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us needs to start thinking about to deal with turkey and erdogan

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The fact is like Atreus21 mentioned that the Turks are obligated by their membership in NATO yet they do not want to share the responsibilities. Isolationism is just as extremist as interventionism and the consequences of isolationism were made clear in the world wars. This was well known and there are all the reasons for this to stay well known for America and all of civilization. Alas what is also well known is that those who are unaware or ignorant of history are doomfully fated to keep repeating history.
 
Atreus21 said:
Why the hell is Turkey a NATO member?
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First, because the Arab nations were heavily Soviet and we needed a hedge in the area. (And Turkey needed allies against the Soviet Union and its client states.) Second, because Turkey used to have a very pro-Western military which would stage a reset coup if its elected leaders tried to seize too much power or get too Islamic. But after a few decades of that, the Islamists got wise and spent their time infiltrating the military, rendering it impotent. Now it's just a matter of time before Turkey becomes equivalent to Iran.

None of that warrants assassination, of course. Turkey has a right to self determination even if the result is not to our liking.

norseamd said:
The fact is like Atreus21 mentioned that the Turks are obligated by their membership in NATO yet they do not want to share the responsibilities. Isolationism is just as extremist as interventionism and the consequences of isolationism were made clear in the world wars. This was well known and there are all the reasons for this to stay well known for America and all of civilization. Alas what is also well known is that those who are unaware or ignorant of history are doomfully fated to keep repeating history.
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At this point the Turks are more liability than asset to NATO, but there isn't really a mechanism for expelling a member nation just because "we all know" we can't depend on them. Frankly I'd be more likely to expel France, which has a guarantee of protection without obligation to other member states.

I can't help but wonder whether things might be better (for us anyway) if the United States had succeeded in getting the EU to admit Turkey. A Turkey integrated into the EU might well be positively influenced; a Turkey repeatedly rebuffed has no reason to love the West and indeed, may well wonder whether its protections would be honored against a real threat like Russia.

Just another reason why it's sad to see Turkey fall to the Islamists - it's full of cool stuff. http://www.archaeology.org/news/2856-141230-turkey-underground-city
 
werepossum said:
I can't help but wonder whether things might be better (for us anyway) if the United States had succeeded in getting the EU to admit Turkey. A Turkey integrated into the EU might well be positively influenced; a Turkey repeatedly rebuffed has no reason to love the West and indeed, may well wonder whether its protections would be honored against a real threat like Russia.
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For sure shit might have been far more perfect if the Turks had been allowed into the EU. However Erdogan has basically been an aspiring dictator for decades. He is destroying the secular society that has been the Turkish state since Ataturk. And it is very sad because there is a lot of worth in Anatolia. If you can get rid of Erdogan there are millions of secular Turks who we could develop good relations with. I do not want war with the Turks only to get rid of Erdogan and the fundamentalists.

werepossum said:
Just another reason why it's sad to see Turkey fall to the Islamists - it's full of cool stuff. http://www.archaeology.org/news/2856...derground-city
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For sure. I think Anatolia, India, Iran, and Mesopotamia are very underappreciated when it comes to civilization especially in Western society which seems to favor the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians.
 
norseamd said:
For sure shit might have been far more perfect if the Turks had been allowed into the EU. However Erdogan has basically been an aspiring dictator for decades. He is destroying the secular society that has been the Turkish state since Ataturk. And it is very sad because there is a lot of worth in Anatolia. If you can get rid of Erdogan there are millions of secular Turks who we could develop good relations with. I do not want war with the Turks only to get rid of Erdogan and the fundamentalists.

For sure. I think Anatolia, India, Iran, and Mesopotamia are very underappreciated when it comes to civilization especially in Western society which seems to favor the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians.
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Agreed, but Erdogan is merely the symptom of the fundamentalists.

I agree with the second part too. Anatolia and India in particular had some incredibly sophisticated ancient civilizations.
 
werepossum said:
None of that warrants assassination, of course. Turkey has a right to self determination even if the result is not to our liking.
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There are still millions of secular and moderate Turks who are being suppressed by Erdoan and his political cronies and associates. Even some Islamic Imam is at war with Erdogan. Basically there is no self determination right now.
 
norseamd said:
There are still millions of secular and moderate Turks who are being suppressed by Erdoan and his political cronies and associates. Even some Islamic Imam is at war with Erdogan. Basically there is no self determination right now.
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I agree that Turkey is past the tipping point, but I think that the fundamentalists are at least a plurality now.
 
FaaR said:
Oh yeah, assassinating, or attempting to, democratically elected foreign statesmen - a long-standing US tradition. ...Which has never backfired in any way either.


Seriously man, what the hell?
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LOL.

Fern
 
norseamd said:
Do you have any studies or breakdowns of the current demographics of the Turkish population?
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Don't think I've seen anything past this. http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/30/turks-divided-on-erdogan-and-the-countrys-direction/

But on a number of issues, Turks are almost evenly split between those who are happy with Erdogan’s leadership and the state of the nation, and those who believe the former Istanbul mayor is leading the country down the wrong path. Overall, 44% are satisfied with the country’s direction, while 51% are dissatisfied. Half say the economy is doing well, while 46% think it is in bad shape. Forty-eight percent say Erdogan is having a good influence on the country; the same percentage believes he is having a negative impact.

Many Turks sympathize with the street demonstrations that rocked the country and attracted international attention just over a year ago. A 49% plurality say they supported the anti-government protests that took place throughout Turkey, most prominently in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. And a majority (55%) disapprove of how Erdogan dealt with the demonstrations.

Turkey’s military has long been a major player in the country’s politics – indeed, there have been several military coups since the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923 – and a 55% majority believes the armed forces are having a good influence on the country. However, this level of support is down sharply from 72% in 2010 and an even higher 85% in 2007.

Another long running theme in Turkish politics is the deep divisions between secular and religious camps in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation, and contemporary Turkish society continues to reflect this divide. For example, highly observant Turkish Muslims are much more likely to support Erdogan, believe the country is on the right track, and oppose last year’s protests.
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Erdogan has succeeded both in neutering the military and in moving Turkey sharply into the Islamist camp, but don't forget that several Turkish leaders did the latter. Always the military intervened to keep Turkey secular. Erdogan and the Islamists now control whom may run, whom may report (and what may be reported), and the national education system - as the military once did - as well as having enough influence within the military to prevent a peaceful and/or organized coup. As of July there was a very, very slight majority dissatisfied with the nation's direction, but remember that number also includes hardcore Salafis who believe the nation should be ruled strictly according to seventh century sensibilities. Salafism holds that the hadith quoting Muhammad as saying his own generation is the ideal, followed by his successors and then their successors, is the truest form of Islam, so jihad, slavery, forced conversion or death are their preferences; these are not people who want a secular Turkey.
 
This is bad.

Real bad.

So basically now that ISIS blew up some shit after their Turkish babysitters partially dropped supporting them the Turks have now used the idea of them bombing ISIS to start the Turkish-Kurdish war all over again right now. So basically not only are teh Kurds the strongest ally against the Islamic State but also they are very friendly to America and Iran. Seems to me that the Turks want ISIS to slaughter more innocents and destroy more shit in the Near East.

http://defense-update.com/20150725_...urds-isis-in-syria-and-iraq.html#.VbTPk_m0d3V
 
So Turkey has militarily assisted ISIS by bombing the Kurds.

Turkey certainly appears to be growing ties to the worst of Islamic terrorism with ISIS on their door step, or... more likely within their own border. I still say a military response is not necessarily on the table and economic influence is the best method of dealing with Turkey.

If their military strike on the Kurds was not a mistake and is a sign of things to come... Perhaps sitting between Turkey and Iran is not a viable long term strategy for Kurdish existence. I'd honestly suggest they commit to joining one side or the other. Do they have any other option? Can we even involve ourselves to the point of changing their options?

I seriously doubt the Kurdish problem is something we are capable of solving.
 
Russia is just another terrorist nation. Maybe the USA should quit trying to start these stupid conflicts. Are you just a war monger or what?
 
I really do wish the US would bomb the f..k out of Turkey. It's insane around here. A good share of the electorate believes Erdogan is a world leader on par with Obama or Merkel or Putin and some even believe he is the next messiah. And unsurprisingly, afaik, his voters are only about 10% college educated.

A short recap of what's happening right now:

Facts:
- Erdogan is the president. As Turkey is a parliamentary democracy, his role should be to approve or reject legislation passed by the parliament (based on the constitution). What he is doing, however, is act as the leader of AKP and basically try to run the country himself including deciding on which laws the parliament should pass. The prime minister (Ahmet Davutoglu) is a puppet.
- Any political party has to pass the 10% threshold to enter the parliament, no threshold for independent candidates, therefore many Kurdish politicians entered the elections as independents and then formed a block in the parliament.

Why Erdogan has gone insane:
- The single party AKP government began peace talks with the PKK (Kurdish armed rebels) around 3 years ago. The talks included AKP, main Kurdish block in the parliament, jailed leader of PKK (Abdullah Ocalan) and the PKK senior leadership (based in northern Syria). The process was finalized a couple months before the general elections in June. A memorandum of understanding was declared.
- One of the results of the talks was that the Kurdish block would enter the elections in June as a party, not as independents. Erdogan was pretty sure they would not be able to pass the 10% threshold. But they did due to many of the non-Kurdish voters such as myself voting for them. They got around 13% of the votes.
- This derailed Erdogan's plans as the AKP lost the single majority of the parliament. AKP has to form a coalition with one of the other parties in the parliament: CHP (secular center left), MHP (nationalist center right) or HDP (liberal left Kurdish). AKP hasn't been able to agree on a coalition with any of these parties so far.
- This failure has pissed of Erdogan and the AKP so therefore they've decided to abolish HDP. They are the easiest one to push below the 10% threshold in an early election so they have decided to let their buddies ISIS do the job.
- ISIS used a suicide bomber in Suruc, Sanliurfa to murder 32 young Turks who were traveling to Kobane, one of the main battlegrounds between ISIS and Kurds in Northern Syria, to help rebuild it. These youngsters had collected donations in the past 3 months to deliver food, clothing and toys to Kobane. Sad. F'ed. Up. World.
- They couldn't blame this on the PKK because there were Kurdish people among the dead. They didn't need to anyway. They started to spread fear of other suicide bombers to form a public opinion that the military (TSK) needed to intervene in the ISIS affair.
- AKP consulted with the US and got permission (I am in no way tying any of this to the US, just stating what's been reported in objective papers) to do air strikes in Northern Syria. In return, it gave permission to the US to use Incirlik Airbase for ISIS related matters.
- TSK striked a couple of useless ISIS camp grounds to show off and then began a massive air operation to strike PKK targets. The goal here is to send a message to PKK that the peace talks are over. And the PKK was basically in a ceasefire mode until they got hit by TSK aircraft.
- So now the PKK has to hit back one way or another, which will in return help the AKP attack more PKK targets and also give a probable cause to arrest many of the HDP supporters who worked on the ground prior to the elections. This will weaken their organization structure so they won't be able to prepare as well as they did for an early election. It doesn't matter if they are guilty or innocent because the Turkish judiciary system is extremely slow and it would take 2-3 years for them to walk free.
- The public opinion will also sway away from the HDP because the HDP's main electorate is about 7% Kurdish. The rest comes from liberals such as myself because HDP was the only party who promised free speech, gender and sexual preference equality, press freedom, animal rights, etc. If the AKP can influence some of the people who voted for HDP in June, it would be enough to push them below the 10% threshold and then the AKP can win enough votes to form a single party government again.

Anyone wanna help me get a job in the US so I can get the hell out of this sh!thole? 31 yo, male, finance degree from Virginia Tech, 10 years consulting and sales experience. Ok thanks 🙂
 
US bombing Turkey would start WW3. Not as bad as matching into Ukraine but pretty damn close. You idiots calling for war should immediately sign up yourselves and your children for the front lines.
 
Bock said:
US bombing Turkey would start WW3. Not as bad as matching into Ukraine but pretty damn close. You idiots calling for war should immediately sign up yourselves and your children for the front lines.
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How?

America could take on the Turks and while it would be a pain in the ass it would be possible as the only "allies" that the Turkish government seems to have is more or less NATO. Now they have some good relations with other countries like the Israelis. However the question is what would the Russians and Sunni Arabs do if America and the Turks went to war?
 
Point out the ground and the ass, and we got the boots.

That's how the US of A works.

We'll put a boot in your ass, It's the American way
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- Toby Keith - 2002. American Collegiate Football Backup and Singer-Songwriter.
 
I'd hate having to nuke a Turkey.

It's NATO, ya know 😛

Maybe the US could just build a large wall with a smoker over it and we could have smoked Turkey.

In all seriousness Turkey has seemed to shift a lot more to radical since 1980.

Turkish obviously knows much more about it than I, I used to know a few people that lived there in the past I heard a few things from.

I hope he's oughta there, myself.
 
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