"How Turkey Plays the War on Terror" by Phil Geraldi

 

"As of last week, the Turkish Air Force had conducted more than 300 strikes against Kurdish targets versus only three against ISIS. Turkey’s war against ISIS was quickly and by design directed against the Kurds, including the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units YPG militia which, together with the Iraqi Kurds, is supported by the United States and has been the most effective force in opposing ISIS. So Turkey, pretending to oppose ISIS, is actually attacking ISIS’s enemies and even placing in danger the American advisers known to be working with the Kurds.

All of which means that the United States is again looking on in astonishment over having been bamboozled, recalling Rudyard Kipling’s famous epitaph “A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.” One angry American general calls the development a “bait and switch,” while another commented that Erdogan “needed a hook” to go after the Kurds and lied to Washington to accomplish that. I might even suggest that the original suicide bombing that sparked the whole chain of events, which was carried out by a 20-year-old ethnic Kurd, might itself have been a false flag operation by MIT, designed to ease Turkish entry into a hot war ostensibly against ISIS but which would really be directed at the Kurds."  Geraldi

 http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-turkey-plays-the-war-on-terror/

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Phil was so kind as to write to me approvingly of my recent scribblings on Turkey and Syria.  Here we have his much better comment on the same phenomenon.

At the same time we have this linked McClatchy story in which it is made  clear that the Syrian unicorns think the Turkish government betrayed them to Erdogan's Nusra friends.  pl

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/middle-east/article32206167.html

Comments

[Margaret Steinfels]

The McClatchy story is appalling if true. Sounds true. Any confirming other accounts.

[Ishmael Zechariah]

Col. Lang, Dr. Giraldi, SST;

Here is an interesting set of articles describing a timeline:

1996: http://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/21/opinion/who-lost-turkey.html
2008: http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/press/books/2008/winningturkey/winningturkey_chapter.pdf
2009: http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/11/25/how-the-west-lost-turkey/
2010: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-anatolian-tiger-how-the-west-is-losing-turkey-a-700626.html
2014: http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/who-lost-turkey_808512.html

Ishmael Zechariah

[VietnamVet]

Colonel,

To make a few more bucks for their paymasters and to experience the thrill of power; Barrack, Joe and Hillary readily tied themselves to the tiger of war. Now it is stalking its next kill to the north. They have no control over it.

Europe is facing an economic depression, a rush of refugees, and a civil war in Ukraine. The perpetual war for profit is becoming too costly. Turkey is descending into chaos. Instead, the West must make peace and prosperity its goal. Quarantine the Islamic State with strong borders. Otherwise, World War III looms.

The Oligarchs are exploiting cultural and religious chasms to sell weapons and seize power. The United States has cultural and religious fault lines ready to explode. It will inevitability follow Europe into the darkness; unless it changes direction.

[Margaret Steinfels]

More trouble brewing: "Letter from Istanbul," Politico.

"Public anger has grown in the face of the government’s hawkish rhetoric: On August 16, President Erdoğan attended the funeral of a fallen soldier in Çaykara and declared “How happy is the family of a martyr,” as bereaved relatives wept nearby.

"The speech provoked calls for his own sons to be sent to war."
And various other examples of public unhappiness with Erdogan and his government.

http://politi.co/1hfOYDp

[nglaer]

Is the author any relation to Phil Giraldi?

[turcopolier]

nglaer

It is so marked. pl

[Babak Makkinejad]

I would like to say a few kind words about Mr. Obama.

He altered his Iran policy of 2012, that was going to lead to war with Iran in the Spring of that year and replaced it with the current cease-fire deal.

Thus he earned his Noble Peace Prize - in my opinion.

But you are right about his Syrian policy; that was also meant to wound Iran.

[Babak Makkinejad]

But the Turks have been upset with Kurds for a long time.

I am not condoning Turkish government policy that for decades attempted to suppress Kurdish languages and customs - such as Noruz Spring Festival (itself not an exclusively Kurdish celebration, any way) but I could not agree with PKK and other Left-Wing Kurdish parties and political formations in trying to redress the policies of the Turkish state by killing Turks or anyone else.

Kurds basically have drained Turkey with their constant agitations and plotting; keeping both Turks and Kurds away from the caravan of progress and development.

Likewise in Iraq.

[bth]

Is it plausible for the US to take over an isolated former Syrian air base in western Syria and use it has a location to launch drone and aircraft attacks without the permission of the Turks or Iraqis? We seem to have standalone bases in Anbar and in Shia Iraq and in Kurdish Iraq. I would think options are always a good thing.

[turcopolier]

bth

Who will defend it on the ground? The Iraqis and Kurds defend bases we use in their territories. pl

[Tigershark]

Col.

Do the Kurds have any manpads? Could they buy them in their local arms bazaar? What happens if they shoot down a Turkish plane bombing them?

[turcopolier]

tigershark

MANPADS? I don't think so but that could be remedied. pl

[William R. Cumming]

Apparently between 4-8M Syrians now refugees or internally displace. Many of the migrants to the EU have a refugee status different than other economic migrants from MENA.

Any links or study of this diaspora?

[oofda]

The recent discovery in Austria of over 70 bodies in a refrigerator truck abandoned on the Autobahn just over the Hungarian border highlights the plight of the Syrian refugees. It has intially been determined that the decedents were Syrian, or at least most of them were. Huge wave of refugees hitting Europe right now.

[Babak Makkinejad]

EU was one of the champions of state destruction in Syria.