New in PJ Media:
Recep Tayyip Erdogan doth bestride Turkey like a colossus. President since 2014 and before that, prime minister for eleven years, Erdogan has worked assiduously throughout this century to destroy Kemalist secularism and restore Turkey’s Islamic character. Erdogan has also made no secret of wanting to restore not just Islamic law, but the territories that the Ottoman Empire once ruled, including much of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. His present backing of jihadis in Syria appears to be part of that revanchist agenda. And along with all this, not surprisingly, goes a burning hatred of the U.S. and the West. So once again it must be asked: why is this country in NATO?
Erdogan has of late made no secret of his hostility toward his ostensible allies. Türkiye Today reported that Erdogan recently crowed during a speech in Ankara about the imminent demise of the West: “The West’s progress,” thundered the Turkish president, “built on blood, tears, massacres, and exploitation, has temporarily overtaken the human-centered civilization of the East. A day will come when this era of progress, which excludes the sacred and humanity, will close. As Western civilization collapses with a great clamor, our human-centered and divinely inspired civilization will rise again, stronger than ever.”
Now, you might have thought that as a NATO member, Erdogan would feel some loyalty to, if not kinship with, Western civilization. No such luck. He also was engaging in a massive exercise of projection. Erdogan claimed that Western civilization was “built on blood, tears, massacres, and exploitation,” but as The History of Jihad illustrates in abundance, that is actually true of Islamic civilization, which he terms “human-centered and divinely inspired.” Contrary to the picture Erdogan was painting, Europeans for centuries lived in constant fear of jihad warriors who had distinguished themselves for nothing more than their bloodlust. The existential threat that they posed to Europe was well known and never questioned until allegedly wiser heads in modern times decided that Islam was a religion of peace.
Today, the West collectively lost its historical memory, and decided not only to embrace, but to stake its future upon the unexamined and demonstrably false dogma that Islam is a religion of peace that is entirely compatible with Western secular societies. Erdogan is not among those who either offering or drinking this particular brand of Kool-Aid. He is well aware of the history of Islam and the West, and back in 2018, even predicted a renewed conflict between the two. When the Austrian government closed some Turkish mosques in what it said was a crackdown on “political Islam,” Erdogan declared: “These measures taken by the Austrian prime minister are, I fear, leading the world toward a war between the cross and the crescent.”
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jack reynolds says
Why is Constantinople in Turkey ???
Dominic Kerr says
why is persia a shithole
࿗Infidel࿘ says
It’s Iran! Persia died once the Arabs conquered it. Every dynasty that’s ruled it since then has been a non-Iranic dynasty, mainly Turkic – the Ghaznavids, Seljuqs, Qhwarezmids, Aq Qoyunlu, Shafavid (Azeri), Afsharid (Turkmen) and Qajar. The Pahlevis were the first dynasty in muslim Iran that was ethnically Iranic, and it showed
gravenimage says
Well, two points here–firstly, Constantinople was not really in Turkey–it was Turkey–invading Muslim Turks–who encroached on Constantinople in Anatolia.
Then, the Turks eventually dumped the name itself–it is now renamed Istanbul. This doesn’t even make much sense, since this was a Greek phrase meaning something along the lines of “nearing the city”.
Luchtpint says
Erdogan is a bashi-bazouk. (Turkish for crazy-head)
Billy says
Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the 50+ Islamic Countries are terrorist states against Israel, America, and all Non-Muslims. Islam is a deceitful, totalitarian, terrorist, murderous, Criminal Gang Enterprise against all Non-Muslims by using discrimination, deceit, hatred, and violence to gain ultimate power and control as taught in Islamic Law and in Islam’s Quran. Moreover, Islam’s supremacist-genocidal Ideology, its tyrannical Muslims, its propaganda Schools, its foreign terrorist Organizations, and its ‘Convert-or-Die’ Mosques fund, teach, inspire, and promote ‘Threats and Incitement of Violence’ as well as never-ending terrorism, loathing, and segregation against women, children, and all Non-Muslims(eg. Quran 2:191-3; 4:89,100; 5:82; 8:65; 9:5,14-15,29; 33:26; 47:4; 98:6-7 and more).
tharmon says
Genocide of the Armenians. Case closed.
gravenimage says
+1
bagsgroove says
There comes a time for all empires to collapse. And so will the muslims.
abu taleb says
Seems NATO elites want to have war so that they can keep their important roles and power. NATO no longer protect the interest of its people like in Ukraine case. Why should NATO support Ukraine so massively and risking the WW3 while Ukraine is not their members and Russia does not threat other European countries.
gravenimage says
Russia invaded unthreatening neighbor Ukraine. NATO is not a combattant there.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Not quite. It was Kamala Harris encouraging Ukraine to join NATO that provoked this war. Aside from the fact that since the Cold War ended, NATO had been expanding eastwards, violating the verbal commitment that James Baker gave to Mikhail Gorbachev in order to get his buy-in for German re-unification to not expand NATO. It continued and even included the Baltic countries, which is very close to St Petersburg. Russia had an agreement w/ Ukraine sharing the Black Sea fleet in return for not claiming Crimea. But once the Orange Revolution ousted Yanukovich, the Russians couldn’t risk losing Sevastopol to NATO, which had on two occasions rebuffed Russian attempts to join them
In a sane world, NATO would have expelled Turkey, added Russia and made confronting China its new mission
James Lincoln says
Excellent analysis, Infidel.
gravenimage says
Actually, Infidel, Ukraine was not poised to join NATO. They had in fact been turned down in 2008. Then, NATO has never actually threatened Russia–it just makes it more difficult for Russia to invade members with impunity. Then, NATO does not “expand”–nations apply to join. And NATO never promised Russia that it had carte blache to invade whatever non-NATO nation it might want to.
The idea that Russia has the right to invade a nation because it may not want to be invaded by Russia is, with all respect, mistaken. And Russia has had NATO members on its border for decades–the Baltic States. But the Baltic States are not threatening Russia, either–they just don’t want to be invaded by Russia again.
And if Russia had joined NATO, it would just have used its mebership to undermine NATO and try and invade its neighbors again.
I do agree that Turkey should have been ousted from NATO long since, though–it would never quality to join today.
gravenimage says
Turkey’s Erdogan Makes Us Ask Once Again: Why is This Country in NATO?
…………………………………….
Well, it had to do with both Cold War politics and the fact that Turkey in the early 1950s seemed to be moving toward democracy. Certainly not true today.
Turkey would never qualify for NATO membership is applying today–and should have been kicked out of NATO when it invaded Cyprus in the 1970s.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
When the Cold War ended, Russia should have been the first country invited to NATO, during Boris Yeltsin, and then there would have been no issues w/ Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia too becoming a part of NATO. It would also have protected Armenia from Turkey
This new NATO could have had its new mission as confronting Beijing, in the wake of the Tienanmen Square massacre. Instead, it went on a jihad against Serbia
gravenimage says
NATO does not invite nations to join–they apply. And, sadly, Russia is not a democracy–althogh it did very briefly look as though it might become one in the early 1990s.
And Russia is at least nominally an ally of fellow unfree dictatorship China.
But I agree–I would love to see Armenia a member of NATO–it would be safe from Muslim Azerbaijan.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I was watching an interview by Caroline Glick of David Wurmser yesterday. The subject of Turkey came up, and he pointed out that NATO has no mechanism to expel a member, unless the member quits on its own. He suggested as an alternative the US militarily disengaging from Turkey, like shutting down Incirlic, and also for Qatar, he suggested threatening them to shut down al Udeid if they didn’t put more pressure on Hamas. Since this was Israel-centric, he didn’t touch on some of Turkey’s other adventures, be it in Armenia, Aegean Sea, Greece or its support to the GNA in Libya. He also touched on how Egypt has stopped being hostile to Turkey, thanks to the US ignoring this issue
Of all of Trump’s appointees, the one that I’m singularly underwhelmed by is Marco Rubio. Yeah, he’s great on Israel, but he’s also an islamophile. I have yet to see what his positions are on Turkey, and I do hope that someone in the Senate asks him about it. At the foreign policy level, we need to have a policy of punishing countries that play double games, like Pakistan in the 00s in Afghanistan, or Qatar over the last 10 years, or Turkey. We need to read them the riot act, and make it clear that countries that play both sides are our enemies, not allies
James Lincoln says
࿗Infidel࿘ says,
“Of all of Trump’s appointees, the one that I’m singularly underwhelmed by is Marco Rubio.”
With respect, who would be a better pick?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
A few names did come to mind – KT McFarland, David Friedman, Jon Huntsman, Michael Flynn,… Of course, confirming them would be a lot tougher than Rubio
James Lincoln says
Thank you for your reply, Infidel.
All good people, I would put Gen. Flynn at the top of the list.
gravenimage says
+1
Andrew Blackadder says
NATO means North Atlantic and yet Turkey is nowhere near the Atlantic Ocean, so why is it in that group.
However NATO came up alongside The Berlin Wall so how come NATO didn’t go down alongside The Berlin Wall.
Not a trick question.
They should have brought Russia into NATO once the Cold War ended and we would not have the clusterfuck we have today.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Precisely. They could have changed the first “A” in NATO to mean “Arctic”
Problem is that Western countries don’t know how to wind down bureaucracies once their mission has been attained