Stand By Me
Turkey’s Recep Erdogan made the newbie’s mistake of Foreign Policy. He trusted the Obama administration. Turkey is in trouble with Russia.
By forcing down an airliner flying from Moscow, and publicly accusing Russia of ferrying military equipment to Damascus, Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has taken what may prove to be the biggest gamble yet in his Syria policy.
The incident risks damaging a carefully nurtured relationship with an irascible Russian superpower at a time when Ankara needs all the friends it can get….
“Because the grounding of the plane was done in such a public manner, Putin will see this as a direct challenge,” he said of the Russian president.
Russia provides nearly two-thirds of Turkey’s gas supplies and often ramps up its exports to the country during frequent cuts in Iranian gas supplies in the winter. Russia is also set to help build Turkey’s first nuclear power plant.
Russia also plans to build its 63 billion cubic meter South Stream pipeline through Turkey’s waters to feed Europe. The plan raises Turkey’s profile as a partner in the project and gives both countries incentives to maintain friendship.
But it has America’s support. Right? Right?
Lee Smith thinks about what support Turkey has gotten so far from the Obama Administration.
the administration’s blandishments and encouragements, and later its reproaches and betrayals, have pushed Turkey out on a ledge, apparently alone. If some are gloating that a boastful Erdogan is finally getting his comeuppance with his troubles on the Syrian border, the fact is that the administration has let an ally, albeit a troublesome one, expose its weaknesses, a posture dangerous both to itself and American interests….
When the uprising against Assad erupted, the White House tasked its Syria policy out to Erdogan, who had only recently described the Syrian president as a friend. However, Erdogan’s entreaties proved ineffective, largely because the soft power that he thought he exercised over Syria, especially regarding trade, was negligible.
Here again the Obama administration had miscalculated on Turkey, overestimating Erdogan, or taking his bluster at face value, and handing off a sensitive job to an easily excitable ally. When Erdogan backed himself into a corner, the White House let him languish there alone. After the Turkish prime minister had called for Assad to step down, Ankara approached the administration with several “forward-leaning” options, including creation of “a buffer zone and/or a humanitarian corridor, as well as organizing and equipping the Free Syrian Army.” According to reports, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rebuffed Ankara’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, telling him, “we are not there yet.” Instead, the administration sided with Russia, which proposed a political solution to the crisis that was only intended to ensure the survival of the Assad regime.
“We are not there yet” is something Hillary says a lot of. Today the Associated Press reported that there was “still no clear picture of Benghazi”.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the precise details of the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya are still unclear. But she says the Obama administration is committed to uncovering the truth.
One month after the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, Clinton said Friday that there is still “much” the administration doesn’t know about what happened. Clinton said no one in the administration was motivated by anything other than determining the facts of the case.
Besides it is a case of ‘prove to me that reinforcements would have saved the consulate’ ” The administration says there is no evidence that more security would have thwarted the attack.” Yes “we are not there yet.” We’ll get back to you. Don’t call us we’ll call you. The check is in the mail.
Smith continues:
The administration also took sides against Turkey in June, after a Turkish plane was shot down and Ankara charged that the Syrians had fired on the jet without warning in international airspace. The Syrians claimed that the plane was inside Syrian airspace, brought down by anti-aircraft gunfire. The account that U.S. officials gave to reporters, backed the Syrian story. It seems, however, that Turkey’s narrative was accurate. According to news reports and recently leaked Syrian government documents, the plane was downed by a Russian-made heat-seeking missile, an attack allegedly ordered by the Russians that may have been conducted by Russian technicians. Russian intelligence also may have directed the execution of the two Turkish pilots …
In a NATO meeting last week convened under article 4 of the NATO treaty, “asserting the integrity of the 28 members,” the alliance condemned the Syrian shelling across the Turkish border that killed 5 people. But should the exchange escalate, if Syrian artillery were to hit a schoolhouse full of children, what then? It is unlikely that the Obama administration will at this point, or perhaps ever, come to Turkey’s aid should it get entangled in a conflict that is partly of the administration’s own making.The issue here is not simply that White House has failed to pursue American interests and assist U.S. allies in letting the Syrian conflict run now for more than a year and a half with a death toll closing in on 30,000. Rather it is a picture of a foreign policy without principle or prudence. The White House sided with Turkey against Israel, but for what purpose—in order to side with Assad against Erdogan? In failing to manage a useful, if difficult ally, the White House has helped make it vulnerable to its adversaries and ours.
“The White House sided with Turkey against Israel, but for what purpose—in order to side with Assad against Erdogan?”
That sentence captures the entire problem with the administration’s foreign policy. Their offense wasn’t simply the betrayal of Libyans, Iraqis, Afghans, Turks and sundry other nationalities who risked their lives by throwing in with America, though that would be bad enough. It was their betrayal for nothing; for selling them out sans purpose; for committing treachery without hope of gain.
But perhaps Smith should look for motives on a smaller scale. Not on the balance of grand geopolitics but on the level of talk shows. The sellout was always for something: for talking points; for political ads; for laugh lines at the next fundraiser. They didn’t waffle for nothing, just for very little. Smith’s problem is that he’s looking for reasons in dollars in minds that only run up to cents.
Belmont Commenters
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
You don’t get it Richard, nobody gets it. Sometimes, even I don’t get it. You see, Obama is the smartest guy in the room. If you fail to see how he is succeeding beyond our wildest dreams, that is not His fault. You just have to give Him a little more time, say six more weeks, and then everything will be made clear.
0bama is playing Chicago Politics on the world stage, keeping everyone at each other’s throat, if there isn’t trouble than 0bama must create a problem, problem is that doesn’t work in a “World” setting for long, sooner or later they start to figure it out and they turn on the puppet master, in any case 0bama has severally damaged our relationships with our long time allies and destroyed some of our close orbital protectorates, ones we may never get back or in this life time… 0bama may well be the end of us all.
Obama just wants to see the white world burn. His foreign policy is nothing more than the reduction of American power and prestige. What will he do next? Whatever fits that particular policy. He is utterly consistent, and thus, predictable, in that.
It’s foolish to expect coherent policy from a foolish knave.
Obama believes in foolish things, which makes him a fool.
He’s fundamentally dishonest about his intentions, which makes him a knave.
This is worse than the shifting stories about the death of an American ambassador.
The torture-execution of Ambassador Stevens was a black day for America, but our enemies are out there, and they do such a thing given half a chance, especially if we let our guard down.
This 3-way thing with Russia, Turkey, and Syria, mess this up and this is how the next World War starts.
I think Turkey is playing 0bama, just like the MB is, Iranian to a lesser degree, I think Putin is too, Euroweenies have been for awhile (since Duck of Death) question is have the Chinese caught on yet? Have the Japanese? The Mexicans? How long before the whole world starts to play 0bama!
The heirs of Soviet Foreign Policy are clueless. Much of the dogma that was absorbed by the “stupid is as stupid does” segment of the Left was just tactics born of the time to aid the USSR in its bid for world domination. The USSR is dead, but like the human appendix, the old sayings live on after the reason for their existence has passed out of history. The parrots shriek, not even knowing the meaning of what they shriek. Its a leftist/parrot kind of thing. Outsiders can’t really understand it.
Although I have my doubts, hopefully the Left will one day figure out that it is no longer 1917 A.D.
Not that it enters into the “thinking” of this administration, but it surely would have been helpful to us if the Turks had permitted passing of our assets through Turkey in Spring 2003.
Just saying.
Looking over the ruins of America’s Middle East policy, sometimes I think that the Obama administration’s foreign policy was inspired by the BBC’s dramatization of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. In particular, it drew from the life of Nero, who after burning Rome, and doing nothing but take extended vacations, seized the property of the 1% and after turning on all his supporters embarked on an historic tax increase.
He ordered all the remaining aristocrats to commit suicide and deed their wealth to him. He needed money to fund his public projects; his Sesame Streets, his improbable brainstorms.
Inevitably this mismanagement fostered unrest and a civil war threatened to smash the empire. Alarmed, the Senate gave Nero one final chance to explain his plan to pacify the rebels. The actor playing Nero proposed something so very much like the Obama apology tour through the Muslim world in 2009 that I reproduce his speech below. This was Nero’s plan.
Wasn’t that what bridge-building to the Muslim world was supposed to do? Isn’t that what the Child of the World was expected to accomplish? Isn’t that why people voted for him?
The difference was that in the BBC production this spectacle convinced the Senate that Nero was completely insane. In the America of 2009 however, Obama’s plan only confirmed in the media the belief that their new President was a genius.
9. wretchard
That made my day. Thank you. After I stopped laughing I realized that Emperors Nero and Zero are separated by a mere eleven letters of the alphabet. Probably means nothing.
Wonderful Richard. Strike up the band.
As I’ve said before, this can have a silver lining if we don’t panic and if we re-align oursleves. After 9/11 it was tragic for the West to remain asleep to the lethal dangers of Islam. We had too much inertia, too much invested in the notion that we should be allies with as many Muslims as possible. The Muslims have done their best to rip the veil from our eyes – they have hated us all along. But we were too invested and too deluded to get the message.
The Muslims have been saying ‘ Let’s break up’ for a long time — while we’ve been living in denial in this deeply dysfunctional relationship. It was once all based on the idea that befriending Muslims would yield a safe and steady supply of oil. To the extent that was ever true, it has long since stopped working…
What do we really lose if we lose Turkey? Not much.
And we desperately need re-alignment with the head of the snake Saudi Arabia.
In any event, due to Obama’s incompetence and malignancy, due to Bush2′s foolishness, the ME has left the station, and we’re not on the train. The oil we require is local. Let the rest of the world shoulder the staggering and suicidal costs of being friends with the barbarian culture of Islam. As some might know already, I support the idea of cutting them off and letting their rotten house fall down around their satanic heads.
The betrayal of all by all proceedes.
Smith knew, “Under the spreading chestnut tree …”
Lee Smith should save his sympathies for the Syrian Christians rather than poor little Erdogan. Getting slapped down hard by Putin with Turkish veggies and fruits rotting instead of getting sold at Ashans and Perekrostiks is exactly what Erdogan’s government deserves, and I hope Spengler takes some satisfaction in this.
Remember that every single anti-Russian colored revolution the Bush people embraced since 2003 has ended in failure. Every single one. In fact the only group of Georgians living outside Georgia who voted as a majority for the Tie Eater was the Georgian army in Afghanistan. Even Georgians in Canada and the UK went for Ivanishvili, who just like Yanukovich is going to take whatever he can get from all sides while making promises, promises to everyone. Ivanishvili after all doesn’t want the Georgian economy to collapse without the USAID gravy train.
The story Lee Smith cites is bogus, Al-Arabiya GCC propaganda that neocons are suddenly buying so eagerly. Russian intelligence wouldn’t have killed the two Turkish pilots even if Russian advisors shot them down (and they would assuredly have been over Syrian air space given the ranges involved — Russia wouldn’t put advisors in a risky position to get snatched right on the Syria-Turkish border, it would’ve been further inland). The pilots were worth too much alive in terms of exchanges, they would’ve held them in case the FSA captured any Russian advisors (as it was, the FSA has lied about killing Russians before, with one of the Russians they claimed to have killed popping up alive and well in Moscow). The Turks and the GCC countries are lying. As Reuters hints at Turks have yet to produce the alleged super secret Russian military equipment that was on the A320.
But…betrayal of all by all sounds about accurate. If you look at the pro-Assad Twitter feeds, even they think Russia won’t go down to the wire for them instead. But the Russians WILL send Erdogan a message, and they probably will send enough advanced anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to make any Turkish incursion a very bloody affair. But why should NATO and Obama send in the troops if they can fight Assad to the last Turk?
As I said in a previous thread, Putin has the goods on how much fornicating took place between this Administration, elements outside of this administration, and the Libyan and Syrian jihadists. Don’t think he won’t dump that first on the Israelis, showing these are your bestest friends and what they’re doing, and then later on the public.
Well, what has Erdogan done for the US lately, like since barring the 4ID from crossing to Iraq in 2003? And backing several convoys to Gaza … though I note that that has quietly been abandoned recently, betcha there’s a story there. About time we gave him an assignment to be NATO’s agent against his neighbor Syria, to see just what that comes to.
I notice that Hagia Sophia is background to two current movies, they’re stealing our film industry!
I suppose Turkey continues to have secular, western elements and to allow NATO and US military operations there. But unless they’re just about to host a joint US/Israeli raid on Iran, I say let Hillary go and weep with them and sing to them.
So how did all that business work out for that Nero cat, anyway?
The train has already left the station and we’re not on it. For a long time Islam is been trying to tell us it absolutely hates our guts, but like the deluded boyfriend, we just couldn’t hear the message. After 9/11, we should’ve figured out how lethal our relationship is with the culture of hatred which is Islam, but tragically we did not.
It’s high time to begin to search for the silver lining after the double-catastrophes of Bush2 and Obama. “Winning hearts and minds” and “Muslim outreach” have been two of the biggest American blunders of all time. Admitting millions of Muslims into our precincts and ‘befriending’ them for cheap gas are part of hat blunder too.
What would we really lose if Turkey is lost? Iraq? Afghanistan? Steady cheap oil is a long gone delusion – secular bulwarks against the Soviets are gone too.
Can someone please explain to me why we should give a crap about Islamastan?
I just hope the next time they mass murder us, and it WILL happen again, complete with the candy and cheerful ululating of their women, that we remember what savages they are. Betrayal, blood, subversion, and terror is all our ‘friendship’ with Muslims has yeilded. It’s time we reaped the windfalls of our own natural resourses, and worked towards the enrichment of our own hemisphere. Let others shoulder the bitter fruit of being friends with the scum of the earth.
This all is extremely dangerous. To paraphrase Reagan: it is not that they do not know what they are doing, it is whatever they are doing has no basis in reality.
Meanwhile, around the Mediterranean – Current dismal headlines from My Way
http://news.myway.com/index/id/mideast|ap.html
Egypt’s Islamists play to anti-Israel sentiment
CAIRO (AP) – A fiery tirade against Jews by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s leader highlights one of the foremost diplomatic challenges facing the country’s new Islamist President Mohammed Morsi as he balances popular sentiment with the need for security relations with Israel. The Brotherhood’s…
Egypt standoff between president, prosecutor ends photo
CAIRO (AP) – Egypt’s new president backed down Saturday from his decision to remove the country’s top prosecutor, keeping him in his post and sidestepping a potential clash with the country’s powerful judiciary. The two-day standoff between President Mohammed Morsi and Prosecutor General…
Few good options to secure Syria chemical arsenal photo
BEIRUT (AP) – The U.S. and regional allies are closely monitoring Syria’s chemical weapons – caught in the midst of a raging civil war – but options for securing the toxic agents stuffed into shells, bombs and missiles are fraught with risk. President Bashar Assad’s embattled regime is believed to…
Israel: Gaza strike hit al-Qaida-inspired group
JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel’s military says its aircraft fired at militants belonging to an al-Qaida-inspired group in Gaza a day after rockets hit a house in Israel. A military statement said aircraft “targeted terror operatives” of a “Gaza-based global jihad affiliate” Saturday evening. Palestinian…
Iran says ready for nuclear flexibility photo
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran is ready to show flexibility at nuclear talks to ease Western concerns over its contentious nuclear program, its foreign ministry spokesman said on Saturday, as tensions rise in the standoff between the Islamic Republic, Israel and the West. The remarks by Ramin…
Questions rise over Tunisian party’s moderateness photo
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) – Leaked conversations mentioning alcohol bans and the imposition of religious law have raised fears that Tunisia’s new government may not be as moderate as it appears, especially in the context of mob attacks on the U.S. Embassy that coincided with the killing of the American…
Palestinians seek work in Israel as crisis deepens photo
BEIT EL, West Bank (AP) – For Palestinians, the Israeli military coordination office on the outskirts of Jerusalem is a symbol of Israel’s decades-long control over their lives. Now it has also become an unlikely source of hope for employment. In response to an economic crisis gripping the West…
Yemen says “terrorists” killed US embassy worker photo
SANAA, Yemen (AP) – Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi said Friday that “terrorists” were behind the assassination of a security official for the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa. Hadi, according to Yemeni official TV, sent condolences to the family of Qassem Aqlani, who was killed in drive-by shooting…
Hospital in Syrian city barely copes with wounded photo
ALEPPO, Syria (AP) – The injured arrive at the hospital in taxis or in the back of pickup trucks, to the blare of car horns and shouts of “Help!” Sometimes, they are battle-hardened rebels with gaping wounds. Sometimes, they are children, peppered with shrapnel and screaming in pain. Those who die…
Clashes hit Bahrain’s capital photo
MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) – Riot police in Bahrain fired tear gas and stun grenades in clashes with hundreds of anti-government protesters in the capital of the restive Gulf kingdom. Associated Press journalists witnessed several arrests as security forces moved against protesters, led by the daughter…
Report: 3 militants escape from prison in Lebanon
BEIRUT (AP) – Lebanon’s state run news agency says three members of an al-Qaida-inspired group have escaped from a prison in eastern Beirut. It was not immediately clear how or when they managed to stage the getaway from the high-security Roumieh prison. The National News Agency identified the men…
“Russia also plans to build its 63 billion cubic meter South Stream pipeline through Turkey’s waters to feed Europe. The plan raises Turkey’s profile as a partner in the project and gives both countries incentives to maintain friendship.”
I think that the author made a error, Turkey is involved with Nabucco pipeline, not with Southstream, which is Gasprom project, cofinanced with Rusia and Germany
Imad Fawzi Shueibi has a interesting analyse : it’s a energy war of influence, whereas gas is the object of conflicts (it is said that Syria and Lebanon have a big reserve of it), whereas Russia has a train in advance over the Westernies that supported the Nabucco project, and he is likely to abandon it.
Turkey is the loser, she chose to support the wrong project in the first place
-http://mecanoblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/la-syrie-centre-de-la-guerre-du-gaz-au-proche-orient/ (in french)
http://enricpatrick.over-blog.org/article-syria-the-center-of-the-gas-war-in-the-middle-east-104881443.html (in english)
Imad Fawzi Shueibi, a Syrian, isn’t tender with the US, and France’s policies there
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9606691/Syria-despatch-rebel-fighters-fear-the-growing-influence-of-their-Bin-Laden-faction.html
Syria despatch: rebel fighters fear the growing influence of their ‘Bin Laden’ faction
uh, got two posts with links swallowed
Turkey is a loyal ally of America and has been for decades-there have been no spying incidents like the Pollard treachery.
The head of the CIA says that Turkey is a loyal ally and that the issue of the Iraq invasion was created by Germany and France vetoing NATO support for Turkey if they were attacked by Iraq as a result
-the CIA supports this decision in favor of Turkey.
Naive fools can claim otherwise-as they will continue to do
Turkey has fought side by side with American troops since the Korean War-American military and Intelligence Community have strong bonds with Turkey.
Israel does what it does in their colonial campaign-fine
-Israel has been rejected in its application for NATO membership
-it is what it it is
American Fundamental Interest are supported by NATO members
“Russia also plans to build its 63 billion cubic meter South Stream pipeline through Turkey’s waters to feed Europe. The plan raises Turkey’s profile as a partner in the project and gives both countries incentives to maintain friendship”
It seems that Reuters made a mistake, Turkey isn’t involved with South Stream (Gasprom, Russia+ Germany), but with Nabucco (US project)
“With the fall of the Soviet Union, Russians have realized that the arms race had exhausted them, especially in the absence of supply of energy necessary for any industrialized country. Instead, the U.S. had been able to develop and decide on international politics without much difficulty because of their presence in the oil areas for decades. This is why the Russians decided to turn to position themselves on energy sources, as well as gas oil. Whereas the oil sector, given its international division, offered no prospects, Moscow counted on the gas, its production, its transport and large-scale commercialization.
The kickoff was given in 1995 when Vladimir Putin introduced the strategy of Gazprom gas from areas of Russia to Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Iran (for marketing), to the Middle East. Certainly projects Nord Stream Stream etSouth testify before History of merit and effort of Vladimir Putin to bring Russia into the international arena and influence the European economy because it will depend, for decades to come, gas as an alternative or supplement to oil, but with a clear priority for gas. From there, it became necessary for Washington to create the project competing Nabucco, to compete with Russian projects and hope to play a role in what will determine the strategy and policy for the next hundred years.
The fact is that the gas will be the main energy source for the 21st century, both as an alternative to declining global oil reserves, and as a source of clean energy.Therefore, control of gas-rich areas of the world by the old and new power is the basis of an international conflict which are regional event.
Clearly, Russia has read the cards and has learned the lesson of the past, because it is the lack of control at the level of global energy resources, essential to the injection of capital and energy in industrial structure , which was the cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Similarly Russia has learned that the gas would be the energy resource of the next century.”
http://enricpatrick.over-blog.org/article-syria-the-center-of-the-gas-war-in-the-middle-east-104881443.html
It’s a war for energy supplies, whereas Putin has a train in advance, and he isn’t likely to abandon the ground.
My dear Marie Claude, it wouldn’t be the first nor the last time Reuters got something wrong about Russia, but they do have the largest Western media bureau in Moscow and try harder than the crew of the Guardian ‘what’s the latest P—y Riot lawyers’ press release to publish as news today’ and ‘Russian men don’t pay attention to female Western reporters’ crew.
Reuters also dropped a bombshell hidden in plain sight when Felix Salmon reported in 2010 that Government Sachs had super secret meetings at a Moscow hotel in March 2008, no doubt discussing how they would swallow up some of ther competitors like Lehman Brothers in the coming crap storm. No doubt the walls were listening. If I were a Kremlin plant, would I dare mention that elements of the Russian government and the oligarchs connected to it most certainly knew before many Wall Street bosses which firms were going to go down on the basis of what Government Sachs execs blabbed to the walls (and perhaps actual, accomodating hosts) in Moscow? Top intel nowadays is economic, not just strategeric or nukyulur stuff.
With respect to your post Marie, I did not know Putin was calling the shots as early as 1995.
“The kickoff was given in 1995 when Vladimir Putin introduced the strategy of Gazprom gas from areas of Russia to Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Iran (for marketing), to the Middle East.” I did hear though that German bankers were very high on Putin in St. Petersburg as early as 1997, he’d been marked as a man who could cut red tape and get things done for then Mayor (father of Ksenia) Anatoly Sobchak. Leave it to the bankers to know who’s about to be shot up the ladder before the rest of us.
PJM filter bots (NOT our host) don’t like evil alleged Russians and Frenchies
The whole current situation has depressed me so that I have retreated to the one thing I still do well. Electronics:
http://www.ecnmag.com/tags/Blogs/M-Simon/
The Republicans have no taste for Liberty and the Democrats have no taste for anything except Power and Control.
I don’t trust a man who never gets drunk and I don’t trust one drunk on power. No matter who gets elected we are in for difficult times. My hope is that Romney will at least handle the economics and foreign policy tolerably well.
My worry is that he will declare war on Colorado if they legalize. Or Washington State. Ah well. Obama is no better. And may in fact be in cahoots with the cartels. But will Romney do anything different domestic policy wise or will he support the gangsters for his own (religious) reasons and get nothing for it? Obama at least got campaign donations (in my estimation) from them. It is a very old deal in Chicago for those who know the history of Jeff Fort.
For those who don’t:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Fort
MC…
Putin & Co haven’t learned a thing. Russia STILL thinks that decisions made in Moscow have big weight in economic affairs.
Which is exactly backwards.
The route to a powerful economy is to get politicians OUT of the decision loop.
————-
But it’s no matter: Putin has already sold Russia’s soul to Red China — via the SCO.
The real reason that Russia needs to get out from under her nuclear compacts with America is because both powers now have less throw weight than Red China — which Putin has finally figured out.
The techno-military gap between Red China and Russia is now INVERTED: Beijing is ahead of Moscow in electronics — and tied pretty much everywhere else.
This transition means that Putin & Co will fade to irrelevance — probably before the decade is out. (!)
American Fundamental Interest are supported by NATO members
Backwards. America supports the interests of NATO members. When they favor American interests. Otherwise NATO members prefer to go their own way. The armies of Europe? A joke. And we prefer it that way. Probably for good reason. The propensities are not extinguished. Just dormant.
If Turkey is not spying on America there is something wrong with their Intel agencies. I’m still trying to figure out the use of Pollard to America so many years after the fact. A sop to the Saudis perhaps? But the Saudis are now covert allies of Israel with respect to Iran. Perhaps he knows something that would be very hurtful to US interests and keeping him in prison is kinder than a bullet behind the ears?
8. Joan
You’re right Joan. Some of us have very long memories when it comes to humiliation.
Thank God we have a President who never even heard of the word or its root, humility, or its deriviative, humble.
Unless, that is, it has to do with the culinary delicacy – humble pie.
M. Simon…
Ankara is ‘working’ America’s native tribes as a route for islamization.
Google around…
So whereas the Saudis/ Wahhabists are working the prison angle…
The Turks are working the alienated tribes.
( DNA says that the American natives descend from Asiatic nomads of the steppes… which is pretty much where the Turks existed until the Eleventh Century.
Then they fled west to Anatolia — displacing the Greco/Romans and Kurds.
Obviously, they’ve remade the connection… and are working it.
What is the use of an ally that doesn’t stand by you in time of need? It was the easiest thing for them to let in the Americans in 2003. How many are the needless deaths that could have been avoided? Then they had their angle, Kurdish rebellion etc. The Turks should be made to face the Russians by themselves, after all its the Caliphate that Erdogan is after, not some Western compact. Haven’t the Americans learned by now that the Muslims are only too willing to let the US Army do the the fighting and dying, on their way to dominance?
“The Turks should be made to face the Russians by themselves, after all its the Caliphate that Erdogan is after, not some Western compact.” Agreed. Russia won’t invade. And they won’t cut off the gas since that will be another black PR mark for Gazprom. They will simply buy Israeli vegetables instead and maybe interrupt the Antalya tourist flights if Erdogan doubles down on being NATO’s little pit bull.
blert, you may be correct about the Chinese now having a massive nuke arsenal, they certainly have the technology stolen during the 1990s and a few billion here and there to hide to make it happen (the nukes would sit well underground right next to their massive bulleon stockpile for when all fiat goes vertical and they roll out the New Yuan to go with the EuroMarkRuble shed of the PIIGs backed by Germany and Russia’s gold stocks).
However, I would be careful about assuming shale oil is going to repeat the mid-1980s oil price collapse and send ‘Pootie Poo’ as some affectionately refer to him westward, hat in hand. There are a lot of variables, and European shales have been overhyped for gas before — we’re not hearing so much about Hungary or Poland anymore, are we? And all those neocons in D.C. licking their chops at bankrupting Russia a second time in 40 years ought to look at America’s own short term vulnerabilities. And no, it’s not just the dollar. When you allow one company Monsanto to control 90% of the nation’s two main crops and chief export feeds there’s a distinct possibility the Chinese might take the EU lead and say we don’t want your stinkin’ rat-tumor exploding GMO.
In other words, even if the Beltway anti-Russia lobby succeeds wildly in driving oil prices own, they won’t stay down for long in non-inflation adjusted dollars thanks to Bernanke’s 40 bil a month e-printing press. And since Saudi Arabia and Qatar unlike Russia have nothing to export but hydrocarbons, their ‘pro-U.S.’ governments will most certainly collapse before the dream of a Moscow colored revolution is finally achieved. Meanwhile, Russia joined with Kazahkstan and Ukraine could quietly surpass the U.S. as the world’s top exporter of grain. And 99% of the FSU grain will be non GMO, unlike what’s coming out of North America, and hence more appealing to Asian guts. If the era of Russia as an energy superpower has passed prepare for Russia the grain belt power. How much of the U.S. corn crop was either so bad they had to get a USDA exception just to be able to feed it to cattle or was simply burned up this year? And if weather weapons are real and the insane Russian drought of 2010 I witnessed firsthand was man made, who’s to say the Russky HAARP east of Nizhny Novgorod could not return the favor (that last thought is merely a foray into tin foil hat territory)?
Blert’s also right about Anatolia’s ancient genetics — examples of which are found in the cousins of Assad who happen to be modern day “Galatians” of the Apostle Paul’s 1st century Roman empire (i.e. some Celtic blood mixed with Byzantium’s melting pot of Arab, Greek and Slav) with red hair and green eyes. But Blert is wrong about the source of Russia’s latest mil tech, which is still ahead of Beijing — he better look to a tiny country with over one million Russian speakers on a direct latitude line due south of Moscow. The one Mitt Romney’s advisors can’t believe would ever sell stuff to evil Pootie Poot.
Remember what Spengler says — Russians play chess, the type of people who became Mittens advisors play Monopoly. And right now the D.C. global empire operators are losing, badly.
Don’t we want Turkey and Russia at each other’s throats? We don’t want Russia arming the Middle East with modern weapons, there is no scenario for non-Muslims where that works out well for us. Russia are idiots if they think those weapons won’t be pointed back at them. We want Turkey distracted from its designs on conquering Europe.
I still think that Greece’s woes give Turkey an opportunity to regain its lost foothold there; we already see Turks buying up a bunch of land near the border. I believe that military action against Greece (and the remainder of Cyprus) will happen within 5 years, and sooner more likely than later, because quite simply Greece cannot stop them and the rest of the EU will not react to protect Greece because they’re pansies who run at the first sign of trouble. If the EU stupidly allow Turkey free mass immigration into the EU Greece will be doomed without a shot being fired, and there’s a good chance Germany is next. The countries in the middle of a potential Turkish hammer and a German/Turk anvil should be running scared right now.
Theres an interesting post being e-mailed around that catalogs how many of the Democratic partys’ leaders are lawyers, including Obama. Lawyers spend their careers manipulating what others have made or aquired, they create nothing of their own. All problems are dealt with by simply speaking or writing the right words on a piece of paper. Have you been wronged? Fill out the form with the right words and the problem will go away. This presumes an existing power able to enforce the words on the form.
The reason world leaders love the UN is that it acts as their Supreme court; Russia won’t obey your injunction? Take it to a higher court.
The thing that many lawyers and politicians can never seem to grasp is that all of their words, all of their papers, all of their courts, are an artificial construct that does not naturally exist in this world.
In the end it always comes down to the “Rough men who walk the walls day and night.”
Will Kane must stand alone in the street with gun in hand waiting for High Noon to show the ever renewed Frank Millers that some one is willing to kill them to protect what good there is in this world.
Lawyers devote most of their time trying to obtain injunctions against Will Kane.
Blert
“But it’s no matter: Putin has already sold Russia’s soul to Red China — via the SCO.”
do you mean the routing lanes for Internet, which devices are made in China, thus can be spyed from there?
France has thrown out these China routes for this reason (I believe the US too)
But Germany ALSO is eating at the China rattle
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/737891.shtml#.UHeUM6lThBg.facebook
Germany has been doing hidden policies, and hollowed Europe with the European integration for her own interests, that she never abandonned, even defeated by the allies
in 1942 the german concil for economics
http://fr.scribd.com/doc/63867950/EEC-1942
in 1940 a US journalist was fired out Germany for unveiling Germany’s projects
http://www.germanywatch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/europa-germanica-1940.html
Not Uncle Joe
it’s the war for who’s gonna be the next gendarme of the world, it’s seems that the proheminent “economical” powers, Germany, Russia, China are plotting for eliminating the US and the Anglo-Saxon world
Blert
“The route to a powerful economy is to get politicians OUT of the decision loop.”
Hmm, I wouldn’t be so sure, it seems that the “free-marketers” are on the way to lose, see how Merkel nuked the BAE/EADS merger, which was ment to get rid of the political interference in the new Company
38. Marie Claud:
Germany’s birthrate is the lowest in Europe – and falling fast
In all the data about Germany, it’s the one statistic that bucks the trend. Its economy is strong, its cities are regularly cited as among the best in the world to live in – but Germany is a shrinking country.
It has the lowest birthrate, just 1.36 children per woman, in Europe, and one of the lowest in the world.
According to the national statistics office, fewer babies were born in Germany last year than at any time in its history.
A total of 663,000 children were born, 15,000 fewer than in 2010 and in stark contrast to 1964 when German births (east and west) peaked at just under 1.4 million.
China and Russias demographic problems are well known, also, compounded by a Muslim one for Russia.
Marc Malone – “Obama just wants to see the white world burn.”
Closer to the truth than you might imagine. But understand, Obama is the head of a party that considers him a messiah. He does not bring a new message; he is reiterating the one they already believe in.
Wretchard – “Looking over the ruins of America’s Middle East policy, sometimes I think that the Obama administration’s foreign policy was inspired by the BBC’s dramatization of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.”
I believe it is clear that the left rules this country out of sheer hatred for America and the people who populate it. They have been selling the fall of Rome trope in much the same manner that they exhort others to visualize world peace. In its stead they tell us that this century belongs to China. They decide it is so and go about making it so. This cynicism justifies looting the remains as a way of precipitating the fall and taking energy out of the US economy, which they characterize as evil incarnate.
These people do not deserve our support; they do not deserve our forbearance.
…and seeing what they have done to America, we weep.
Not Uncle Joe:
” … he better look to a tiny country with over one million Russian speakers on a direct latitude line due south of Moscow.”
”Direct” … ”due south” would be along a line of longitude; latitude lines run east-west. The place you mention is clearly at a latitude south of Russia but going directly there would be along a line of longitude.
Marc Malone – “Obama just wants to see the white world burn.”
I watched the Dinesh Desouza film “2016″ last night and the premise is that Obama is utterly motivated by an anti-western mindset. He’s been hiding in plain sight with it and his policies reflect it. Unfortunately, he’s taking the last great hope of man ,America and doing all he can to make it Zimbabwe. When was the last successful post colonial African nation or leader? …..crickets
Re #36, 37.
Current demographic trends (generally in Europe and particularly in Germany) seems to be impediments to such grand designs.
30 – Ankara is ‘working’ America’s native tribes as a route for islamization.
According to Wikipedia, “1.7 percent of all people in the United States identified as American Indian and Alaska Native”. 1.7%. I’m afraid I’m not trembling at the thought of Islamic conversions. Considering the numbers, Ankara would do better to try to convert the gay population – probably a more congenial fit for the Turks too, culturally speaking.
Dr.M@45: It’s NOT the population numbers they are after, it is the physical location in the heartland of America on ‘semi-autonimous’ land that attracts them.
“Russians play chess”
Yeah, and the Chinese play Go.
One game’s about taking out heads of state, the other is about capturing territory.
I don’t have great sympathy for Erdogan, but that’s not the point, which is itself best illustrated by the famous Bernard Lewis quote (which he attributed to a Turkish general): “The problem with having the Americans as your allies is that you never know when they’ll turn around and stab themselves in the back.”
Wretchard@9: I now understand the Laughing Buddha. Having reached Enlightenment and rid himself of an excessive attachment to the present, he could laugh constantly, seeing the humor in the depressing present as clearly as that in the past.
Re 22. Victor
“Turkey is a loyal ally…”
Sure, like in 2003. You guys sold us out then, but at least the vote was close. Since then, you have become much more anti-American and pro-jihad. I don’t think Turkey would even let the issue of allowing US troops through to come to a vote today.
“-the CIA supports this decision in favor of Turkey.”
“American military and Intelligence Community have strong bonds with Turkey.”
Oh, you are in the CIA now?
Lots of allegations, no sources.
“-Israel has been rejected in its application for NATO membership”
Hard to be rejected if they never applied.
Turkey got to be in NATO since it was a great place to park missiles and listening stations right beneath Russia’s underbelly. Location, location. It had nothing to do with the prowess and loyalty of the Turk military.
Anyways, in a couple decades the Kurds will outbreed the Turks and modern Turkey will cease to exist. Once the kurds get the borders settled out that should improve things.