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| The Grand Turk | |
| Turkey in deep trouble | |
| 2015-07-26 | |
| [Hurriyet Daily News] Yesterday, we woke up to breaking news: Three Turkish F-16 fighter jets had bombed two ISIL headquarters in northern Syria, right near the Turkish border. Meanwhile, ...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings... Turkish police detained some 290 people all across the country, not all but many suspected to be Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... of Iraq and the Levent (ISIL) members. One the detainees was the notorious Halis Bayancuk, also called "Abu Hanzala," who has been an unabashedly pro-ISIL propagandist inside ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... All these pointed to the fact that Ankara (finally) decided to see ISIL as a main national security threat, in the wake of the horrible suicide kaboom in Suruc on July 20. This was further confirmed by the government's decision to allow U.S. forces to use its base in Incirlik, southern Turkey, to launch air strikes against ISIL. But how was the scene before that? Was Ankara in love with ISIL? Not really. But it did not get how serious of a threat it is. In fact, in its list of problems in Syria, the Assad regime came first, Syrian Kurds came second, and ISIL came as only third. In the pro-government media, you got a powerful sense that ISIL is exaggerated. Bayancuk, the gentleman placed in durance vile Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! yesterday, was even favorably interviewed about a year ago as a "victim" of the "parallel state" -- the threat that the AKP itself apparently exaggerated to some extent. It is good to see that this self-delusion is slowly changing. But it is a belated change. ISIL may have penetrated Turkish society in a level that the government does not want to acknowledge. Moreover, the ISIL threat in Syria provokes another long-term threat in Turkey: the PKK. Since the bombing in Suruc, the PKK assassinated two coppers in Urfa, supposedly to "take Dire Revenge." It seems that the PKK sees the AKP complicit in the ISIL threat against Kurds, and thus trumping up its own terrorism as retaliation. But this can neither be allowed nor tolerated. I understand and support, therefore, that yesterday's detainees by the police included suspected PKK hard boyz as well. Western governments and media should understand the PKK problem of Turkey. They are, understandably, focused on ISIL right now, and seeing all "Kurds," perhaps including the PKK, as a bulwark against ISIL. That would have been nice, indeed, if the PKK followed Selahattin Demirtas's recent call "to say farewell to arms inside Turkey," and mobilize itself only to defend the Kurdish zone in northern Syria. However, there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... since the beginning of the "grinding of the peace processor" with the Turkish government in 2012, the PKK has a hawkish faction that wants to keep its weapons, who seem emboldened after the bombing in Suruc. Turkey, therefore, has the right to be worried about both ISIL and the PKK. What is also worrying is the very political psychology of Turkey itself. Terrorism is a major threat to modern society, and can be overcome it only by uniting on the fundamentals of peace, security, and the sanctity of human life. Turkish society, however, is so torn politically that every terror incident makes political camps more bitter against each other. People cry for the victims only if they are one of their own, rather than seeing them as fellow beings. As a part of the same political polarization, Turkey cannot form a coalition government and our political destiny is still uncertain, almost two months after June 7 elections. In short, we Turks are in deep trouble. And the biggest part of it is that we don't have much common sense left to see what the trouble is about.
A total of 590 people have so far been placed in durance vile Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! across ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... over links to terror groups and for allegedly posing a threat to the state, Davutoglu said. As well as IS and the PKK, the arrest operations also targeted suspected members of the PKK's youth wing, The Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), and the Marxist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party Front (DHKP-C). | |
| Posted by:Fred |