithful followers in Turkey’s western province Izmir on Saturday, he said the borders of Izmir province is so vast and deep in his heart that they cannot be restricted to physical borders.
“For us the borders of Izmir province starts from Vienna, Adriatic Sea, Eastern Turkistan and the north of Black Sea”’ he remarked.
“We see Izmir as the heart of not only Turkey but also this geography in our heart”, he emphasized, adding to that “the pulse that is being beating in this [convention] hall is the pulse of this geography”
danielboon
TB Fanatic
EndGameWW3 Retweeted
Joshua Landis
@joshua_landis
The Scramble for Syria's northeast seems to have begun. A Turkish military column is moving south to take Manbij, while a Syrian military column is moving north to take Manbij. https://twitter.com/ZaitunAgency/status/1181315184251621378
Quote Tweet
Al-Masdar News
@TheArabSource
· 4h
Kurdish-led #SDF claim Syrian Army is preparing to capture #Manbij https://aml.ink/Cvexd #Syria
12:53 AM · Oct 8, 2019·
·
3h
Replying to
@joshua_landis
and
@EndGameWW3
The biblical prophecy is upon us
Joshua Landis
@joshua_landis
The Scramble for Syria's northeast seems to have begun. A Turkish military column is moving south to take Manbij, while a Syrian military column is moving north to take Manbij. https://twitter.com/ZaitunAgency/status/1181315184251621378
Quote Tweet
Al-Masdar News
@TheArabSource
· 4h
Kurdish-led #SDF claim Syrian Army is preparing to capture #Manbij https://aml.ink/Cvexd #Syria
12:53 AM · Oct 8, 2019·
·
3h
Replying to
@joshua_landis
and
@EndGameWW3
The biblical prophecy is upon us
danielboon
TB Fanatic
EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3
Russian Army Reinforcing Aleppo To Block Ankara’s Possible Attacks
Russian Army Reinforcing Aleppo To Block Ankara’s Possible Attacks
eurasiareview.com
1:08 AM · Oct 8, 2019·
@EndGameWW3
Russian Army Reinforcing Aleppo To Block Ankara’s Possible Attacks
Russian Army Reinforcing Aleppo To Block Ankara’s Possible Attacks
eurasiareview.com
1:08 AM · Oct 8, 2019·
night driver
ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
susan, this is true ONLY if he's talking to Americans and the 97 varieties of "(C)christian" here in n America.
He was not.
He was talking to the descendants of Attaturk. In quasi-Mohamedan. working another world Class, World PHRASED Troll.
Cacheman
Ultra MAGA!
Your cousins and nephew??
I guess that's why more than a couple US military vets (Marines, Army and a few Navy SEALs) have gotten out of the military and gone back to Syria on their own to fight with the Kurds. We had a thread on that a couple of years ago, but according to you and your cousin these American soldiers who have actually been there don't know what they are talking about.
Also you are lumping every Kurd regardless of the group into one and attaching them to the group that actually is attacking Turkey.
This is not the case at all, and you probably know this.
Your defense of Turkey is also odd. Do you actually think Turkey is an ally? Especially with Erdogan in charge?
How many of our allies are buying Russian missile systems?
How many of our allies have arrested way over a hundred thousand of their own people.
How many of our allies have asked us to kindly remove our military so they can go in an massacre an ethnic group of people in another country?
How many allies that are sitting square on the border with Syria and have a massive military, have just set there and allowed and even helped ISIS carry out it's murder of Christians and others, including Americans. Turkey provided aid and assistance to ISIS allowing their country to be used as a pipeline for material aid and medical care for wounded ISIS.
Also Turkey turned their guns on Syrian government troops instead of helping them wipe out ISIS.
Basically Turkey doesn't give a shit about ISIS and the 8000 ISIS prisoners being held by the Kurds will probably go free to regroup and fight again once Turkey kills the Kurds.
The only thing we probably agree on is that we shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place. But we did, and we made commitments and now are prepared to renege on those commitments. Something we have a history of doing.
I do find it interesting that the same people who were praising the Kurds on this forum several years ago are now convinced they are the bad guys. It's nice to wash your hands of people once you finish using them.
The PKK and YPG, which are the two main Kurdish political groups in the region, are far-left, communist groups. We'd have the same reaction if a terror group had killed the same number of US Soldiers as the PKK has killed Turkish ones. The YPG is considered an arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government, why exactly are US military vets fighting with them on their own?
I did not defend Turkey, I was clear, Like it or not Turkey is an ally by treaty and the Kurds aren't. Which is it? Is NATO great or is Turkey bad, you can't have both. Israel has it exactly correct, NATO better get to work kicking Turkey out of NATO, they never should have been there. The Russian Black Sea Fleet can barely leave port, why do we need Turkey exactly? How about the rest of NATO? Turkey's been a 'thug' for decades.
As for the Kurds, wasn't the Taliban our "Ally" in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet Union? How's that going now? Sad to say, but someone has to get burnt if we're ever going to put a stop to these endless wars. War is hell, not everyone can win.
All these people telling us they have sympathy for the Kurds and we should not turn our backs on them don't exactly tell us how we're going to fight for them or how long we should be there. We have been in the Middle East for decades, but no progress has really been made. How will standing with Kurds ensure the Middle East changes? They've been fighting for so long that no one remembers why they're fighting and the Kurds survived centuries without the US, For what it's worth we have armed and trained them and they are more than willing to fight.
Erdogan is the last person I would trust....but keep in mind for better or worse Turkey(and this is hard for me to type)is our ally. I hope if nothing good comes of this as I fear...we can at least get Turkey out of NATO. Syria is a Civil War, the USA should have never gotten involved (but that's beside the point now).
Finally If those twenty-five troops being moved could prevent a military invasion from a country as strong as Turkey, imagine what a hundred or more troops could do on our southern border?
Snyper
Veteran Member
50 troops and none are leaving Syria
TammyinWI
Talk is cheap
TammyinWI
Talk is cheap
Iodine...that's iodine man. And the original family name was Drumpf, yes.
Isn't it spelled "buffoon?"
Plain Jane
Just Plain Jane
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ps-from-syria-northeast-kremlin-idUSKBN1WN0YJ
NEWSOCTOBER 8, 2019 / 5:37 AM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO
We weren't warned about U.S. plan to pull troops from Syria northeast: Kremlin
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia was not informed in advance by the United States or by Turkey about U.S. plans to pull troops back from Syria’s northeast border region ahead of a Turkish military operation, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.
Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has emerged as a leading power broker in Syria over more than eight years of civil war and has said that Syria’s territorial integrity must be respected by all outside powers.
Turkey said earlier on Tuesday that it had finished preparing for a military operation in northeast Syria after Washington began withdrawing its troops.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow had not been given advance warning.
No, no one notified (us),” he told reporters on a conference call.
He added that it remained to be seen, however, how many U.S. troops would actually be withdrawn. He noted what he said were past U.S. statements about troop withdrawals that had not led to concrete action.
“We are very closely watching the situation,” he said.
Reporting by Tom Balmforth; Writing by Katya Golubkova and by Tom Balmforth, Editing by William Maclean
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
NEWSOCTOBER 8, 2019 / 5:37 AM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO
We weren't warned about U.S. plan to pull troops from Syria northeast: Kremlin
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia was not informed in advance by the United States or by Turkey about U.S. plans to pull troops back from Syria’s northeast border region ahead of a Turkish military operation, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.
Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has emerged as a leading power broker in Syria over more than eight years of civil war and has said that Syria’s territorial integrity must be respected by all outside powers.
Turkey said earlier on Tuesday that it had finished preparing for a military operation in northeast Syria after Washington began withdrawing its troops.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow had not been given advance warning.
No, no one notified (us),” he told reporters on a conference call.
He added that it remained to be seen, however, how many U.S. troops would actually be withdrawn. He noted what he said were past U.S. statements about troop withdrawals that had not led to concrete action.
“We are very closely watching the situation,” he said.
Reporting by Tom Balmforth; Writing by Katya Golubkova and by Tom Balmforth, Editing by William Maclean
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
danielboon
TB Fanatic
ELINT News Retweeted
Caki
@_Caki__
3h3 hours ago
MoreCaki Retweeted #AfrinNotAlone
Pro Turkish chats have been talking about the 2nd phase is to attack Manbij reason they is a build up and last night they say Turkey brought 50 tanks towards the Jarablus-Manbij border.
Caki
@_Caki__
3h3 hours ago
MoreCaki Retweeted #AfrinNotAlone
Pro Turkish chats have been talking about the 2nd phase is to attack Manbij reason they is a build up and last night they say Turkey brought 50 tanks towards the Jarablus-Manbij border.
danielboon
TB Fanatic
cannot find the iraq thread so i,m putting this here
ELINT News Retweeted
Walid Phares
Verified account
@WalidPhares
6h6 hours ago
MoreWalid Phares Retweeted العربية
Iran announcing it is sending 7,500 troops to Iraq to "protect Shia religious ceremonies." Tehran assesssment is that the US will not counter its move. Hence they are now openly deploying troops in Iraq, as I projected in many media interventions and in briefings to Congress.
ELINT News Retweeted
Walid Phares
Verified account
@WalidPhares
6h6 hours ago
MoreWalid Phares Retweeted العربية
Iran announcing it is sending 7,500 troops to Iraq to "protect Shia religious ceremonies." Tehran assesssment is that the US will not counter its move. Hence they are now openly deploying troops in Iraq, as I projected in many media interventions and in briefings to Congress.
danielboon
TB Fanatic
4I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.