''U.S. President Barack Obama named Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan among the five leaders that he has established relations based on confidence, in an interview with Time.
In an interview with Fareed Zakaria, the Editor-at-Large of Time magazine, Obama named Turkish PM Erdoğan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, and British Prime Minister David Cameron among leaders that he was able to forge "bonds of trust."
and then, RealClearPolitics 2015:
''By Victor Davis Hanson
December 04, 2015
Turkey often appeals to the West for support, given its longtime membership in NATO. Now, Turkish leadership is in a shouting match with Russia's provocative president, Vladimir Putin, over Turkey's downing of a Russian jet in probable Turkish airspace. Each country has accused the other of helping terrorists in Syria.
The problem with Turkey and the West, however, is that their relationship is decades out of date. What was once an alliance is now nothing special at all.
Barack Obama used to lecture reluctant Europeans about why they should accept Turkey into the European Union as its first Islamic member. Obama boasted of a "special friendship" with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. As president, Obama suddenly forgot the promise he made as a senator to formally acknowledge the Armenian genocide committed by the Turks in the early 1900s
Turkey has become a favorite stop abroad for Obama to lecture his fellow Americans about their ethical shortcomings, from past treatment of Native Americans to their present supposed xenophobia over not accepting Syrian refugees en masse.
Yet the more Obama has appeased Erdogan, the more anti-Western and anti-American Turkey has become.''
''Two members of Turkey's constitutional court arrested: NTV
Two members of Turkey's constitutional court were arrested on Wednesday, private broadcaster NTV reported, as purges in the judiciary, military, civil service and education widen in the aftermath of a failed coup.
About 60,000 soldiers, police, judges, civil servants and teachers have been suspended, detained or are under investigation since Friday's attempted coup staged by a faction within the armed forces.
The two constitutional court members were among a group of 113 officials from the judiciary formally arrested on Wednesday, NTV said. Formal charges were also brought against President Tayyip Erdogan's chief aide-de-camp, it said.
The failed putsch and the ensuing purges have seriously unsettled Turkey, a country of nearly 80 million which borders Syria and is a Western ally against Islamic State.
(Reporting by Seda Sezer and Ece Toksabay; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Gareth Jones)''
The Associated Press @AP 42 seconds ago
BREAKING: Turkey deputy prime minister says his country to suspend European human rights convention under new state of emergency.
The Associated Press @AP 42 seconds ago
BREAKING: Turkey deputy prime minister says his country to suspend European human rights convention under new state of emergency.
It's like an open invitation to torture, murder, and disappear any threat to Gollum's power. What's next concentration camps?
looks like we've resumed air strikes from Incirlik AFB. Surprised this story hasn't make it into the US press.
US Airstrike from Incirlik - ( New Window )
It made television news, as had the resumption of flights out of Incirlik
Reuters Top News @Reuters 19m19 minutes ago
BREAKING: No obstacle to extending Turkey's state of emergency beyond initial three months - Erdogan tells Reuters
MORE: Limited constitutional change might be possible with consensus of other parties - Turkey's Erdogan tells Reuters
MORE: Turkey's Erdogan says 4,060 people arrested since coup attempt, including 103 military generals
MORE: Turkey's Erdogan says 246 people other than plotters killed in coup attempt
ISIS and associated movements is much better than ours, you think its a coincidence that they rallied so quickly? That they are pushing the civilians killed angle all of a sudden, they play the post modern game better than we do, means towards an ironic end.
David Ignatious interview of Jame Clapper in the WaPo
One of these camps that holds generals involved in this coup attempt, the men are stripped down to just their underwear and hundreds of bodies stocked on top of themselves.
Several of the lower ranking soldiers who just were following orders, were thrown to pro-Erdogan civilians and beaten to death.
Erdogan's Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim, has also proposed to changing their constitution so that these plotters could be executed.
Unfortunately, things in Turkey will get a lot more worst over the coming years. Wouldn't surprise me if Erdogan just declares himself Sultan of Turkey at some point in the future.
"If todays Western leaders possess one general trait, its a genius for self-deception. Insisting that Islamist terror has nothing to do with Islam, or that religion has no strategic impact, or that all human beings want freedom and democracy, amounts to declaring that up is down, right is left and night is day.
And midnight is coming for millions in Turkey, even as we insist that a dying flashlight is the sun.
Over the past few years, many Americans heard the term caliphate for the first time as ISIS declared that the territory it seized from Iraq and Syria was the caliphate reborn. To us, caliphate appeared to be just another name for a vast torture chamber. But for hundreds of millions of Muslims, many of whom have nothing to do with ISIS, the caliphate is associated with a lost and much-romanticized golden age when the caliph, who was also the Turkish sultan, claimed spiritual dominion over all Muslims.
In the 14th century, the Ottomans revived the still-older concept of a caliphate, declaring that the sultan and caliph were one. It remained so until 1924, when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the great modernizer, abolished the office as a relic, insisting that Turks had to build a new Turkey and not lay claim to an enervating empire, temporal or spiritual.
At the time, the Muslim world split into two camps. On March 8, 1924, The Economist captured the difference: For Turks and other nationalities newly free of Ottoman rule, the Western idea of nationality is in the ascendant and the Caliphate is losing its power over the imagination. So far, so good.
But the journal went on to note that for Muslims under colonial rule, the Caliphate carries a message of salvation through an international Muslim solidarity.
That message of salvation, if not yet of solidarity, is back. The ragtag ISIS caliphate is merely the forerunner of the more ambitious caliphate to come.
Its coming in Turkey.
Convinced that history has no relevance, those same self-deluded Western leaders and diplomats refuse to recognize President Recep Tayyip Erdogans vision for his Turkey. He dreams not only of neo-Ottoman glory, but of a caliphate reborn and led by a Turk. (Might anyone venture a guess as to his candidate?) Essentially, the sultan and caliph both would be back on a Turkish throne.
The person who tweeted that explained at length he was mocking
the person is a party leader in a minor Eastern province not a person close to power
two thats not the way he meant caliphate ( he meant that people underestimated Erdogan)
three he was referring to a ruling not a goal
four the politician in question has a reputation of saying oddball stuff
Five i would not take anyone in the journalism worlds opinion on Turkey. Its has long had the fewest journalists per capita and has one of the highest rates of jailing "jurnalists" and so the ones not in jail are writing what someone wants not actual journalism.
Six, for his inappropriate remarks his twitter is now down and no one has seen him lately.
Sounds like a truly strategic insight from a real insider.
Thats what your stuff which said nothing told us...junk. what you left out was confirmation that you said nothing.
So you told me what exactly? That you copied junk and did not recognize that it was junk? I knew that already.
And so what if Turkey is a caliphate?
All we really really care about is that they do not export terror and they waste lots of money on pipelines that are prone to sabotage and dont matter to us by the time they might get built
We can move our nuclear weapons. And Turkey has no way to lift the economic fortunes of its growing population so eventually what ever government is in power is weak anyway.
Lastly, If i am not in conversation with you then dont post my name on threads i am not on and I will do the same. Thats been an unwritten rule around here for years.
MORE: Turkey's three-month state of emergency not against rule of law or freedoms - President Erdogan
''U.S. President Barack Obama named Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan among the five leaders that he has established relations based on confidence, in an interview with Time.
In an interview with Fareed Zakaria, the Editor-at-Large of Time magazine, Obama named Turkish PM Erdoğan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, and British Prime Minister David Cameron among leaders that he was able to forge "bonds of trust."
and then, RealClearPolitics 2015:
''By Victor Davis Hanson
December 04, 2015
Turkey often appeals to the West for support, given its longtime membership in NATO. Now, Turkish leadership is in a shouting match with Russia's provocative president, Vladimir Putin, over Turkey's downing of a Russian jet in probable Turkish airspace. Each country has accused the other of helping terrorists in Syria.
The problem with Turkey and the West, however, is that their relationship is decades out of date. What was once an alliance is now nothing special at all.
Barack Obama used to lecture reluctant Europeans about why they should accept Turkey into the European Union as its first Islamic member. Obama boasted of a "special friendship" with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. As president, Obama suddenly forgot the promise he made as a senator to formally acknowledge the Armenian genocide committed by the Turks in the early 1900s
Turkey has become a favorite stop abroad for Obama to lecture his fellow Americans about their ethical shortcomings, from past treatment of Native Americans to their present supposed xenophobia over not accepting Syrian refugees en masse.
Yet the more Obama has appeased Erdogan, the more anti-Western and anti-American Turkey has become.''
Turkey's president declares 3-month state of emergency "to eliminate the threat against democracy."
Two members of Turkey's constitutional court were arrested on Wednesday, private broadcaster NTV reported, as purges in the judiciary, military, civil service and education widen in the aftermath of a failed coup.
About 60,000 soldiers, police, judges, civil servants and teachers have been suspended, detained or are under investigation since Friday's attempted coup staged by a faction within the armed forces.
The two constitutional court members were among a group of 113 officials from the judiciary formally arrested on Wednesday, NTV said. Formal charges were also brought against President Tayyip Erdogan's chief aide-de-camp, it said.
The failed putsch and the ensuing purges have seriously unsettled Turkey, a country of nearly 80 million which borders Syria and is a Western ally against Islamic State.
(Reporting by Seda Sezer and Ece Toksabay; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Gareth Jones)''
BREAKING: Turkey deputy prime minister says his country to suspend European human rights convention under new state of emergency.
BREAKING: Turkey deputy prime minister says his country to suspend European human rights convention under new state of emergency.
It's like an open invitation to torture, murder, and disappear any threat to Gollum's power. What's next concentration camps?
US Airstrike from Incirlik - ( New Window )
US Airstrike from Incirlik - ( New Window )
It made television news, as had the resumption of flights out of Incirlik
BREAKING: No obstacle to extending Turkey's state of emergency beyond initial three months - Erdogan tells Reuters
MORE: Limited constitutional change might be possible with consensus of other parties - Turkey's Erdogan tells Reuters
MORE: Turkey's Erdogan says 4,060 people arrested since coup attempt, including 103 military generals
MORE: Turkey's Erdogan says 246 people other than plotters killed in coup attempt
Turkey's Erdogan, using emergency decree, shuts private schools, charities, unions
Link - ( New Window )
Turkey detains 42 journalists in crackdown as Europe sounds alarm
Several of the lower ranking soldiers who just were following orders, were thrown to pro-Erdogan civilians and beaten to death.
Erdogan's Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim, has also proposed to changing their constitution so that these plotters could be executed.
Unfortunately, things in Turkey will get a lot more worst over the coming years. Wouldn't surprise me if Erdogan just declares himself Sultan of Turkey at some point in the future.
Turkey orders dozens of media organizations to close, which could raise domestic, international tensions.
"If todays Western leaders possess one general trait, its a genius for self-deception. Insisting that Islamist terror has nothing to do with Islam, or that religion has no strategic impact, or that all human beings want freedom and democracy, amounts to declaring that up is down, right is left and night is day.
And midnight is coming for millions in Turkey, even as we insist that a dying flashlight is the sun.
Over the past few years, many Americans heard the term caliphate for the first time as ISIS declared that the territory it seized from Iraq and Syria was the caliphate reborn. To us, caliphate appeared to be just another name for a vast torture chamber. But for hundreds of millions of Muslims, many of whom have nothing to do with ISIS, the caliphate is associated with a lost and much-romanticized golden age when the caliph, who was also the Turkish sultan, claimed spiritual dominion over all Muslims.
In the 14th century, the Ottomans revived the still-older concept of a caliphate, declaring that the sultan and caliph were one. It remained so until 1924, when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the great modernizer, abolished the office as a relic, insisting that Turks had to build a new Turkey and not lay claim to an enervating empire, temporal or spiritual.
At the time, the Muslim world split into two camps. On March 8, 1924, The Economist captured the difference: For Turks and other nationalities newly free of Ottoman rule, the Western idea of nationality is in the ascendant and the Caliphate is losing its power over the imagination. So far, so good.
But the journal went on to note that for Muslims under colonial rule, the Caliphate carries a message of salvation through an international Muslim solidarity.
That message of salvation, if not yet of solidarity, is back. The ragtag ISIS caliphate is merely the forerunner of the more ambitious caliphate to come.
Its coming in Turkey.
Convinced that history has no relevance, those same self-deluded Western leaders and diplomats refuse to recognize President Recep Tayyip Erdogans vision for his Turkey. He dreams not only of neo-Ottoman glory, but of a caliphate reborn and led by a Turk. (Might anyone venture a guess as to his candidate?) Essentially, the sultan and caliph both would be back on a Turkish throne.
Today, Istanbul. Tomorrow, the world...."
(told you Bill2)
you said stuff.
you said stuff.
Hey Bill. Did you see the article on Turkey in last weekends WSJ?
Today, Istanbul. Tomorrow, the world...."
(told you Bill2)
Interesting or bullshit?
The person who tweeted that explained at length he was mocking
the person is a party leader in a minor Eastern province not a person close to power
two thats not the way he meant caliphate ( he meant that people underestimated Erdogan)
three he was referring to a ruling not a goal
four the politician in question has a reputation of saying oddball stuff
Five i would not take anyone in the journalism worlds opinion on Turkey. Its has long had the fewest journalists per capita and has one of the highest rates of jailing "jurnalists" and so the ones not in jail are writing what someone wants not actual journalism.
Six, for his inappropriate remarks his twitter is now down and no one has seen him lately.
Sounds like a truly strategic insight from a real insider.
Thats what your stuff which said nothing told us...junk. what you left out was confirmation that you said nothing.
So you told me what exactly? That you copied junk and did not recognize that it was junk? I knew that already.
And so what if Turkey is a caliphate?
All we really really care about is that they do not export terror and they waste lots of money on pipelines that are prone to sabotage and dont matter to us by the time they might get built
We can move our nuclear weapons. And Turkey has no way to lift the economic fortunes of its growing population so eventually what ever government is in power is weak anyway.
Lastly, If i am not in conversation with you then dont post my name on threads i am not on and I will do the same. Thats been an unwritten rule around here for years.
carry on.
BREAKING: Turkish President Erdogan says he will drop all lawsuits against people charged with insulting him.
carry on.
Translation:
"Damn I just got my clock punched in by getting caught regurgitating nonsense from a loony"
Nazli Ilicak, 72 years old veteran of Turkish journalism. A staunch supporter of liberal democracy. Now under arrest
Bulent Mumay. A hard-working man, who made enemies among Erdogan's inner circle for top-notch journalism. Arrested.
Bunyamin Koseli. We used to be roommates. An excellent mind, great investigative reporter. Jailed for doing his job.
Arda Akin. Known for columns that deeply disturbed the government. Roared when necessary, without fear. Arrested.
Busra Erdal. Veteran court reporter. Revered & reviled, made enemies because she never stopped writing. Arrested.
Cemal Kalyoncu. He knew nothing in his life besides reporting and editing. Arrested because he did not bow to power.
Ali Akkus. If Turkey has few excellent newsroom editors, he is among the top. Publisher of graft cases. Arrested.
Abdullah Kilic. Supreme irony that he made headlines for investigating 1960 military coup. Arrested on coup charges.
Ufuk Sanli. His Al Monitor columns shed light on Turkey's economy. An avid reader, excellent reporter. Arrested.
Emre Soncan. To learn anything about the military, he was the reporter to read. Extraordinary journalist. Arrested.
A talented journalist, unwavering editor. Published a series of court investigations. Now paying the price. Arrested
Hasim Soylemez. A general assignment investigative reporter who wrote about almost anything. Price: Arrested.
Bayram Kaya. Made his career by digging into Turkey's economic life. Now under arrest for excellent court reporting.
Yakup Cetin. We know his face because he was live on TV when a story broke out. As every great reporter, arrested.
Cihan Acar. Colleagues called him "cemetery Cihan" for exceptional coverage of funerals, from Kurds to celebrities.
Mehmet Gundem. Hardly anyone could get away when he asked questions. An interview geek. Arrested.
Sahin Alpay. I don't know anyone else who fought for Turkish democracy more than him. A champion of rights. Arrested
Ahmet T. Alkan. He made his point through satire. Was a marvelous novelist. Now with head held high, going to jail.
Ali Bulac. A powerful mind, one of Turkey's rare Islamist sociologists. Refused to bow to Erdogan. Arrested.
Mumtazer Turkone. Tortured in jails after 1980 coup. With exceptional writing, always advocated liberties. Arrested.
Hilmi Yavuz. Almost as old as Turkey itself, a great literary mind, an extraordinary poet and columnist. Arrested.
Yakup Saglam. From riots to war, Yakup was on the spot when something went wrong. Refused to applaud govt - arrested
Ahmet Memis. Guru of digital journalism. Give him a news portal and see its rating hit the roof. A critic - arrested
Nuriye Akman. Give her a cup of coffee and she would ask the most amazing questions. Interview nerd. Arrested.
Faruk Akkan. Perhaps the most prolific writer in Turkey. Made career by reporting from Moscow. Arrested.
Faruk Akkan. Perhaps the most prolific writer in Turkey. Made career by reporting from Moscow. Arrested.