Turkish Forum

Tag: Saudi Arabia

  • The blockade of Qatar is a move against the values of the Arab spring

    The blockade of Qatar is a move against the values of the Arab spring

    Melania Trump, Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia King
    Melania and Donald Trump on their visit to Saudi Arabia

    Wadah Khanfar

    The move of Saudi Arabia,the UAE and Bahrain against Qatar was swift. It was launched on the back of a fake news report placed by hackers on the website of Qatar’s official news agency. That allowed the three Gulf states to launch a media campaign led by Saudi- and UAE-controlled TV channels.

    Qatar was simultaneously accused of hosting Hamas; supporting the Muslim Brotherhood; backing Hezbollah; having close ties with Iran; sowing the seeds of sedition inside Saudi Arabia, and all the while maintaining intimate relations with Israel. If you can do all those things at the same time, you are indeed a magician.

    The incoherence of these claims did not matter. The Saudis and Emiratis were addressing two audiences: the western one, which sees conflict in the Middle East through the exclusive prism of fighting terrorism; and the Gulf audience, which sees red when any of its leaders talk to Iran or Israel.

    On Monday, a set of measures were announced that are unprecedented in peacetime: cutting diplomatic relations; closing all the borders, sea lanes and airspace; banning citizens of all participating states from travelling to Qatar, and banning all Qataris and residents of Qatar from travelling to those countries. These are measures not even used in a warzone. They violate all the norms of international aviation.

    The pretext offered for all this was the desire to cut the funding of terrorist groups and radical Islamist ideology. And yet the most significant demand had nothing to do with this: it was to close down the al-Jazeera media network. This has been eagerly sought by many Arab states, first and foremost Saudi Arabia, ever since the original news channel launched in 1996.

    Al-Jazeera transformed the Arab media from a natural extension of the intelligence and security agencies to an independent sector whose values were transparency, accountability and democracy. This is exactly what so many Arab regimes fear.

    Al-Jazeera is very familiar with the charges Qatar now faces, because they were made against it: al-Jazeera was accused of aligning itself with Hezbollah, supporting Islamist groups and having intimate ties with Israel.

    The most important event al-Jazeera covered was the Arab spring in 2011. This was a political earthquake, driven by the dreams and aspirations of a new generation, born under dictatorship but raised in the age of the internet. Young people sought to turn those dreams into reality, taking to the streets, using the power of networking and learning from the experiences of other youth groups from around the world. The dynamic was neither partisan, sectarian nor ideological.

    Toppling regimes proved to be the easiest step. For these were ageing regimes whose structures had been infested with rampant corruption. Establishing consensus and rebuilding the state on democratic foundations was much harder. Young people alone were not up to the task. Counter-revolutionary forces, funded by the entire wealth of the Gulf, regained control.

    The dividing line was wealth. Revolutions erupted in the poorer nations such as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, while the rich countries stood behind the counter-revolution. The three countries that have imposed a siege on Qatar funded the 2013 military coup in Egypt and have propped up the regime of Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. They have also funded and armed General Khalifa Haftar in Libya and waged an open war on the forces of the Arab spring.

    Qatar distanced itself from these policies. Qatar is not a democracy. Yet it was not hostile to the Arab spring.

    This was the reason behind the first Gulf escalation against Qatar in 2014, when the same three countries withdrew their ambassadors from Doha and threatened to close their borders. They demanded Qatar support the Sisi regime, fight the Muslim Brotherhood and curb al-Jazeera’s independence.

    The crisis did not escalate, as Barack Obama’s administration was not enthusiastic about such conflicts. By contrast, the current situation is being seized upon by Qatar’s foes. In his tweets, Donald Trump claimed ownership, saying the moves to isolate Qatar were the fruits of his address to more than 40 leaders of Muslim nations last month.

    The current dispute has nothing to do with funding terrorism or radical ideology and even less to do with any official Qatari leaning toward Iran. This is a resumption of an old fight: drying all the fountains of independent conscience in preparation for a restoration of the old order in the Middle East. This time, however, the old order has tough new security powers, created by the war on terror and the support of a president who has jettisoned all the US’s values.

    But are we going to fight terror with more persecution, or learn lessons from history? The fact is that dictatorial and corrupt regimes were the incubators of extremism in the region. Decades of suppressing liberties and violating human rights provided the oxygen for jihadi groups. While these regimes flouted the rule of law, they still enjoyed US support. As a result, the Middle East continues to be engulfed by conflicts and instability.

    We should not rebuild the Middle East on the foundations that generated terrorism. We should align ourselves with a future of youthful dreams. These may often be utopian or unrealistic. But at least we would be walking forward, rather than stumbling backwards.

    This article was first published by The Guardian

  • Silencing Al Jazeera is focus of Qatar crisis

    Silencing Al Jazeera is focus of Qatar crisis

    Wadah Khanfar

    Saudi Arabia, Egypt and most Gulf states have joined an unprecedented diplomatic and economic attack on Qatar — cutting off the thumb which sticks out in to the Gulf — accusing it of funding terrorism. But at the centre of this concerning issue is the pan-Arab television network, Al Jazeera.

    We talk to its former director general, Wadah Khanfar, about what’s really happening and why a TV station is at the center of a crisis pushing the Gulf states and Iran into dangerous territory.

    Emboldened by Donald Trump a coalition collection of dictators and monarchs has launched an attack on the one source of Arab-owned independent information in the region, knowing few will object — certainly not Washington. Even even under moderate leaders the US has had an ambiguous relationship with the Qatar-funded television station, initially praising and then attacking its journalismand influence.

    Khanfar headed Al Jazeera and was its guiding editorial leader, creating a successful and influential broadcaster in a region where sycophancy and conspiracy theories are what pass for news.

    We asked Khanfar, a member of the board of the Global Editors Network, a set of questions, focusing on the Al Jazeera element of the diplomatic, economic and military pressure on Qatar.

    Peter Bale: How big a factor do you believe anger at Al Jazeera is part of the Saudi-led initiative against Qatar?

    Wadah Khanfar: It is very clear that the current crisis emanates as an extension of continuous fear of Al Jazeera, due to the independent and objective journalism it practices in the Arab world. Al Jazeera transformed Arab media from being natural extensions of intelligence and security agencies to independent sectors whose values were transparency, accountability and democracy. This is exactly what so many Arab regimes fear.

    Al Jazeera Arabic has always been a different product with a different tone from AJ English. Can it say that it has reported the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia and Egypt fairly over the past few years or are there regrets about the balance or fairness of coverage?

    Al Jazeera Arabic channel’s editorial policy towards Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf countries has been objective but not aggressive over the last few years. The major issue for the governments in the Gulf region is Al Jazeera’s coverage of Egypt, Libya and pro-Arab Spring forces. I view the current dispute as a continuation of the fallout from Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Arab Spring and its aftermath. The Government of Qatar didn’t share or endorse the policies of fellow Gulf countries to support counter revolutionary forces, which infuriated them, and in turn the Trump administration provided the opportunity for these Gulf states to settle their accounts with Doha and by extension Al Jazeera.

    How significant do you believe the influence or permission of Donald Trump for this sort of action was and how does it fit in to his approach to human rights and freedom of the press issues outside the US?

    Trump has been rewarded in Riyadh, he was welcomed by a huge reception and given a generous financial package of $480 billion in investment. This was a timely rescue package for a president that faced trouble back home. He gave his blessing to the Saudis and the Emiratis, thereby fulfilling their desire to redraw a new order in the region as they see fit. It is evident that this is a personal endorsement of Trump to regional monarchs’ and is not as a result of consensus within Washington DC. It is also clear from the onset, due to the various contradicting messages coming out of the different departments within the administration, that this is not part of coherent US policy towards the region. The current Administration is conducting foreign policy on a transactional basis that excludes values or even long term American interest. This is a short sighted and shallow approach, as it does not provide stability to an already troubled Middle East nor provide the sought security for the United States.

    Why now and why Qatar? Given the history of Wahhabi support for extreme interpretations of Islam and the long-standing Saudi connections with Al Qaeda this seems a twisted logic at the very least to accuse Qatar of supporting extremism.

    Accusing Qatar of supporting terrorism is the pretext of this campaign. Fighting terrorism is a common tool in the region, which they use to punish anyone they disagree with. Regimes in the region know that the Western approach to the Arab and Islamic world is centred around fighting terrorism; and is thereby a far easier pretext to justify their actions. The sad aspect of the Western approach is that it has eliminated the word democracy from its lexicon in relation to the Middle East, whilst hoping for stability and security.

    The authoritarian regimes are comfortable with their current American approach, and now we are officially back to the pre-Arab Spring era. This is a resumption of an old fight: drying all the fountains of independent conscience in preparation for restoration of the old order in the Middle East. This time, however, the old order has tough new security powers, created by the war on terror and fuelled by support of a president who has jettisoned all US values.

    You have talked about this finally stifling the sentiment of the Arab Spring? Do you see a direct connection between the destruction of political Islam in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the increase in extremism and worldwide support for ISIS?

    The Muslim Brotherhood as movement was not perfect, they were immature in politics and may have made some major mistakes, but the big picture here is the following:

    Peaceful transformation to democracy was the dream of Arab youth and the Arab Spring gave them a rare opportunity to do just that, but counter revolutionary measures have murdered this hope. The path to peaceful reform is now closed, youth are angry and desperate, and the Arab Spring has been hijacked by generals who are supported by wealthy Gulf states. Therefore, we are now heading towards a much more extreme and radical reality.

    The fact is that dictatorial and corrupt regimes were the incubators of extremism in the region. Decades of suppressing liberties and violating human rights provided the oxygen for jihadi groups. While these regimes flouted the rule of law, they still enjoyed US support. As a result, the Middle East continues to be engulfed by conflicts and instability.

    What do you think the outcome of this will be for Al Jazeera? When?

    Any settlement to the current crisis may take several negotiations and can last up to a few months or even longer. However, whatever the outcome of these negotiations, it will not impact Al Jazeera’s editorial policies. This is merely another attempt to undermine Al Jazeera’s integrity but it will not succeed. The State of Qatar values the regional & global status of Al Jazeera, so I do not expect Qatar to succumb to such pressures.

    This Interview was first published in Medium in June 19, 2017

  • The Gulf: An unprecedented crisis and major repercussions

    The Gulf: An unprecedented crisis and major repercussions

    Al Sharq Forum

    Introduction

    On 5 June 2017, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt, in marked succession, cut diplomatic relations with Qatar. Within a matter of hours, it became clear that this was not simply a move to sever ties, but a plan for a full embargo, an unprecedented step at a time of peace between these nations. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain blocked flights to Qatar, closed land and sea borders, and ordered Qatari citizens out of their countries while calling on their own nationals to leave Qatar. The same day, Maldives, Mauritius (though it later denied the news), the Libyan Tobruk-based government (which is not recognised internationally), and the Yemeni government based in Riyadh followed suit and cut ties with Qatar, unable to resist Saudi pressure.

    The next day, Jordan downgraded diplomatic relations with Qatar and revoked the licence of Al Jazeera’s bureau in Amman, while Mauritania severed diplomatic relations with Qatar. Mauritius, in an official statement, denied it had cut ties, raising questions of whether some party took the initiative on behalf of the Mauritian government.

    The actions taken at dawn on 5 June were the culmination of an unprecedented, anti-Qatar media blitz initiated by Emirati, Saudi, Bahraini and Egyptian media on the evening of 23 May. The campaign intensified until it assumed official imprimatur with the decision to cut ties and blockade Qatar.

    What, then, is happening to relations between countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)? After Gulf leaders came together in a scene of friendship, cooperation and solidarity during US President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, why are relations between three GCC states and Qatar deteriorating so rapidly and in such unprecedented fashion? Was there an immediate cause that spurred Saudi Arabia and its partners to take this stance, or were these actions planned in advance? Is this simply a fleeting crisis in relations between GCC states, or could the break persist?

    From media campaign to severed ties
    Late in the evening on 23 May, Arabs and Gulf citizens were surprised by breaking news on the websites of al-Arabiya and Sky News Arabic reporting statements by the Emir of Qatar praising Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, and discussing tensions between Qatar and the Trump administration. The Emir had held a friendly meeting with the American president two days earlier in Riyadh, and for years Qatar had pursued an anti-Iranian policy in Yemen and Syria. Within a few hours, it became apparent that the website of the Qatar News Agency (QNA) had been hacked and that statements ascribed to Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad had no basis in fact. Qatar denied the statements and said that QNA officials had lost control of the agency’s website after the hack. Nevertheless, al-Arabiya and Sky News Arabic continued to carry the original news item and did not report the denial of the Qatari authorities.

    Meanwhile, the media campaign against Qatar and its emir continued. The reports first published by al-Arabiya and Sky News Arabic were quickly picked up by all Emirati and Saudi media outlets, including government and quasi-government newspapers and television channels. That evening, the Twitter account of the Qatari foreign minister was also hacked, and the hackers posted that Qatar had decided to sever ties with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt. None of the media outlets that participated in the anti-Qatar campaign published the official Qatari statement denying statements attributed to the emir or the subsequent statements ascribed to the country’s foreign minister. As the offensive against Qatar continued, it appeared that the media blitz was orchestrated in advance and those running it were waiting for the QNA hack to set the plan in motion.

    The campaign did not flag for the next ten days; in fact, it intensified, sinking to levels never before seen in Gulf relations and the traditions of the peoples in the region. Both Saudi and Emirati official media intimated that the campaign was given the green light at the highest levels of government in the two countries.

    On 4 June, a group of hackers announced they had hacked the email account of Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador in Washington, known for his closeness to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed, the strongman of the UAE. Within hours, the hackers began leaking some of the ambassador’s own emails and mails sent to him by former US officials, prominent think tankers, and even Obama administration officials. The leaked emails revealed the ambassador’s extensive efforts in Washington to link Qatar—and even Turkey, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia—to terrorism and his attempt to present the UAE as the moderate, most trustworthy nation in the Gulf and the Middle East, in cooperation largely with officials and researchers known for their strong ties to Israel. The emails also exposed Emirati efforts to support Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, and promote him in US circles as a reliable ally.

    Despite the intensity of the relentless anti-Qatar media campaign, it did not persuade most of the Gulf or Arab public. Popular reactions on social media—the only way to gauge public opinion in these countries – especially in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and – Oman revealed that most Gulf residents rejected the accusations of the campaign and showed widespread sympathy for Qatar. In response, the UAE announced that public displays of sympathy with Qatar would henceforth be subject to 3–15 years in prison and a fine of 500,000 dirhams.

    On 5 June, the media campaign solidified into official political decisions when Gulf states and their partners announced an embargo of Qatar and cut all diplomatic ties.
    Of course, this is not the first crisis in relations between Qatar and the three Gulf states. In March 2014, the three states in question withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar following rising frictions due to Qatar’s support for the Arab democratic revolutions and its opposition to the military coup in Egypt. That crisis persisted until November of the same year, when relations between Qatar and Saudi Arabia were normalised thanks to Kuwaiti mediation in the last days of King Abdullah’s rule. The UAE and Bahrain soon followed suit, and the ambassadors of all three states returned to Doha. Clearly, however, the nature and goal of this crisis is different.

    What is sought from Qatar?
    The three states’ positions on Qatar demonstrate patent contradictions, seen not only in the content of the media campaign, but also in the official declarations justifying the embargo and breaking of ties. For example, Qatar was accused of supporting the Houthis and the Reform Party in Yemen, while the Reform Party is at the forefront of forces fighting the Houthis and Qatari soldiers are standing shoulder to shoulder with Saudi soldiers to defend Saudi Arabia’s southern border with Yemen. There is no hard evidence for the allegation that Qatar’s contacts with Iran run counter to GCC interests. The rhetoric Qatar uses to describe its relations with Iran, which is aimed at deescalating tensions, is the same as that employed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Moreover, among GCC countries, the UAE is Iran’s biggest trading partner, and all Gulf countries with the exception of Saudi Arabia maintain diplomatic ties with Iran. In fact, Qatar stands with the anti-Iran camp in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. Saudi allegations that Qatar supports terrorist organisations and anti-Saudi groups were vague and unsupported by any evidence.

    The most incomprehensible development is how Saudi-Qatari relations, which have been warm and harmonious since King Salman came to the throne, deteriorated to this extent and how they remained so warm if Saudi accusations were well founded. Qatari-Emirati relations have been poor for some time, but Saudi-Qatari ties are a different story. While relations between Riyadh and Doha have swung between crisis and rapprochement over the last quarter century, there has been no sign of an impending crisis over the last few months.

    How, then, should we understand the drivers of the current Gulf crisis?
    Qatari policy has run at odds to Emirati policy since the Arab uprisings of 2011. The two states have divergent stances on the Islamist trend in the Arab region, and they stand in opposite camps on various specific issues. The differences between Qatar and the UAE have been manifested most starkly in their respective positions on the military coup in Egypt against the elected president, Mohamed Morsi, and Khalifa Haftar, who refuses to recognise the internationally recognised accord government in Libya and seeks military control of the country, as well as their stances on movements seeking to re-partition Yemen.

    Qatari-Saudi disputes are of a different order. Saudi Arabia and Qatar took divergent positions on the Arab revolutions in general, but this did not become contentious because Saudi Arabia did not adopt an overtly oppositional stance on the Arab popular movements in 2011. In Syria, a Saudi-Qatari consensus developed in support of the Syrian revolution and to counter Iranian influence. But Saudi-Qatari ties underwent a severe crisis in 2014 due to their differing stances on the military coup in Egypt in the summer of 2013. While Saudi Arabia has shown little interest in the Libyan situation since the war against the Houthis erupted more than two years ago, Doha and Riyadh seemed more in accord on Yemen than Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, at least on the face of it.

    It is therefore difficult to pinpoint a reason or new development that might have sparked the sudden Saudi hostility toward Qatar. The only logical explanation for the shift is that Saudi Arabia, encouraged by the UAE, is seeking total control of Qatari decision making and the country’s full capitulation, while also holding out Qatar as a warning to other Gulf states, such as Kuwait and Oman, that maintain a policy independent of Saudi Arabia.

    Those in Saudi Arabia and the UAE who made the decision to escalate against Qatar apparently believed that the resolution of the 2014 crisis was not satisfactory or adequate. At the time, King Abdullah had demanded limited concessions from Qatar in terms of its media coverage of Egypt and the expulsion of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders who had found refuge in Qatar in the wake of the 2013 coup. In contrast, the demand now is Qatar’s total submission to Saudi will—which is what Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on 5 June. The ministry stated that Qatar’s national decision-making capacity was on the line and that its autonomy was a point of contention for the states leading the embargo and cutting ties. Any demands made of Qatar by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, regardless of details, will further this objective.

    Qatar’s surrender would have ramifications not for any single pressing issue, but for the overall vision Riyadh (and Abu Dhabi) seemed to have formed for the Gulf region in particular and the Middle East as a whole. It would have an impact on relations with Iran and Turkey, the stance on political Islam and democratisation, and the future of the Palestinian issue and relations with Israel. The consequences would also not be limited to foreign affairs, but would touch Qatari domestic affairs and who leads the major national institutions.

    The escalation to force Qatar’s capitulation would not have been possible at the present time absent two significant developments. The first is the increasing closeness between the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed, and the former’s sense that the latter has a network of influence in the US that successfully improved Saudi Arabia’s image with Trump. This, in turn, boosts Bin Salman’s position in the kingdom, since he managed to deflect the risks of the JASTA law and persuade Washington to adopt the Saudi agenda. The second development is the moral backing that President Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia lent the camp of Bin Salman and Bin Zayed. Both men saw the visit as a victory for their policy, representing a return of the traditional alliance with the US and Washington’s abandonment of any illusions of democratisation in the Middle East.

    International dynamics
    From the outset, the campaign against Qatar, even after it evolved into a blockade and diplomatic break, was understood to be led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with those countries that later signed on playing only a marginal role. It was this understanding, in addition to regional and international concern that the crisis would impact Gulf stability that determined the nature of the reactions on the Arab and regional as well as international levels.

    Iran did not conceal its attempt to exploit divisions in the Gulf, showing sympathy for Qatar and expressing a willingness to provide any food goods to the Qatari market that could be affected by a closing of the border with Saudi Arabia. Similarly, Israeli officials said that the Gulf crisis offered the opportunity to strengthen Israeli relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE against Qatar, which backs the Hamas government in Gaza. As for Turkey, which maintains close, strategic ties to Qatar and has already begun building a military base in the country, it did not hide its sympathy for the Qatari viewpoint, but it simultaneously made efforts to mediate and contain the crisis. President Erdogan dispatched two envoys to Doha and Riyadh on 3 June, but after they returned to Turkey to brief the president, Ankara was taken by surprise by the sudden decision to sever ties and embargo Qatar, leading Erdogan to condemn the actions against Qatar.

    Most Arab states, even those participating in the alliance against the Houthis, such as Sudan, called for calm and found it difficult to take a stand in support of either side, particularly since Qatar maintains close ties with most Arab states. Both Kuwait and Oman undoubtedly fear that the campaign against Qatar is a prelude to threats to their own political autonomy, but, as is usual among Gulf countries, the two states took action to mediate the conflict and prevent further escalation. Kuwait has more experience and is in a better position given its good ties with both Riyadh and Doha and the Kuwaiti leadership’s close familiarity with Gulf disputes after the role it played in resolving the 2014 crisis.

    On the international level, Russia and China remained neutral, calling for a negotiated resolution to Gulf disputes. It was striking that Putin stressed Russia’s distance from the Saudi camp, saying that a break in ties was not discussed during Bin Salman’s visit to Moscow. The Europeans, particularly Germany, were closer to the Qatari position, expressing concerns that the crisis could fuel renewed instability in the Gulf.
    The US position, as is typical since Trump entered the White House, seemed more contradictory and confused: officials in the State and Defence Departments were plainly shocked by the rapid development of the crisis and the decision to sever ties with Qatar. Official statements issued by the State Department and the Pentagon affirmed US relations with Qatar and stated that the US had no plans to alter military ties between the two countries. But the day after the decision to cut ties, President Trump said in a tweet that leaders had pointed to Qatar when he spoke in Saudi Arabia of the need to end any support for terrorist groups and that the Qatari boycott was a consequence of his visit to the region.

    It can be understood from the US stance that Gulf leaders, perhaps Bin Zayed and Bin Salman, did in fact incite against Qatar during Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, but there was no in-depth discussion between the two sides, hence the surprise demonstrated by other arms of the US administration. According to media reports, the camp of Bin Salman and Bin Zayed enjoy strong ties with individuals close to President Trump, most significantly the close relationship between Emirati Ambassador Al Otaiba and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and advisor. But a prolonged crisis in the Gulf certainly does not serve US political interests—that much is clear from the statements of State Department and Pentagon officials. It was also clear that in the hours following the president’s tweet, US state institutions rushed to contain suggestions of bias toward Saudi Arabia and its partners.

    Spokesmen for both the State Department and White House again affirmed the ties of friendship between the US and Qatar, while US Secretary of Defence James Matthis spoke by phone with his Qatari counterpart, Khalid Al Attiyah, to reaffirm Washington’s traditional commitment to relations with Qatar. That same evening, President Trump spoke to King Salman, urging him to preserve the unity of Gulf states and Gulf stability.

    Major fallout
    Clearly, as Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said in a press conference in Paris on 6 June, Saudi Arabia and its partners are betting that the blockade will compel Qatar to yield to Saudi and Emirati demands. But Qatar is capable of withstanding these measures: it possesses substantial reserves, numerous options for imports, several sea and air outlets, and major economic partners linked to it through sizeable investments and vital contracts for gas imports, for example. Since the 2014 crisis, the Qatari government has also taken steps to counter a blockade much like the current situation.

    At the same time, despite the difference between the withdrawal of ambassadors in 2014 and the current crisis in Gulf relations, it is not impossible for Kuwaiti mediation efforts, backed by Oman and Turkey, to contain the situation, prevent further escalation, and find an exit in the coming weeks or months. Nevertheless, it is certain that Qatari-Saudi relations have undergone a genuine break, perhaps even more severe than the fracture in Qatari-Emirati relations. Riyadh and Doha’s view of one another has been scarred by a significant loss of trust. Qatar in particular will not soon forget the media rhetoric used against it or that Saudi Arabia set up a blockade with the intent of starving its population and breaking the fraternal bonds between the peoples of the two countries. It will be difficult to restore Qatari-Saudi relations to the status quo ante, particularly since the latest moves have undermined the few achievements of the GCC since its establishment, such as the free movement of individuals and banking relations.

    Bin Salman and Bin Zayed want Qatar’s total surrender and full control of Doha’s foreign and domestic decision-making power. Even if Qatar agrees to some concessions for the sake of reconciliation and a reduction of Gulf tensions, the Qatari leadership will not cede its ability to act independently, which could endanger the country’s security and population’s prosperity. Riyadh (and Abu Dhabi) will find it hard to compel Qatar to comply with conditions they themselves are not bound by—for example, by imposing strictures on Qatar’s foreign relations while Abu Dhabi freely interferes in Libyan and Yemeni affairs, backs Mohammed Dahlan against the Palestinian Authority, and gives itself the right to contravene Saudi Arabia in issues related to Yemen. How can the UAE allow itself such privileges while denying them to others?

    More broadly, the Gulf crisis casts a heavy pall over the future of the GCC, at least in the short and medium term, and raises questions about the capacity of the council to give expression to a united Gulf will. At issue is not only the severity of the crisis, its antipathy to the region’s traditional values, and its contrariety to the strong ties between its peoples; the problem is also that Riyadh (and Abu Dhabi) have demonstrated flagrant disregard for GCC institutions. All of this indicates that the council now means little to its biggest, most significant members. There was no call for an emergency Gulf summit, and the Saudi and Emirati allegations were not brought to any GCC institution for discussion. In fact, the GCC Secretariat learned of the decision of several GCC members to sever ties with another member state and embargo it through the media.

    When relations between GCC member states can transform so suddenly from cooperation, concord and alliance to a state of undeclared war, it is not unlikely that many GCC states could consider arrangements outside the council to maintain their security and stability. Even on the popular level, the crisis has led ordinary Gulf citizens to question the possibility of working and investing in other Gulf states, or even marrying citizens from other Gulf countries.

    Ultimately, whatever the fate of this crisis, it has put an end to the notion of Saudi leadership of the Gulf and Arab order that began to emerge with the erosion of Egypt’s position and the collapse of Iraq and Syria. The problem here is not solely Saudi disputes with other Gulf or Arab states, but also with the Arab and Gulf popular engagement with the Saudi-led media campaign and the nature of the measures taken by Saudi Arabia and its partners against another Arab, Gulf state. During this crisis, Saudi Arabia has acted less like a wise elder who considers other family members’ concerns and respects their independence as they respect his than a state aspiring for hegemony and custodianship, inspiring fear and anxiety, not trust and confidence.

    The crisis also has ramifications for the image of the US around the world. The US is bound to Qatar by strategic agreements, under which Doha allowed the US to establish the Udeid Air Base and later Centcom. Qatar has honoured this agreement since the early 1990s despite the risk of retaliation from Iran or armed groups that resent US military actions. The world will be watching the US position on Qatar with avid interest to see the true value of its stated commitment to its allies’ security.

    This article was first published by Al Jazeera Center for Studies

  • To be or not to be – Western Questions about ISIS and Islam reveal the Collapse of Christianity

    To be or not to be – Western Questions about ISIS and Islam reveal the Collapse of Christianity

    By Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

     

    Refutation of Prof. Mark Juergensmeyer’s article ‘Is ISIS Islamic?’

     

    topkapi

    The true Caliphate – this is what the Freemasonic, Zionist gangsters of the West wanted to destroy.

    ISIS 1

    The fake Caliphate – this is what the Freemasonic, Zionist gangsters of the West wanted to bring forth in order to totally eliminate Islam in the process.

    In a previous article under title ‘Ottoman Empire, Fake ‘Middle East’, the Pseudo-Christians of the West, and the Forthcoming Tribulation’ , I analyzed why the Western Christians’ stance towards their governments’ policies against the Ottoman Empire and its detached provinces (the technical entities of the so-called ‘Middle East’) is very wrong, definitely immoral, and in total contradiction with the Christian principles, values and virtues. I concluded that a great number of nominal Christians, who approved of the evil policies and deeds of the Western governments, are in reality pseudo-Christians irrespective of what they may think they are.

     

    In a world engulfed in the worst crisis of identity of all times, it is only normal that doubts are raised as regards the identity of the ‘other.’ Only yesterday, Prof. Mark Juergensmeyer, who specializes in ‘global religion’ – a non-existent entity – questioned in an article the identity of ISIS (Is ISIS Islamic? / .

     

    Quite interestingly, under the title, a motto gives the summarizing idea of the article (“Every religion has its dark sides, but the conflict is about politics.”). This is absolutely irrelevant; dark sides in a religion are what you don’t know of that religion. They don’t exist by themselves. No religion has ever had any dark side whatsoever. And all conflicts about politics cannot be deprived of their own religious dimension, because everything in a human society hinges on the spiritual belief or disbelief. Atheists are religious too; they are slaves of Satan either they understand it or not. Their theory and their rejection of God is a form of Satanic faith.

     

    When one starts with so many preconceived ideas as the global religion theoretician Prof. Mark Juergensmeyer, his approach is doomed to fail, but this does not originate from the lack of knowledge of the ‘other side’. And Prof. Mark Juergensmeyer’s main problem is not his lack of insightful knowledge about both, the Islamic world and ISIS itself. The article reveals a serious problem of Christian identity and for this reason I intended to comment on it. I think that my comments will be useful to both, Christians and Muslims.

     

    The author of the article tries to implement the following simplistic logic: if we hold the Ku Klux Klan in the US and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda as ‘Christian’, then we can consider ISIS as ‘Islamic’. This sort of approach does not clarify anything, and rather creates further confusion among both, Christians and Muslims. Generally speaking, I understand and accept the approach through analogy, but to implement this method in your text, you’ve got to select very firm examples. Yes, it is correct to say ‘if we hold the New and the Old Testament as holy books for the Christians, then we can consider the Quran as holy book for Muslims’. Beyond the limit of such comparisons, we can achieve minimal result through analogy and at times lose clarity.

     

    There is always a very serious mistake in every approach that avoids a proper, direct definition and attempts to define something through its opposite. If you want to define Christianity, you cannot possibly be as vague as you are when saying ‘Christianity is something other than / different from Ku Klux Klan’ (or the LRA). Ditto for the Islamic World.

     

    It is really gross to try to define Christianity as the antithesis of what the author calls the LRA ‘a terrible terrorist organization’! Who can expect a religion to possibly be ‘a terrible terrorist organization’? No one!

     

    In addition, there are in Uganda hundreds of thousands if not millions of simple people who, if not terrorized, will have the courage to state that the LRA is NOT a terrorist organization – or if you want not as terrorist as the execrable, racist Ugandan government. And who is authorized to speak about ‘terrorism’? The global mass media? Or the defenders of a non-existent ‘global religion’?

     

    But the term ‘terrorism’ (or ‘terrorist’) is an unhistorical fabrication that was composed only recently as a vicious tool of the world’s most evil, most villainous, and most dictatorial regimes, the likes of America, England and France. It has no credibility, and above all, it is used within political context. Why on Earth a scholar and an academic feels the need to confuse his readers so much as to mention a political term when he talks about religion?

     

    Whatever Christianity has been or has not been or may have been, it is certainly something unrelated to modern political terms; even more so if these terms are recently invented as result of scheming and propaganda and therefore fully rejected by vast populations worldwide.

     

    However, the use of brutal manners in order to achieve power that will later consolidate the survival and the propagation of a faith, a religion, a sect or a secret order-organization is widely attested in almost every religion, culture, nation and period.

     

    There are many historical examples in this regard. The Ismailiyah Order of the Shia Muslims, who were also called Hashashin (because their leader, the famous ‘Elder of the Mountain’ administered the proper dose of hashish to his disciples in order to duly instrumentalize and effectively utilize them for his purposes) and were known to Marco Polo (he called them Assassins and this is how this word was first used in European languages), used to send members (their secret knights) to cross incredibly long distances to arrive where their target (a ruler, an military leader, an imam or other) lived and, by treacherously approaching, assassinate them. Should we call them ‘terrorists’? This would be utterly ridiculous.

     

    It is actually always pathetic and ludicrous to project one period’s / civilization’s / culture’s measures, values and criteria onto other periods, civilizations and cultures. One cannot evaluate others through use of one’s own criteria; every civilization, culture, religion, and historical period is an independent entity that no scholar can transform as per his theoretical needs in any way. The reason for this maxim is simple; by slightly transforming (through improper evaluation involving external criteria) a civilization, culture, religion, and historical period, a scholar only modifies and misinterprets it. This scholar is therefore speaking of a false entity that practically speaking never existed (except in his misinterpretation and imagination); thus, he only confuses his unfortunate readers.

     

    Another example is offered by the Christian Catholic Holy Inquisition. It is undisputed that this Holy Office carried out very brutal policies for long. Should we call it ‘terrorism’? This would also be utterly ludicrous.

     

    As the author is continuously avoiding a proper definition for what is ‘Islamic’ and what is not, the article is characterized by a personal, individualistic approach that is both, irrelevant and confusing. Prof. Mark Juergensmeyer implements again the analogy approach, but this time at the very personal level. He, as a Christian, dissociates himself from the Ugandan LRA and the American Ku Klux Klan, and he therefore postulates that, accordingly, ‘this is the same position most Muslims are in now with regard to ISIS’.

     

    This is very irrelevant because scholars are expected to include personal views and experience in their memoirs at the end of the their lives and not as supposedly convincing evidence in their articles and other publications. This style is very arrogant; in addition, it is very confusing because personal approaches do not constitute proper definitions. The sentence he makes is quiet evident: ‘As a Christian, I feel like they have nothing to do wit h me or with the Christianity that I know’. The last words reveal the extent of the problem; probably the globalist professor and specialist of the non existent ‘global’ religion ( !! ? !! )  does not know the Holy Inquisition, and consequently we can safely claim that he does not know Christianity well. And this is the problem for him and for all the misled and confused Christians of the West.

     

    Many people have been driven to the impasse of assuming a lot; one of their wrong assumptions is to take today’s fallen Christianity as the true Christianity. Similarly, in the Islamic world, there are many Muslims, who assume that today’s fallen Islam is the true Islam. Both groups fail to understand one another because they primarily fail to understand themselves and accurately specify how far they have gone from their respective religions, sailing adrift in the Sea of Relativism and Faithlessness.

     

    After the preliminary part of the article, its inconsistency turns it to a mere worthless piece. As the title obliges the author to give a definition of ISIS, the ‘global religion’ specialist or rather propagandist Mark Juergensmeyer enters into a series of mistakes while giving to his readers unexplained terms that are absolutely meaningless to the non-specialist.

     

    He says: ‘What makes things even more complicated is that ISIS bases its beliefs and actions on a form of Islamic interpretation called Salafism’.

     

    – Why on Earth is now the Salafist nature of ISIS (which is true and beyond any doubt) a problem?

     

    Let me make my position clear. In many articles, I denounced the Wahhabism (the correct term for Salafism) as a deformation of Islam. But Wahhabism (or if you want Salafism) is nothing new to the Western world’s academia and diplomats.

     

    To paraphrase Prof. Juergensmeyer, before any other institution on Earth, Saudi Arabia – the country that America catastrophically chose as its primary ally in the region before …. 70 years or, to put it otherwise, the country that England disastrously conspired with against the Ottoman Caliphate for more than 100 years before the fall of the Ottoman dynasty and continually ever since – ‘bases its beliefs and actions on a form of Islamic interpretation called Salafism’.

     

    What is Prof. Juergensmeyer talking about?

     

    If Saudi Arabia did not exist, there would never be an ISIS.

     

    What does Prof. Juergensmeyer want?

     

    Does he want ISIS to disappear and Saudi Arabia to survive?

     

    That’s silly.

     

    Because if Saudi Arabia continues existing, even if ISIS is mercilessly exterminated and all its members and fighters executed ( and this needs at least 50000 US soldiers in a large scale land attack and in coordination with the venerable president of Syria! ), there will be another ISIS, an ISIS bis if you want, or an ISES (Islamic State of Egypt and Sudan), an ISYA (Islamic State of Yemen and Arabia), or any combination of letters you may choose!

     

    As long as Saudi Arabia exists, Wahhabism will be its pseudo-Islamic state dogma, and through the filthy money of the inhuman gangsters who rule from Riyadh, Wahhabism will be diffused among the masses of Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia to the Muslim Diaspora worldwide.

     

    What is even worse is that Prof. Juergensmeyer fails again to either give a definition of Wahhabism (Salafism) or the historical perspective thereof; as a matter of fact, all the filthy and un-Islamic, dark and inhuman ideas that Muhammad Abdel Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism) shaped and propagated during the 18th c. did not fall from the sky into his idiotic and ignorant mind. There has been an entire historical process within Islam (with heretic theologians preceding Muhammad Abdel Wahhab by 450 and 900 years) that led to this monstrous theological deformation of Islam. All this is unknown to the ‘global religion’ professor who writes about Islam without having a clue of all academic fields pertaining to the study of this historical – spiritual phenomenon.

     

    This is the historical reality, which is quite well known to specialists of Islamic History and Religion in the West, but it remains concealed, because it is politically disturbing and troublesome. If Wahhabism is not uprooted, if all the Wahhabi institutions across the world are not shut down, if a new class of Muslim intellectuals at the antipodes of Wahhabism is not formed, the explosive situation will only turn worse.

     

    First point of conclusion is therefore that Saudi Arabia and the Saudi family itself must be denounced as the only matrix of all evil across the Islamic world for the last 200 years, and an overwhelming attack against it must be undertaken in order to totally eliminate Riyadh and the villainous, heretic elite which from there managed to incessantly spread the evilness of Wahhabism worldwide.

     

    The confusing presentation of Prof. Juergensmeyer is due to the fact that he does not seek the historical, religious, cultural and theological truth, but only writes in order to serve political purposes and needs, preserve strategic alliances, and in the process, effectuate compromises. We saw these compromises in Mosul, in Sanjar and in Raqqah. These compromises are responsible for the evacuation of most of the Yazidis from their homelands; these compromises are the reason for the deracination of all the Aramaean Christians of Mosul; these compromises are the root cause of the hecatomb that the bloodthirsty vampires of ISIS want to deliver.

     

    For one more time, the ‘global religion’ specialist, Prof. Juergensmeyer, attempts a confusing definition through analogy! He writes: “The Salafi movement is similar to an extreme fundamentalism in Christianity”. This is an understatement; in addition, who can specify what ‘fundamentalism in Christianity’ means? This is not called ‘definition’ but ‘anyone’s guess’…

    It must however become crystal clear to Western readership that ISIS, Saudi Arabia, and Wahhabism, (Salafism) do not constitute any form of Islamic fundamentalism. They are heretic, so they cannot be held as Islamic in any sense. They are far and out of the foundations of Islam, so they cannot possibly be ‘fundamental’. Muhammad Abdel Wahhab in his days was considered as a heretic and a traitor by the Ottoman administration; the same evaluation concerned also the Ottoman Caliphate’s traitor and founder of the Satanic house of the Saudis.

     

    The two earlier Islamic theologians on whom Abdel Wahhab was based to produce his pseudo-Islamic trash, namely Ahmed ibn Taimiyah and Ahmed ibn Hanbal who lived in the 13th-14th c. and the 8th-9th c, respectively, were also considered as heretic in their times and duly imprisoned. They may be unknown to Prof. Juergensmeyer, but he should then abstain from writing purposelessly on issues he is not relevant of.

     

    The famous, 14th c. Moroccan traveler, explorer and scholar Ibn Battuta encountered in Damascus people who knew personally the evil, villainous and ignorant heretic Ibn Taimiyah who was then imprisoned. This is what the Islamic World’s most illustrious traveler wrote about the progenitor of Wahhabism:

     

    A controversial theologian  

     

    One of the principal Hanbalite doctors at Damascus was Taqi ad-Din Ibn Taymiya, a man of great ability and wide learning, but with some kink in his brain. The people of Damascus idolized him. He used to preach to them from the pulpit, and one day he made some statement that the other theologians disapproved; they carried the case to the sultan and in consequence Ibn Taymiya was imprisoned for some years. While he was in prison he wrote a commentary on the Koran, which he called ” The Ocean,” in about forty volumes. Later on his mother presented herself before the sultan and interceded for him, so he was set at liberty, until he did the same thing again. I was in Damascus at the time and attended the service which he was conducting one Friday, as he was addressing and admonishing the people from the pulpit. In the midst of his discourse he said “Verily God descends to the sky over our world [from Heaven] in the same bodily fashion that I make this descent,” and stepped down one step of the pulpit. A Malikite doctor present contradicted him and objected to his statement, but the common people rose up against this doctor and beat him with their hands and their shoes so severely that his turban fell off and disclosed a silken skull-cap on his head. Inveighing against him for wearing this, they haled him before the qadi of the Hanbalites, who ordered him to be imprisoned and afterwards had him beaten. The other doctors objected to this treatment and carried the matter before the principal amir, who wrote to the sultan about the matter and at the same time drew up a legal attestation against Ibn Taymiya for various heretical pronouncements. This deed was sent on to the sultan, who gave orders that Ibn Taymiya should be imprisoned in the citadel, and there he remained until his death.

     

    At a certain point in his article, Prof. Juergensmeyer makes a totally misleading statement (“So, yes, ISIS is ultimately Islamic – whether you like it or not”), which can have disastrous consequences on anyone who may happen to accept it. A heretic cannot be identified with the religion from which he was rejected. It is not a mere point of accuracy, but a critical issue of false target.

     

    Failing to understand this, he adds perjury to infamy, by completing his sentence with the following: “but it is certainly not the kind of Islam that most Muslims would accept or profess”.

     

    This is a pure lie. And more than a merely false point, it reflects the tendencies of the Western governments to totally conceal the truth from their peoples. First of all, no one has accurate estimates on the subject. Gallup polls in several Muslim countries are prohibited – particularly on a subject this critical -, whereas in the rest no Gallup polls have ever been conducted on issues as troublesome as that.

     

    However, there are many indicators that ISIS does truly reflect in a certain way the kind of false, heretic and decayed Islam that most Muslims accept and profess. If you make a list of what is correct as an act or practice of the Islamic way of both, personal life and social organization, including perhaps 500 detailed points accepted by the followers, the fighters and the leaders of ISIS, and then you submit this list to 1000 average Saudis (without adding that these points are all approved by ISIS members), their responses, homogeneous and ominous, will take you by surprise. Their agreement with the 500 points of the list will deliver a result far above 90-95%.  Similar results, always above 80%, you will collect from countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria, etc. And certainly the agreement will be lower in other countries, but even in Turkey, it will be as high as 40% due to the vicious Western policies in favor of the AKP party Islamists and against the nationalist military establishment of Ankara (a paranoid policy that allowed the ruling Islamists to widen their basis through a varied set of methods).

     

    How can one be sure of this?

    By simply walking in the streets of districts inhabited by middle and lower classes (that total more than 80-90% of the total population of the country in most of the aforementioned cases) and observing what goes around, talking to the people, asking about their ideas, and entertaining comprehensive discussions as to just how they see and how they want to see their lives and their social environment – something that Prof. Juergensmeyer did not do, ultimately preferring the calmness and the security of his office somewhere in the States.

     

    However, the situation is far worse than that. If you now present the same list (of what is correct as an act or practice of the Islamic way of personal life and social organization, including perhaps 500 detailed points accepted by the followers, the fighters and the leaders of ISIS) to a selected group of academics, engineers, businessmen, administrators and high profile functionaries, deputies of ‘parliament’ (this is a non-representative assembly for most of the cases), military, ministers and religious authorities across the Islamic world (without however saying that these points are all approved by ISIS members), you will collect even more surprising results. The outright majority of the elite of these countries (and I don’t mean here only Saudi Arabia but all the aforementioned countries) in majority supports the same points. This is for instance the reason one should view the latest president El Sisi of Egypt as theologically – ideologically – politically far closer to the former president Morsy than to the one time vice president El Baradei.

    It would take too long to narrate how this situation has been formed, but I would however like to briefly hint at what I said earlier about the theologians who served as source of inspiration for Muhammad Abdel Wahhab, the founder of the Wahhabism (Salafism), namely the heretics Ibn Taimiyah and Ibn Hanbal. In fact, if Muhammad Abdel Wahhab developed the theological system that constitutes today’s Wahhabists’ doctrine, this is due to the fact that Ibn Hanbal’s and Ibn Taimiyah’s successive and intertwined theological systems gradually prevailed among the Islamic world and eliminated or transformed/altered all the opposite systems.

     

    As a matter of fact, if one Muslim imam, qadi, mufti, minister, general, professor, president or businessman today rejects Wahhabism, he still accepts Ibn Taimiyah’s widespread and fully accepted theological system, which is – metaphorically speaking – the tree that produced the fruit of Wahhabism. There is, practically speaking, little difference or no difference at all between the two systems; simply every posterior system that emanates from an anterior is expected to feature and does actually feature some extra points.

    The real difference existed in the past, in Islam’s Golden Era, when totally opposite philosophical systems totally prevailed across the highly educated Islamic World. These are the philosophical systems of Ibn Sina, Qurtubi, Ibn Rushd, Ghazali, Mohyieldin Ibn Arabi, Ibn Hazm, to name but a few; to them is due the Islamic Enlightenment, whereas to the gross, villain, uneducated trash of Ibn Taimiyah is due the complete disfigurement of Islam’s quintessence. However, due to the gradual diffusion of Ibn Taimiyah’s theological nonsense and ignominious darkness, and following its prevalence among ignorant and uneducated masses that it created in a vicious circle mechanism, as it attacked Science, Knowledge, Philosophy, Art and Spirituality, gradually all the philosophical systems of the aforementioned Titans of the Islamic Thought disappeared until the end of the 16th c.

     

    Of course, there is one more difference between the political elites of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, etc. and the ISIS extremists; the former, although accepting most of Abdel Wahhab’s theories and all of Ibn Tamiyah’s ideas, differ politically and make the necessary compromises to ensure the survival of their regime. Contrarily, the latter reject the compromise of the former, viewing it as a treason of Islam. Political difference is therefore due to mere survival tactics of elites that are theological quasi-identical to ISIS; these elites believe that by making compromises upon compromises with the West, they can prolong their tenure and the ensuing material benefits. But their existence only spearheads new waves of uncompromising Wahhabists. Certainly, there is also an attitudinal difference (but no behavioral difference) between the followers of a guy like al Bashir of Sudan or Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen and the fighters of ISIS; the former want to pocket more money and store it in their banks, whereas the latter are ready to die. But none of them would accept his wife to be uncovered (without hejab, the Islamic veil) or his daughter to travel alone on motorbike across Europe.

     

    The best corroboration of the aforementioned is the following tragicomical contrast between Egypt’s last and current presidents; Muhammad Morsy is viewed by some as extremist  whereas the incumbent is considered as a moderate and pragmatist person.

     

    Former Egyptian president Muhammad Morsy’s wife wears hejab (Islamic veil that allows the face to be seen).

     

    Current Egyptian president El Sisi’s wife used to wear a niqab (Islamic veil that covers the face entirely leaving only two small holes for the eyes) and only recently “swapped the niqab for a trendy hijab, hushing up claims that she was dyed-in-the-wool” !!

     

    Prof. Juergensmeyer goes on saying that the reason for which “world leaders are trying to make in saying that ISIS is ‘not Islamic’.” is that ISIS “is certainly not the kind of Islam that most Muslims would accept or profess”. In the light of the aforementioned this appears to be a very unfortunate consideration and an erroneous evaluation of what is going on in the Islamic world.

     

    Reaching the end of the brief yet mistaken article, Prof. Juergensmeyer says that Islam’s name means “peace” which is very wrong (in reality, it means ‘submission to God’ although it originates from the word ‘peace’).

     

    In the article’s last three paragraphs, Prof. Juergensmeyer makes one more futile effort to dissociate ISIS from today’s prevalent Islamic theological systems and to associate it with politics. This is quite pointless and misplaced. In fact, there is no, and there cannot be any, difference between religion and politics in Islam. So, everything that is religious is also political, and vice versa.

     

    Contrarily to the wrong Western assumption that Islam is the only system whereby religion and politics constitute an indivisible entity of faith and action, it is historically proven that all the major religions were systems in which faith and government were perfectly well interwoven. The same occurred particularly in Christianity either Orthodox or Catholic; one may even ponder that in some cases the phenomenon occurred more emphatically in Christianity than in Islam; extensively discussed terms, such as Papocaesarism and Caesaropapism are quite telling in this regard.

     

    So, Prof. Juergensmeyer’s sentence “Besides religion, it is critical to recognize that all the forms of terrorism that we have seen are about politics. Any act of violence in the public sphere is aimed at trying to claim political space – at taking over power to assume control over regions or peoples. This is certainly true in the case of ISIS” is absolutely irrelevant and completely wrong.

     

    The way one family lives is defined by religion; the way one society is organized is specified by religion; the way the art of rule is exercised is decreed by religion. The aforementioned does not only apply to the Islamic world; it does also to Ancient Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Iran, etc. It is also valid in Confucian China, Biblical Israel, and Christian Rome or Constantinople. One can enter into details that can fill volumes: the way one fights in battle is determined by religious orders; the way one sleeps is elucidated by religious advice; the way one eats is clarified by religious guidance; the way one has sex is stipulated by religious prescriptions, and so on.

     

    Piety is one of the religious traits and virtues that must be reflected in a person’s life, either this person is Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or Confucian. I fully agree with Prof. Juergensmeyer that “most people directly involved in ISIS are not pious Muslims”; this is right. But does it really matter?

     

    And what about Prof. Juergensmeyer? Will he agree with me saying that “most people directly involved in Assets Management are not pious Christians”?

     

    When we see vulture-funds in Latin America terrorizing nations like Argentina (which involves populations far larger than Iraq or Syria) and endangering the lives and the well-being of dozens of millions of people, do we still need to focus exclusively on a minor terrorist group and forget worse gangsters and terrorists who are far more perilous than the idiotic fighters of ISIS?

     

    And this concludes the case of this type of confusing presentations and futile approaches that leave the Western readership in mysteries; identifying the true reasons of an explosive situation may help greatly solve and diffuse the crisis. But it entails a real inquiry about the original and the altered, the genuine and the transfigured, the authentic and the corrupt. Instead of searching pretexts and excuses, one should seek the truth.

     

    It is not only greatly comical but also highly perilous for the Western leaders to continue on the same track. Why should they bother whether most of today’s Muslims accept or don’t accept the doctrine and the practices of ISIS? The Western leaders themselves constantly disregard the majority of the population back in their countries, and particularly when the majority is ostensibly opposite to calamitous choices that they make (such as the case of the erroneously conceived and catastrophically carried out attack against, and occupation of, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq). Their disregard for the wishes and the opinions of the majority of their countries’ populations is monumental; they cannot be sensitive for other nations when they are insensitive for their own.

     

    The search for the reasons that brought about the present situation cannot be undertaken by Western academia, intellectuals and diplomats without a deep investigation of the developments that took place in their own countries in the first place. Before bothering to know whether ISIS is Islamic or not, they should care to find out whether the so-called Christian nations of the West are really Christian. Drunken of their colonial successes for many centuries, the Western peoples lived with myths and lies that totally disfigured the true dimensions of their own deeds, choices and policies. Modernity is not Christian but Anti-Christian. Globalism is not Divine but Satanic. And the Homosexual Marriages are not the ‘right of the free’ but the evilness of the slaves – of Satan.

     

    Atheist, materialistic, and despiritualized, the Western world turned out to be the Cemetery of the Christian Faith. That’s why the leaders of the Western countries did not give a damn about the persecution, expulsion and extermination of the Aramaean Christians in Mosul. They face now a nominalist and legalist theological system of despiritualized Muslims, who are partly westernized and deeply materialistic, which means filled with extremely contradictory elements able to explode with uncontainable consequences.

     

    The fallacy, inhumanity and monstrosity of either systems is such that one could simply consider them as the two faces of same coin. So corrupt and eroded this coin is that nothing can save it; it will soon be thrown in the Hell that it deserves. And its two faces, in full discord to one another, are triggering now by themselves the downgrading spiral that will bring their end. To survive one has to dissociate him/herself from the onerous coin as much as possible, as soon as possible, and as irreversibly as possible.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Turkey – The Last Chance to Save the State of Kemal Ataturk

    Turkey – The Last Chance to Save the State of Kemal Ataturk

    ZZ ZZZBy Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

     

     

    When on May 27th 1960 the first coup d’ état was staged in Turkey, the President of the country Celal Bayar, the Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, several ministers, and many Democratic Party members were arrested. At the same time, the Milli Birlik Komitesi (National Unity Committee) forced 235 generals and more than 3000 commissioned officers to retirement. In addition, no less than 500 judges and public prosecutors and 1400 university faculty members were removed in an effort to purge the corrupt regime that Celal Bayar and Adnan Menderes had tried to install for no less than 14 years ever since the ominous Democratic Party was incepted in 1946 as a tool of political perversion and coercion, and as a means of destruction of the state of Kemal Ataturk. Some of the arrested were sentenced to death, whereas others were condemned to life imprisonment only to be later released. The fact that there is now a Celal Bayar University at Manisa demonstrates that Turkey is populated by people whose memory is short.

     

    Shoot Erdogan dead now!

     

    In the next coup d’ état, President Erdogan must be shot dead at once. The Turkish army generals and colonels and the Turkish statesmen, who will stage it, and the businessmen, academics and journalists, who will support it, will have to arrest even fewer officers, judges, and public prosecutors. In striking contrast with the 1960 coup d’ état, the forthcoming one must offer people the chance to express their indignation for the disastrous manner in which Turkey’s affairs have been managed by the AKP (Justice and Development Party) gangsters over the past 12 years. In full coordination with the army and from the very first moment, Turkish patriots, secular activists, and supporters of the national interests of the country must take to the streets along with the tanks and the soldiers, block the offices of the present unrepresentative government, destroy the headquarters and offices of AKP, arrest and execute the villainous AKP cadres on the spot where they may appear, and at the same time, prevent Erdogan’s corrupt and fanatic followers from appearing in public.

     

    All telephone lines, fixed and mobile, and Internet connection must be blocked, and radio stations and TV channels closed down before the establishment of the new national order, and until the national purgatory administration takes over. All embassies must be kept under garrison, and foreign diplomats must be severely isolated from what will be going on in the streets, the barracks, and the governmental buildings. The members of the right and center-left secular parties of the opposition and their youth organizations must immediately form militias ready to cooperate with the army, isolate AKP strongholds, and implement the new order across Turkey.

     

    Effectiveness in eliminating the guilty and the ignorant, the dangerous and the ominous will matter greatly, and this means that the ruling AKP figures and their first-degree relatives must all be executed without trial and within the hour. With them dead, and with their pictures displayed on the only governmental TV channel allowed to operate managed by a new administration and put under army control, AKP lunatics will have little chance to fight for anything. A second level of purge must eliminate within less than a week hundreds of thousands of present AKP supporters, radical sheikhs and imams, all pro-AKP journalists, whereas some thousands of newly built mosques must simply be rapidly ruined and irreversibly turned to nice small parks.

     

    Contrarily to what happened in 1960, when a coup put at last an end to the chaotic situation that lasted 14 years, today’s Turkish generals and colonels must understand that the country cannot afford to wait for 14 years of nefarious self-destruction carried out by an ignorant, pseudo-Islamic, villainous political class (AKP) that hates Turkey, before they decide to stage the much needed coup d’ état; (2002 + 14) 2016 is unfortunately a faraway horizon. In very little time, Turkey will have already gone beyond the point of no return. There is no parallel that can be drawn between 1960 and 2014. What makes now the difference is the very wide array of critical international implications that all take place around Turkey; precipitated developments are expected to occur in the next few months and this imposes a immediate regime change in Ankara.

     

    Turkey – one location encircled by fire

     

    In the present conjuncture, Turkey faces a multifaceted explosive situation in

     

    1 – its southern borders (Assad’s Syria / the fake Caliphate / PKK being strengthened through its contacts with the fake jihadist state / North Iraqi Yazidi refugees threatened to extinction by the fake jihadists / North Iraqi Turkmen persecuted by the so-called Kurdish militias of Barzani and Talabani / North Iraqi Aramaean Christians facing existential threat at the hands of the fake jihadists / the North Iraqi so-called Kurdish Regional Government, its aspirations for independence, and the Israeli support for this case / the final decomposition of Iraq / Iran’s involvement in Iraq)

     

    2 – its eastern borders (the possibility of a nuclear Iran / the eventuality of an Israeli attack against Iran’s nuclear plants / the Azeri, Gorani (pseudo-Kurdish) and Baluch minorities’ struggle to achieve independence and secession from Iran / the thorny relations with Armenia that harbors a racist anti-Turkish irredentism while being a close ally of the Zionist state / the spectrum of an Azeri-Armenian war over Nagorno-Karabakh / Israel’s infiltration in Azerbaijan which is the result of calamitous mistakes perpetrated by earlier AKP administrations, and of Erdogan’s pathetic ignorance of, and idiotic approach to, foreign policy / the downgrading spiral of the Azeri – Iranian relationship which is the result of Zionist influence over Baku / the troublesome relations between Georgia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Russia / UK-Saudi-incited terrorism in Daghestan and other parts of the Russian Caucasus region / the consideration of EU and/or NATO membership extension to Georgia and Azerbaijan as part of the Anti-Russian policies of the West)

     

    – its northern borders (Russia, Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Lugansk People’s Republic, Donetsk People’s Republic, Ukraine, Transnistria, and Moldova – in fact, there are ongoing, overt or covert, hostilities in all 7 states located north of Turkey and on the northern shorelines of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov)

     

    – its south-western borders (war between the two Cypriot states may be the result of the Anti-Turkish pact made between Israel and South Cyprus, due basically to the deterioration of the Turkish-Israeli relationship which was another irrelevant foreign policy choice made by the disastrous AKP administration – this time the pretext for war can be fabricated via Oil and Gas exploration efforts across NE or NW Cyprus’ coastline)

     

    – its western borders (the current situation in the Balkans being already complicated among Albania, Kosovo and Serbia, among Sanjak, Montenegro, Bosnia and Serbia, among Macedonia, Greece and Bulgaria, as well as between Turkey and Greece)

     

    When conflicts occur and strengths are pulled all around a specific country, the basic notions of geo-strategics signal the end of the country’s territorial integrity, and therefore the only possible option left to the local center of power or administration is partly expansion and forceful annexation of an adjacent territory up to the point of definite balance change in the direction of the expansion.

     

    For today’s Turkey the most appropriate direction for partly expansion and annexation of adjacent territory is the South, and the chaotic lands beyond its southern frontiers, so in the present article I will focus on this subject.

     

    Turkey’s Syrian policy – Historical depth and missed opportunities

     

    It was quite silly for the successive Erdogan administrations to cooperate with the criminal Western powers that fomented discord, strife, civil war, and utter genocide in Syria; and it was silly, because it had already been clear that the same powers intended to do exactly the same to Turkey itself – simply at a later stage. But it was even more idiotic to cooperate with the West and in parallel prepare other, particular plans, thinking that the Western agents, who are all over the place in Turkey because of AKP governmental inadequacies, will not take good note of them.

     

    For Turkey’s national interests, Ankara should have either acted unilaterally before 2012 invading Syria (after a theatrical episode that could have been fabricated and staged on this purpose) or blocked decisively every Western effort to penetrate Syria and threaten the Alawi regime of Bashar al Assad that has been enthusiastically supported by the Aramaean Christian minority.

     

    The Western bias over Syria finds at its antipodes the Western bias over Armenia. And a shrewd Turkish foreign minister should have exploited the matter – contrarily to the inconsistencies that characterized all persons who held this position after 2002. Either one of two things happens:

     

    Either Turkey is an independent state unrelated to the Ottoman Empire, and it cannot therefore interfere in Syria’s affairs, but in this case all accusations about the so-called Armenian Genocide must be removed as irrelevant and inadmissible

     

    Or Turkey is the successive state form of the Ottoman Empire, and it can be reproached for what happened to the Ottoman Armenians, but in this case, Ankara has the right to interfere and arrange the affairs of its former province.

     

    If Erdogan’s Syrian policy failed, this is due to a detrimental mistake of conceptualization. In the first place, all AKP cadres never realized how their minds have been prefabricated in a calamitous, self-destructive manner that prevents them from either thinking out of the box or realizing how self-destructive they are for any place they may govern. In fact, the formation of AKP in Turkey consists in a Western effort to colonize Turkey via the bogus ideology of Islamism, which is a byproduct of the Freemasonic Western Orientalism. The fake ideology was composed in the Orientalist ateliers of France and England during basically the 19th c. and thence projected onto the targeted populations that the Western countries wanted to destroy. Kemal Ataturk totally blocked this system, throwing it out of Turkey, but after 1946, due to Western Intelligence, started a slow process of infiltration of which the AKP cadres are the unfortunate and unconscious product.

     

    It is well known that, at the time of its inception, Islamism was a vicious theoretical opposition to the Ottoman Empire. Who else may have planned more schemes to dissolve the Government of Islam (Caliphate) than the Western colonials? And who contributed to the ultimate fall and destruction of Islam more than the ignorant Arabic speaking mob that – from Khartoum to Damascus and from Algiers to Madinah – supported the schemes of the enemies of Islam? The colonization process, which started in Egypt (1798) and Algeria (1830) and involved the diffusion of Islamism and several other false ideological systems, misconceptions and systematized ignorance, was planned by the villainous Freemasonic class of Western Europe and North America to be completed with Turkey’s islamization. By fervently supporting the rise of AKP, the Western powers wanted to capture Turkey – the only part of the Ottoman Empire that had remained thanks to Kemal Ataturk unaffected by the Islamist abomination and free of the colonial falsehood and biases.

     

    Since its inception, AKP was contaminated with the colonial ideology of Islamism; worse, it was also plagued with a certain dose of Pan-Arabism, another vicious theory and excruciating distortion of the historical reality.

     

    Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Jordanians, Iraqis, Kuwaitis, Qataris and Emiratis are not Arabs. They are Arabic-speaking Aramaeans. By ascribing themselves to Pan-Arabism and Arab Nationalism, the different colonial and postcolonial governments of the aforementioned eight (8) states simply blocked and canceled forever a normal nation building effort in their realms, thus preventing themselves from becoming emancipated nations. In fact, they destroyed themselves, and we see now the results of the useless and worthless existence of these fake states over the past nine (9) decades.

     

    Kemal Ataturk did in Turkey exactly what the various local administrations did not do in the aforementioned eight (8) states. And Turkey was successful in becoming a fully-fledged nation in less than 15 years (1923-1938).

     

    But by ascribing themselves to Pan-Arabism and Arab Nationalism, the idiotic AKP elites, fake journalists, and bogus-intellectuals, they destroyed Turkey’s chances in the region. One may contend that AKP administrations did not promote Turkey’s arabization in any sense; this may appear correct, but it is not. In fact, they contributed to the arabization of Turkey’s foreign policy, by accepting the existence of the colonial fake states at face value (which cannot be accepted), and by dealing with them, as if these states were normal and not mere technical entities.

     

    The fake, so-called Arab states, these lowly and pathetic realms of false emirs, bogus-kings, bloody tyrants, blind intellectuals like Michel Aflak, ignorant imams, and uneducated (and therefore stupidly fanaticized) mobs were fabricated by the West only for later use and stage management. These fake technical entities were produced in the 1920s (as Egypt earlier and their NW African counterparts later) in order to serve their colonial masters’ plans in the 2010s. The only proper policy that Turkey could have had in regard with these eight (8) realms was Kemal Ataturk’s policy for Turkey itself. Turkey should therefore have promoted the diffusion of Aramaic Syriac language in these countries, while contributing to a nation-building effort in which the natives in the different modern Arabic vernaculars would abandon their jargons and learn their real historical language, Aramaic, that their forefathers had forgotten because of their acceptance of Islam, which brought about a linguistic arabization.

     

    By learning Aramaic Syriac, while keeping Classical Quranic Arabic as their religious language, Syrian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Jordanian, Palestinian, Kuwaiti, Qatari and Emirati Muslims would feel that they are one nation along with their Christian compatriots who preserved Aramaic Syriac as their native language. This would have minimized if not eliminated the division between Sunni and Alawi denominations in Syria, in total opposition to the Western divisive and corrosive policies that target the ultimate destruction of those realms.

     

    Turkey’s Iraq policy

    Even more importantly, in Iraq, the proper nation-building effort with Aramaic Syriac as national language would have strengthened the Shia Mesopotamian identity and the anti-Iranian stance which had characterized these populations for many long centuries when they wholeheartedly sided with the Ottoman Sunni Sultan against the Iranian Shia Shah – something that the Satanic, Freemasonic governments and diplomats of France, England, Holland, Canada, Australia, and America did their ingenious best to obscure and conceal.

     

    In Turkey, there is a tendency to believe that, before the rise of AKP to power, the successive governments disregarded and were detached from the country’s southern neighbors and, after the rise of AKP to power, the Islamist administrations, in opposition to the earlier foreign policy, implemented a rapprochement. This fantasy was highly promoted by the global mass media, so one can already be sure that it pleased the powers-that-be. In general, by shifting the interest and the mindset of the average people from the true to the mythical, the Freemasonry-controlled global mass media make sure that the essential is always kept secret and concealed.

    What is important to assess with respect to the aforementioned options of Turkish foreign policy toward Turkey’s former provinces and current neighbors is that both axes of policy were very wrong and dramatically ineffective.

     

    Turkey’s geostrategic position as a bridge between worlds makes it versatile. Sometimes the territory of Turkey can be the location of a very strong and powerful government that controls faraway lands (Hattushilis III, Antiochus Epiphanes, Justinian I, Suleyman Magnificent). Sometimes, the same territory can be divided into small states and principalities (9-7th c. BCE, 1st. c. BCE, 11th – 12th c. CE). This is of seminal importance.

     

    Any historical government with its seat on Turkey’s present territory is successful and prolongs its duration, only if it expands its ideology, Weltanshauung, and world vision among the people inhabiting the surrounding lands. As long as both types of Turkish administrations, those before and those after 2002, did not act according to the aforementioned, both policies are pure failures.

     

    Turkey’s ideal time for expansion was back in the mid 90s; by hesitating to implement a series of measures that would lead to territorial expansion, the Turkish military and statesmen heralded the country’s implosion. Yet, immediately after the first Iraq war (comically re-baptized Gulf war by the global mass media), Turkey should have created the necessary pretext for the invasion of Mosul, Arbil and Kirkuk. Then, the Turkish army should have advanced to Baghdad irreversibly annexing the largest part of Iraqi territory first and later the rest, before fully absorbing it and restructuring it all. Any opposition to Turkey, by its NATO allies would be untenable due to the fact that, through its annexation to Turkey, Iraq would automatically become NATO member state territory.

     

    In Mesopotamia (which is the correct name instead of the fake modern term ‘Iraq’), Turkey’s nation-building effort should have been based on

    – strong alliance with the Turkmen of Kirkuk and establishment of a well-supported return policy addressed to all the Turkmen who were forced to flee due to the colonial & postcolonial persecution and to the arabization policies carried out about by the fake kingdom and the bogus republic of Iraq

    – total commitment to the success of a return policy established for all Aramaean Christian and Mandaean populations that were forced to exile in the last three decades of the Ottoman Empire and during the calamitous decades of ‘royal’/’republican’ rule. In this regard, the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Qudchanis Patriarchate of the ‘Nestorian’ Christianity / in Konak / Hakkari is a must.

    – full support of a nation building effort for all ethno-religious groups in the Zagros Mountains and the Transtigritane plains that have been viciously misnamed ‘Kurds’ by the colonial gangsters of England, France and America, whereas they are not one nation but many, namely Yazidis, Shabak, Bahdinani, Faili, Hawleri, Sorani, Gorani, Ahl-e Haq

    – comprehensive education for the Sunni dialectal Arabic speaking group that should be offered compulsory, 12-year, primary & secondary education in Aramaic Syriac in order to be fully incorporated into one nation with the Christian Aramaeans of Iraq and Syria

    – similar formative policy applied to the Shia dialectal Arabic speaking group that should be offered compulsory, 12-year, primary & secondary education in Aramaic Syriac in order to be fully incorporated into the Aramaean Syro-Mesopotamian nation

     

    Global mass media portray Turkey as a worthless ally for US, NATO

     

    In spite of the aforementioned failures, oversights, and missed opportunities, Turkey is facing now a major challenge. Following the emergence of the fake Caliphate, the evil establishment of AKP did neither specify nor make clear what policy they intended to pursue for what is by definition an existential threat for the state of Kemal Ataturk.

     

    The fake Caliphate (however it may be named, ISIL, ISIS, IS, etc., etc., etc.) controls more than half of Turkey’s southern borderline, yet the unrepresentative AKP regime in Ankara has nothing to say. The lack of freedom of press in Turkey under the AKP regime is impressive; this is due to the tolerant stance of the army and to the decision of the top army officers to take distance from the government. No one fights against, rejects or denounces the calamitous AKP non-policy which risks dismembering Turkey.

     

    While avoiding to focus on the essential, Murat Yetkin, writing for Hurriyet ), demands that Turkey does not turn out to be a base for the impotent and worthless Muslim Brotherhood, which by definition is not a group of terrorists but a bunch of idiots who were totally unable to run the country because of their fake religious faith and disproportionate ignorance. This article looks like an irrelevant understatement in view of Turkey’s troubles in the South.

     

    Yet, it is not the Islamic Brotherhood that controls a territory almost one third (1/3) the size of Turkey at the southern borders of the country, but the fake Caliphate. The immediate destruction of the fake Caliphate of the monkeyish Muslims should have been the target no 1 for all Turks.

     

    AKP’s unreasonable, suspicious, and self-catastrophic reluctance to make of Turkey a major contributor into the US-led effort against the fake Caliphate becomes the reason for fiery anti-Turkish publications in the Wall Street Journal, yet the Turkish army has nothing to say…

     

    A certain historical depth is added to the present attitude of the Turkish administration, which means that serious lobbies are hidden behind a text that states the following: “the reality [is] a Turkish government that is a member of NATO but long ago stopped acting like an ally of the U.S. or a friend of the West. Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone declared this week that the Turkish government “frankly worked” with the al-Nusrah Front—the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria—along with other terrorist groups. Ankara also looked the other way as foreign jihadis used Turkey as a transit point on their way to Syria and Iraq. Mr. Ricciardone came close to being declared persona non grata by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government last December”. https://www.wsj.com/articles/our-non-ally-in-ankara-1410561462#printMode)

     

    However, the included threats must be perceived very clearly; so low Turkey’ reputation has fallen that the WSJ columnist defines Turkey as a non-US ally, determines the US military bases in Turkey as useless, and even urges their transfer to another location ). It would be wise to focus more on this highly informative text; its author comes up with the suggestion of establishing a US air base in the mountains of the North Iraqi ‘Kurdish’ zone which does not even constitute an independent state!

     

    The fact that an idiotic text was immediately published in Hurriyet in guise of response to the above groundbreaking publication ) shows only corrupt the major media are in Turkey and testifies to worthless and catastrophic compromises made between the Turkish media magnates and the ominous AKP administration.

     

    Turkey’s uselessness as a US / NATO ally has rather become a global media trend instead of being an isolated element; one can consider it as a part of a wider media orchestration. Indicatively, Thomas Lifsonm writing for the American Thinker, asks whether this is the end of Turkey as an ally ).

     

    “Turkey is gradually moving from a reluctant NATO ally toward an embarrassing or embarrassed partner in the fight against the Islamic State”, states Cengiz Candar https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2014/09/turkey-usa-western-ally-nato-isis-syria-iraq.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+%5BEnglish%5D&utm_campaign=2bdc950045-September_15_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-2bdc950045-102403457).

     

    All this does not bode for Turkey’s new unrepresentative administration, which is the result of low voter turnout, and of fake presidential elections denounced by the opposition as rigged.

     

    Turkey’s Southern Policy 2014 – 2016 under AKP – A Nightmare to Avoid

     

    The current stance of the taciturn AKP elites reveals their secret plans and unveils their evil, anti-Turkish actions. Their silence is quite telling indeed.

     

    In fact, they will do all they can to make the US coalition fail in its attacks against the fake Caliphate that they assist in every sense. Modest estimates mentioned in serious publications ) make state of thousands of young jobless Turks who are sent by AKP cadres to the fake Caliphate in order to fight for the fake, Satanic Islam that Kafir Erdogan believes in. In reality, more than half of fake Caliphate fighters are AKP youngsters.

     

    After the US-led attacks will fail, the AKP administration will increase the dose of support they offer to the fake jihad forces and turn them against Damascus and Baghdad. The entire region will face an unprecedented bloodshed because evidently what is in the backside of Erdogan’s mind is the extermination of Syrian and Mesopotamian Shia. Of course, the Muslim fratricidal war, which is the only major misery Erdogan is apt to, will extend to Lebanon and Turkey itself. Alevi mosques from Sivas to Istanbul will shut down and massive street fights will lead Turkey to civil war.

     

    Many failed to realize that AKP extravagantly politicized dictatorship was not geared against the secular nature of Kemal Ataturk’s state first; quite methodically, it was carried out as a covert Anti-Alevi radicalism and religious sectarianism. Anti-Turkish and anti-Alevi material is being diffused in the Turkish primary and secondary education ) only to be denounced by European courts as fascist, racist, and heinous. The secret target behind the fake religious venom diffused through Erdogan’s trashy manuals is to force Turkey’s Alevis (around 35% of the country’s total population) to remove their children from the public education schools that will then be turned to fake religious schools and to fake jihad fighter-producing factories.

     

    AKP will turn overtly radical Islamist only after the fake Caliphate fighters will turn Damascus and Baghdad into blood lakes. This can be a matter of few only months. But then, it will only be too late for Turkey as well, because it is clear that the much publicized ‘New Turkey’ is only a new, yet fake, Caliphate, which will withdraw from NATO and from any negotiation in view of Turkey’s adhesion to European Union in completion of Erdogan’s immoral, villainous and ominous pseudo-prophecy about democracy (“Democracy is a bus ride. Once I get to my stop, I’m getting off.”).

     

    Erdogan coercively promoted by EU & US to bring the end of Turkey

     

    What the silly elites of AKP fail to grasp is that, when their Shia Holocaust will be completed in Damascus and Baghdad, Turkey will have already undergone a terrible shock as well (an Alevi/Sunni civil war), and being at its weakest point, will have to face an Israeli attack that will have as target the creation of a real Lebensraum around the Zionist state, because the fake Caliphate’s propulsion by Turkey in Syria and Mesopotamia and the ensuing merge into a wider Caliphate will have placed Israel under imminent existential threat.

     

    Even worse, their plans seem to be well known and anticipated by all forms and networks of Zionist Intelligence, and for this reason MEMRI does not miss an opportunity to highlight as an alert the real danger that Erdogan’s words constitute for Israel and its existence (example: .

     

    The result of an asymmetrical Israeli reaction to Erdogan’s silly plans about the revival of a Caliphate will comprise the following:

    • Nuclear bombardment of Ankara
    • Israeli annexation of Syria and of a part of Iraq’s territory
    • Israeli annexation of Hatay (Antioch / Antakya)
    • Formation of an independent Kurdistan which, as an ally to Israel, will comprise of today’s Kurdish region in North Iraq, and of a great number of Turkey’s eastern provinces including Gaziantep, Kahraman Marash, Malatya, Urfa, Diyarbakir, Tunceli, Bingol, and up to Van and Hakkari
    • Armenian annexation of Turkey’s northeastern provinces from Kars to Erzurum and from Trabzon to Giresun (it is to be expected that Armenia will immediately declare war on Turkey in the advent of a war between Turkey and Israel)
    • South Cypriot annexation of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (following an attack that will be undertaken by combined South Cypriot & Israeli land and sea forces – as it is to be anticipated that South Cyprus will immediately declare war on Turkey in the advent of a war between Turkey and Israel)
    • Greek annexation of the Aegean Sea islands of Gökçeada (Imbros) and Bozcaada (Tenedos), of Eastern Thrace, and of Istanbul-turned-to-Constantinople (as it is to be considered as a fact that Greece will immediately declare war on Turkey in the advent of a war between Turkey and Israel)

     

    Turkey’s Safety and National Security: Turkish Army’s Primary Task

     

    In view of the aforementioned, the Turkish army must take action as soon as possible. In the first days after the coup, the country must be totally sealed off and be left without any communication. Only foreign citizens and tourists should be allowed to leave the country. All incoming flights must be cancelled. Particularly the southern border must be declared war zone and anyone approaching the borderline should be shot dead.

     

    Following a stabilization period of 1 to 2 months, which in itself implies the parallel weakening of the fake Caliphate and the partly rehabilitation of the Syrian regime of Bashar al Assad, Turkey should mobilize its army and with a force of at least 350000 men invade the Syrian and Iraqi territories presently occupied by the fake Caliphate. Subsequently, the Turkish army should march on Damascus, Baghdad, and Arbil to eliminate the unrepresentative local regimes and introduce a nation building effort as per above. Turkey will have to present itself as the guarantor of the historical heritage, cultural identity, and national integrity of all nations and ethnic, linguistic and religious groups existing in the area.

     

    Turkish diplomats will then have to explain to the US, Europe and others that Turkey will not withdraw from its provinces of Syria and Mesopotamia where Human Rights will be respected as per the wishes of all the indigenous and true nations and ethnic, linguistic and religious groups, in mutual respect and to their benefit, and in striking contrast with the various colonial and postcolonial biases. The return of all the descendents of populations forced to immigrate and seek exile elsewhere over the past 120 years will have to start immediately, and this project must become one of the keys to the full rehabilitation of the systematically destroyed region.

     

    Turkey will have to demand that the allied forces, which may have meanwhile failed to destroy the fake Caliphate (prior to Turkey’s military expedition), accept the fait accompli.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • AMERICA’S WAR WHORES’ REWARD: EARTHLY AND DIVINE

    AMERICA’S WAR WHORES’ REWARD: EARTHLY AND DIVINE

    obama erd

    The Commander of the VI Division Reported: Novograd-Volynsk was taken at dawn today.  The Staff had left Krapivno, and our baggage train was spread out in a noisy rearguard over
    the highroad from Brest to Warsaw built by Nicholas I upon the bones of peasants.

    Issac Babel, Red Cavalry

    You know it. It’s a familiar story. Create a threat, then demonize, then destroy. And you also know about ALLAH’S BOYS, the so-called freedom fighters from all over the Arab world organized by that bastion of freedom and human rights, Turkey. These war whores, who do America’s sordid bidding clearly are war criminals. See their rampage throughout North Africa. See how the elegant, enlightened Hatay region of southern Turkey has been transformed into a thieves market overrun by these unsavory characters in the employ of lily-white America.

    These criminals are run out of a command and control bordello in Adana, probably inside Incirlik Air Base, itself an imperialist payback squeezed out of Turkey for failing to enter World War II. (See Wikpedia regarding the Second Cairo Conference in December 1943 for details.) The manager of this international catastrophe seems to be the head of the US Consulate in Adana, one Daria Darnell, a woman with little apparent experience in such bloody matters. But then Hillary Clinton had little experience in such matters and look at her.

    If, as Babel wrote, the road between Brest and Warsaw was built upon the bones of peasants, then it’s equally ironic that Incirlik Air Force Base arose on land stolen from “removed” Armenians by the then Ottoman government, abetted by subsequent Turkish governments. Court cases are currently being heard in the United States for ancestors of dispossessed Armenian landowners. If one wants to learn more about this original expropriation, i.e. theft, one can: (1) consult the references given at the end of this piece, (2) read Yaşar Kemal, particularly Ince Memet, and Kimsecik, and (3) read Karl Marx, Capital, Chapter 26, “The Secret of Primitive Accumulation.”

    WAR CRIMES
    Regarding the war crimes of the following parties and their agents, to wit: The United States of America, The Republic of Turkey, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and The State of Qatar, note the following applicable references:

    United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314
    Defines the crime of aggression as “… the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State…or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations…”

    Nuremberg Tribunal Charter
    Principle VI: “The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

    (a) Crimes against peace:
    Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties;

    (b) War crimes: …murder, ill-treatment…of civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder orill-t eatment of prisoners of war,…plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages…

    (c) Crimes against humanity: Murder, extermination…and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population…when such acts are done…in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.”

    Geneva Conventions
    A) Protocol I, Article 75: “(1)…persons who are in the power of a Party to the conflict…shall be treated humanely in all circumstances…(2) The following acts are and shall remain prohibited…whether committed by civilian or by military agents: (a) violence to the life, health, or physical or mental well-being of persons…(b) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment, enforced prostitution and any form of indecent assault…and threats to commit any of the foregoing acts.”

    B) Protocol I, Art. 51: “The civilian population…shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.” Art. 57: (parties shall) “do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects…an attack shall be cancelled or suspended if it becomes apparent that the objective is not a military one…”

    The Nuremberg Principles, which define as a crime against peace, the “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for accomplishment of any of the forgoing.”

    To read these treaties and protocols consult the Yale Avalon project at: www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/imt.htm


    SEIG HEIL!
    That America is financing and managing a massive campaign to destroy Syria is no secret. That the Turkish government is helping this criminal cause is no secret. That the current Turkish government’s unparalleled expertise in destruction (see my earlier writings) is being used to, first, destroy the economy of southern Turkey (probably out of stupid inadvertence), and second, to slavishly cater to any and all so-called American strategic interests is well and widely known. It is Hitlerian in its murderous scope and shamelessness. Seig heil, Obama! Seig heil, Erdoğan! The garbage being spewed that Saudi Arabia, that bastion of women’s rights, is bringing freedom to Syria are the ravings of lunatics, more particularly, shameless propagandists. And Qatar, a filthy rich Arab de facto protectorate of the United States, cowering under the US military presence, is desperate to protect its oil and gas.

    WHITED SEPULCHRES
    But more disgusting is that these gangsters are widely proclaimed as oh-so-pious Muslims. So they are no doubt well aware of their Koranic verses, in particular that “it is unlawful for a believer to kill another believer” (4:92). Of course they are doing just that, such is their shameless hypocrisy. Literally “whited sepulchres” (Jesus’ phrase for hypocrites (Matthew 23:27) in another holy book) they are all the political war whores of America who, if you believe the Koran, “shall burn in Hell forever. He shall incur the wrath of God, who will lay his curse upon him and prepare for him a mighty scourge (4:93).

    If there is any justice in this world may these gangsters hasten to it, so we may live long and peacefully.

    Cem Ryan, Ph.D.

    Founder:
    West Point Graduates Against the War

    Service Academy Graduates Against the War

    REFERENCES:

    Armenian Lands Issue
    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/armenians-sue-turkey-clai_b_800003

    https://jamestown.org/program/u-s-air-base-at-incirlik-faces-political-and-security-threats/

    Exclusive – Secret Turkish nerve centre leads aid to Syria rebels

    America’s War-Horse Harlots