New Erdogan Decree Grants Immunity For "Suppressing Terror", Paves Way For Militia Violence

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest batch of presidential decrees has transformed Turkey into a nation of government-endorsed militias and "anti-terror vigilantes."

According to Ahval, Erdogan published Turkey"s latest state of emergency government decree – the country has been under a perpetual state of emergency since the summer of 2016 failed coup - in the Official Gazette on Sunday. And not only does it condone the purging of thousands of civil servants from their jobs, but, in an unprecedented escalation, grants immunity to "those who took to the streets during the coup attempt" or "assisted with suppressing terror." Furthermore: ""Notwithstanding whether individuals hold a formal title or whether they have fulfilled a formal duty, those who have acted in the scope of suppressing the coup attempt and acts of terror on July 15, 2016, and actions that were extensions of these events"" will be exempt from being put on trial for their actions."

Of course, anyone who has been following the situation in Turkey over the past year-and-a-half (and certainly longer) knows that “suppressing terror” is Erdogan"s popular euphemism for punishing or imprisoning suspected Gulenist sympathizers, and also anyone who dares to bring attention to Erdogan"s brazen corruption.

As a result, the Turkish president has been busy lately, signing a flurry of decrees that have further consolidated political power in the office of the president – a stunning reversal from the early days of Erdogan’s political career, when he was a well-regarded moderate advocating much needed government reforms.

Experts note that decrees no. 695 and no. 696 remove legislative authority from Parliament, effectively completing the erosion of the legislature’s authority that began with April’s constitutional referendum, a vote that EU observers condemned as “neither fair, nor free."

As Ahval added, legal expert Kerem Altparmak tweeted Sunday that "with the changes arriving with the new decree, an absolute legal immunity has been put into effect for any kind of killing and the infliction of injuries that took place on the night of July 15th as well as its aftermath."

KHK ile getirilen de?i?likle 15 temmuz gecesi ve devam?nda gerçekle?en her türlü öldürme, yaralama olay?nda mutlak cezas?zl?k geçerli. Bu sald?r?lar?n ma?durlar? ve ma?durlar?n?n yak?nlar? art?k iç hukuk yolunu tüketmeden do?rudan A?HMe ba?vurabilir.

— Kerem ALTIPARMAK (@KeremALTIPARMAK) December 24, 2017

Selin Girit, a reporter with the Turkish edition of BBC, said the decree "could pave the way for pro-government militia and risks heightening tensions within an already deeply polarised society."

#Turkey emergency decree grants immunity to “civilians who take action in order to prevent coup plots and terror attacks”. Critics say this decree could pave the way for a pro-government militia and risks heightening tensions w/ in an already deeply polarised society https://t.co/NlNaEcGBTv

— Selin Girit (@selingirit) December 24, 2017

Sunday"s decree also enforces a uniform on those who have been arrested or are serving a sentence in conjunction with crimes that fall under the scope of the post-coup terrorism law: The new uniforms - which will be golden brown jumpsuits and which appear to have been inspired by Germany"s treatment of Jews in World War II - are to be provided by penal institutions.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Officials have indicated that newly implemented uniform rule will only encompass those who are suspects of what the government has labelled the Fethullah Terror Organisation (FETO) and are accused of having supported the attempted coup. Though some observers expect the definition to be widely expanded. Republican People"s Party (CHP) deputy Sezgin Tanrikulu took to Twitter in criticism of the new decrees, noting, "The enforcement of a standardised uniform is a violation of human dignity; it is an inhumane practice, it is torture."

Yeni KHK ile tutuklu ve hükümlülere tek tip elbise giyme zorunlulu?u getirildi.
Tek tip dayatmas? insan onuruna ayk?r?d?r, insanl?k d??? muameledir, i?kencedir.

— Sezgin Tanr?kulu (@MSTanrikulu) December 24, 2017

While many of Erdogan’s political allies have stood by in silence as Turkish police forces hounded hundreds of thousands of regular citizens suspected of supporting an exiled cleric and political dissident, some are finally speaking out against the supreme leader’s ruthless crackdown following a July 15, 2016 coup attempt. In a dramatic break from tradition, on Monday Abdullah Gul, Erdogan’s predecessor as president of Turkey and a longtime political ally, publicly criticized the decrees, saying it grants too much latitude to civilians to commit acts of violence without any legal repercussions, as Bloomberg pointed out.

“The language used in the writing of emergency order number 696, which I thought was made to protect our heroic citizens who took to the streets without looking back to resist the treacherous coup attempt of July 15, is vague in a way that’s inappropriate for legal language and is worrying from the perspective of rule of law,” he said on Twitter.

15 Temmuz hain darbe te?ebbüsüne kar?? arkas?na bakmadan soka?a ç?k?p direnen kahraman vatanda?lar?m?z? koruma amac?yla ç?kart?ld???n? dü?ündü?üm 696 say?l? KHK’n?n yaz?m?ndaki hukuk diliyle ba?da?mayan mu?lakl?k, hukuk devleti anlay??? aç?s?ndan kayg? vericidir.

— Abdullah Gül (@cbabdullahgul) December 25, 2017

?lerde hepimizi üzecek olaylara ve geli?melere f?rsat vermemek için gözden geçirilece?ini ümit ediyorum.

— Abdullah Gül (@cbabdullahgul) December 25, 2017

The decrees also dismissed 2,766 people from various state institutions over alleged links to "terror" organizations, while another 115 people were reinstated to their jobs by the decrees.

Since the July 2016 coup attempt – perpetrated by a faction within the country’s military that Erdogan claimed was loyal to exiled cleric Fehtullah Gulen, who is presently living in exile in Pennsylvania – Turkey has shuttered news organizations, jailed journalists, civil servants and other citizens who’ve been accused of supporting the Gulenist movement. Erdogan and Gulen were once political allies, until they had a falling out that ended with the cleric going into exile.

In the 18 months that have passed since Erdogan – who was outside of Ankara when the coup took place – took to Facetime to urge Turkish citizens to take to the streets and suppress the coup – tens of thousands of ordinary citizens have fled or simply disappeared.

Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian tendencies have spooked international investors, who have scrambled to pull their capital out of Turkey – a country whose economy is heavily dependent on foreign sources of funds - with the recent surge in outflows sending the Turkish lira to an all-time low against the dollar last month.

Zuesse: Americans Are Only Now Beginning To Learn They Live In A Dictatorship

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The first time when it became clear to me that I live in a dictatorship was in 2014 when reading, prior to its publication, the landmark (and still the only) scientific empirical study to address the question as to whether or not the United States federal Government is, authentically, a democracy — or, whether, alternatively, it"s instead more of a dictatorship, than a democracy.

This study documented conclusively that America"s Government is the latter.

So, on 14 April 2014, I headlined “US Is an Oligarchy, Not a Democracy, Says Scientific Study”. Subsequently, my editor linked it to the published article at the Journal where the study was published, Perspectives on Politics, from the American Political Science Association, and the full study can be read there.

On 30 April 2014, was posted at youtube the video that remains, to this day, the best and clearest ordinary-language summary of what that badly-written academic study proved. See its explanation here:

That summary’s title is also better than the title of my article was; this excellent video headlines “Corruption is Legal in America”, which is another accurate conclusion from that study. Every American citizen should know what this 6-minute video says and shows from the academic study, because it explains how the super-rich, as a class, steal from everyone else (everyone who isn’t super-rich): They do it through corruption. 

Then, that same person who created the video did another presentation of it, but this time with text accompanying the video, and this article was titled "One graph shows how the rich control American politics”, and it indeed showed how. The super-rich carry out their control via corruption, which is legal in America and which can be done vastly more by rich people than by poor people — poor people simply can’t buy the Government, and any who would even attempt to do so would be using only the illegal means, which the US Supreme Court says constitutes the only illegal means, and that"s blatant bribery, which is lower-class corruption, not the far more lucrative type of corruption that super-wealthy individuals have access to. Only the forms of corruption which are available only to the super-rich are legal in America. That’s the reason why the super-rich keep getting still-richer, while the rest of the population are lucky if they don’t become poorer.

On 28 July 2015, former US President Jimmy Carter was frank about this situation; as a caller at a progressive radio show, he said this about America’s soaring top-level corruption:

It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it"s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and US Senators and congress members. So, now we"ve just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. ...

 

At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell."

Three days later, Huffington Post published my article about that statement, which was headlined “Jimmy Carter Is Correct That the US Is No Longer a Democracy,” and it had over 60,000 likes on Facebook (here the article is shown a bit earlier, when it had 56,000) but HuffPo reduced that number down to its currently shown number, 18,000; and this article turned out to have been the last submission of the 100+ that they accepted from me. They"ve rejected all of my submissions after it. No explanation was ever given, and I never heard anything from them again.

The scientific article about America’s Government had reviewed 1,779 pieces of proposed legislation during the period from 1981 to 2002, and it found that only what the super-rich wanted to become law did become law: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy,” they said. That’s certainly not a democracy.

There has been speculation as to how far back historically America’s government-by-the-aristocracy (or, simply, America’s being an aristocracy — a rule over the public by the few super-rich, an “oligarchy”) has been in effect. Prior to Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, going back to the time when FDR died in office in 1945 as the President, the distribution of income and of wealth was much more equal in America than it started to become as soon as Reagan entered the White House and began the subsequent dominance of supply-side economics, which is based upon the supply-push belief that wealth trickles down from the few rich, instead of (as FDR believed) in a demand-pull way, that it percolates up from the many poor. FDR believed that what drives an economy is needs, not the products and services to fill needs. Reagan believed in the opposite, Say’s law, which says that whatever is produced will fill needs (or at least desires) — that production is what drives an economy, and that needs (and desires) just take care of themselves. So, FDR focused on “the common man” and especially the poor, but Reagan focused on “entrepreneurs” or the owners of businesses. (The middle class isn’t an issue here, but is simply the richer portion of the poor. Historically that has been the case. For example, America’s middle class has declined while the poor have mushroomed, but the top 5% are getting all of the gains; and most of that is going to the top 1% or even less. So: “poor” here includes the middle-class; and, to refer to “middle-class America” is now like referring to a dying breed — but it’s a breed of poor, not of rich.)

However, the extreme corruption at the top in this country is showing up more sharply than ever in recently declassified US Government documents about the JFK assassination — showing up as having begun much earlier than had generally been suspected, begun at least by the time when President Kennedy came into office on 20 January 1961. Kennedy found himself surrounded by the military-industrial complex that his predecessor, Eisenhower, had cultivated while he was in the White House and that “Ike” hypocritically warned the American public against, on his way out of office, only on 17 January 1961 — three days before Kennedy’s inauguration. Some of these corrupt people were ones whom Kennedy himself had brought in. Not all of them were Ike’s holdovers. But Kennedy was apparently shocked, nonetheless.

The beginnings of this profound corruption might be traced still farther back to moles in the Government (such as the Dulles brothers, Averell Harriman and Prescott Bush) who had built their careers after World War I by means of plying and mastering the revolving door between the Government’s foreign-policy Establishment and Wall Street.

Starting at the very end of WW II, in 1945, agents of these moles ended FDR’s Office of Strategic Services and started Truman’s CIA. Right from the get-go, the CIA was deeply corrupt, as the following 2.5-hour BBC documentary from 1992 makes clear:

Operation Gladio - Full 1992 documentary BBC

It documents from testimony of former CIA operatives in Europe, that the CIA had been hiring European aristocrats and committed fascists and even ‘former’ Nazis, to set up terrorist incidents in Europe rigged so as to be blamed by the public against communists and against any entities that were favorable in any way toward the Soviet Union. Numberless Europeans were injured and killed in terrorist incidents that were set up by the CIA to be, basically, anti-communist propaganda. This CIA operation was called “Gladio,” and it continues to this day, even though communism itself is gone.

Subsequently, a video was done that’s far briefer, 50 minutes, and which starts with interviews of some of the survivors of these CIA-NATO operations, so that it’s far more from the victims’ perspective than was the BBC’s lengthier documentary:

NATO’s Secret Armies (2009)

When Kennedy became President, he found himself surrounded by advisors who were urging him such as, on 22 March 1962, John Kennedy’s own brother and US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy did, when RFK held a meeting to discuss “the possibility of US manufacture or acquisition of Soviet aircraft” because:

“There is a possibility that such aircraft could be used in a deception operation designed to confuse enemy planes in the air, to launch a surprise attack against enemy installations or in a provocation operation in which Soviet aircraft would appear to attack US or friendly installations in order to provide an excuse for US intervention. If the planes were to be used in such covert operations, it would seem preferable to manufacture them in the United States.”

And, also like this (on 12 April 1962, from a Major General and CIA officer — see it on page 16):

“We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of a Cuban agent and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.”

Even JFK’s own brother RFK, and Secretary of ‘Defense’ Robert McNamara, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk — plus lots of holdovers from the Eisenhower Administration — thought that this sort of thing would be worth the President of the United States considering. Fortunately, JFK didn’t. 

Michael Ellison had gotten to see a bit of the 12 April 1962 document decades earlier and he reported it on 2 May 2001 in Britain’s Guardian under the headline “Memos disclose US cold-war plot to frame Castro”. Ellison wrote that “The idea was an element in a wider scheme that ‘may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the US government’, asserts James Bamford.” Since Bamford is perhaps the world’s leading journalist and historian who has written about the NSA (books such as his 1983 The Puzzle Palace), for even him to have expressed surprise in 2001 that the US Government, at its top level, was predominantly staffed by people who were racking their brains to figure out ways to fake Soviet terrorism and attacks so as for the US and NATO to have a pretext to invade the Soviet Union, indicates how much more cynical we all have become after George W. Bush’s lies about ‘Saddam’s WMD’ as pretexts for the US and its collaborators to invade and destroy Iraq in 2003. Not only was John Kennedy surprised to discover it in 1962, but James Bamford was surprised to discover it even as late as 2001. Bamford in 2001 might not have said what he said there if he had seen that 1992 BBC documentary, which showed that the top level of the CIA had been like this from the time when the CIA started in 1947. But with so much history behind us now and which had still been classified information, and thus non-public, until 2001 when Bamford said that the 12 April 1962 document described “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the US Government,” we today are hardly surprised at all to discover it.

The corruption at the top of the US Government has long since overflowed its banks, out into the public’s consciousness. Not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can put the myth of US Government decency together again.

How The U.S. Dictatorship Works

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

A recent article in the Washington Post described how the current US tax-‘reform’ bill is being shaped; and it describes, basically (at least as far as tax-law changes are concerned), the operation of a US dictatorship by the super-rich.

First of all, however: there is no longer any realistic question as regards whether the US in recent decades has been a dictatorship, or instead a democracy. According to the only scientific analysis of the relevant data, that has been done in order to determine whether the US is a dictatorship or a democracy, the US is definitely a dictatorship that’s perpetrated by the extremely richest, against the public-at-large; in other words: the US Government functions as an aristocracy, otherwise referred-to as an oligarchy, or a plutocracy, or a kleptocracy; but, in any case, and by whatever name, it’s ruled by a tiny number of the extremely wealthiest and their agents, on behalf of those few super-rich, against the concerns and interests and needs of the public (everyone else). So: instead of being rule by the public (the “demos” is the Greek term for it), it’s rule on behalf of a tiny dictatorial class, of extreme wealth — by whatever name we might happen to label this ruling class.

That study, by professors Gilens and Page, explained that it examined “1,779 instances between 1981 and 2002 in which a national survey of the general public asked a favor/oppose question about a proposed policy change,” and it compared those public-policy preferences, by the public, versus the public-policy preferences regarding those same issues, by the super-wealthiest; and, it found that only the public-policy preferences by the super-wealthiest and their paid agents, made any discernible difference, at all, in the likelihood that a given public policy ultimately became enacted into law, in the United States. Whereas the public-policy preferences of the wealthiest do, at far higher than mere random chances, become enacted into laws, the public-policy preferences of the public are (except in political rhetoric and promises — frauds perpetrated to deceive the public) ignored, in the United States.

Here is an excellent six-minute video describing the methodology and findings in that landmark study...

And here is a commentary by former US President Jimmy Carter, in which he says that he knows it’s true.

He said this not on the basis of examining thousands of cases and doing the statistical analysis of the data, like Gilens and Page had done, but just on the basis of his observations of how the US federal government has been functioning in recent decades. And, of course, the scientific study is vastly more reliable than is any individual’s mere opinion about the matter.

Furthermore, there exists evidence that even in some local or state governments in the United States, considerable corruption exists, and therefore an extreme slant prevails in favor of the rich. During June 2016, I headlined about this, “Here Is How Corrupt America Is”, and opened:

The best reporting on the depth of America’s dictatorship is probably that being done by Atlanta Georgia’s NBC-affiliated, Gannett-owned, TV Channel “11 Alive,” WXIA television, its “The Investigators” series of local investigative news reports, which show, up close and at a cellularly detailed level, the way things actually work in today’s America. Although it’s only local, it displays what meets the legal standards of the US federal government in actually any state in the union; so, it exposes the character of the US government, such that what’s shown to be true here, meets America’s standard for ‘democracy’, or else the federal government isn’t enforcing federal laws against it (which is the same thing as its meeting the federal government’s standards).

What was exemplified in this reporting by that excellent investigative team could be called “corporate organized-gangsterism,” and this gangsterism was being led by an operation, “ALEC,” that was founded by politicians whose careers are funded by the Koch brothers and some other US billionaires.

Furthermore, as was mentioned briefly at the opening here, a recent issue of the Washington Post’s “PowerPost” section was titled "The Finance 202: Tax overhaul"s big test comes now”, and it described in detail what was shaping the Trump Administration’s tax-overhaul bill. This article reported that the lobbyists were shaping it 100%. It’s a superb nitty-gritty, down among the weeds, description, of the monetary deals, the horse-trading, that were being made, not only for corporations, but for the wealthiest non-business lobbies, including ‘nonprofit’ ones, but almost all of these lobbies, too, depend overwhelmingly upon billionaires for their funding. What’s being carved-up and served, is being carved-up from governments, and being served to the super-rich. (After all: conservatives say “Government bad, business good,” and Republicans are the conservative Party; so, it’s taking from government, and going to business.)

So: is it any wonder why Gilens and Page found what they did? They found that "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.” (By “mass-based groups” was being referenced what the left often calls “movements” or “grass-roots” organizations. After all, what happened from “Occupy Wall Street”? Nothing. It was a big waste of time and effort. Authentic movements get marginalized, because the billionaires’ ‘news’media despise them. Fake ones, such as the Kochs’ “The Tea Party ‘movement’,” get weaponized, because the billionaires’ ‘news’media treat them extensively, and often grant them respect. Top-down’s the way, in any dictatorship. That includes in America.)

Here is another excellent video - this one 10 minutes long - summarizing the Gilens and Page study...

The only major difference between Republican politicians and Democratic ones, then, is that, whereas Republican ones don’t even need to pretend that they oppose limitless greed (since limitless greed that’s carried out by frauds instead of by outright physical violence — which latter type of coercion is the type that’s employed more by lower-class crooks, anyway, and those are the type of crooks who fill our prisons, not the type who fill our boardrooms — is, essentially, supported by Republicans’ ideology, as ‘being entrepreneurial’ and ‘competitive spirit’), Democratic politicians do need to make that pretense (since their voters are liberals, and liberals don’t share the conservatives’ “Greed is good” libertarian faith). But the outcomes, even when Democrats are in power, are vastly more helpful to the billionaires, than to the public. 

Does this mean that Democratic (or liberal) politicians are necessarily more hypocritical than Republican ones are? No. Whereas Democrats pretend to be opposed to the system’s favoring the super-rich, Republicans pretend to be opposed to “sins” and other religious-based shiboleths. Both Parties can win and retain power only by deceiving (defrauding) the public, and serving the billionaires, though in different ways — some conservative, and some liberal. Virtually everything else than that service to billionaires (and to centi-millionaires) is just frauds by politicians, because, at least after around 1970, only the richest 1% or (usually far) less are actually being served by the US federal Government. It’s not the billionaires that are defrauded by politicians; it is clearly the public that is being defrauded by them.

The public are served only to the extent that the public’s interests are the same as the billionaires’ interests. And the Gilens and Page study found that the public’s policy-preferences are simply ignored — not ignored in the political rhetoric, but ignored in the political outcomes.

The US Government, thus, is of a few people (the policymakers), by the billionaires, and for the billionaires. And that’s just an established fact.

Turkey"s Erdogan: There Is No Moderate Islam

Authord by Burak Bekdil via The Gatestone Institute,

• "Erdogan"s claims that "There is no Islamic terror" have left several Islamic terror organizations heart-broken. A press release from al-Qaeda"s press office read: "The prime minister"s remarks are very discouraging. We are doing our best!"" – Zaytung (satire website).


• In 2010, Barack Obama referred to Turkey as a "great Muslim democracy". Obama should have seen that a democracy is a democracy -- without any religious prefix. He would see in later years the difference between a democracy and a Muslim democracy.

Turkey"s strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, may have exhibited all possible features of political Islam since he came to power fifteen years ago, but at least he has been bold and honest about his understanding of Islamism: There is no moderate Islam, he recently said again.

This comment does not mark any U-turn, or a radical deviation from his earlier freshman-self back in the 2000s. The problem is that his Western "allies" have stubbornly preferred to turn a blind eye to his poster-child Islamism. Worse, they still do.

Several years ago, Erdogan"s ideological-self clearly stated that "Turkey is not a country where moderate Islam prevails." In the same speech, his pragmatic-self -- the one that wanted to look pretty to a chorus of Western praise -- added that, "We are Muslims who have found a middle road". But which "middle road?"

In the several years that followed, Erdogan proudly exhibited another feature of Islamism in a make-believe assertion: Muslims never do wrong; if a Muslim does wrong then he is not Muslim.

In 2009, when Sudanese paramilitaries committed acts of genocide against the population of Darfur, and Sudan"s president, Omar al-Bashir, was guilty of the crimes for which he was indicted by the International Criminal Court, Erdogan simply said: "It is not possible for those who belong to the Muslim faith to carry out genocide." Instead, he said, Israeli "war crimes" in Gaza are worse than anything that has taken place in Sudan. As he said that, victims in Sudan had already numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

In February, at a meeting in Ankara, Erdogan slammed German Chancellor Angela Merkel"s phrase "Islamist terror". He angrily said to his guest, "Islam means "peace," it can"t come with "terror"".

When Erdogan (then prime minister) famously claimed that "there is no Islamic terror" in 2010, the satire website Zaytung fabricated a story, the lead paragraph of which read: "Erdogan"s claims that "There is no Islamic terror" have left several Islamic terror organizations heart-broken. A press release from al-Qaeda"s press office read: "The prime minister"s remarks are very discouraging. We are doing our best!"".

In 2011, when Hamas" charter called for the annihilation of the State of Israel by means of violence, Erdogan claimed that "Hamas is not a terrorist organization." Instead, he said: "I don"t see Hamas as a terror organization. Hamas is a political party -- it emerged as a political party that appeared as a political party. It is a resistance movement trying to protect its country under occupation".

In February, at a meeting in Ankara, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed German Chancellor Angela Merkel"s phrase "Islamist terror". He angrily said to his guest, "Islam means "peace," it can"t come with "terror"". (Image source: Ruptly video screenshot)

In a similar show of ideological wishful thinking, Erdogan has often come out in defense of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, despite international pressure against the movement, particularly from the United States, which has debated listing the group as a terrorist organization. Erdogan said he did not consider the Brotherhood one because "it is not an armed group, but is in actual fact an ideological organization".

The Obama administration sounded as if it were trying to deal with the Turkey it wished it had, instead of dealing with the Turkey it had.

In a 2010 interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Obama referred to Turkey as a "great Muslim democracy". Obama should have seen that a democracy is a democracy -- without any religious prefix. He would see in later years the difference between a democracy and a Muslim democracy.

But it took Obama many years to see that. In 2011, Tom Donilon, Obama"s former national security advisor, said that the U.S. president regarded Erdogan as "a man of principle, and also a man of action." In a 2012 Time interview, Obama named Erdogan as one of the five world leaders with whom he had the strongest bonds.

Seven years after Obama"s pathetic diagnosis about the kind of democracy Erdogan brought to an otherwise secular country, the Turkish president said that "There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. There is only one Islam." Worse, he claimed that the term "moderate Islam" had been fabricated by the West in order to weaken Islam. From the Muslim democracy to the former U.S. president, with love...

The U.S. ambassador to Ankara from 2003 to 2005, Eric Edelman, said, "We basically have turned a blind eye to Erdogan"s drive towards an authoritarian, one-man system of rule in Turkey". The journalist Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in The Atlantic"s April 2016 issue:

"Early on, Obama saw Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, the president of Turkey, as the sort of moderate Muslim leader who would bridge the divide between East and West — but Obama now considers him a failure and an authoritarian..."

The Trump administration has two options: It can either deal with the Turkey it has or the Turkey it wished it had.

Erdogan Tells US "We Don't Need You"

Amid the escalating visa and arrest crisis between Ankara and Washington, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided to pour some more gasoline on the fire, and said on Thursday that if the U.S. does not accept Turkey the way it is "then we do not need you", and blamed the ongoing diplomatic dispute on a US ambassador "who doesn"t know his place."

"We are not a tribal state. We are the state of the Republic of Turkey and you will accept it. If you don’t, then sorry but we do not need you,” Erdogan said quoted by Hurriyet, addressing a meeting of provincial governors in the capital Ankara.

Calling on Washington to “return to reason,” Erdogan repeated his claim that it was U.S. Ambassador to Ankara John Bass who prompted the current crisis. "Let me be very clear, the person who caused this is the ambassador here. It is unacceptable for the United States to sacrifice a strategic partner to an ambassador who doesn"t know his place," Erdogan said as quoted by Reuters.

“What a shame if the great United States of America is being governed by an ambassador in Ankara. Because this is the position they are holding. They should have said, ‘You cannot treat my strategic ally this way, you cannot act this way.’ But they couldn"t say this," he said, as quoted by Anadolu Agency.

Erdogan’s comments came a day after Ambassador Bass stated that the decision for visa suspension was taken by the U.S. government, which also confirmed that the decision was taken in coordination with the State Department, the White House and the National Security Council. “Our ambassadors tend not to do things unilaterally,” State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said on Oct. 10. Nevertheless, the Turkish president again claimed that it was Bass who prompted the current visa suspension crisis.

Erdogan continued his angry tirade, stating that "the decision taken by the U.S. Consulate and the statements made after it are not related to the truth or reality. A junta within the American bureaucracy that is related to the previous administration aims to sabotage relations between the new administration and Turkey."

In what has become a recurring event, Ankara and Washington are drifting ever deeper into their worst bilateral crisis in years after U.S. Istanbul Consulate official Metin Topuz was arrested last week, prompting the U.S. to announce on Oct. 8 that it has stopped issuing non-immigrant visas in Turkey. In return, Ankara imposed tit-for-tat measures implementing the same measures.

Separately, Erdogan once again criticized Washington’s hesitation to sell arms to Turkey, while instead providing arms to the “terrorist organization”, referring to the Kurds, for free. He also said Ankara will stand behind its decision to mutually suspend visa services with Washington “if the U.S. secretary of state and the president defend the ambassador’s step.”

“Turkey has acted based on the principle of reciprocity, following unjust and non-proportional steps taken against our citizens with the suspension of visa applications. Turkey is never a party that extends a problem,” Erdo?an added.

“Our wish for our interlocutors to return to reason and calm, abandoning steps that would harm our friendship and alliance,” he said.

Erdogan also stated that the detention process of the U.S. consulate officer Topuz “is ongoing within the constitutional framework.”

“The legal process on the individual working at the U.S. Istanbul mission as a local personnel, who is the citizen of our country and does not hold any diplomatic immunity, is ongoing within legal practices, agreements and the Vienna Convention,” he said.

The first US consulate employee arrest took place last week, when Turkish citizen Metin Topuz was detained. The pro-government newspaper Daily Sabah reported that he was accused of “facilitating the escape” of “known Gulenists” from Turkey. Topuz"s arrest prompted the US embassy in Turkey to announce it was suspending “all non-immigrant visa services at all US diplomatic facilities,” stating that “recent events” had “forced the United States government to reassess the commitment of the government of Turkey to the security of US mission facilities and personnel...”

There is yet some hope that relations between the two nations will improve. Overnight Bloomberg reported that representatives from U.S. and Turkey will meet in coming days to try and reach a solution to the mutual suspension of visas, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency says, citing Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag. The deputy PM also said that there is no obstacle to detained U.S. consulate worker’s access to lawyer, and added that Turkey-U.S. ties strong enough to overcome visa crisis.

That said, a few more similar outbursts by Erdogan, and ties between the two nations will be irreperably destroyed.

Mike Krieger Warns "Don't Become A Right-Wing Snowflake"

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg…Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. Give a loose rein to them, they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation.

– Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

Here’s a prediction. Right-wing snowflake culture will expand exponentially in the coming years, and its rise will be cynically and intentionally fueled by Donald Trump himself.

Having proved himself a fake populist on most issues that actually matter, Trump has no choice but to move more enthusiastically into the culture war to deflect away from his obvious betrayal on economic populism and keep his diehard supporters in heat. In other words, he’ll do exactly what mainstream Democrats and Republicans have been doing for decades, which is distract the public and keep it fighting while oligarchs grab what little is left. This works out just fine for billionaire Trump and the Goldman Sachs guys running his administration.

If I’m correct, how should we respond? How do those of us who see a creeping right-wing snowflake culture emerging push back? Rule number one is don’t act like a snowflake in response. Exposing hypocrisy with incisive rational arguments and humor is the best way to push back against right-wing authoritarianism, just like it’s the best way to push back against left-wing authoritarianism. The authoritarian mindset is the enemy of freedom loving people everywhere irrespective of your specific views on health care, taxes, etc. There are far bigger things at risk to us as a people if we allow ourselves to be divided into two separate authoritarian gangs fighting for power.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what seems to be happening with far too many people, and I ask that you not play this dangerous game. People are vulnerable to autocratic cults when they lack real principles based on freedom; when they know what they’re against, but don’t really know what they’re for. Standing for something as empowering and ethical as liberty is what keeps you grounded and sane in the midst of a society-wide mental breakdown.

A perfect example of the emergent right-wing snowflake mindset comes courtesy of Donald Trump himself. In his commentary on NFL protests last Friday in Alabama, the president showed a degree of thin skinned outrage quite reminiscent of the hordes of college cry bullies I’ve criticized so harshly over the years. Let’s revisit that comment, which is what sparked everything that followed.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired!’ You know, some owner is going to do that. He’s gonna say, ‘That guy disrespects our flag, he’s fired.’ And that owner, they don’t know it. They don’t know it. They’re friends of mine, many of them. They don’t know it. They’ll be the most popular person, for a week. They’ll be the most popular person in the country.”

If you take a step back and honestly analyze the emotional sentiment at play in the above rant, you’ll see it’s quite similar to that of a 19 year old Berkley leftist dressed like a ninja hyperventilating about Milo Yiannopoulos giving a speech. For left-wing snowflakes, right-wing trolls is where they draw the line, while for right-wing snowflakes it’s the act of refusing to stand for a song or salute a flag. It’s one thing to have a strong opinion on your own personal behavior, but it’s quite another to demand your fellow citizens behave in the same way you see fit. The mindset of someone obsessed with telling you how to live or behave in your everyday life is the mindset of an authoritarian.

It doesn’t matter if that person is marching with antifa, wearing a MAGA hat or draped in the American flag. The true enemy of freedom is, and always has been, the authoritarian personality. A left-wing snowflake gets triggered by Milo or Ben Shapiro, while a right-wing snowflake gets triggered by a millionaire athlete kneeling during the national anthem. Each side will argue their position is more enlightened, patriotic or whatever, but at the end of the day, if you feel emotionally harmed by a fellow citizen exercising free speeches rights, you should probably start by examining your own demons.

When examining the authoritarian personality one thing becomes clear. Authoritarian types can typically be divided into two camps, leaders and followers. The leaders tend to be opportunistic, power hungry and manipulative. In many cases these people are highly intelligent when it comes to the ways of human nature, which is how they were able to propel themselves into a position of leadership in the first place. Such people typically aren’t even genuinely offended by the taboo act they demonize, but they are instinctive enough to know it can be used to corral and manipulate a certain segment of the population. They only care to express outrage over the action in question to bolster their own power. Donald Trump and his high profile cheerleaders tend to fall into this camp. Creating outrage boosts their careers.

Importantly, it’s the followers of authoritarian leaders who ultimately hold the real power. Without followers, leaders would fail to exist since the power and social capital of the leader depends on a willingness to follow that person. Most people who fall for authoritarian signaling do so out of deep insecurity, which the authoritarian leader instinctively grasps. It is the insecure and ungrounded person who most easily falls prey to the authoritarian leader.

Take the national anthem for example. Why does someone not standing for it bother you so much? If you feel standing is a patriotic gesture that’s your right, but why do you care so much if a fellow citizen fails to see it the exact same way you do? Moreover, what does a patriotic gesture mean if it isn’t voluntary? If Americans are cowered into standing for the anthem out of fear of being deemed unpatriotic, then the gesture itself no longer has any meaning. It merely becomes a ritual act of symbolic dogma, more appropriate for a society like Nazi Germany than the U.S. Republic. The fact so many Americans stand for the national anthem voluntarily is precisely what makes it a powerful gesture.

In this sense, right-wing snowflake culture employs the same tactics as left-wing snowflake culture. Left-wing snowflakes are quick to categorize anyone with a different political opinion as a Nazi in an attempt to shut down political debate via intimidation. Right-wing snowflakes do the same thing with superficial patriotic gestures, and then call those who won’t stand or salute “un-American.” Both tactics are destructive, wrong and the antithesis of a freedom loving person.

Our culture is one of extreme superficiality. This is exactly why so many people lose their minds over NFL players taking a knee, but could never be driven to such burning outrage over a war launched based on falsehoods that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Politicians and oligarchs encourage such superficiality, because if the public can be kept extremely ignorant and stupid then those who actually call the shots and craft the legislation can be left alone to steer society in the way they deem fit without the general public interfering. The end result is the rabble fights about the national anthem, flags and Milo, while the country continues to get looted.

Going forward, I expect Trump to pull many more stunts like the one he did this past Friday. He knows he’s a fraud on the populist issues so many of his voters cared about, so his only option is to rally the troops by further inflaming the culture war. A culture war between right-wing and left-wing snowflakes, each promoting their own brand of authoritarianism. This works just fine for a politician like Trump. His Goldman Sachs advisors can do as they please as a distracted public shrieks over the cultural supremacy of their particular brand of self-indulgent, self-rightous outrage.

So what’s my advice? First of all, don’t become a snowflake. As Martin Luther King, Jr. noted, hate doesn’t drive out hate. Similarly, snowflakes don’t drive out snowflakes. You don’t battle back against left-wing snowflake culture by becoming a right-wing snowflake, or vice versa. If you truly believe in freedom, don’t compromise that core principle just because you got triggered.

Are you a proponent of liberty, or do you want a society based upon whatever type of conformity makes you feel most comfortable? Don’t react based upon emotion, or simply because you want to give the other team a black eye. If you believe in liberty, act like it, and please do not become a snowflake.

*  *  *

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Caught On Video: Americans Beaten By Erdogan Supporters In New York City

Once again supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have roughed up American protesters on American soil. As Erdogan delivered a speech to supporters in New York City at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square on Thursday, a handful of protesters began holding up signs and yelling anti-Erdogan slogans. Men in black suits immediately rushed the protesters and began violently removing them while the crowd punched and shoved those being carried out.

Video released by Turkish media present at the event clearly shows at least two of the protesters being repeatedly punched in the face by Erdogan supporters as they were taken out of the room. And it appears that Erdogan actually encouraged the violence from the podium, calling the protesters - which included Americans - "terrorists". 

Violence erupts at an Erdogan speech Thursday: After American protesters were beaten by Erdogan supporters, he called the protesters "terrorists" from the podium (see 1:40 mark). 

#Erdo?an’? New York’ta Protesto Edenlere Yaka Paça Müdahale https://t.co/xqKyXuGIN1 pic.twitter.com/PrhSxsXCZv

— Amerika"n?n Sesi (@VOATurkish) September 21, 2017

The disruption appears to have started when Lucas Chapman - a young American activist and former YPG volunteer fighter (Kurdish "People"s Protection Units") - yelled out in the middle of Erdogan"s speech: "Murderer! You"re a terrorist, get out of my country!"

American former YPG volunteer protests during Turkish dictator speech: "You"re a terrorist, get out of my country". pic.twitter.com/lHwTBn1426

— Afarin Mamosta (@AfarinMamosta) September 21, 2017

Video shows Chapman immediately being shoved to the ground from behind, just before being seized by what appear to be security guards, though it"s not confirmed if any of the guards were part of Erdogan"s presidential security detail. Chapman was punched in the face by an unidentified man wearing a suit before disappearing off camera as he was carried out of the room.

NEW ANGLE: @RT_Erdogan thugs beating protester today at NYC rally! @ANCA_DC #Turkey #Turkish #Erdogan #StopErdogan pic.twitter.com/NmdhU2pIVj

— ANCA (@ANCA_DC) September 21, 2017

Chapman told Zero Hedge that the moment the protest began, he was assaulted by the crowd. "Erdogan"s supporters jumped on me almost immediately, shoving me out of my chair and eventually throwing me to the floor," he said. "They kicked and punched me repeatedly until the security guards lifted me and dragged me out. As I was being dragged out, Turks leaned into the aisle and continued punching me in the head and stomach."

Chapman is uncertain whether or not Erdogan"s body guards were directly involved as he says his face was quickly pressed to the floor and was thus unable to see while being beaten in the initial moments of the event. There were seven protesters total in the group and they escaped with only minor injuries. 

The ordeal caused Erdogan to pause his speech while the entire room erupted in pandemonium as body guards rushed through the crowd. The Turkish president leaned over to one of his aides in confusion and was visibly angry while glaring out at the audience.

Erdogan protested during his speech in New York. He asks his goon: Who are these?
The goon replies: Americans, sir. pic.twitter.com/84qYmyIlhN

— Gilgo (@agirecudi) September 21, 2017

Another man, carried out after Chapman, was shown on video being viciously assaulted by Erdogan loyalists waiving Turkish flags. Footage shows the man initially on the ground being kicked while what appears to be hotel security attempted to hold the crowd back. The protester was repeatedly punched in the face while being escorted out.

In addition, Erdogan seems to have encouraged the violence in the very moments it was taking place by calling the protesters "terrorists". Erdogan announced from the podium: "My dear brothers, my dear brothers, my dear brothers, I have an important request from you: don"t let three to five impertinent people, three to five hall terrorists ruin our lovely gathering."

Video from another angle shows Erdogan"s guards beating up an American protesting him during his speech in New York. pic.twitter.com/ALkeYIfDfC

— Turkey Untold (@TurkeyUntold) September 21, 2017

Referencing a familiar theme, Erdogan"s speech singled out the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Gülen movement as "terrorists" while equating both groups with ISIS. Thursday"s violence follows a major incident last May in which at least 12 people were seriously injured after Erdogan"s personal security detail attacked peaceful protesters outside the Turkish Embassy in Washington DC. Turkey has a history of aggressively cracking down on both protests and journalists, especially in relation to Kurdish issues. US federal indictments have been issued for 15 of the Turkish security officials involved in the May attacks, which occurred on American soil. 

Meanwhile, it appears that Erdogan was caught lying about the May incident this week. He claimed in an interview on Monday that Trump personally apologized to him for the violent encounter, which Turkey blames on Kurdish groups and DC police: "President Trump called me about a week ago about this issue. He said that he was sorry, and he told me that he was going to follow up on this issue when we come to the United States within the framework of an official visit." However, the White House denied that any apology had been issued over the embassy violence.

On Wednesday the Turkish president shocked an audience at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York when he said that the hundreds of journalists currently imprisoned in Turkey after a recent crackdown on government critics are "not journalists, they"re terrorists." When asked by Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait why his country has put more journalists in jail than any other nation, Erdogan responded, “The ones who have been sentenced, who have been imprisoned, are not journalists." He then made the bizarre claim that, "Many have been involved in burglaries and some have been caught red handed as they were trying to empty ATM machines.” And added, “Everyone else seems to think they’re journalists just because they say so."

Turkey has recently topped the list of countries routinely engaged in Twitter censorship and has over the past years completely blocked social media platforms nation-wide at various times. 

All of this causes us to ask: how long before both American leadership and the media begin acknowledging Erdogan for the thuggish tin pot dictator that he truly is? Apparently, he"s no longer content to crackdown on speech in his own country, but now willingly sics his fanatical mob even on Americans exercising free speech on American soil.

"I Know What North Korea Wants" - President Carter Warns "US Oligarchy Refuses To Do It"

Former US President Jimmy Carter repeated his assertion that the US works more like an "oligarchy than a democracy," while also lambasting Trump"s "hopeless" approach to the increasing tensions with North Korea.

The former president was speaking at a ‘Conversation with the Carters’ event at his Carter Center in Atlanta on Tuesday. AP reports that he said money in politics is what makes the US more like an oligarchy – run by a small group of rich people – rather than a democracy, repeating an allegation he has vociferously uttered for a few years.

“[Money in politics] violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system.

Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for President or being elected President. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members.

So, now we’ve just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over."

Carter was referring to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling to allow corporations to give unlimited campaign donations to political candidates, which he has previously said was “the most stupid decision” the court had made.

But then the former President went to town on Trump and North Korea...

Carter said, 

“The first thing I would do is treat the North Koreans with respect.”

“I know what the North Koreans want,” he said.

 “What they want is a firm treaty guaranteeing North Korea that the US will not attack them or hurt them in any way, unless they attack one of their neighbors.” Carter said,

 “But the United States has refused to do that.”

Carter said he would send his top person to Pyongyang immediately, adding:

“If I didn’t go myself.” The former president visited North Korea three times between 1994 and 2011.

"Until we"re willing to talk to them and treat them with respect as human beings, which they are, then I don"t think we"ll make any progress," he said.

Turkey’s Drive To Restore Ottoman Era Influence

Via Disobedient Media

After nearly a century of being relegated to a smaller regional power acting alongside the Israeli-Saudi nexus, Turkey"s new leadership stands prepared to significantly increase its political power and prestige. Taking advantage of various conflicts around their borders, Turkey has embarked on a bit to expand their influence not just in the Middle East, but also on the borders of an increasingly volatile European Union. These actions, along with consolidation domestically and an increased focus on militarization mean that Turkey"s profile stands a good chance of rising over the next decade.

I. Expansion In The Middle East

Turkey has taken an active role in Syrian territories which were historically part of the Ottoman Eyalet (Province) of ?am by deploying military assets which they claim are part of their efforts to help bring an end to the Syrian Civil War. However, Turkey"s intervention came only after they used their control of Syria"s northern border to fracture rebel groups who might have opposed them. Wikileaks" Berat"s Box release has revealed that organizations tied to government officials such as Powertrans were directly implicated in the facilitation of ISIS oil imports. Leaked German government documents published by public broadcaster Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (ARD) also show that Turkey supported a number of other jihadist groups in Syria in addition to Palestine"s Hamas and Egypt"s Muslim Brotherhood. This strategy of supporting various jihadist groups in Syria created a rebel coalition that was prone to infighting, unable to effectively mount concerted resistance to ISIS and created a need for Turkish assistance which began when troops entered Syria in August 2016. Russian new source Sputnik reported that since intervening, Turkey had established military bases in the Aktarin district north of Aleppo and the city of al-Bab which was previously held by ISIS.

With a firm presence in northern Syria, Turkey has now begun a diplomatic dance of name calling and accusations with the United States over disagreements about support for Kurdish YPG rebel groups operating in Syria. Turkey opposes arming the Kurdish YPG due to their close relationship with the Turkey Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê (PKK), a Turkish communist political party and rebel group which maintains military assets in northern Iraq. On July 19th, 2017, the Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency leaked the precise locations of a number of U.S. military bases in Syria in a move that understandably caused considerable anger to American officials. The revelation was likely in response to Turkish anger at President Donald Trump"s decision in May 2017 to arm the YPG. Erdogan has recently threatened to attack U.S. troop positions should they stand in the way of future operations against the YPG according to Turkish media.

Map published by Turkey"s Anadolu Agency showing locations of U.S. bases in northern Syria

Turkey has also sought out diplomatic confrontation with regional power Saudi Arabia in the Kingdom"s conflict with Qatar where it has deployed troops to the Gulf state. Disobedient Media has previously reported that the move is part of efforts by Turkey and Iran to position themselves as political opponents and replacements to Saudi Arabia, which has for many years acted as the Middle East"s dominant regional player alongside Israel in a power sharing dynamic referred to as the Israeli-Saudi nexus. With Saudi Arabia likely to experience an internal conflict between factions of the royal family, Turkey hopes to be able to marginalize the Kingdom and promote itself as a regional alternative.

II. Expansion In East/West Europe

Finally, Turkey has also sought confrontation with the European Union, using Greece as a flash point. Traditionally a territory of the Ottoman Empire, Greece has historically had a hostile relation with its Aegean neighbor. But relations have taken a particularly sour turn over the past year. In January 2017, Al Jazeera reported that Turkey had threatened to end its migration deal with Greece after a Greek court refused to return eight soldiers who had sought asylum in the aftermath of the failed 2016 coup d"état. The escalation came after a year of competition in the fishing industry, where Greek fisherman claimed the Turkish government had created conditions which unfairly benefitted Turkish fishing enterprises. Tensions reached a new height after reports in July 2017 that the Greek Coast Guard had fired on a Turkish freighter in the Aegean Sea which authorities claimed was carrying narcotics. Turkey has also threatened retaliation against Greece for engaging in oil exploration in Cyprus, which has been partitioned between the two countries since a military invasion in 1974.

Arab American news source Al-Monitor has noted that the escalation in the Aegean is less about historical differences than it is Turkey"s relationship with the European Union. This confrontation has lead to a breakdown in military cooperation between Turkey and European powers such as Germany. Unchecked, these disagreements could lead to a devolution in cooperation ending with Turkey"s withdrawal from NATO and and end to it"s bid to join the EU.

While Greece represents a major financial liability to the European Union, it is an excellent opportunity for Turkey to make a power play and distract European states from other issues. Disobedient Media has previously outlined the EU"s campaign to consolidate control over Greece by imposing harsh austerity measures after playing political and financial allies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Despite the political control it now enjoys, Europe is stuck attempting to run a country which consistently requires financial support and struggles to maintain adequate military deterrents in the face of Turkish military spending.

The focus on Greece distracts from other problems such as alarming threats by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an to weaponize Turkish and Middle Eastern migrant populations against Europe. In March 2017, Erdo?an told European officials they would "pay the price" after the Netherlands and provinces in Germany blocked Turkish officials from engaging in political campaigns among Turkish migrants living abroad. The New York Times reported that Erdo?an alarmingly exhorted Turks to ethnically replace Europeans by outbreeding them. Sources estimate that there are between 5 to 10 million Turks living throughout the European Union, primarily in Germany. Politico has accused Erdo?an of using the European migrant crisis to further his own political agenda. In 2016, Erdo?an threatened to unleash millions of refugees and migrants into Europe after politicians moved to suspend talks to include Turkey in the European Union.

Voice of America has also noted that Turkey is currently engaged in a global drive to build 18 mosques internationally in locations such as Cuba, the United States, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, Palestine, the United Kingdom and Albania. In 1998, Erdo?an was jailed for four months after penning a poem where he referred to mosques as "our barracks."

III. Domestic Consolidation Of Power And Militarization

After weathering the July 2016 coup against the Turkish government, Erdo?an used the incident to not only purge political opponents, but to sell Turks propaganda promising a new geopolitical vision. In October, just a few months after the coup, Foreign Policy noted that maps displayed on Turkish TV showed the country with its borders extended into the Aegean as well as into Syria and Northern Iraq. The message has resonated with Turkish citizens, who in April 2017 voted in a sweeping constitutional referendum which strengthened the office of the president, weakened Turkey"s legislature and allowed for more political appointees in the judiciary branch.

Map shown on Turkish TV with borders slightly expanded

Pro-peace organization PAX has detailed Turkey"s place as the sixth largest arms importer worldwide, seeking to be self sufficient by 2023. The Turkish military has evolved over the years as well, upgrading its existing stockpiles of equipment and integrating new types of platforms such as drones. Erdo?an also pledged in early July 2017 to commit towards the construction of Turkish aircraft carriers starting in 2021. Figures close to the Turkish leader have urged even more extreme defense measures. On March 16, 2017, The Express reported that a cleric close to Erdo?an"s AK Party urged Turkey to develop its own nuclear weapons. Both mainstream media sources and public figures have expressed concerns that other Middle Eastern states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar may have already developed their own weapons of mass destruction.

With the dramatic shifts in the geopolitical balance of the Middle East and the European Union facing a number of issues stemming from unrest and terrorism stemming from the migrant crisis, ongoing conflict with Russia and growing disagreements with Eastern Europe, Turkey is well positioned to increase its stature in the region. Should Erdogan avoid further internal destabilization in the form of coups and unrest from neighboring countries, it is more than likely that Turkey will once again experience a glimmer of the prestige it once enjoyed under the Ottoman Empire.

Turks Panic-Buy The Most Gold Ever In July

A funny thing has happened in Turkey since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan installed himself as "Sultan for life"...

The Lira collapsed...

And Turks have been importing gold at an unprecedented rate...

As Bloomberg reports, preliminary trade data from Turkey’s Ministry of Customs and Trade showed the deficit widening to $8.8 billion in July.

An eight-fold increase in gold imports to $2.8 billion from $354 million in the same month last year made the precious metal the second-most imported product and one of the main contributors to the trade gap.

June gold imports were also up by 216 percent year-on-year to $2.1 billion, according to final figures reported by Turkstat, the state statistics agency.

The question is - just like in India - how long before Erdogan "dictates" an end to gold imports, imposes tariffs, or confiscates the precious metal?

The "Islamization Of Europe"? What's Behind Erdogan's New Muslim Political Network

Authored by Yves Manou via The Gatestone Institute,

• What is notable is that France"s new Muslim party, the Equality and Justice Party (PEJ), is an element of a network of political parties built by Turkey"s President Erdogan and AKP to influence each country of Europe, and to influence Europe through its Muslim population.


• What is their program? The classic one for an Islamic party: abolishing the founding secularist law of 1905, which established the separation of church and state; mandatory veils for schoolgirls; and community solidarity (as opposed to individual rights) as a priority. All that is wrapped in the not-so-innocent flag of the necessity to "fight against Islamophobia", a concept invented to shut down the push-back of all people who might criticize Islam before they can even start.


• "[The Islamist party"s] purpose is to conquer the world, not just have a mandate. Its mechanics were already established.... Islamists took power in the name of democracy, then suspended democracy by using their power.... Convert the clothes, the body, the social links, the arts, nursing homes, schools, songs and culture, then, they just wait for the fruit to fall in the turban... An Islamist party is an open trap: you cannot let it in. If you refuse it, your country switches to a dictatorship, but if you accept it, you are at risk of submission...." — Kamel Daoud, Algerian writer, in Le Point, 2015.

In the legislative elections that will take place June 11 and 18 in France, political parties are finalizing preparations: choosing their candidates, and printing posters and stickers. Business as usual? Not really.

(Image source: Rama/Wikimedia Commons)

One newcomer arose in the political spectrum: a Muslim party, the Parti Egalité Justice ("Equality and Justice Party"; PEJ).

What is notable is that PEJ is an element of a network of political parties built by Trukey"s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), to influence each country of Europe, and to influence Europe through its Muslim population.

PEJ: A Pro-Erdogan Party in France

The PEJ was created in 2015 in Strasbourg, the de facto capital of eastern France, on the border with Germany. PEJ has already approved 68 candidates -- not enough to cover the whole territory but enough to compete efficiently in districts where Turkish and Muslim populations are strongly represented. French citizens of Turkish origin are estimated to represent 600,000 people in France, out of a Muslim population estimated at 5-15 million, but official statistics do not exist.

Another Muslim party, "Français et Musulmans" ("French and Muslims"), is also quietly preparing to erupt on the political scene of the French legislative elections. "Français et Musulmans" originates from L"Union des Organisations Islamiques de France (UOIF) which has been rebaptized "Muslims of France". "Français et Musulmans" is the French branch of Muslim Brotherhood.

The PEJ, is the first party in France established by Turks. PEJ already participated in elections of the Provincial General Assembly in March 2015, but was eliminated in the first round. According to the magazine Marianne: "PEJ is closely connected to Council for justice, equality and peace (Cojep), an international NGO which represents, everywhere it is based, an anchor for AKP", the party of Turkey"s president, Recep Tayip Erdogan. According to L"Express "many managers of PEJ are also in charge in Cojep".

What is their program? The classic one for an Islamist party: abolishing the founding secularist law of 1905, which established the separation of church and state; veils mandatory for schoolgirls in public schools; halal food for all schools; support for Palestinians; and community solidarity (as opposed to individual rights) as a priority. All that is wrapped in the not-so-innocent flag of the necessity to "fight against Islamophobia", a concept invented to shut down the push-back of all people who might criticize Islam before they can even start.

According to the magazine Marianne, Mine Gunbay, responsible for women"s rights in the city council of Strasbourg, fearlessly and tirelessly denounced the metamorphosis of Strasbourg into "political laboratory of the AKP". Strasbourg is the city where Erdogan was authorized by former president Hollande to hold an electoral rally in October 2015. Legally.

Another noteworthy Turkish move in France is the probable nomination of Ahmet Ogras, the representative of Turkish Islam in France, as next president of the Conseil français du culte musulman ("French Council of Muslim worship", CFCM). Ahmet Ogras is known for his good relationship with Erodgan"s AKP party. CFCM is the legal structure built by French politicians to have a single Muslim talking-partner. Until now, all presidents of CFCM were of Algerian or Moroccan origin.

Austria

In Austria, in 2016, "Turkish citizens" founded the New Movement for the Future (NBZ) party. The goal of the party is to give Turks a voice in politics across Austria. The NBZ Chairman, Adnan Dinçer, explained that the rise of extremist right-wing parties have caused them to work faster. "Political actors are making decisions about the minorities working here, but we are not involved in this decision-making mechanism," he said. The NBZ makes it clear that they support controversial Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and condemn the "Gülen movement", which the Turkish government claims carried out a coup attempt in July 2016.

Netherlands

Denk, a party founded by Tunahan Kuzu and Selçuk Öztürk in March 2017, became the first-ever ethic minority party in the Dutch parliament. The party, apparently a mouthpiece for Turkish president Erdogan, won three seats in the recent election, which was focused on immigration.

Party leader Tunahan Kuzu said: "This is the beginning of a new chapter in our history. The new Netherlands has given a vote in the House."

Bulgaria

The Muslim population of Bulgaria is made up of Turks (Sunni), some Shi"ites, Bulgarians and Roma, who together represent 7-8% of the total population. In Bulgaria, there are three Muslim political parties, in which most of the members are Turkish and Muslim.

One of these parties is The Movement for Rights and Freedoms (HÖH), founded in 1990 by Ahmet Do?an. In 2014, HÖH was represented by 38 people in the 240-member parliament and had four MEPs in the European Parliament (EP).

HÖH, which made a coalition with the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), thus has a say in the country"s administration, even though leadership changed after a 2013 assassination attempt against Do?an.

Because Erdogan was not satisfied with HÖH, he has worked to create other pro-Turkish parties in Bulgaria.

Germany

Many Germans of Turkish descent have chosen to invest in German established political parties and influence them from within. Some, however, are trying to influence policy from without.

The Allianz Deutscher Demokraten ("Alliance of German Democrats", ADD) is a small party founded by Remzi Aru, evidently as a reaction to the German Parliament"s recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

ADD is friendly toward Erdogan and has been trying to establish an electoral base within immigrant and Muslim communities. Its leaders nevertheless had difficulty collecting the 1,000 signatures necessary to participate in the May 2017 North Rhine-Westphalia state election.

Another Muslim-German party is the Bündnis für Innovation und Gerechtigkeit ("Alliance for Innovation and Justice", BIG), which has existed since 2010, but without much success.

German law prohibits foreign funding of political parties, and a party of Turks would have to fulfill a certain range of obligations to get its certification as an official political party.

The Islamist Trap

An Islamist party in a democracy is, according the Algerian writer, Kamel Daoud, "a trap". Especially in France. In an op-ed published in Le Point in 2015, he writes:

"An Islamic party in France? What a fascinating political object: one cannot refuse it, but one cannot accept it. Nothing better summarizes the situation as a French trap... If France says Yes, she submits in the long term. An Islamic party is an Islamist party by a natural slope.... By definition. Its purpose is to conquer the world, not just to have a mandate. Its mechanics were already established.... Islamists took power in the name of democracy, then suspended democracy by using their power. At best. At worse, Islamists opted for the approach of the crab that keeps its claws behind his back: no political ambitions, but a millenary ambition in the mind: convert the clothes, the body, the social links, the arts, nursing homes, schools, songs and culture, then, they just wait for the fruit to fall in the turban... An Islamist party is an open trap: you cannot let it in. If you refuse it, your country switches to a dictatorship, but if you accept it, you are at risk of submission....

"As soon as it bursts onto the political scene, the same consequences appear as in Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, the Sahel or Tunisia: it divides the country between Eradicators (those who want to eradicate the Islamists) and Reconcilers (those who advocate dialogue with Islamist monologue) and the Fatalists (those who are waiting for something good to happen)."

As a fine political analyst, Kamel Daoud knows -- and everybody knows with him -- that nobody in France has the solution to confront the Islamist problem. The only question is: who will win? Reconcilers or Eradicators? One thing is sure for now, Reconcilers are in power for the next five years.

Another thing is sure: the first veiled woman elected as a Member of Parliament will trigger a civilizational that which has no equivalent in French history.