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Turkish support for ISIS

Rincewind said:
What secret alliance is this?

And how do you know about it?
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It's not something discussed on Fox News or Sky TV, but is something discussed on the internet. I'm a great believer in sane government, and equitable administration and judgment in politics. It seems to be more important now to be good at street fighting, like the Canadians in the second world war:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2d6_1425304711
 
HoverBoarder said:
Semour is not a reliable source.
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I read Seymour's recent article based on a "JCS source" or an advisor to the JCS ... so who is his source, and why is this person leaking to Hersch?

If all of what Hersch wrote was true, I am troubled at two levels:

one is the naive position still maintainted by Obama (but as W began to put the screws to Assad about two years before administration change this was not a novel policy)

two is to me, personally, more troubling. Deliberate contravention of administration policy by the flag officers in Pentagon. If true, it bothers me (even if in some cases their policy was "right" or at least workable in a messy region).

So, we don't know how good Hersch's source is or what axe that source has to grind. Turkish support for various bad actors in Syria isn't news. They are a local power and they have aims and objectives, which may or may not align with American aims and objectives.
 
I don't think Americans have got the brains to solve the problems in the Middle East. Israel and Turkey and Saudi Arabia are out of control. Not many Americans know much about the history of the Middle East, or even about the history of Russia for that matter. There is a lack of subtlety by Americans for a start. Britain is not much help as a European EU island.
 
Henri McPhee said:
I don't think Americans have got the brains to solve the problems in the Middle East. Israel and Turkey and Saudi Arabia are out of control. Not many Americans know much about the history of the Middle East, or even about the history of Russia for that matter. There is a lack of subtlety by Americans for a start. Britain is not much help as a European EU island.
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Your suggestions are what, in detail?
 
Darth Rotor said:
Your suggestions are what, in detail?
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It's not really my pigeon to solve the world's problems. It's just that something needs to be done for the sake of posterity, rather than just sitting on the sidelines eating candy while the Middle East explodes.

Israel now has nuclear weapons. Turkey has some of the largest armed forces in the area and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are well-equipped, if ill-trained and luxury-loving. A firm line needs to be taken with these countries, and with Iran and Isis, in order to blanket violence. One hopeful sign is that John Kerry and the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov seem to have a good business relationship. There are countries like India with its 100000 Gurkha soldiers, who could possibly be deployed overseas on peacekeeping duties. Just supporting a war with Iran and trying to topple Putin is not good enough.

The British General Dannatt has said in the past that there is no alternative to arming the Kurds, with which I agree. When Dannatt says that Arab refugees should be recruited to fight in the Middle East then I disagree with him. It's unrealistic and idealistic. They want to become extremely rich in Europe. The British Army has been trying to train Libyan soldiers in the UK during the past few years which has resulted in several British girls and women being raped in East Anglia.

There was a summary to a 1956 Penguin book on the Middle East crisis which I think was on the right lines. It might seem a bit old -fashioned now as I think the Israeli air Force now has more military clout than the British RAF:

"To summarize: there is a Russian threat in the Middle East and this can be countered only by the United States. The counter invoves a a clear understanding that the United States will not allow the Middle East to become a part of the Russian sphere of influence. In terms of great power rivalry the Middle East must remain an open area and not become one power's backyard. The sanction is military force, but it is not necessary that American forces should be stationed in the Middle East itself. It is enough that they should be able to threaten the U.S.S.R. from any quarter.

If the Middle East is to be an open area in great power politics, the West must compete for the favours of the inhabitants and their rulers. The West cannot compete successfully if it tries to dominate the area by force.

Britain must abandon all idea of dominating the Middle East or having clients or subordinates there. British forces in the Middle East do us more harm than good and should be progressively withdrawn ( unless they are part of an international force).

To keep the peace between Middle Eastern states the major powers must guarantee Arab-Israeli frontiers and support an international air force to be stationed in Cyprus. If the Russians refuse to join in the guarantee or oppose the force, the Americans and other powers must give the guarantee without the Russians, and the U.N. must persist with the force in the face of Russian opposition.

An international zone should be established between Egypt and Israel under civil administration. This zone will contain new pipelines carrying oil from producer countries directly to the Mediterranean. It will also contain a principal staging point for international airlines. A new canal might be dug one day.

The existing canal should be operated by an Egyptian authority in association with a canl users' authority on the lines worked out during the session of the Security Council in October 1956.

Western countries should join in promoting and paying for a deveopment scheme for the Middle East as a whole to be administered by an internationasl authority which would draw revenues from oil. Consumers would contribute by a levy of something like.... on the price of oil. Royalty owners would make a similar contribution. Development funds would be spread over the whole area, with the result that oil-producing countries would be allotting a part of their royalties to the development of of have-not countries".
 
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HoverBoarder said:
Most analysts would agree that the primary cash flow for ISIS runs through Turkey in the form of smuggled oil. In addition, most of their arms and fighters flow through Turkey.

While those factors could be explained by an ISIS utilization of the porous 565 Turkish-Syrian border, there have been a number of indications that Turkey has been actively supporting ISIS to further their own goals.

To answer the question of why Turkey would so blatantly put their neighbors and fellow NATO members at such risk, two primary reasons emerge:


First off is oil smuggling. BuzzFeed had a very good article looking into this trade with insider interviews on how the trade works. This Is How ISIS Smuggles Oil

As ISIS is estimated to make $1 million a day on smuggling oil, much of the vast middleman profits for this highly discounted oil goes to Turkey. This trade involves massive complicit border and police protection despite an alleged crackdown. However, famous Turkish whistleblower Fuat Avni has also claimed that Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is himself involved in the illegal trade.

Corruption is a major problem for Turkey (Why Turkey’s Mother of All Corruption Scandals Refuses to Go Away), especially in Erdogen's own party. Erdogen also recently built a 1,000 room Presidential palace (A Look at President Erdogan's Opulent $615 Million Palace, Four Times the Size of Versailles). An almost direct flaunting of the smuggled oil wealth profits.


The second main reason why Turkey would support ISIS is because of their fight with the Kurds. When Turkey announced that they were going to change course and attack ISIS, almost all of their targets were against PKK and other Kurdish areas and forces. The strikes that were carried out were claimed by some ISIS members to be against empty ISIS targets, and that their "alliance" with Turkey was still intact.

More direct military cooperation between Turkey and ISIS has long been claimed by many people in Turkey, Syria, and abroad.

Some of the examples of this alleged cooperation is as follows:

'ISIS Sees Turkey as Its Ally': Former Islamic State Member Reveals Turkish Army Cooperation

Suruç bombing reignites speculation of cozy ties between AK Party and ISIL

With one of the most major evidence of their cooperation being the June 25th ISIS attack on Kobane.

Turkey 'let Isil cross border to attack Kobane': as it happened

Long after the main fight for Kobane was over, a large group of ISIS fighters were allowed to cross the Turkish border for an attack on primarily returned Kurdish civilians in a way that was simply impossible to happen if Turkish forces had not allowed it to happen.



The question for this thread is, how can this Turkish support for ISIS be stopped.

I think that the EU, UN, NATO, and the US should put pressure on Turkey to resume peace talks that they broke off with the PKK, YPG, and other Kurdish forces. They should also require the use of UN inspectors and monitors to reduce ISIS oil smuggling profits through Turkey, and stop Turkey from smuggling arms to ISIS or the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Nursa.
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Perhaps ISIS can be counted on to do only one thing well-shoot itself in the foot (or head if you prefer).

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-blast-idUSKCN0UQ0UJ20160113
 
Henri McPhee said:
It's not really my pigeon to solve the world's problems. It's just that something needs to be done for the sake of posterity, rather than just sitting on the sidelines eating candy while the Middle East explodes.

Israel now has nuclear weapons. Turkey has some of the largest armed forces in the area and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are well-equipped, if ill-trained and luxury-loving. A firm line needs to be taken with these countries, and with Iran and Isis, in order to blanket violence.
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And who will bell the cat? Not the mice in the EU, and not the rats in the UN. (Which includes all five permanent security council members, my own nation included).

The rest of your wishful thinking I won't comment upon.
 
Part of the problem is that Assad regards any opposition or public criticism as terrorists, which is similar in a way to Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Boko Haram, and Al-Shabab, or the Vatican. It is not a view generally held in civilised Western countries, unless perhaps you are a communist.

Clinton has described Assad in the past as stubborn. I don't think Assad has a sense of humour, but I don't think he is definitely bad like Idi Amin was in Uganda. Assad has a cool head and a natural understanding of politics. These starvation sieges in Syria are not entirely Assad's fault as journalists seem to think. War is a fearful thing. It's not furthering the interests of the Syrian people, and it's unfair on those least able to protect themselves like children.

Turkey wants a land grab in Syria and Iraq, and even Iran, and genocide of the Kurds. Israel wants a land grab in the Syrian Golan Heights, and in Southern Lebanon, and in the fertile Palestinian lands. This does not help friendly relations between the various countries in the region.

I think the evil of Isis, and Al-Shabab in Africa, has been underestimated and disregarded by Turkey and Saudi Arabia and by Israel. We can't just assume statemen around the world, like in South Sudan, are sensible. For the Arabs, the Nazi system has never been as discredited as it was for Europe.
 
Henri McPhee said:
Part of the problem is that Assad regards any opposition or public criticism as terrorists, which is similar in a way to Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Boko Haram, and Al-Shabab, or the Vatican. It is not a view generally held in civilised Western countries, unless perhaps you are a communist.

Clinton has described Assad in the past as stubborn. I don't think Assad has a sense of humour, but I don't think he is definitely bad like Idi Amin was in Uganda. Assad has a cool head and a natural understanding of politics. These starvation sieges in Syria are not entirely Assad's fault as journalists seem to think. War is a fearful thing. It's not furthering the interests of the Syrian people, and it's unfair on those least able to protect themselves like children.

Turkey wants a land grab in Syria and Iraq, and even Iran, and genocide of the Kurds. Israel wants a land grab in the Syrian Golan Heights, and in Southern Lebanon, and in the fertile Palestinian lands. This does not help friendly relations between the various countries in the region.

I think the evil of Isis, and Al-Shabab in Africa, has been underestimated and disregarded by Turkey and Saudi Arabia and by Israel. We can't just assume statemen around the world, like in South Sudan, are sensible. For the Arabs, the Nazi system has never been as discredited as it was for Europe.
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I was hopeful for the first two paragraphs, then you had to spoil it with baseless speculation in the thrid paragraph and some casual racism in the fourth.
 
It was reported yesterday that the Israeli Defence Minister on a visit to Greece practically accused Turkey of supporting terrorism and Isis. That Israeli Defence Minister speaks more sense than his prime minister Netanyahu, who has said there is no excuse for terrorism except for the Jewish terrorists of the Stern gang in the 1940's.

At least I understand what that Israeli defence minister is saying. Perhaps he could be the new prime minister of Israel? It's like I understand what Putin is doing in Syria, and in the Crimea and Ukraine, even though Putin is supposed to be a shady oligarch and the new Tsar of Russia, if not a red Tsar.

Communism always was of the palest pink in the Soviet Union, and is still of the palest pink in China now. It's government of the extremely rich for the extremely rich there too as well.
 
The TV presenter of the aljazeera UpFront TV show has recently said that Obama was wrong to say publicly that there was a historical Shia-Sunni conflict. I don't agree. To me it's like the old Catholic and Protestant conflict of the Middle Ages. Why then does Isis target Shia mosques and Shia areas in Baghdad, and behead any Shias it finds in areas it occupies? Why does Saudi Arabia bomb Shia schools and hospitals and wedding parties in Yemen?

These journalists have no sense of history, or else it's sheer ignorance.There needs to be a concentration of force and effort in vital areas, and no more starvation sieges and drowning of women and children and babies and stalemate and get it over with. That's if they can't find a diplomatic solution. You force your enemy to accept your will with the minimum damge to the wealth of the world, not the maximum damage.
 
Henri McPhee said:
There needs to be a concentration of force and effort in vital areas, and no more starvation sieges and drowning of women and children and babies and stalemate and get it over with. That's if they can't find a diplomatic solution.
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What? You lost me. Is this deliberate hyperbole, or reference to a specific operation? :confused:
 
Darth Rotor said:
What? You lost me. Is this deliberate hyperbole, or reference to a specific operation? :confused:
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It's probably something not reported in the American mainstream media which only seems interested in reporting the Super Bowl and basketball and the ravings of right wing lunatics. There is nothing about the secret bugging of Congress or the House of Commons or billionaires or drug smuggling through Fort Bragg either. We have just got to assume that it is only terrorists or criminals who ever get bugged, and they seem to be far too busy to bug celebrities for that.

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2016/01/31/up-to-40-refugees-drown-off-turkey-coast.html
 
Henri McPhee said:
It's probably something not reported in the American mainstream media which only seems interested in reporting the Super Bowl and basketball and the ravings of right wing lunatics. There is nothing about the secret bugging of Congress or the House of Commons or billionaires or drug smuggling through Fort Bragg either. We have just got to assume that it is only terrorists or criminals who ever get bugged, and they seem to be far too busy to bug celebrities for that.

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2016/01/31/up-to-40-refugees-drown-off-turkey-coast.html
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Thank you for the non answer / rant combination. Puts things in perspective. Link is broken, and you don't address the bolded part I had in my question.
 
Erdogan is now demanding that the US decides between him and the terrorists. The terrorists in his book are of course not ISIS but the Syrian Kurds.

AFP said:
"[U.S. diplomat Brett McGurk] visits Kobane at the time of the Geneva talks and is awarded a plaque by a so-called YPG general?" Erdogan told reporters on his plane returning from a trip to Latin America and to Senegal.

"How can we trust [you]?" Erdogan said.

"Is it me who is your partner or the terrorists in Kobane?" [...]

"Do you accept the PKK as a terrorist organization? Then why don't you list the PYD and the YPG as a terrorist organizations, too?" Erdogan asked on the plane.
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Which has been answered by the US several times already: While there are ideological and personal connections, these are different organizations. A view shared by virtually everybody outside Turkey.
 
Karneval in Düsseldorf today:

QZbjqLP.jpg
 
Darth Rotor said:
Thank you for the non answer / rant combination. Puts things in perspective. Link is broken, and you don't address the bolded part I had in my question.
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I'm sorry that link is broken to Sky News. That didn't last long for some reason.

What I was trying to explain is that on that day 40 men women and children and babies had drowned trying to go on an unseaworthey and overcrowded boat between Turkey and a Greek island. Yesterday 33 were drowned in the same way . I think it's tragic and it doesn't seem to be reported in America, which never mentions bugging in its news reports, despite Larry King saying there is Press freedom in America.

They seem to be like lemmings. I don't think it's a risk they have to take. I think it leads to a loss of international confidence.

It makes me wonder if there are some people in high places who want to cull the world's population, and that there are some people in labs supported by the CIA who are dreaming up new diseases like Sars and Ebola and Aids to reduce the population and increase the profits of pharmaceutical companies. They could start with the savages in the Taliban and Isis.
 
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