Turkey: Our NATO Ally

#251
#251
Pacer92 said:
So, freedom of speech is now a certainty in a country that houses the 2nd largest military in NATO...

Where are the US/western diplomats that renounce such in other lands?
Click to expand...

I'd tend to agree with you. However, there are conditional factors at stake in a case like this. Mainly the US personnel stationed in Turkey.

However, if they weren't a factor, I'd be giving them all sorts of hell if I was in office.
 
#252
#252
Grand Vol said:
I'd tend to agree with you. However, there are conditional factors at stake in a case like this. Mainly the US personnel stationed in Turkey.

However, if they weren't a factor, I'd be giving them all sorts of hell if I was in office.
Click to expand...

Agree this is a difficult situation since we have US soldiers and family embedded...

I think we need to make a statement by calling home our contingent and families..
 
#253
#253
Pacer92 said:
Agree this is a difficult situation since we have US soldiers and family embedded...

I think we need to make a statement by calling home our contingent and families..
Click to expand...

And the nukes in the ground. Which is a NATO tasking rather than a US. It's a tricky situation being that they are US owned weapons meant to be put on Turkish aircraft in case of a nuclear exchange, but on a Turkish base. And I'd be willing to bet pennies to dollars the Turks would go to armed confrontation in order to keep us from removing them. Especially with Erdogan in charge.

But I've said for years, other than the strategic location of Turkey, that's a country we could have abandoned after the fall of the Soviet Union and never had looked back at all. Unfortunately, they have that strategic presence near the Middle East that makes them valuable.
 
#254
#254
Grand Vol said:
And the nukes in the ground. Which is a NATO tasking rather than a US. It's a tricky situation being that they are US owned weapons meant to be put on Turkish aircraft in case of a nuclear exchange, but on a Turkish base. And I'd be willing to bet pennies to dollars the Turks would go to armed confrontation in order to keep us from removing them. Especially with Erdogan in charge.

But I've said for years, other than the strategic location of Turkey, that's a country we could have abandoned after the fall of the Soviet Union and never had looked back at all. Unfortunately, they have that strategic presence near the Middle East that makes them valuable.
Click to expand...

Yep, unfotunately the geographics of Turkey will make this a big deal. Seems we are firmly invested militarily..

Erdogan is playing both sides to the hilt...cowardly..
 
#255
#255
If he continues to consolidate power and moves towards a typical samdbox sharia dictatorship, he will force pur hand. We will have to make a move and it may be costly. Nukes are the complicating factor...
 
#257
#257
It seems most likely to me that this "coup" was an Erdogan false flag done in order to cement his own hold on power, especially when you take into consideration the following factors:

1. How weak the military coup was, basically the size of a battalion, which is only useful if you want to take over a few city blocks, not an entire nation and its government.

2. The fact that many arrested "rebel" soldiers claimed they had been told they were on a military exercise. Perhaps they were trying to talk their way out of their own treason, but that's unlikely when considered in combination with factors 1 and 3.

3. Erdogan's "hit list" for responding to the coup looks an awful lot like an actual hit list. How convenient the coup turned out to be, especially when you seemingly have tens of thousands of names and institutions ready to be rolled over immediately in the aftermath.

But besides Erdogan intrigue, the most fascinating thing for me here is how this may eventually affect the US, with its joint airbase at Incirlik and its nuclear weapons housed there. The Erdogan regime has attempted to scapegoat the US for what occurred. He is also inexplicably cozying back up with Putin again after the shootdown fallout. Although his motives here are unclear, would Erdogan ever be willing to move in on Incirlik and its American assets, possibly even its nukes? Unlikely, but a question I imagine many intelligence men are keeping long hours now pondering.

One thing is for certain, a Moscow-Tehran-Ankara axis is something that can never be allowed by the US. If the Turkish coup really was an American operation, it sounds about like the kind of mismanaged, inept handling that has unfortunately come to characterize our intelligence community over the past couple of decades. And if it was truly an American operation, which I found more unlikely than the cause I mention above, then that makes the threat posed by Erdogan to American assets in the region even greater.
 
#260
#260
LouderVol said:
I bet they forget all about Erdogan's sins now.
Click to expand...

What would be the problem with that? What is the matter with having a peaceful resolution to a conflict? Putin on two occasions in the past year could have turned over the chessboard and kicked off WWIII, but did not. The downing of a Russian airliner and the shooting down of a Russian fighter that was allegedly in Turkish airspace could have easily been the spark that lit the fuse.

Now, instead of talking about war, they are talking about commerce and trade. This is how our Founders would have envisioned and dreamed of having conflicts end.
 
#261
#261
Rasputin_Vol said:
What would be the problem with that? What is the matter with having a peaceful resolution to a conflict? Putin on two occasions in the past year could have turned over the chessboard and kicked off WWIII, but did not. The downing of a Russian airliner and the shooting down of a Russian fighter that was allegedly in Turkish airspace could have easily been the spark that lit the fuse.

Now, instead of talking about war, they are talking about commerce and trade. This is how our Founders would have envisioned and dreamed of having conflicts end.
Click to expand...

what does the airliner have to do with Turkey? that was over Egypt. and by the justification of ONE warplane and crew Russia could go to war while Turkey must sit on its side of the line with almost daily shellings from the Syrian side of things?

and I was referring to how in the past you were up in arms that we were in bed with such a terrible guy as Erdogan; but as soon as he starts flirting with Putin all the sudden he becomes a world class guy and is worth hanging out with.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people
#262
#262
LouderVol said:
what does the airliner have to do with Turkey? that was over Egypt. and by the justification of ONE warplane and crew Russia could go to war while Turkey must sit on its side of the line with almost daily shellings from the Syrian side of things?

and I was referring to how in the past you were up in arms that we were in bed with such a terrible guy as Erdogan; but as soon as he starts flirting with Putin all the sudden he becomes a world class guy and is worth hanging out with.
Click to expand...

Wait, where did I say he was a world class guy? This switch by him, if anything, proves what type of guy he is. He's following the path where the money is flowing. Right now, that path is through Russia. A year ago, it was selling ISIS oil.
 
#266
#266
So the Turks are apparently popping off at the mouth about realigning from NATO to Russia since we apparently refuse to be a pawn in their little fake coup ploy.

Although he did use "fake" terrorist attacks to bring himself to power, I'm surprised Putin has never implemented a fake coup to completely consolidate full autocratic power. Erdogan currently seems to have the edge on Putin in innovative dictator techniques.
 
#268
#268
From the article:

Kori Schake, a fellow at the California-based Hoover Institution, noted in a written debate in the New York Times that "American nuclear forces cannot be used without codes, making the weapons impossible to set off without authorization."

"The fact that nuclear weapons are stationed in Turkey does not make them vulnerable to capture and use, even if the country were to turn hostile to the United States," she argued.
Click to expand...

They wouldn't need the codes to set them off. All the critical components are there for anyone to build something new. Or create a dirty bomb.

The damn things should have been removed years ago if they weren't already.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people
#269
#269
volprof said:
So the Turks are apparently popping off at the mouth about realigning from NATO to Russia since we apparently refuse to be a pawn in their little fake coup ploy.

Although he did use "fake" terrorist attacks to bring himself to power, I'm surprised Putin has never implemented a fake coup to completely consolidate full autocratic power. Erdogan currently seems to have the edge on Putin in innovative dictator techniques.
Click to expand...

Putin had to worry about a real coup a few years ago. Remember when he went missing for a week or so and the word was he was recovering from an assignation attempt? I bet he spends more time looking over his shoulder than he would ever admit.
 
#270
#270
davethevol said:
Putin had to worry about a real coup a few years ago. Remember when he went missing for a week or so and the word was he was recovering from an assignation attempt? I bet he spends more time looking over his shoulder than he would ever admit.
Click to expand...

You talking about when he went MIA for 10-11 days two Februarys ago, after the Boris Nemtsov assassination right outside the Kremlin?

Yeah, I still haven't quite gotten a good grasp on what that was all about. There's no doubt though that there are numerous people who would love to kill him, as you say. The one thing keeping him alive is the promise of relentless and ruthless retribution by his loyalists against anyone who would otherwise kill him. Even so, I'd say the chances of him dying from either natural causes or natural conditions/diseases is no better than 50%.

When you run a mafia state as if you're the Godfather, you always run a high risk of premature death.
 
#271
#271
volprof said:
You talking about when he went MIA for 10-11 days two Februarys ago, after the Boris Nemtsov assassination right outside the Kremlin?

Yeah, I still haven't quite gotten a good grasp on what that was all about. There's no doubt though that there are numerous people who would love to kill him, as you say. The one thing keeping him alive is the promise of relentless and ruthless retribution by his loyalists against anyone who would otherwise kill him. Even so, I'd say the chances of him dying from either natural causes or natural conditions/diseases is no better than 50%.

When you run a mafia state as if you're the Godfather, you always run a high risk of premature death.
Click to expand...

I agree, at the same time....fear goes a long way. Those who wish him harm probably wouldnt even discuss it with their wives or friends. If word got out, death would be certain. I am no pootin fan, but theres no beech in him. At all.
 
#273
#273
LouderVol said:
i thought he disappeared because his mistress was having his kid. or was that baloney?
Click to expand...

Perhaps, but that's an awful long time for a man to be absent from his public leadership role, especially for a "paternity leave is for Western gays" kind of guy, as I imagine Putin probably is.

In somewhat related news, according to Sputnik, Russia is currently petitioning Turkey for access to Incirlik Air Base.

My what a difference a few months makes! We go from wondering if Turkey and Russia are going to war with one another to wondering if they're going to form a new alliance and kick the US out of its joint nuclear air base in Turkey.

Just goes to show that you never know what these dictators are up to.
 
#274
#274
On another somewhat related note, in honor of the Olympics, it will be interesting to see what gymnastics Pacer and Ras - long-time Turkey-haters - perform in order to rationalize this newfound friendship between the previously despicable Erdogan and the always heroic and moral Orthodox Jesus, aka Putin.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
#275
#275
volprof said:
Perhaps, but that's an awful long time for a man to be absent from his public leadership role, especially for a "paternity leave is for Western gays" kind of guy, as I imagine Putin probably is.

In somewhat related news, according to Sputnik, Russia is currently petitioning Turkey for access to Incirlik Air Base.

My what a difference a few months makes! We go from wondering if Turkey and Russia are going to war with one another to wondering if they're going to form a new alliance and kick the US out of its joint nuclear air base in Turkey.

Just goes to show that you never know what these dictators are up to.
Click to expand...

Well, paternity leave is for less than manly men.
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top