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trueblue
Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Location: In between the lines
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 Posted: Sun May 29, 2016 3:30 pm Post subject: Turkey on the Road to the Precipice |
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http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/turkey_on_the_road_to_the_precipice.html
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May 29, 2016
Turkey on the Road to the Precipice
By Alex Alexiev
A few days ago, Turkey hosted something called the World Humanitarian Summit, shortly after its parliament passed a bill that would allow its government to lift parliamentary immunity and throw in jail members of parliament whose opinions do not agree with those of its increasingly dictatorial Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. This puts paid to any remaining pretensions Turkey had of being a democracy and guarantees that this NATO member is headed for disaster. To understand why this is now inevitable, a closer look at this pernicious bill and the background to it are needed.
After coming to power with a huge majority in 2003, Erdoğan, who never hid his ultimate intentions to pursue the radical Islamization of Turkey, introduced a number of policies that were well received. One of them was to enter into reconciliation talks with the large Kurdish minority and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) representing it, which had been the key factor motivating the bloody Kurdish insurrection that claimed 40,000 victims in the 1980s and 1990s. Two of these policies, the ability to use the Kurdish language and elect their own mayors in the vast Kurd-dominated southeastern part of Turkey, were particularly popular, and the PKK unilaterally declared cease-fire in March 2013 after months of negotiations between Ankara and jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.
In the meantime, however, the geopolitical circumstances of the large Kurdish minorities in the region had changed dramatically, encouraging greater strivings for autonomy. The Kurds in northern Iraq had de facto become independent and had also distinguished themselves as the only military force capable of standing up to ISIS. Something similar happened in northern Syria, where Bashar Assad withdrew his forces early on and the majority-Kurdish areas also became autonomous, as well as the main opponent of the Islamic State terrorists, who were tacitly or directly supported by Erdoğan.
Erdoğan's relations with the Kurds took a turn for the worst with the siege of the Kurdish-Syrian town of Kobani and the occupation of 350 Kurdish villages by ISIS terrorists in September 2014. Ankara's failure to come to the assistance of Kobani triggered violent anti-government riots across the Kurdish areas in Turkey that were brutally put down and poisoned relations further. The end of the efforts at reconciliation came after the parliamentary elections in June of 2015, when the Kurdish party, HDP, received over 13% of the vote and not only entered parliament, but denied parliamentary majority to Erdoğan's AKP.
It was at this point that Erdoğan must have decided to destroy the HDP by force by accusing them of terrorism and initiating massive repression efforts by the military, resulting in thousands of civilian victims in Kurdish towns since last fall. For the Islamist Erdoğan, the HDP represented yet another political challenge. The elections showed that the Kurds' liberal platform was increasingly appealing to secular Turks of all ethnic backgrounds.
Return to the present, and Erdoğan's strategy becomes crystal-clear. He began arguing publicly as early as January 2016 that the HDP parliamentarians were terrorists and should be tried and jailed. After that, it was only a question of time for the AKP and its nationalist allies to pass a bill on May 20, 2016 to lift the immunity of the Kurdish deputies and possibly others as well. The bill is written so broadly – i.e., "providing physical, spiritual and moral support to terrorism" – that even an opinion in favor of Kurdish autonomy or other "objectionable views" could qualify one as a terrorist.
There is no doubt anymore that Erdoğan has opted out for brutal political oppression to achieve his objective of turning Turkey into an Islamist dictatorship with himself as the unquestioned sole authority. And this may not be the end of his ambitions. As many who have followed his radical Islamist career have noted, he has never been shy in presenting himself as the hope of the entire Muslim world and Turkey as its legitimate leader, as the Ottoman Empire once was. The only question that remains to be answered is whether he will succeed.
And here there are serious reasons to question his prospects, both domestically and internationally. Domestically, there is little doubt that Erdoğan's brutal tactics will further enflame the Kurds, drive thousands of new recruits to the PKK, and likely to result in a major flare-up of violence, not only in the traditional Kurdish territories in the southeast, but also in the major cities of western Turkey, where Kurds now live in compact masses. This is a nightmare scenario to which there is no military solution.
No less serious are the foreign-political implications of Erdoğan's repressive tactics. It is already clear that the European Union is not going to grant Turkey the Merkel-conceived visa-free travel if it does not change its terrorism legislation, which Erdoğan will not do, since it is his main political intimidation and blackmail tool. The Europeans may also be getting fed up with being constantly abused by the Turkish president for their ostensible "slavery-and-colonial-era-mindsets." This means that Turkey will remain ostracized and politically isolated in both Europe and the Middle East as never before in its modern history. |
I guess the fact that the Ottoman Empire (Muslims) enslaves MILLIONS of folks from both Africa and Europe (white Christians), escaped his mind?
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Perhaps worse still is the looming and inevitable conflict with America in Syria. It is well proven by now that Turkey under Erdoğan has never been serious about the fight against radical Sunni terrorist organizations, such as ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, Israr al-Sham etc., but in fact has aided and abetted them. This is no longer tolerable, as the U.S. and its allies are gearing up for some decisive battles against ISIS, from Falluja and Mosul in Iraq to Raqqa in Syria. And on all of these fronts, the Kurds are America's most reliable and battle-hardened allies, from the Peshmerga in Mosul to the PYD in Syria. The latter, for instance, make five sixths of the Syrian Defense Force (SDF) of 30,000 arrayed against ISIS. The U.S. has already embedded 200 special operations troops in the PYD units (with 250 more on their way) and closely coordinates air strikes and operations with them. No amount of protestation by the Turks that the Kurds are terrorists is likely to make much difference to Washington, given the experience on the ground.
And it is the logic of the conflict that sooner or later, if not in this administration, then certainly in the next one, America will have acknowledge that Islamist Turkey had long ceased to be a friend of the West and act accordingly. It won't be a minute too soon. |
Merkel is a dirty player.
I wonder what will happen if (as I asked before) the referendum, should the people vote to leave the EU, in the UK is ignored, especially considering these circumstances?
Nothing good will come of all this...more war, more lives lost. Then again, hopefully, Europe will have enough backbone to halt what has been happening, and, NOT allowing Turkey in the EU would be valuable. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Sun May 29, 2016 10:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Isn't the Turkish Military supposed be the protector of a secular Turkey? Perhaps, another coup is in order. They last one was almost 40 years ago. |
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trueblue
Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Location: In between the lines
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| Posted: Sun May 29, 2016 10:22 pm Post subject: |
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| jvalmer wrote: |
| Isn't the Turkish Military supposed be the protector of a secular Turkey? Perhaps, another coup is in order. They last one was almost 40 years ago. |
Good question...
Judging by the legislation that will have an impact on their parliament, perhaps it has already begun. |
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Plain Meaning
Joined: 18 Oct 2014
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| Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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| jvalmer wrote: |
| Isn't the Turkish Military supposed be the protector of a secular Turkey? Perhaps, another coup is in order. They last one was almost 40 years ago. |
Nailed it. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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| jvalmer wrote: |
| Isn't the Turkish Military supposed be the protector of a secular Turkey? Perhaps, another coup is in order. They last one was almost 40 years ago. |
The last one was in 1997 when they removed the Islamist PM.
I don't think this one will have the same result (unfortunately IMO). |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 11:49 pm Post subject: |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
| jvalmer wrote: |
| Isn't the Turkish Military supposed be the protector of a secular Turkey? Perhaps, another coup is in order. They last one was almost 40 years ago. |
The last one was in 1997 when they removed the Islamist PM.
I don't think this one will have the same result (unfortunately IMO). |
If fizzled out. It seemed it was done by some mid-level officers without the support of key generals. And perhaps the military has been purged so much that it may not be able to have successful a coup in the foreseable future.
For some crazy reasons, close to half the Turkish population supports the current government in power. Ataturk is probably rolling in his grave now. |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2016 6:07 am Post subject: |
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There's a conspiracy theory going around that the coup was engineered by Erdogan's party, or people sympathetic to him, to create a kind of Reichstag situation allowing him to further undermine Turkish secularism. Not sure if that's in any way plausible.
It does seem like a somehwhat farcical attempt at a coup. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2016 6:17 am Post subject: |
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| bigverne wrote: |
There's a conspiracy theory going around that the coup was engineered by Erdogan's party, or people sympathetic to him, to create a kind of Reichstag situation allowing him to further undermine Turkish secularism. Not sure if that's in any way plausible.
It does seem like a somehwhat farcical attempt at a coup. |
I doubt it. I mean if you planned it, would you put yourself in a situation where the only way to talk to the people was via FaceTime? Were you put yourself in the position of having Germany deny you asylum as you fly around on your jet? |
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Swartz
Joined: 19 Dec 2014
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| Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2016 6:36 am Post subject: |
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Erdogan blamed a guy named Fethullah Gulen, who operates charter schools in the US and looks like he has some important connections. Steve Sailer, unsurprisingly, has been on this one for years.
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| By the way, the FBI was aggressively raiding Gulen charter schools across America in 2014, looking to document how the cult skims money from local American taxpayers to finance their operations, but I haven’t heard much about it recently. My assumption would be that the CIA explained to the FBI that having local property taxpayers ripped off for a few hundred million per year is a cheap way to have a potential player in the Great Game of “Who Controls Constantinople?” (But I’m making that up, so don’t take my word for it.) |
http://www.unz.com/isteve/turkish-attempted-coup-background/
Given Sailer's track record on these kinds of things, I doubt he's far off.
I'd put my money on the coup having more to do with Erdogan's recent appeasement with Russia and apparent agreement to lay off Assad/Syria. That's a no-no for the Oded Yinoner Jews and many in the US gov who still have their sights set on turning Syria into Iraq and Libya.
But who knows. For those who want to see the chances of Turkey ever getting in the EU reduced, it's probably better if Erdogan takes back power, comes down hard on the opposition, and pushes Turkey further down the road to Islamism. |
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GENO123
Joined: 28 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2016 7:56 am Post subject: |
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| Swartz wrote: |
Erdogan blamed a guy named Fethullah Gulen, who operates charter schools in the US and looks like he has some important connections. Steve Sailer, unsurprisingly, has been on this one for years.
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| By the way, the FBI was aggressively raiding Gulen charter schools across America in 2014, looking to document how the cult skims money from local American taxpayers to finance their operations, but I haven’t heard much about it recently. My assumption would be that the CIA explained to the FBI that having local property taxpayers ripped off for a few hundred million per year is a cheap way to have a potential player in the Great Game of “Who Controls Constantinople?” (But I’m making that up, so don’t take my word for it.) |
http://www.unz.com/isteve/turkish-attempted-coup-background/
Given Sailer's track record on these kinds of things, I doubt he's far off.
I'd put my money on the coup having more to do with Erdogan's recent appeasement with Russia and apparent agreement to lay off Assad/Syria. That's a no-no for the Oded Yinoner Jews and many in the US gov who still have their sights set on turning Syria into Iraq and Libya.
But who knows. For those who want to see the chances of Turkey ever getting in the EU reduced, it's probably better if Erdogan takes back power, comes down hard on the opposition, and pushes Turkey further down the road to Islamism. |
interesting choice of words . Pretty sure that Swartz doesn't have any money.
please take note of Swartz's economic analysis
http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=178089&start=555
Swartz is likely the horrid result of bad genetic material , Do not let him have children.
Last edited by GENO123 on Sat Jul 16, 2016 8:25 am; edited 4 times in total |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2016 7:59 am Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| bigverne wrote: |
There's a conspiracy theory going around that the coup was engineered by Erdogan's party, or people sympathetic to him, to create a kind of Reichstag situation allowing him to further undermine Turkish secularism. Not sure if that's in any way plausible.
It does seem like a somehwhat farcical attempt at a coup. |
I doubt it. I mean if you planned it, would you put yourself in a situation where the only way to talk to the people was via FaceTime? Were you put yourself in the position of having Germany deny you asylum as you fly around on your jet? |
Makes it even easier to shoot down any conspiracy theories! Honestly, if any world leader would do something like that, it would be Erdogan. That being said, you're right, his ego is too big where he'd never resort to using FaceTime unless he thought it was the only way to save himself. |
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trueblue
Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Location: In between the lines
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| Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2016 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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| But who knows. For those who want to see the chances of Turkey ever getting in the EU reduced, it's probably better if Erdogan takes back power, comes down hard on the opposition, and pushes Turkey further down the road to Islamism |
Which, is why this "conspiracy theory" of staging his own coupe may be the truth. Why does he call it "treason" when the military was doing its job? And at the same time, nobama is asking everyone to support him?
...to keep hold of power.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3693729/Did-Erdogan-STAGE-coup-based-Turkish-cleric-facing-extradition-botched-rebellion-claims-president-orchestrated-plot-justify-clampdown-civil-rights.html
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A US-based Turkish cleric accused of plotting a coup to overthrow the Ankara government has claimed President Recep Erdogan staged the rebellion himself to justify a major clampdown on opposition forces.
Fethullah Gulen, who was a former key ally of Erdogan has been blamed by the politician of using his contacts to develop a 'parallel structure' to overthrow the state.
Erdogan has called on US President Barack Obama to extradite Gulen, who is based in Pennsylvania
In response to the attempted rebellion, Turkish authorities have detained 2,745 judges and prosecutors whose loyalty to the regime has been questioned.
Also, some 2,839 soldiers - including the head of the Third Army Corps in Istanbul, General Erdal Ozturk - have been arrested.
PM Binali Yildrim described the plot, which claimed the lives of 161 civilians with 1,440 wounded, as a 'black stain on Turkish democracy'
Speaking from his home, Gulen claimed democracy in Turkey could not be achieved through military action.
He condemned the plot, although authorities in Ankara are not convinced.
He said: 'There is a slight chance, there is a possibility that it could be a staged coup. It could be meant for court accusations and associations.'
He added: 'It appears that they have no tolerance for any movement, any group, any organisation that is not under their total control.'
President Erdogan told a crowd chanting for the death penalty on Saturday that such demands may be discussed in parliament after a coup attempt by a faction in the military killed at least 161 people.
Looking relaxed and smiling, giving an occasional thumbs up to his supporters in Istanbul, Erdogan said the coup attempt had been carried out by a minority in the army.
He said: 'The army is ours, not that of the parallel structure. I am chief commander.'
Earlier Erdogan urged the US to extradite Gulen claiming Turkey never turned down an extradition request from Washington for 'terrorists'.
He said: 'I say if we are strategic partners then you should bring about our request.'
Secretary of State John Kerry said: 'We fully anticipate that there will be questions raised about Mr. Gulen. And obviously we would invite the government of Turkey, as we always do, to present us with any legitimate evidence that withstands scrutiny. And the United States will accept that and look at it and make judgments about it appropriately.'
A Turkish government official said the government 'has been preparing a formal application with detailed information about Gulen's involvement in illegal activities. After last night, we have one more thing to add to an already extensive list'.
Gulen is understood to maintain significant support among some members of the military and mid-level bureaucrats. His movement called Hizmet includes think tanks, schools and various media enterprises. Gulen and Erdogan only became estranged in recent years.
In a statement, Gulen said he condemned, 'in the strongest terms, the attempted military coup in Turkey.'
He said: 'Government should be won through a process of free and fair elections, not force," he said. "I pray to God for Turkey, for Turkish citizens, and for all those currently in Turkey that this situation is resolved peacefully and quickly.'
Gulen sharply rejected any responsibility: 'As someone who suffered under multiple military coups during the past five decades, it is especially insulting to be accused of having any link to such an attempt. I categorically deny such accusations.'
In an incredibly rare interview, Gulen said he would never return to Turkey because he would fear being 'persecuted and harassed'.
Speaking from his home in Pennsylvania, Gulen said: 'This is a tranquil and clean place and I enjoy and I live my freedom here. Longing for my homeland burns in my heart, but freedom is also equally important. If I were to send him a message, he would probably consider it as a slur and reject it,'
He added: 'But I have always prayed for myself and for him. I have prayed to God to lead us to the straight path, to the virtuous path.'
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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GENO123
Joined: 28 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2016 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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+1 |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2016 11:04 pm Post subject: |
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I remember some cartoon from Mad Magazine that showed different Jewish groups (I think it was Hasidic or Orthodox, Conservative, and Reformed) with each one displaying progressively more liberal dress and the Orthodox and Conservative glaring at the smiling, casually dressed Reformed.
I could see a similar cartoon with a woman in a Niqab, a woman in Hijab, and finally a smiling Sufi with a hat and sunglasses. |
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