"...the best course for the United States and Russia is to recognize that their common interest in peace in the Mediterranean requires parallel measures to restrain Erdoğan."

Angelo Codevilla writes in part in American Greatness,

increasingly ever since the rise of Erdoğan and his Islamist party, Turkey has acted as an enemy of America and has been a loose cannon in the region. Only Erdoğan’s incompetence has prevented him from doing more serious harm to his own country as well as to others. His regime is truly irredeemable.

...Erdoğan’s Islamism is of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood variety. This has led him into proxy wars with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, among others, to a blood feud with Egypt, and to outright war against Syria’s Alawite regime. That included the support that enabled ISIS to become a major problem for much of the world.

Turkey’s proxies have fought with and against Shia Iran. Defying the clearest imperative of Turkish geopolitics, Erdoğan has aligned his country with Russia. He makes war on a Kurdish minority that is on a demographic path to power. Having been financed by Qatar, he is running out of money. Meanwhile, he has committed acts of war against Israel and done all in his power to harm America and its interests.

...the best course for the United States and Russia is to recognize that their common interest in peace in the Mediterranean requires parallel measures to restrain Erdoğan.
Read more here.

Who was protecting him?

Robert Spencer writes in PJ Media,

Islamic State (ISIS) caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead, killed by an American airstrike in northwest Syria. President Trump announced this morning: “U.S. Special operations forces executed a dangerous and daring night-time raid in northwestern Syria, and accomplished their mission in grand style. The U.S. personnel were incredible.”

But the question now should not be avoided: why was al-Baghdadi hiding so close to Turkey? Were the Turks protecting him? If not them, then who was?

It strains credulity that Turkey, with its interests in northern Syria, did not know he was there. Al-Baghdadi was killed in Barisha in the Idlib province, a town of no more than 2500 people right on the Turkish border. If the Turks didn’t know that the world’s most wanted terrorist was there, they’re incompetent beyond measure. If they did know, they’re complicit in protecting him.

Given the track record of the Turkish government in aiding the Islamic State, complicity is much more likely than cluelessness. There ought to be a full investigation of Turkey’s involvement, and if the Erdogan regime is definitively found to have been protecting al-Baghdadi, Turkey should be expelled from NATO and the sham alliance with the United States ended. Given, however, the determined head-in-the-sand policy of the State Department establishment, none of that is likely to happen.

Meanwhile, the Islamic State is likely to go on pretty much as it has for the last year or two, after losing almost all of the area of its former caliphate in Iraq and Syria. If al-Baghdadi has a successor, he will be, like al-Baghdadi himself, a caliph without a caliphate. The Islamic State is still very much a presence around the world, but doesn’t control any significant expanse of territory, as it did when Barack Obama was President.

Read more here.

The world's largest jailer of journalists

Read more here.

The Tyrant of Turkey

Jazz Shaw reports at Hot Air,

Plenty of us have been saying this for almost a year now or at least suspected it strongly. The Tyrant of Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been taking and holding American citizens prisoner since last winter, supposedly on charges of being conspirators (or at least sympathizers) in the failed coup attempt in Turkey last summer. One of the longest held is Pastor Andrew Brunson, who we’ve written about at length here. But now Erdogan has taken additional Americans captive, possibly more than a dozen, all of whom he alleges are somehow in league with exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, currently residing in Pennsylvania.

Read more here.

Erdogan thugs beat up protesters in DC

Ace of Spades has video of Erdogan's security enforcers beating up protesters in America in the nation's capital.

Consequences must follow, up to and including arrest.

Diplomatic immunity generally only covers specified persons, usually only top officials and top staff. Others have a more limited immunity, if any at all.

Here's the least that can be done: Erdogan's retinues in the future will be denied any sort of immunity whatsoever. If he wants to come, he either comes with thugs subject to arrest and prosecution, or he comes alone.

At a minimum.

Erdogan is making his own play for rightful "Caliph." Don't kid yourselves. He's positioning himself to be the real Caliph of the Caliphate.

Displays of power like this on the soil of the Great Satan will thrill the rootless rowdies who fill the ranks of terrorist organizations.

Letting Erdogan go without consequences will make Trump look perilously weak.

I didn't mortgage my credibility backing a president who lets Islamists bust heads of protesters on American soil itself.

Watch the video here.

Erdogan continues to consolidate power in Turkey

At The Conservative Treehouse, Sundance helps us understand yesterday's election results in Turkey, and much more.

Turkish President Recep Erdogan is quick to declare victory today, albeit by a narrow margin, as a national referendum to consolidate power passes during a national vote.

[…] The 18 constitutional amendments that will come into effect after the next election, scheduled for 2019, will abolish the office of the prime minister and hand sweeping executive powers to the president.



Having watched the Erdogan objectives play out over the past six to eight years the approach he has taken has been highly effective.

Erdogan essentially imported a base of support consisting of mostly Muslim Brotherhood political supporters to aid his desire to transform Turkey from a secular nation into a more Islamic dictatorial endeavor.

He may never fully achieve the goal of recreating the Ottoman Empire, but that doesn’t mean there is going to be anything less than toxic turmoil ahead for Turkey and the EU as his endeavors continue to be successful.



Recep Erdogan knew he would not be able to accomplish his long term objectives without a fundamental transformation of the voting base in Turkey. It is somewhat analogous to the Democrats political objectives with open-border migration from South American and Mexico into the U.S.

One of the more obvious points of reference which evidenced this approach was when Erdogan provided safe harbor for the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, as a terrorist network, after the Gulf States finally kicked them out of Qatar.

The Brotherhood leadership was exiled into Qatar from Egypt following the removal of Mohammed Morsi. After approximately three years of launching the political narrative to protect their terrorist activity from Qatar, the Gulf States finally agreed it was no longer acceptable -or in their best interests- to allow the Brotherhood hospice there.

Recep Erdogan immediately stepped-up and provided them a home.

Speaking of homes, check out Erdogan's, made of white marble!

Read more here.

Erdogan threatens Europeans

Ace: Hamas-arming Erdogan threatens Europeans. Ace links to this Reuters story by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu | ANKARA
"President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Europeans would not be able to walk safely on the streets if they kept up their current attitude toward Turkey, his latest salvo in a row over campaigning by Turkish politicians in Europe."
Read more here.

"Democrats want to believe that they did not lose the election; that somebody stole it from them!"

Mark Steyn: "Once you strip away a century of Communism, Russia is essentially the prodigal child of western civilization. I'm glad Flynn is gone, not because of ties to the Russians, but because he was in the pay of Erdogan, and I regard Erdogan as a far greater threat to western civilization than Vladimir Putin!"

Similarities

Bookworm writes,

What made the coup an inevitable failure is that Erdogan spent years purging the military of secular leaders and replacing them with leaders sympathetic to his own political philosophy. We have a similar situation here at home.

Obama has spent years purging the American military of conservative leaders and replacing them with leaders who believe that the military’s primary goal isn’t defending America against her enemies but is, instead, to use it as a vehicle to promote the so-called “war against climate change” and gender madness, both to the detriment of military readiness. Meanwhile, on the home front, Obama has armed the federal civil service (a bastion of Left-leaning union members who had no problem using the IRS’s vast powers to silence conservatives in an election year) to the point at which they’re more heavily weaponized than the Marines. The only difference between a weaponized IRS, EPA, FCC, or FDA, on the one hand, and the Marines, on the other hand, is that I’d still bet my money on the Marines in hand-to-hand fighting.

A lot of people worry that, if Trump is rising in the polls, Obama will declare martial law at the end of October, either because of another terrorist attack by a member of the religion of “peace” or because of more outrages by the BLM movement. Two years ago, I would have scoffed. Today, I agree that this scenario is within the realm of possibility.

However, if Hillary is ahead in the polls, the election will go forward, and we’ll end up with the most corrupt woman in American political history having at her command an emasculated, left-Leaning military and a heavily armed bureaucracy at her beck and call. And honestly, if the next president has that kind of firepower, ask yourself this: Would you rather have Trump, who does love America, or Hillary, a hard-core Leftist, in control of that arsenal?

Read more here.

The coup in Turkey has failed

Michael Van Der Galien writes at PJ Media that the coup in Turkey has failed.

Izmir, Turkey -- It's a done deal: the military coup has failed. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AK Parti remain in power and vow to take revenge against those behind the coup.

Or, perhaps better said: against those they say are behind it.

Now that the coup has clearly failed, we can conclude that this must have been the most incompetent attempted takeover in Turkey's troubled history. When part of the military launched their offensive last night (Turkish time), I immediately checked news channels supporting President Erdogan. Surprisingly, none of them were taken over. The only broadcaster that was taken over was TRT Haber, the state news channel. But NTV and other channels supporting Erdogan were left alone.

...That was remarkable, but what struck me even more was the fact that these channels -- especially NTV -- were able to talk to the president and the prime minister. That's strange, to put it mildly. Normally, when the military stages a coup, the civilian rulers are among the first to be arrested. After all, as long as the country's civilian leadership are free, they can tell forces supportive of them what to do... and they can even tell the people to rise up against the coup.

And that's exactly what happened. Both Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called into news programs and told their supporters to go out on the streets and fight back against the soldiers. A short while later, streets in the big cities (Ankara and Izmir) were flooded with Erdogan supporters, who even climbed on top of tanks. Fast forward a few hours and it was officially announced that the coup had failed, and that Erdogan and his AK Party remained in power. About 1500 soldiers were arrested.

Read more here.

Martial law in Turkey takes Erdogan's government by surprise

Oliver Tempest writes for Asia Times,

An apparent attempted coup by elements in the Turkish Armed Forces rocked Turkey unexpectedly late on Friday evening, affecting the country’s two main cities, Ankara and Istanbul.

Streets were closed as were the bridges across the Bosphorus in Istanbul and Istanbul and Ankara airports. Turkey’s state radio and television went off the air for three hours. But other broadcasters continued, though their output suggested that they were as confused as anyone else about the course of events in the country.

Around midnight, an announcement on Turkish State Radio and Television said that the Turkish Armed Forces had taken over and that a body calling itself “The Peace in the Country Council” had taken over the government and declared martial law.

...Erdogan rallies supporters

TV stations showed the president appealing from a cell phone on FaceTime to the people to go into the streets and squares and demonstrate on behalf of democracy. The president is believed to be staying on holiday on the coast of Western Turkey. There was no explanation for the apparent absence of normal presidential communications support.

“I appeal to the leaders of all political parties who believe in democracy to support democracy,” Erdogan said. Using FaceTime he told reporters that he had not faced any attempt to restrain him so far.

Compared to Turkey’s military coups in 1960 and 1980, today’s attempted takeover looks relatively amateurish, suggesting that it is probably led by a group of junior officers rather than the top generals. A statement from the government news agency Anatolia says that General Hulusi Akar, the chief of general staff, is being held hostage by other officers. There was no sign that a news blackout, traditionally a feature of a successful Turkish military coup, had been imposed and TV channels and websites continued to discuss the situation.

Under these circumstances the prospects of the coup-makers’ ability to take control of the country looks highly doubtful and might depend on the use of wide-scale force — something which would almost certainly be fatal to their chances of success.

Read more here.

Coup underway in Turkey

There is an attempted coup in Turkey by the military against Islamofascist President Erdogan. Some information can be found here.

Erdogan and Putin: mirror images

victor Davis Hanson writes at National Review,

Turkey has become a favorite stop abroad for Obama to lecture his fellow Americans about their ethical shortcomings, from past treatment of Native Americans to their present supposed xenophobia over not accepting Syrian refugees en masse. Yet the more Obama has appeased Erdogan, the more anti-Western and anti-American Turkey has become.

Erdogan has insidiously eroded Turkish democracy, free speech, and human rights. He is turning the once-secular state into an Islamic nation. Thousands of Turkish soccer fans recently shouted “Allahu Akbar” when asked for a moment of silence to honor the victims of the Paris terrorist attacks. So much for NATO solidarity.

...Small, vulnerable nations and peoples of the region — Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds — used to be terrified of Turkish aggression. They are starting to become afraid again under Erdogan’s new Islamic militancy.

...Turkey now demands justice from Russia for violating Turkish airspace. But no country in the world violates foreign airspace as often as Turkey. A Greek defense analyst counted 2,244 times that Turkey violated Greek airspace in 2014 — an average of more than six violations per day. The Erdogan government believes that the way to solve disagreement with fellow NATO member Greece over a few disputed Aegean islands and oil finds is to send up its much larger air force to bully the Greeks — especially after their recent financial meltdown.

...Suddenly, Turkey’s NATO membership is important to Erdogan in his dispute with Putin. But the real irony is that the autocratic Erdogan is the dictatorial Putin’s mirror image. No two leaders deserve each other more.

Read more here.

To trust the wolf with the sheep

Burak Bekdil writes at The Gatestone Institute,

Sadly, the free world feels compelled to partner with the wrong country in its fight against Islamic terror.

...The host of this year's G-20 summit, which came right after the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, was Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In his usual Sunni supremacist language, he accused the victims of jihad rather than the jihadists. "New tragedies will be inevitable," he said, "if the rising racism in Europe and other countries is not stopped. Racism, coupled with enmity against Islam, is the greatest disaster, the greatest threat."

...Anyone under the impression that the whole world stands in solidarity with Paris should think again. Hundreds of Turkish fans booed and chanted "Allahu Akbar" ("Allah is greater" in Arabic) during a moment of silence for the Paris attack victims before a Turkey-Greece soccer friendly. Once again, the Turks were exhibiting solidarity with the terrorists, not their "infidel" victims.

...More recently, on Nov. 21, Turkish police had to deploy 1,500 policemen so that Turkish fans could not harm the visiting Israeli women's national basketball team. One thousand five hundred police officers at a women's basketball game! Despite that, Turkish fans threw objects at Israeli players as they were singing Israel's national anthem. Fans also booed the Israeli players while others applauded the fans who threw the objects.

Unsurprisingly, Turkish fans waved Palestinian flags. Israeli women basketball players were barred from leaving their hotel other than for training and the game.

...How should Erdogan fight Islamic terror – something he does not believe exists? One of Erdogan's famous remarks is, "there is no Islamic terror." But he thinks that "just like fascism," Zionism is a crime against humanity.


Turkish President (then Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, meeting with Hamas leaders Khaled Mashaal (center) and Ismail Haniyeh on June 18, 2013, in Ankara, Turkey. One of Erdogan's famous remarks is, "there is no Islamic terror." (Image source: Turkey Prime Minister's Press Office)

There is a Turkish saying that could perhaps describe the free world's alliance with Erdogan's Turkey against jihadist terror: "Kuzuyu kurda emanet etmek" ("to trust the wolf with the sheep").

Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Read more here.

Turkish people let Erdogan know what they think of his authoritarian rule

Very good news today out of Turkey. Bridget Johnson reports at PJ Media that President Obama's good buddy Islamist

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been counting on the continued rule of his AKP party to change the country’s constitution after these elections, consolidating his already increasingly authoritarian rule into something even more dastardly.

But a 2/3 majority of AKP in parliament is needed to change the constitution.

Today, the Islamist party walked away with only 41 percent of seats.

Read more here.

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds.

Announcing we are at war, then going fundraising

Xharles Krauthammer notes that like Stalin at Warsaw,

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is offering a determined echo by ordering Turkish tanks massed on the Syrian border, within sight of the besieged Syrian town of Kobani, to sit and do nothing.

For almost a month, Kobani Kurds have been trying to hold off Islamic State fighters. Outgunned, outmanned, and surrounded on three sides, the defending Kurds have begged Turkey to allow weapons and reinforcements through the border. Erdogan has refused even that, let alone intervening directly. Infuriated Kurds have launched demonstrations throughout Turkey protesting Erdogan’s deadly callousness. At least 21 demonstrators have been killed.

Moreover, Erdogan entertains a larger vision: making Turkey the hegemonic power over the Sunni Arabs, as in Ottoman times. The Islamic State is too radical and uncontrollable to be an ally in that mission. But it is Sunni. And it fights Shiites, Alawites, and Kurds. Erdogan’s main regional adversary is the Shiite-dominated rule of Syria’s Bashar Assad. Erdogan demands that the U.S. take the fight to Assad before Turkey will join the fight against the Islamic State.

On the day after the Islamic State entered Kobani, we launched five airstrikes. Result? We hit three vehicles, one artillery piece, and one military “unit.” And damaged a tank. This, against perhaps 9,000 heavily armed Islamic State fighters. If this were not so tragic, it would be farcical.

Obama has committed the U.S. to war on the Islamic State. To then allow within a month an allied enclave to be overrun — and perhaps annihilated — would be a major blow.

The indecisiveness and ambivalence so devastatingly described by both of Obama’s previous secretaries of defense, Leon Panetta and Bob Gates, are already beginning to characterize the Syria campaign.

The Iraqis can see it. The Kurds can feel it. The jihadists are counting on it.