For the past week, I have been circumnavigating the globe, on my vacation trip to Mongolia. Along the way, I made a stop in Istanbul, Turkey, where I stayed in the glamorous international airport and slept over in a fancy Turkish Yotel (hotel). During my stay at the Istanbul Yotel, I happened to watch two English-language world news Turkish channels. For at least half of these hour-long programs, these channels peddled the rankest anti-Semitic and anti-Israel Turkish government propaganda on the (non-existent) “genocide” supposedly being conducted by Israelis against the Palestinian Arabs.
Which brings me neatly to the problem of Turkey, and its Islamist (i.e., radical Sunni Muslim) presidential dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. I have written about the problem of Erdogan, who has ruled over Turkey since 2003, numerous times before. Although Turkey has been a long-time member of NATO, under Erdogan, Turkey is far from a loyal and helpful ally:
-
Erdogan has aggressively backed anti-American Islamist groups that have killed and injured Americans. During the search for the Islamic State (IS) Caliph, Baghdadi, lived for some time in Syria’s Idlib province, under the very nose of Turkish forces that had invaded and taken control over this part of Syria to fight our Kurdish allies. Almost certainly, the Turks knew that Baghdadi was there; this can be seen from the fact that the U.S. did not inform the Turkish government that we were specifically targeting Baghdadi, as there were “concerns the information would be compromised.” Erdogan has also aided the Shia Islamist regime of Iran in evading international sanctions on it; facilitated IS expansion through oil smuggling and being a conduit for new ISIS recruits and supplies, and provided covert financial support to a Turkish terror group with ties to al-Qaeda through local government contracts and donations and has even employed convicted jihadists in municipalities under the control of the ruling party. For the entire length of his leadership in Turkey, Erdogan has been a “champion of Hamas,” both verbally, and more substantially, such as in providing them with intelligence, sanctuary, office space, and funding. And Hamas, of course, recently murdered over 30 Americans in Israel, and has killed many others in the past, including American veteran Taylor Force.
-
Erdogan has aggressively and consistently acted to threaten innocent American citizens. During one of Erdogan’s visits to the White House, his security detail assaulted and stomped on American citizens (or residents) who were peacefully protesting the president at the Turkish Embassy in D.C. The bloody clash sent nine people to the hospital, and video indicates that Erdogan himself may have ordered the attack. And this is the second time his retinue has instigated violence against Americans or others in the U.S. while visiting our nation. Erdogan has also kidnapped American citizens, like Andrew Brunson, an evangelical pastor who lived in Turkey, to use as a hostage. Erdogan sought to trade Brunson for a prominent Turkish dissident in the U.S. Erdogan has instituted lawfare procedures against Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official who has never lived in Turkey, solely to punish his speech against Erdogan. And Erdogan has instituted legal proceedings and even a bounty on Enes Kanter, the Turkish basketball player who is now an American citizen, for Kanter’s verbal opposition to Erdogan.
-
Erdogan has blamed the U.S. for a 2016 attempted coup in Turkey; threatened to close U.S. bases, including at Incirlik, which has American nuclear weapons; has interfered with that base (Incirlik) and could threaten to steal the nuclear weapons from it; and more than once threatened with violence or even fired upon U.S. troops for their assistance to the Kurds
-
Erdogan despises Greece, a former colony of Turkey and now a fellow NATO ally – and unlike Turkey, an actual democracy – with whom he has been at odds for decades over a number of bilateral squabbles, including quarrels over maritime boundaries, overlapping claims to their continental shelves and the long-running Cyprus dispute. Turkey continues to occupy a large portion of the Greek-majority island, and has installed a Turkish puppet regime there. Turkey has also aggressively violated Greek airspace literally tens of thousands of times.
-
Erdogan despises Jews, and Israel, the U.S.’s strongest state ally in the Middle East.
-
Erdogan despises and continues to aggressively persecute the Kurds in Turkey, and make war on them in Iraq and Syria, despite the fact that those militias are the strongest non-state allies of the U.S. in the Middle East. Turkey also does this despite the fact that the Kurdish population in the Middle East is hugely pro-American, has acted to rein in radical and violent Muslims in Syria and Iraq, and often works to protect non-Muslim minorities in those nations.
-
Erdogan despises Armenia, arms Azerbaijan in its ongoing war with Armenia, and refuses to admit to the Turkish genocide against the Armenians from over a century ago.
-
Erdogan has “significantly radicalized in recent years” the Turkish school curriculum, so that “concepts such as ‘Turkish World Domination’ and Turkish or Ottoman ‘Ideal of the World Order’ are emphasized,” and that “Christians and Jews are characterized as infidels instead of People of the Book,” as was the case in the past. Obviously, this educational taught hate includes copious amounts of anti-Americanism.
-
Erdogan has increasingly undermined democratic values in Turkey, undermined secularism in Turkey, and undermined human rights in Turkey (especially the rights of women, gays, and ethnic minorities like the Kurds).
-
Erdogan has been a problem in NATO on other matters too. He has claimed that he trusts Russia and the West “equally,” despite Russia being the main outside force the Western alliance of NATO was created to “keep out of Europe.” And for a time he acted to block Sweden and Finland from NATO, based on their unwillingness to persecute Kurdish groups.
To be continued…
