[GatesofVienna] David Boyajian’s latest report discusses the less-than-pristine policies of the State Department when it comes to dealing with the Great Jihad in the Middle East.Consider the mind-boggling statements made by then-Ambassador to Armenia Richard M. Mills during the Q & A at Holy Trinity Armenian Church in Cambridge, MA.
I had bluntly questioned Mills about the Turkish government’s support for ISIS and similar jihadist/terrorist organizations.
Though this occurred two years ago (March 3, 2016), his answers remain relevant to America’s so-called “War on Terror” and the ongoing wars in Syria and Iraq.
When posing my question, I said that I would be handing everyone in the audience a study entitled “Research Paper: ISIS-Turkey Links” by Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights.
Dr. David L. Phillips, the director of its Program on Peace-building and Human Rights, oversaw the study. The widely-published Phillips is a foreign affairs adviser for the State Department and the United Nations.
Using dozens of sources, the study definitively established that Turkey was providing weapons, ammunition, financing, transportation, training, and recruits to ISIS in Syria and Iraq and to other terrorist groups such as al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda offshoot.
Incredibly, Mills angrily replied that Turkey had not helped jihadists/terrorists in any way.
The ambassador even claimed that if some jihadists had entered Syria from Turkey they did so only by sneaking past Syrian refugees who were crossing in the opposite direction. To its credit, the polite Armenian American audience refrained from laughing.
Mills’ hyperbolic defense of Turkey was particularly incongruous, as American-Turkish relations were even then headed downhill toward today’s quagmire.
Ref #7, speaking of 'gun running' and "murky" Here's a local Aldershot character that'll likely warm your cockles BP.
Absieling down the memory hole: