Posted on 10/26/2010 1:59:10 PM PDT by mojito
That Turkey has grown unrelentingly hostile to Israel, and cozy with Iran, is no longer news. But it is news, of the most disturbing kind, that Washington has chosen to actively collaborate in both the hostility and the coziness. Yet that’s what emerges from today’s Haaretz report on NATO’s planned missile-defense system: the U.S., it says, has agreed to Turkey’s demand that no information gathered by the system — whose primary goal is countering threats from Iran — be shared with Israel.
President George W. Bush, who conceived the system, had planned to station it in Eastern Europe. But due to Russia’s vehement opposition, President Barack Obama decided to relocate it to Turkey.
Ankara, reluctant to damage its burgeoning romance with Tehran, said it would agree only if four conditions were met. One, Turkish sources told Haaretz, was that “information gathered by the system not be given to any non-NATO member, and especially not to Israel.”
Moreover, the sources said, Washington has agreed to this demand. In other words, Washington has agreed that potentially vital information about Israel’s greatest enemy, gathered by a NATO facility that America conceived and will doubtless largely finance, won’t be shared with Israel.
Nor does the official excuse cited for this capitulation hold water: it’s true that Israel has information-gathering systems of its own devoted to Iran, but that doesn’t mean it has no need for NATO information. The new facility may well have capabilities Israel lacks.
The real reason, as the Turkish sources noted, is most likely that Washington had little choice: without Turkey’s consent, the project couldn’t go forward, and Ankara threatened a veto if its conditions weren’t met. Yet it was Obama’s own choice to relocate the project from two staunch American allies, Poland and the Czech Republic, to an increasingly hostile Turkey that left him vulnerable to this blackmail.
But Ankara posed another condition that may be even more worrying, given its coziness with Tehran: “direct Turkish access to any information gathered by the system.”
In May, Hakan Fidan became the new head of Turkish intelligence. Fidan, Haaretz reported at the time, “played a central role in tightening Turkish ties with Iran, especially on the nuclear issue.” He defended Iran’s nuclear program to the International Atomic Energy Agency and was one of the architects of the uranium-transfer deal that Turkey and Brazil concocted with Iran in May in an effort to avert a planned UN Security Council vote on new sanctions against Tehran.
Thus Turkey wants its intelligence service, whose chief’s main goal has been to tighten ties with Iran, to have direct access to a system whose main goal is to gather information about Iran. Does NATO really want to gamble that Fidan will not pass this information on to Tehran, thereby letting it know exactly what NATO knows about its capabilities?
Under these circumstances, the system could end up doing more harm then good. At the very least, Congress should be asking some tough questions about it — and, even more important, about the utility of continuing the pretense that Turkey is still a Western ally.
Turkey has been granted "direct access" to a missile defense system - that they shouldn't have in the first place - whose chief purpose is to monitor Iranian ballistic missile deployments. And who doesn't expect that the Turks will turn around and give the intel to the Iranians, especially since the Iranians are now giving money directly to the AKP, the ruling party?
This is equivalent of giving the Vietnamese weapons to spy on China.
Ridiculous...dangerous...and traitorous. Turks are enemies not allies.
NATO should be disbanded as well—it has caused nothing but grief and mistakes since 1990.
I’ve never trusted the Turks, and neither have many others throughout history. These are the former Ottomans, and they were some of the best friends Kaiser Wilhelm had, not to mention Adolph Hitler. The Krupp arms manufacturing dynasty had its long association with the Ottomans and the Turks to thank for much of the family’s wealth.
Smarmy buncha people if you ask me, and I still haven’t forgotten how they prevented us from invading into Northern Iraq. Like the Communist Chinese, the Turkish are not our allies. They just happen to not be our active enemies at the moment although they periodically give us cause to wonder...
My bad, nevermind }:0)>
The fall of Turkey to Islamacism is the worst thing to happen in our struggle since 911. As bad as loosing Iran to the Mullahs. Not just Obama but the whole decision making cast in Washington needs to figure that out fast.
Unless there is some real hope of the secularist elements in Turkey regaining the upper hand (very doubtful IMHO) we are going to have to start treating Turkey as an out and out enemy. Very, very, bad.
So much for Secular Islam.
The cult of Mahomet must be eradicated from the face of the Earth.
I’m less concerned about Israel and more concerned about Greece. Greece and Turkey have nasty history and under an islamic regime Turkey might just decide to settle the old score. I doubt Greece would stand for too long without our help. The Spartans are long dead.
Turkey should be roasted.
It’s an Ezekiel 39 thang!
Turkey and Iraq are old enemies due to the Kurds, and Turkey stands to make big bucks with Iran on a natural gas pipeline from Iran through Armenia and all the way across Turkey to Europe.
That natural gas will directly compete with Russia's natural gas monopoly on Europe.
It's all about making a buck, and Iran has agreed to keep Hezbollah troublemakers out of Turkey.
I still remember all the Liberal RINOs whining when the Congress passed a resolution condemming the Turkish genocide of Armenians...and all the Liberal Globalist RINOS were whining “Turkey is our ally”
Idiot Liberal RINO Globalists were wrong then, and still wrong on Turkey
Turkey is an Islamic nation...and they are not our friends. They need to be kicked out of NATO. Their anti-Semitism is not tolerable
Probably stupidity, but it does equal aiding hostile enemies of an ally, Israel. That alone is a high crime and an impeachable offense.
For a definition of treason look in our Constitution.
Turkey, Iran, Russia, Syria and the rest of the Mid East Countries against Israel with Omorons help? Just wow!
Ezek 38-39 more near future then many would believe.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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I have a solution, let's bring Iran into NATO. We'll all be friends.
NATO is an institution which has outlived the treat it was meant to contain.
100% agreement on Greece. Greece has not always been a bastion of political and economic sanity in the last 50 years, to say the least, but they do know what Turkish oppression is all about. I notice that Greece and Israel recently held some modest joint military maneuvers- Probably meant to send a message.
Another matter of grave concern is Cyprus. If the Turks get nutty that is where the trouble will start. The past Turkish military intervention that established the so-called “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” does not fill me with warm and fuzzies for the future.
Islamacists won’t want the Muslim half of an island, they will want the whole island. And then only as a stepping stone for further aggression.
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