Turkey 15/7/16

[rowan]

A confession of narrow-mindedness, if ever there was one.

[Edinburgh in Exile]

A confession of narrow-mindedness, if ever there was one.

Not overly, although that does hint at the regard you hold your own opinion.

[rowan]

No, it quite clearly hints at the disregard you & your ilk hold for the opinions of others. That's very evident here.

Meanwhile, NATO member Turkey will continue its operations within Syria - completely uninvited - for at least another year.

Turkey's parliament on Saturday overwhelmingly approved a one-year extension of an existing mandate to use Turkish troops abroad in Syria and Iraq.


Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/afp/201 ... z4Lumr2Wgr

[OptimisticJock]

Just your opinion. Everything you are levelling at those on here you are guilty of yourself.

[rowan]

No, I'm just coming up against a lot of narrow-mindedness here. You antagonized that guy Uagain until he blew up at you all and got banned, all because you didn't think the same way as he did. Truth is, he was just a lot smarter and more knowledgeable, and that's why you had to antagonize him. Did you imagine this somehow made your views superior?

[Digby]

I'm still waiting to see what Peter FitzSimons has to say on the matter, so far as I know he's only caught up to Gallipoli so far.

[Edinburgh in Exile]

No, it quite clearly hints at the disregard you & your ilk hold for the opinions of others. That's very evident here.

Meanwhile, NATO member Turkey will continue its operations within Syria - completely uninvited - for at least another year.

Turkey's parliament on Saturday overwhelmingly approved a one-year extension of an existing mandate to use Turkish troops abroad in Syria and Iraq.


Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/afp/201 ... z4Lumr2Wgr

Me and my ilk? Christ. Give yourself an uppercut.

My regard, or obvious lack of, of your opinions has nothing to do with the subject itself, and everything to do with how you present it. I've never bothered to get into it with you, as a result, I'm pretty confident you've got no idea what I think. I've got absolutely fuck all interest in assumptions being used to manipulated this into my team vs your team. It's as tedious as it is childish.

Whilst life is the longest thing I'll ever do, it's still way too short to get stuck in a circular argument with someone I don't know, on a sparcely populated politics board of a rugby forum. Particularly one who consistently deals in absolutes, and laughably uses words like "evil" to describe nation states.

If I this looks like I'm playing the man and not the ball, it is, and I am. As I said, it's not the content that irks me, it's the delivery.

Anyway, fuck it all, I'm in danger of taking this seriously, and displaying a massive dose of hypocrisy all within one post, so I'll leave you all to it.

[OptimisticJock]

No, I'm just coming up against a lot of narrow-mindedness here. You antagonized that guy Uagain until he blew up at you all and got banned, all because you didn't think the same way as he did. Truth is, he was just a lot smarter and more knowledgeable, and that's why you had to antagonize him. Did you imagine this somehow made your views superior?

Show me these posts where I antagonised UG. I had little to no interaction with him on the last 2 incarnations of this board.

You have also shifted the goal posts from what I've called you out on. I've told you you are lacking in enough awareness of your own views and propaganda that everything you aim at "us" is no better to what you perpetrate yourself.

[OptimisticJock]

No, it quite clearly hints at the disregard you & your ilk hold for the opinions of others. That's very evident here.

Meanwhile, NATO member Turkey will continue its operations within Syria - completely uninvited - for at least another year.

Turkey's parliament on Saturday overwhelmingly approved a one-year extension of an existing mandate to use Turkish troops abroad in Syria and Iraq.


Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/afp/201 ... z4Lumr2Wgr

Me and my ilk? Christ. Give yourself an uppercut.

My regard, or obvious lack of, of your opinions has nothing to do with the subject itself, and everything to do with how you present it. I've never bothered to get into it with you, as a result, I'm pretty confident you've got no idea what I think. I've got absolutely fuck all interest in assumptions being used to manipulated this into my team vs your team. It's as tedious as it is childish.

Whilst life is the longest thing I'll ever do, it's still way too short to get stuck in a circular argument with someone I don't know, on a sparcely populated politics board of a rugby forum. Particularly one who consistently deals in absolutes, and laughably uses words like "evil" to describe nation states.

If I this looks like I'm playing the man and not the ball, it is, and I am. As I said, it's not the content that irks me, it's the delivery.

Anyway, fuck it all, I'm in danger of taking this seriously, and displaying a massive dose of hypocrisy all within one post, so I'll leave you all to it.

Look what you've done Rowan! LOOK!!! You've made EinE make a lengthy and serious post. You're as bad as ISIS!!!!

[Digby]

Look what you've done Rowan! LOOK!!! You've made EinE make a lengthy and serious post. You're as bad as ISIS!!!!

So you're saying Rowan was created by and is operated by the CIA?

[rowan]

Meanwhile, NATO member Turkey will continue its operations within Syria - completely uninvited - for at least another year.

Turkey's parliament on Saturday overwhelmingly approved a one-year extension of an existing mandate to use Turkish troops abroad in Syria and Iraq.


Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/afp/201 ... z4Lumr2Wgr

So just to try and bring this all back to planet earth, am I the only one here that finds the above state of affairs highly suspicious? By whose authority does Turkey get to invade other nations at present? Since when did the native Kurds of those regions become the 'terrorists?' & is it any coincidence that there was an attempted coup in Turkey a few months ago which, in failing dismally virtually before it even got off the ground, only strengthened the president's hand? It all looks to me like part of a master plan to turn Syria into another Afghanistan-Iraq-Libya disaster zone.

[Donny osmond]

Look what you've done Rowan! LOOK!!! You've made EinE make a lengthy and serious post. You're as bad as ISIS!!!!

So you're saying Rowan was created by and is operated by the CIA?

Hahahaha [emoji23] [emoji23] quality

[rowan]

Ah, yes, CIA conspiracies, snicker snicker...

[rowan]

Our glorious leader, embroiled in a spat about Turkish troops invading other countries, has told his Iraqi counterpart to "know his place," because he, the Iraki leader, is "not at the same level" as the president of Turkey. I'm starting to wonder which century I'm living in...

In other news, the leader of the main opposition party may face trial for insulting our glorious leader's sprog, who was embroiled in a money laundering scandal not so long ago - but got off scott-free, naturally. The public prosecutor would like to throw the leader of the main opposition party in the can for a couple of years. But I'd be surprised if they could find room for him with all the tens of thousands of teachers, journalists, judges and armed forces personnel they've already crammed in there...

[rowan]

Good interview with deputy PM Mehmet Simsek on the aftermath of the attempted 'coup' here: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/upf ... 28674.html

[rowan]

Whatever happened to national sovereignty? Syria and Iraq have been turned into free-for-alls. Got an axe to grind with anyone in those countries, now's your chance to just go in and bomb hell out of them

The Syrian military said on Oct. 20 that it would bring down any Turkish war planes entering Syrian air space, a response to air strikes carried out by Turkey overnight in northern Syria.

"Any attempt to once again breach Syrian airspace by Turkish war planes will be dealt with and they will be brought down by all means available," the Syrian army general command said in a statement.

Turkish air strikes hit a group of Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG), the military wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), fighters allied to U.S.-backed militia late on Oct. 18, which the Syrian statement called an act of "blatant aggression".

Northern Syria is an increasingly complex battlefield and the Oct. 18 air strikes highlighted the conflicting agendas of NATO members Turkey and the United States.

Turkey supports Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters opposed to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and is also trying to push Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) away from Syria's Turkish border.

At the same time, the United States has backed PYD-led forces in their own fight against ISIL, infuriating Ankara, which sees the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/Defaul ... sCatID=352

[rowan]

& from the 'Only in Turkey' files comes news that an attempted assassin of a journalist who exposed the government's links to rebels in Syria is now roaming freely on the streets pending trial. http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/istanb ... sCatID=509

[rowan]

How does Turkey celebrate Independence Day?

Bülent Tezcan, the deputy chairman of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), has been wounded, daily Hürriyet reported on its website on Oct. 29.

Tezcan was shot on his foot while he was in a restaurant in the Aaegean province of Aydın, the report said.

He was taken to Adnan Menderes Hospital in the province and his condition is not said to be life-threatening.

CHP Deputy Parliamentary Group Chair Özgür Özel has said that "CHP will bring the ones responsible of the attack to account via staying in the boundaries of law."

The assailant, identified as Abdullah S., left the restaurant after shouting a slogan, CNN Türk reported. He was caught a short while after.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkis ... sCatID=341

How do I celebrate? By getting a stomach virus that keeps me at home over the long weekend

[rowan]

They're arresting all the Kurdish mayors now. Not sure exactly when the Gulenist purge expanded into a Kurdish one, but it seems the State of Emergency is allowing for the decimation of both.

& yet life seems perfectly normal in Istanbul. If I didn't pay any attention to the news, and if I hadn't heard the sonic boom special effects on 15/7, I could easily believe nothing had ever happened.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkis ... sCatID=338

[Coco]

How does Turkey celebrate Independence Day?

Glazed ham with all the fixins?

[rowan]

How does Turkey celebrate Independence Day?

Glazed ham with all the fixins?

Or just roast a few more journos instead. Cumhuriyet, meaning 'Republic,' is one of the nation's biggest newspapers, akin to the Observer or The Times in Britain. I've written numerous articles for the English language version, in which this story appears:

Eleven people, including executives and columnists of the critical daily Cumhuriyet newspaper, were detained in a series of raids on their homes early on Oct. 31, after prosecutors initiated a probe against them on “terrorism” charges.


http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkis ... sCatID=509

[rowan]

Last night half the internet suddenly became inaccessible, including Facebook, Youtube and various news sites, so I knew something bad had happened in Turkey because that's the standard procedure when something bad happens here. Though much as I searched those international news sites I could access, there was nothing new about Turkey - useless gits! This morning I wake up to find half the internet is still down (just because....), though both Turkish TV and those international news sites I can access are telling me that the co-leaders of the main Kurdish party have been added to the lists of scores of thousands detained during the extended State of Emergency which has followed the so-called attempted "coup" (that fizzled out before it really started). The Kurdish HDP party had been doing increasingly well under the charismatic leadership of Selahattin Demirtas and gained the threshhold for direct representation in government last year with 12% of the vote. This mean the ruling party lost its majority and president Erdogan's plans to rewrite the constitution were scuppered. The ruling party obstinately refused to join a coalition government, and following a series of horrific terrorist attacks (targetting mostly Kurds), a snap election was held and it got the majority it desired, although the HDP narrowly remained above the 10% threshhold. Erdogan described the so-called attempted "coup" as a 'gift from God,' and has duly set about purging the Gulenists he blames for it, although their leader remains beyond his reach in the valleys of Pennsylvania. NB: There is pretty strong evidence the Gulenists were collaborating with the CIA during the Cold War. But now the post-coup purge seems to have mysteriously expanded into a Kurdish party operation as well, with many of their leaders already under detention. To put that in perspective, the Kurds are about 15% of the population here and regarded as indigenous to south-east Turkey, north-west Iraq and northern Syria, where they have undoubtedly lived for thousands of years, and since long before the Turkmen arrived in these parts. So this would be a little like New Zealand jailing the leadership of the Maori party, as a rough comparison. & meanwhile the Turkish army has crossed the border into both Syria and Iraq to bomb Kurds, to the annoyance of both those nations, and also to the Americans,' as the Kurds have been leading the fight against so-called ISIS (Saudi-backed Jihadists).

[Stones of granite]

Reported in the Economist
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21 ... e-republic

Looks increasing like Erdogan making a grab for dictatorial control.
It's a bit ironic that he is shutting down social media, as it was allegedly this that allowed him to keep control during the "coup attempt".

[rowan]

The fact social media not only stayed open during the so-called attempted "coup" (it is generally shut down on the slightest pretext), but that our glorious leader actually spent most of that evening on national TV via Face Time, suggested to me there was something sorely amiss with the entire situation. Meanwhile, we've only just got social media and other sites back in the last hour or so.

[rowan]

More arrests at the Cumhuriyet as well. So this week alone they've detained editorial staff and journalists of one of the nations major newspapers, along with the leaders and several other members of the main Kurdish party. & so-called 'ISIS' keeps carrying out terrorist attacks against the Kurds...