Posted on 12/10/2015 1:12:38 AM PST by Michael van der Galien
As we reported earlier today, tensions between Russia and Turkey are heating up -- fast. Last month, Turkey took down a Russian jet flying over Syria and, Ankara says, Turkey. Ever since, the autocratic rulers of both countries have been at loggerheads.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's initial reaction was to implement sanctions against Turkey in an attempt to hurt its economy. Next he accused the Turks of secretly funding ISIS by buying its oil. His third step to intimidate Turkey became clear today: surrounding the country with an impressive Russian military presence.
Although Turkey initially tried to reach out to Putin, the Islamist-led government gradually came to realize that the Russian leader is not to be easily placated. As a result, Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan launched a PR campaign of his own, among other things accusing Russia and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad of buying oil from ISIS. He also contacted other countries, such as Azerbaijan and Qatar, in an attempt to purchase more natural gas from them, which would make Turkey less dependent on Russia.
Today, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet DavutoÄŸlu joined this war of words by declaring that Russia is carrying out an "ethnic cleansing" in Latakia, in northern Syria. As he told members of the international media in Istanbul:
"Russia is trying to carry out an ethnic cleansing in northern Latakia to force out all Turkmen and the Sunni population who do not have good relations with the regime. They want to expel them, they want to ethnically cleanse this area so that the regime and Russian bases in Latakia and Tartus are protected."
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Anything that results in dead moslems is a good thing. Whether you call it ethnic cleansing or flushing the toilet or whatever doesn’t matter.
If Russia is killing moslems I’m all for them.
BTW Assad has actually been a pretty good leader for Syria. He protected minorities (Christians) and did not let the moslems get too radical in his country. He’s mostly secular. He has not been our friend, but he’s not really been our enemy (like islam is) either.
Its Sunni vs Shiites: may they fight each other for the next thousand years.
I don’t believe there is anything in Syria worth risking WWIII. The opportunity for the US & allies to do something about Assad ended when the Russians moved in.
If we tried to bomb Assad we would likely kill some Russians. Too, the Russian AA defenses would make such a bombing a difficult, dangerous proposition. By the time such bombing might be effective we would be in a war with Russia.
It has become clear to me that in the muslim world a dictator is preferable to the will of the (lunatic) people. Iran went from stability under the Shah to extremist chaos under the mullahs. Libya is a basket case without Kadafi. Egypt only resumed some sense of normalcy after the elected radical government was overthrown. Turkey is on the edge of going full islamist. The only relatively stable, non-aggressive muslim countries in the ME are ruled by kings.
Mixing islam with democracy yields chaos. islam & democracy are mutually exclusive. Unseating Assad will only create another radical, dangerous muslim state. And the very LAST people I would want to try to solve the Syria/ME problems are the incredibly incompetent, ideologically insane Obama & Kerry.
Turkey should have a good understanding of what ethnic cleaning is after all the experience they have had with it. Namely the Assyrian and Armenian genocides during WWI.
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