Turkey will be a monocracy, and cease to be a functioning state as we know it, within a year or so. Either that or Erdogan will be outmaneuvered by military actors or public insurgents, and good chances of the country falling into unrest.
It was gg! ^^
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
To think Turkey was so close to being part of the EU just a few years ago.
To think Turkey was so close to being part of the EU just a few years ago.
The guy probably will raise the point of opening the floodgate of refugees, as well as economic migrants, from Syria, Afghanistan and the rest of the MENA area soon, in an attempt to quell foreign criticism or gain other advantages, and that will be the EU/Turkey border closed for all foreseeable future. :winky:
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GatorAn alligator in ScotlandRegistered Userregular
To think Turkey was so close to being part of the EU just a few years ago.
The guy probably will raise the point of opening the floodgate of refugees, as well as economic migrants, from Syria, Afghanistan and the rest of the MENA area soon, in an attempt to quell foreign criticism or gain other advantages, and that will be the EU/Turkey border closed for all foreseeable future. :winky:
He will endlessly threaten it, but if he does it, Turkey will lose pretty much all EU access and there may even be a real cold shoulder from NATO. It will be seen as a betrayal of earlier promises to the EU.
The right wing of the EU will react like a maniac to that.
The question then becomes what the EU does with boat refugees.
It's relatively easy to stop people from crossing a land border (though it can devolve into shooting... as Turkey did this week by wounding a dozen Syrians), but refusing boat access usually means drowning people which is still unacceptable.
Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
Nuns shot, chapel destroyed, priest kidnapped from retirement home in Yemen. No group claims responsibility as of yet. India says that it will "spare no effort" to rescue Father Uzhunnalil, but given Prime Minister Modi's sharp turn to Hindu nationalism and government oppression of all non-Hindus (including turning a blind eye to lynchings) I doubt they'll make even the smallest of efforts.
Nuns shot, chapel destroyed, priest kidnapped from retirement home in Yemen. No group claims responsibility as of yet. India says that it will "spare no effort" to rescue Father Uzhunnalil, but given Prime Minister Modi's sharp turn to Hindu nationalism and government oppression of all non-Hindus (including turning a blind eye to lynchings) I doubt they'll make even the smallest of efforts.
I don't know a ton about Modi but given what I do know I would consider it less "Prime Minister Modi's sharp turn to Hindu nationalism and government oppression of all non-Hindus" and more "India's expected sharp turn to Hindu nationalism and government oppression of all non-Hindus under Modi who has always been that guy".
'Invite Boko Haram to my new mansion, under the guise of a peace conference, and lock them inside. Then blow the mansion up. Problem solved. That was my plan, not stealing precious taxpayer dollars and embezzling it out of the country.'
And I mean really;
An investigation has alleged that a total of $2bn (£1.3bn) meant to buy arms to fight Boko Haram had gone missing.
The former national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki, was charged in December in connection with the case involving $68m that is alleged to be missing. He was accused of awarding phantom contracts to buy helicopters, fighter jets and ammunition, which he denied.
Twelve other senior Nigerian army officers were handed over to the anti-corruption agency in February for their alleged involvement in the arms scandal.
Is corruption even still corruption when the whole army brass is doing it?
'Invite Boko Haram to my new mansion, under the guise of a peace conference, and lock them inside. Then blow the mansion up. Problem solved. That was my plan, not stealing precious taxpayer dollars and embezzling it out of the country.'
And I mean really;
An investigation has alleged that a total of $2bn (£1.3bn) meant to buy arms to fight Boko Haram had gone missing.
The former national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki, was charged in December in connection with the case involving $68m that is alleged to be missing. He was accused of awarding phantom contracts to buy helicopters, fighter jets and ammunition, which he denied.
Twelve other senior Nigerian army officers were handed over to the anti-corruption agency in February for their alleged involvement in the arms scandal.
Is corruption even still corruption when the whole army brass is doing it?
It's no longer corruption within the institution, but the institution becoming a source of corruption in of itself.
It seems like every other day I read a contradictory report about Western nations' plans for Libya. "A major military intervention is being planned" followed by "No major military intervention is being planned." Despite this, according to Le Monde and other sources, UK, French, and some Italian special forces are operating in the country. I've read rumors of US special forces there too, and while I haven't seen much in the way of confirmation, the presence of European forces makes me think some US presence is likely.
'Invite Boko Haram to my new mansion, under the guise of a peace conference, and lock them inside. Then blow the mansion up. Problem solved. That was my plan, not stealing precious taxpayer dollars and embezzling it out of the country.'
And I mean really;
An investigation has alleged that a total of $2bn (£1.3bn) meant to buy arms to fight Boko Haram had gone missing.
The former national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki, was charged in December in connection with the case involving $68m that is alleged to be missing. He was accused of awarding phantom contracts to buy helicopters, fighter jets and ammunition, which he denied.
Twelve other senior Nigerian army officers were handed over to the anti-corruption agency in February for their alleged involvement in the arms scandal.
Is corruption even still corruption when the whole army brass is doing it?
The more I read about stuff like this, the more sense the Boko Haram phenomenon makes. At least in terms of its ability to continue operating for so long and at such a scale, despite their questionable tactics/strategy.
Today the US bombed the hell out of an al-Shabaab (al-Qaeda's Somalian branch) base north of Mogadishu, using both drones and manned aircraft. Media quotes US officials as giving an extremely high death toll (150+), though I haven't seen any independent confirmation/statements by al-Shabaab themselves. The part I found most interesting was:
the fighters who were scheduled to depart the camp posed an imminent threat to US and African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) forces in Somalia.
I remember seeing some rumor about US spec-ops forces in Somalia last year, but never heard anything else about it (not that US special forces are very public about their deployments). But after some Googling I found this Foreign Policy article from last summer. The most informative bits:
Based out of a fortress of fading green Hesco barriers at the ramshackle airport in Kismayo, a team of special operators from the Joint Special Operations Command, the elite U.S. military organization famous for killing Osama bin Laden, flies drones and carries out other counterterrorism activities, multiple Somali government and African Union sources have confirmed.
...
He confirmed that as many as 40 U.S. military personnel are currently stationed in Kismayo, roughly 300 miles south of the capital of Mogadishu, where he said they operate drones from the airport’s single runway and carry out covert “intelligence” and “counterterrorism” operations.
...
Somali government and AMISOM sources confirmed the existence of a second clandestine American cell in Baledogle... These sources estimated that between 30 and 40 U.S. personnel are stationed there, also carrying out counterterrorism operations that include operating drones.
...
But in June of last year, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman acknowledged that a “small contingent of U.S. military personnel” had been operating inside Somalia for “several years.” The news agency Reuters later quoted an unnamed official of President Barack Obama’s administration as saying that there were “up to” 120 U.S. personnel stationed inside the country.
The US has bases in nearby places like Djibouti and Seychelles, and previously I had thought the limited drone/air strike campaign against al-Shabaab was operated from these locations. But apparently the US has had a presence on the ground in Somalia for some time. If the death toll is accurate and the fighters were indeed about to carry out a massive attack, this is a pretty significant blow to the organization (though probably not a decisive one, they're said to have thousands of fighters). The AU forces have suffered some major blows over the last several months, including a couple of bases being overrun, multiple small towns being lost, and one port city of ~230k falling to the jihadists. Another few defeats like that and the situation in Somalia could reach a critical point, so I wouldn't be surprised if the US escalated its involvement somewhat.
The CIA also has a base adjacent to the Mogadishu airport. Or, at least they did a few years ago.
I can't help but think of Romans fighting barbarians on the distant fringes of the empire.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I prefer small special forces helping local forces to full on occupation like Afghanistan and Iraq. Probably what should have happened in Afghanistan, at least, in the first place.
I prefer small special forces helping local forces to full on occupation like Afghanistan and Iraq. Probably what should have happened in Afghanistan, at least, in the first place.
Don't use a hammer where you can use a scalpel.
I'm inclined to agree with you on that in regards to Afghanistan. I'm not sure exactly what form a more limited military action would or could have taken, but something more targeted and less open-ended seems like it would have been a much better response to me.
edit - especially given the situation in the country now.
I prefer small special forces helping local forces to full on occupation like Afghanistan and Iraq. Probably what should have happened in Afghanistan, at least, in the first place.
Don't use a hammer where you can use a scalpel.
I'm inclined to agree with you on that in regards to Afghanistan. I'm not sure exactly what form a more limited military action would or could have taken, but something more targeted and less open-ended seems like it would have been a much better response to me.
edit - especially given the situation in the country now.
I can certainly sympathize with the line of thought, but I think it's a little less meaningful if you're cynical enough to believe that "small, specialized troops" have basically become the background radiation of a military superpower--if you look closely, you can find that there's very often some (sometimes very small) troop deployment in a worldwide points of interest, and occupations aren't an undesirable alternative so much as an expansion of that. It's not a unique American possibility either (though obviously the United States occupies a unique position in terms of the scope of influence)--Russian troops have been posted to the Armenian border for decades now, to aid in Armenian patrols as well as training, but amid Armenian-Azerbaijani exchanges of fire, they mostly have to sit around helplessly and try and avoid getting pulled into the conflict.
Of course, being that cynical isn't always warranted.
EDIT: By coincidence, on the matter of Syrian refugees, I was mildly surprised to find that Armenia itself has accepted the third highest number of refugees relative to its population--granted, Armenia itself is a very small country, so this represents a very small portion of out-of-country refugees in general, but given the lack of foreign assistance to Armenia in this area (compared to Jordan, for example) and Armenia's struggling economy, it's surprising.
I prefer small special forces helping local forces to full on occupation like Afghanistan and Iraq. Probably what should have happened in Afghanistan, at least, in the first place.
Don't use a hammer where you can use a scalpel.
I'm inclined to agree with you on that in regards to Afghanistan. I'm not sure exactly what form a more limited military action would or could have taken, but something more targeted and less open-ended seems like it would have been a much better response to me.
edit - especially given the situation in the country now.
I kind of disagree with this. Apparently in 2001 some Taliban leaders were shocked by the sudden ferocity of the American attacks and some of them actually surrendered to other Afghan warlords in order to avoid being bombed or surrounded and crushed. Their idea was to surrender in order to start peace talks with the US and everything including turning on AQ and helping hunt them down was on the table. But the Bush administration instead just declared the Taliban terrorists and here we are today. But with better leadership, a hammer can be damn convincing when the enemy is only expecting a scalpel, provided you know when to stop hammering.
I prefer small special forces helping local forces to full on occupation like Afghanistan and Iraq. Probably what should have happened in Afghanistan, at least, in the first place.
Don't use a hammer where you can use a scalpel.
I'm inclined to agree with you on that in regards to Afghanistan. I'm not sure exactly what form a more limited military action would or could have taken, but something more targeted and less open-ended seems like it would have been a much better response to me.
edit - especially given the situation in the country now.
I can certainly sympathize with the line of thought, but I think it's a little less meaningful if you're cynical enough to believe that "small, specialized troops" have basically become the background radiation of a military superpower--if you look closely, you can find that there's very often some (sometimes very small) troop deployment in a worldwide points of interest, and occupations aren't an undesirable alternative so much as an expansion of that. It's not a unique American possibility either (though obviously the United States occupies a unique position in terms of the scope of influence)--Russian troops have been posted to the Armenian border for decades now, to aid in Armenian patrols as well as training, but amid Armenian-Azerbaijani exchanges of fire, they mostly have to sit around helplessly and try and avoid getting pulled into the conflict.
Of course, being that cynical isn't always warranted.
EDIT: By coincidence, on the matter of Syrian refugees, I was mildly surprised to find that Armenia itself has acceptable the third highest number of refugees relative to its population--granted, Armenia itself is a very small country, so this represents a very small portion of out-of-country refugees in general, but given the lack of foreign assistance to Armenia in this area (compared to Jordan, for example) and Armenia's struggling economy, it's surprising.
I think there were some Armenians in syria, and also some of the other christian ehnic groups like assyrians have always had good relations with the armenians, so I wouldn't be suprised if they were getting a decent chunk of the Christians fleeing the country.
The CIA also has a base adjacent to the Mogadishu airport. Or, at least they did a few years ago.
I can't help but think of Romans fighting barbarians on the distant fringes of the empire.
That draws some interesting conclusions as to who fits those ancient parallels.
I knew someone would bring this up. Historical parallels are interesting but not terribly useful and not at all predictive. There's a zillion reasons why the comparison doesn't work, of course.
It was more of a Cycle of Time sort of thought, that for all our knowledge and technology we're still humans, and throughout the ages we're still basically the same people doing the same things and making the same mistakes.
I prefer small special forces helping local forces to full on occupation like Afghanistan and Iraq. Probably what should have happened in Afghanistan, at least, in the first place.
Don't use a hammer where you can use a scalpel.
I'm inclined to agree with you on that in regards to Afghanistan. I'm not sure exactly what form a more limited military action would or could have taken, but something more targeted and less open-ended seems like it would have been a much better response to me.
edit - especially given the situation in the country now.
I can certainly sympathize with the line of thought, but I think it's a little less meaningful if you're cynical enough to believe that "small, specialized troops" have basically become the background radiation of a military superpower--if you look closely, you can find that there's very often some (sometimes very small) troop deployment in a worldwide points of interest, and occupations aren't an undesirable alternative so much as an expansion of that. It's not a unique American possibility either (though obviously the United States occupies a unique position in terms of the scope of influence)--Russian troops have been posted to the Armenian border for decades now, to aid in Armenian patrols as well as training, but amid Armenian-Azerbaijani exchanges of fire, they mostly have to sit around helplessly and try and avoid getting pulled into the conflict.
Of course, being that cynical isn't always warranted.
EDIT: By coincidence, on the matter of Syrian refugees, I was mildly surprised to find that Armenia itself has acceptable the third highest number of refugees relative to its population--granted, Armenia itself is a very small country, so this represents a very small portion of out-of-country refugees in general, but given the lack of foreign assistance to Armenia in this area (compared to Jordan, for example) and Armenia's struggling economy, it's surprising.
I think there were some Armenians in syria, and also some of the other christian ehnic groups like assyrians have always had good relations with the armenians, so I wouldn't be suprised if they were getting a decent chunk of the Christians fleeing the country.
Yeah, I've talked at length about the Armenian diaspora community in Syria (and how that's led to some unique situations, like other Armenian diaspora traveling to Syria to volunteer for militia in ancient communities).
Here's an interesting al-Monitor interview with HDP party leader Selahattin Demirtas. The HDP is a left wing, mostly Kurdish party that won a significant number of seats in last year's first parliamentary election, then lost them after Erdogan suddenly declared another election while simultaneously ordering military actions in the Kurdish southeast. Erdogan/the AKP are trying to strip several Kurdish HDP legislators of their "judicial immunity." Last time this happened was under a previous government in the 1990s, when Kurdish MPs were arrested right outside of parliament after having their immunity stripped. Erdogan and the AKP used to loudly criticize this action, but now they're doing the same thing.
I think the HDP, through its commitment to parliamentary politics in contrast to the PKK's focus on direct action/armed resistance, is/was among Turkey's best hopes for a peaceful settlement of the conflict, so it's disappointing (though unsurprising) to see the AKP try to force them out of electoral politics like this.
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
If there is one single country in the world that understands the need for people to get the hell out (an entire peoples in some case) it'd be Armenia. They're basically a modern day version of Babylon/the diaspora of ancient Jews.
I'm not that surprised they're actually putting effort into helping refugees.
Here's an interesting al-Monitor interview with HDP party leader Selahattin Demirtas. The HDP is a left wing, mostly Kurdish party that won a significant number of seats in last year's first parliamentary election, then lost them after Erdogan suddenly declared another election while simultaneously ordering military actions in the Kurdish southeast. Erdogan/the AKP are trying to strip several Kurdish HDP legislators of their "judicial immunity." Last time this happened was under a previous government in the 1990s, when Kurdish MPs were arrested right outside of parliament after having their immunity stripped. Erdogan and the AKP used to loudly criticize this action, but now they're doing the same thing.
I think the HDP, through its commitment to parliamentary politics in contrast to the PKK's focus on direct action/armed resistance, is/was among Turkey's best hopes for a peaceful settlement of the conflict, so it's disappointing (though unsurprising) to see the AKP try to force them out of electoral politics like this.
Here's an interesting al-Monitor interview with HDP party leader Selahattin Demirtas. The HDP is a left wing, mostly Kurdish party that won a significant number of seats in last year's first parliamentary election, then lost them after Erdogan suddenly declared another election while simultaneously ordering military actions in the Kurdish southeast. Erdogan/the AKP are trying to strip several Kurdish HDP legislators of their "judicial immunity." Last time this happened was under a previous government in the 1990s, when Kurdish MPs were arrested right outside of parliament after having their immunity stripped. Erdogan and the AKP used to loudly criticize this action, but now they're doing the same thing.
I think the HDP, through its commitment to parliamentary politics in contrast to the PKK's focus on direct action/armed resistance, is/was among Turkey's best hopes for a peaceful settlement of the conflict, so it's disappointing (though unsurprising) to see the AKP try to force them out of electoral politics like this.
I don't wonder any more why Russia views the EU as weak. Turkey does as well, clearly.
I for one will be surprised if they actually manage to force any Syrians to go back to Turkey. All this is going to do is increase desperation among refugees in the southern countries to get north and at least in some part get under the radar so they don't get deported.
With shitty life prospects back home and in Turkey and Erdogan going full steam ahead on autocracy, I don't see the appeal for the people trying to get away from this bullshit to accept a weak EU deal that doesn't do hardly anything for them.
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CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
As well, considering Greece is still in a huge economic hole, and the EU is continuing to blackball them into unsustainable austerity, I have to imagine at least some Greeks look at the idea of helping Syrians and other migrants and refugees get north as a good way to get some payback on Brussels, while also acting in solidarity with others suffering economic injustice.
Tsipras can say and promise all he likes but his people are done with him and the rest of the Greek political establishment after last year's mess and the ongoing economic crisis. It won't help the EU deal at all to have the population of the ground zero country for their apparent attempt to stem the tide of people coming from the Middle East actively hating their guts.
After successfully implementing a policy of destroying the homes of Palestinians accused of attacks on Israelis, Netanyahu has announced his next plan: exile the now homeless families of attackers to the Gaza Strip. It's not clear whether his proposal will be implemented, but it wouldn't surprise me, given the way things have been going. Needless to say I do not regard this as conducive to an eventual peace, although it's fairly conducive to the goal of ethnic cleansing.
Our insane first lady praised harems as an educational facility that's good for the concubines.
More Ottoman era nationalist whitewash. Some aspects of the harem system were positive for the women involved (and there were a lot of them) in terms of education compared to the general population of the time, but the life experience as a whole was still vastly more negative.
They were still forced to stay in the palace at all times and limited to gender role specific activities, not to mention the sexual exploitation and political games/backstabbing that went on among the favourite women of the Sultan, each jockeying to make their own child the Crown Prince. The harem politics and exploitation was part of the reason that the Ottoman Empire eventually fell apart, because interests groups within and outside the palace couldn't compete with the machinations of women in the harem to make needed reforms, women who they couldn't reach and who had control over many of the Sultans (along with other corrupt elements and eunuchs working behind the scenes) in later centuries.
Erdogan and the AKP are constantly pushing the Ottoman Empire's heritage as unabashedly good in their pursuit of nationalist domestic goals today, but there are still lots of aspects of that past that have to be looked at honestly and not necessarily placed on a pedestal or contorted to modern expectations.
So The Atlantic just dropped a huge interview style piece on the evolution of Obama's foreign policy doctrine. This thing is really, really long and really meaty; among other things it goes in depth on Obama's thoughts during the Assad "red line" incident in 2013, as well as his general reluctance to engage in direct action in the middle east. Also lots of money quotes on other foreign leaders and various Washington types that could make for some good drama (he considers the president of Turkey a failure, calls Putin "not completely stupid" and regularly expresses his frustration with Netanyahu). Seriously, there is a ton of stuff to unpack in here, a lot of it dealing with his views of ISIL as a symptom of tribal frustrations that the US can't necessarily fight.
One of the most destructive forces in the Middle East, Obama believes, is tribalism—a force no president can neutralize. Tribalism, made manifest in the reversion to sect, creed, clan, and village by the desperate citizens of failing states, is the source of much of the Muslim Middle East’s problems, and it is another source of his fatalism. Obama has deep respect for the destructive resilience of tribalism—part of his memoir, Dreams From My Father, concerns the way in which tribalism in post-colonial Kenya helped ruin his father’s life—which goes some distance in explaining why he is so fastidious about avoiding entanglements in tribal conflicts.
“It is literally in my DNA to be suspicious of tribalism,” he told me. “I understand the tribal impulse, and acknowledge the power of tribal division. I’ve been navigating tribal divisions my whole life. In the end, it’s the source of a lot of destructive acts.”
...he continued, “Right now, across the globe, you’re seeing places that are undergoing severe stress because of globalization, because of the collision of cultures brought about by the Internet and social media, because of scarcities—some of which will be attributable to climate change over the next several decades—because of population growth. And in those places, the Middle East being Exhibit A, the default position for a lot of folks is to organize tightly in the tribe and to push back or strike out against those who are different.
“A group like ISIL is the distillation of every worst impulse along these lines. The notion that we are a small group that defines ourselves primarily by the degree to which we can kill others who are not like us, and attempting to impose a rigid orthodoxy that produces nothing, that celebrates nothing, that really is contrary to every bit of human progress—it indicates the degree to which that kind of mentality can still take root and gain adherents in the 21st century.”
So your appreciation for tribalism’s power makes you want to stay away?, I asked. “In other words, when people say ‘Why don’t you just go get the bastards?,’ you step back?”
“We have to determine the best tools to roll back those kinds of attitudes,” he said. “There are going to be times where either because it’s not a direct threat to us or because we just don’t have the tools in our toolkit to have a huge impact that, tragically, we have to refrain from jumping in with both feet.”
It's a pretty interesting read, though the cynical view of the policy Obama lays out is that he is using drone strikes and proxy rebels armies as a halfway measure, a band-aid to avoid addressing the issue while he focuses his attention on global warming and Asia (the article notes that Obama is much more concerned with relations in China and Latin America and has become disillusioned with the idea of progress in the ME).
I'm about halfway through this really interesting piece. It's a little... skimpy about specific quotes and events, I think to preserve anonymity, but I do feel some sense of mistrust as to how some of this information was gleaned and its provenance. That being said, a lot of the stuff within does align with what I've read elsewhere about Obama and his Middle East foreign policies.
I thought, in particular, this quote was interesting, and seems like something that people might generally know about or comment on, re. its veracity:
A widely held sentiment inside the White House is that many of the most prominent foreign-policy think tanks in Washington are doing the bidding of their Arab and pro-Israel funders. I’ve heard one administration official refer to Massachusetts Avenue, the home of many of these think tanks, as “Arab-occupied territory.”
Who are the big foreign-policy think tanks in Washington? Where do they get their funding from?
Edit: Okay, I was more like one-third through. The interviews with Obama himself are fascinating:
“Free riders aggravate me,” he told me. Recently, Obama warned that Great Britain would no longer be able to claim a “special relationship” with the United States if it did not commit to spending at least 2 percent of its GDP on defense. “You have to pay your fair share,” Obama told David Cameron, who subsequently met the 2 percent threshold.
People should definitely read this piece.
Double edit:
(Biden, who is acerbic about Clinton’s foreign-policy judgment, has said privately, “Hillary just wants to be Golda Meir.”)
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quelle fucking surprise
In similar news Erdogan may ignore a constitutional court decision.
That country is going down the dictator path really quickly.
So that kind of sucks.
It was gg! ^^
Well, today "being part of the EU" is a much less attractive proposition than it was pre-2008.
He will endlessly threaten it, but if he does it, Turkey will lose pretty much all EU access and there may even be a real cold shoulder from NATO. It will be seen as a betrayal of earlier promises to the EU.
The right wing of the EU will react like a maniac to that.
The question then becomes what the EU does with boat refugees.
It's relatively easy to stop people from crossing a land border (though it can devolve into shooting... as Turkey did this week by wounding a dozen Syrians), but refusing boat access usually means drowning people which is still unacceptable.
I don't know a ton about Modi but given what I do know I would consider it less "Prime Minister Modi's sharp turn to Hindu nationalism and government oppression of all non-Hindus" and more "India's expected sharp turn to Hindu nationalism and government oppression of all non-Hindus under Modi who has always been that guy".
Well that explains some things.
'Invite Boko Haram to my new mansion, under the guise of a peace conference, and lock them inside. Then blow the mansion up. Problem solved. That was my plan, not stealing precious taxpayer dollars and embezzling it out of the country.'
And I mean really;
Is corruption even still corruption when the whole army brass is doing it?
It's no longer corruption within the institution, but the institution becoming a source of corruption in of itself.
The more I read about stuff like this, the more sense the Boko Haram phenomenon makes. At least in terms of its ability to continue operating for so long and at such a scale, despite their questionable tactics/strategy.
I remember seeing some rumor about US spec-ops forces in Somalia last year, but never heard anything else about it (not that US special forces are very public about their deployments). But after some Googling I found this Foreign Policy article from last summer. The most informative bits:
The US has bases in nearby places like Djibouti and Seychelles, and previously I had thought the limited drone/air strike campaign against al-Shabaab was operated from these locations. But apparently the US has had a presence on the ground in Somalia for some time. If the death toll is accurate and the fighters were indeed about to carry out a massive attack, this is a pretty significant blow to the organization (though probably not a decisive one, they're said to have thousands of fighters). The AU forces have suffered some major blows over the last several months, including a couple of bases being overrun, multiple small towns being lost, and one port city of ~230k falling to the jihadists. Another few defeats like that and the situation in Somalia could reach a critical point, so I wouldn't be surprised if the US escalated its involvement somewhat.
This Global War on Terror has too many fronts.
I can't help but think of Romans fighting barbarians on the distant fringes of the empire.
Don't use a hammer where you can use a scalpel.
That draws some interesting conclusions as to who fits those ancient parallels.
Steam: CavilatRest
edit - especially given the situation in the country now.
I can certainly sympathize with the line of thought, but I think it's a little less meaningful if you're cynical enough to believe that "small, specialized troops" have basically become the background radiation of a military superpower--if you look closely, you can find that there's very often some (sometimes very small) troop deployment in a worldwide points of interest, and occupations aren't an undesirable alternative so much as an expansion of that. It's not a unique American possibility either (though obviously the United States occupies a unique position in terms of the scope of influence)--Russian troops have been posted to the Armenian border for decades now, to aid in Armenian patrols as well as training, but amid Armenian-Azerbaijani exchanges of fire, they mostly have to sit around helplessly and try and avoid getting pulled into the conflict.
Of course, being that cynical isn't always warranted.
EDIT: By coincidence, on the matter of Syrian refugees, I was mildly surprised to find that Armenia itself has accepted the third highest number of refugees relative to its population--granted, Armenia itself is a very small country, so this represents a very small portion of out-of-country refugees in general, but given the lack of foreign assistance to Armenia in this area (compared to Jordan, for example) and Armenia's struggling economy, it's surprising.
I kind of disagree with this. Apparently in 2001 some Taliban leaders were shocked by the sudden ferocity of the American attacks and some of them actually surrendered to other Afghan warlords in order to avoid being bombed or surrounded and crushed. Their idea was to surrender in order to start peace talks with the US and everything including turning on AQ and helping hunt them down was on the table. But the Bush administration instead just declared the Taliban terrorists and here we are today. But with better leadership, a hammer can be damn convincing when the enemy is only expecting a scalpel, provided you know when to stop hammering.
I think there were some Armenians in syria, and also some of the other christian ehnic groups like assyrians have always had good relations with the armenians, so I wouldn't be suprised if they were getting a decent chunk of the Christians fleeing the country.
I knew someone would bring this up. Historical parallels are interesting but not terribly useful and not at all predictive. There's a zillion reasons why the comparison doesn't work, of course.
It was more of a Cycle of Time sort of thought, that for all our knowledge and technology we're still humans, and throughout the ages we're still basically the same people doing the same things and making the same mistakes.
Yeah, I've talked at length about the Armenian diaspora community in Syria (and how that's led to some unique situations, like other Armenian diaspora traveling to Syria to volunteer for militia in ancient communities).
I think the HDP, through its commitment to parliamentary politics in contrast to the PKK's focus on direct action/armed resistance, is/was among Turkey's best hopes for a peaceful settlement of the conflict, so it's disappointing (though unsurprising) to see the AKP try to force them out of electoral politics like this.
I'm not that surprised they're actually putting effort into helping refugees.
Turkey and EU agree outline of 'one in, one out' deal over Syria refugee crisis
I don't wonder any more why Russia views the EU as weak. Turkey does as well, clearly.
I for one will be surprised if they actually manage to force any Syrians to go back to Turkey. All this is going to do is increase desperation among refugees in the southern countries to get north and at least in some part get under the radar so they don't get deported.
With shitty life prospects back home and in Turkey and Erdogan going full steam ahead on autocracy, I don't see the appeal for the people trying to get away from this bullshit to accept a weak EU deal that doesn't do hardly anything for them.
Tsipras can say and promise all he likes but his people are done with him and the rest of the Greek political establishment after last year's mess and the ongoing economic crisis. It won't help the EU deal at all to have the population of the ground zero country for their apparent attempt to stem the tide of people coming from the Middle East actively hating their guts.
verrrry happy
More Ottoman era nationalist whitewash. Some aspects of the harem system were positive for the women involved (and there were a lot of them) in terms of education compared to the general population of the time, but the life experience as a whole was still vastly more negative.
They were still forced to stay in the palace at all times and limited to gender role specific activities, not to mention the sexual exploitation and political games/backstabbing that went on among the favourite women of the Sultan, each jockeying to make their own child the Crown Prince. The harem politics and exploitation was part of the reason that the Ottoman Empire eventually fell apart, because interests groups within and outside the palace couldn't compete with the machinations of women in the harem to make needed reforms, women who they couldn't reach and who had control over many of the Sultans (along with other corrupt elements and eunuchs working behind the scenes) in later centuries.
Erdogan and the AKP are constantly pushing the Ottoman Empire's heritage as unabashedly good in their pursuit of nationalist domestic goals today, but there are still lots of aspects of that past that have to be looked at honestly and not necessarily placed on a pedestal or contorted to modern expectations.
It's a pretty interesting read, though the cynical view of the policy Obama lays out is that he is using drone strikes and proxy rebels armies as a halfway measure, a band-aid to avoid addressing the issue while he focuses his attention on global warming and Asia (the article notes that Obama is much more concerned with relations in China and Latin America and has become disillusioned with the idea of progress in the ME).
I thought, in particular, this quote was interesting, and seems like something that people might generally know about or comment on, re. its veracity:
Who are the big foreign-policy think tanks in Washington? Where do they get their funding from?
Edit: Okay, I was more like one-third through. The interviews with Obama himself are fascinating:
People should definitely read this piece.
Double edit: