Erdogan's Reichstag Fire

Islamists and the American political left have been attempting mightily to portray ISIS as a project of Israel.

It would be hilarious if normal people didn't think it was a credible story.

It is true that American money and material support has found its way to the murderous 8th century bigots of ISIS.  But ISIS would not exist without Turkey.  It is a proxy militia that was created, armed, and supported by Turkish intelligence. 

Who has profited the most from events in Syria?  Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the wannabe sultan of The Restored Ottoman Empire.  De-stabilizing Syria at the moment of Arab Spring was a golden opportunity Erdogan couldn't pass up.
 
The Syrian civil war is largely an Erdogan project.   He hated Assad.  Further, he wanted to drive a wedge through the heart of the Christian, Alawite, Kurd, and other political and religious minorities that live along the border region in both Turkey and Syria.

Those border residents are descended from refugees who fled the genocide of millions by Muslim Turks in the early 1900's.  As far as the Turks are concerned, those damned Jews/Christians/Kurds/Armenians/etc simply can't move far enough away from the Fatherland -- we have to reach out and kill them wherever we find them!

Erdogan had the same designs on Iraq but that one was easy because the central government was impotent.

Erdogan is a mafia don who is no different from 1500 years of Ottoman corruptocrats, and his family is profiting immensely from his racist, bigoted policies. The Restored Ottoman Empire will make his family rich beyond their wet dreams.

Of course, there is no doubt that US material and money has gotten to ISIS in a dumb attempt to support "rebel" groups that US spooks don't really know a damned thing about.

Turkish spooks aren't nearly as stupid as American spooks.  They are all over Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, and they're much better at blending in.

The Syrian rebellion was sprinkled from the beginning by Turkish black ops assets.

No, this is a Turkish war of destabilization, and then ultimately, reconquest; in the long term.  Short term, profit for Erdogan's family (various estimates place his family's worth now well in excess of a half-billion dollars -- all riches gained in the last ten years and amassed largely from profits from looted oil fields in Syria and Iraq, gun running, and illegal (under Syrian law) trade in antiquities and looted mine products.  And from opium smuggling.

Now about that "coup" attempt.


The "coup" was engineered by Erdogan to rid the military and police of those who did not demonstrate perfect loyalty -- to Erdogan.

Up until the coup, Erdogan was struggling with sagging approval ratings and a restive population.  What to do but generate a swell of nationalism with which to cape himself?

So Erdogan goes on a vacation to a secret location hidden even from the military. When the military overthrew Morsi in Egypt, what was the very first thing on their to-do list?  To capture Morsi.  In Chile?  Capture Allende.  In Turkey?  Capture a bridge.

Really?

That was simply too dumb to have been anything but a feint set up by Erdogan.

a)  Erdogan convinced top allied generals to spread news of a coup

b)  Fed-up officers who didn't like Erdogan "join" the coup and mobilized their soldiers, believing they are part of a majority of the army.

c)  As the day progresses, opposition officers quickly figure out they were tricked and are a minority.

d)  Worse yet, they have been revealed.  Cornered, some of them decide to fight anyway, but it´s a battle they've already lost.

e)  Erdogan now knows which officers that not only are against him, but that would also participate in coups, and he now has an excuse to slaughter them outright, and if they are not killed, to torture and kill them later.

f)  Erdogan now has a good excuse to increase his powers, which he had done during previous opportunities.  Turkey is well on its way to one-man-rule.  He declares martial law, and purges 100,000 teachers, judges, civil servants, officers, and other bureaucrats he wanted to get rid of anyway, who had committed the crime of being in the political opposition.

g)  Erdogan stirs up nationalist sentiments among the low-information populace.

h)  Most army units on the streets who were participating in the coup surrendered peacefully; but some massacred civilians.


That may have happened as a REACTION, after all, Erdogan itself clamored for his supporters to take arms and FIGHT the coup perpetrators. (really, ask civilians to fight with bricks and handguns to fight tanks and choppers to protect HIS POWER?). Cornered officers and soldiers. A single shot against them, may have mass panicked and run the tanks over people. Plus some that may have done so out of pure cruelty.

Self coups are extremely common, and in Ottoman days, they were perfected to an art form.

What should "be done" about the situation?
Nothing, at least, nothing by the United States or NATO.

Savages and religious bigots stuck in the 8th century will remain savage and bigoted.  No effort by us will ever change them.

We should disengage.

No American government assets, troops, or dollars should go anywhere near any nation in the region.  Ottomans have sought to dominate and forcibly convert all minorities for well over a thousand years.  Nothing has changed in this century.  Being on the losing side in 1915 was a temporary setback for the empire, nothing more.

Let the Russians, Indians, and Chinese deal with them, because eventually they will have to.

Turkey should be thrown out of NATO, the US should dismantle its base at Incirlik, it should end its ties with Europe and all of the 8th-century bigot regimes in the Middle East...

And then go the hell home.

Bottom-Shelf Sustenance

[Editor's Note: This article was written in 2010 by Chad Quella, who retains all rights to it.]

With a cartful of our staple groceries at the usual family trip to the Mechanicsville Kroger, we got into the shortest checkout line and waited.  But after a while of staying in one spot and not advancing in line, I began to pay attention to what was going on ahead of me.

It appeared that there was a new trainee on the register with a more seasoned employee beside her, but what had caused the delay was a non-standard transaction that required some hands-on training.  She would get plenty of experience with that type of transaction by the time her customer finished checking out.

Lined-up on the conveyor belt were five separate clusters of items, each topped with a receipt-like strip of paper.  It immediately struck me as poor decision-making that this customer in front of me had selected several gallons of milk, but also several pints of milk.  The milk in a pint bottle of course is more expensive than the milk in a gallon bottle, and anyway I couldn’t imagine what might be going on in this woman’s home that would require that much milk, or even allow it to all get drank before it spoils.  But hey, it isn’t my milk.

There were a few other things too, I recall a package of individually-wrapped cheese food slices, and a tub of cottage cheese.  Big dairy fan, I chuckled to myself.  But there was one last cluster of items, different from the rest in that it didn’t have a slip of paper on top, and rather than dairy, it was a package of seafood salad, a styrofoam tray containing a pair of deviled crabs, and a bag of fresh lobster from the seafood counter.

As I stood and waited and watched, these clusters of food slowly made their way down the conveyor belt being rung up in separate transactions, I realized that the little slips of paper were not coupons or shopping lists, they were being used as payment!

For the first time, I took a look at who was making these purchases.  A couple, probably in their mid-30’s, both quite overweight, sporting sweat pants and t-shirts.  No kids were to be seen.  I began to put together that the paper slips must be some kind of government-issued vouchers, and the pints of milk and other small items were probably rounding out the value of each voucher.  I was informed later that this is the form that WIC benefits are paid in, and the fact that it was the first of the month made this the likely case.

I watched, incredulous, as the gallons upon gallons of milk went back into the cart, and the lobster, crabs and seafood salad were rung up.  The lady produced a card for payment of these items.  I couldn’t see what kind of card it was, but the standard “debit or

credit” question went unasked.  The dairy-laden couple went on their way, allowing the Kroger bagger to take their load out for them, and leaving us to bag our own items.

Now maybe I’ve led a sheltered life, but I don’t recall ever having seen such a thing before.  I went home and googled “WIC lobster” on a whim.  Turns out I’m not alone!  A quick search turned up these results:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/new-jersey/333767-middle-class-food-stamps-9.html

http://www.topix.com/forum/city/grand-rapids-mi/TA3IUSIOJUJT93DGV/p2

Almost right on cue, local media added a little more insight – just not in the way they intended.  First, a story in the 8/10/10 issue of Style Weekly highlighted a Whitcomb Court mother of six, and her monthly early-morning dash to the nearest supermarket to exchange her government-provided purchasing power for food.  The story was meant to call attention to the “food deserts” that exist where, coincidentally, the few food stores that remain do almost all of their business at the beginning of the month, and almost exclusively in government benefits.

Then, our local TV news monster ran a similar story into the ground on their channels 12, 35, and 65 afternoon, evening, and night broadcasts on 9/1/10.  It was meant to highlight another Whitcomb Court resident who was fit to be tied because a government computer system snafu had delayed the automatic deposit of money-for-nothing into her account.

The TV story even went so far as to bemoan the plight of a sink full of dirty dishes – dirty because the woman couldn’t afford to buy soap.  But after she called an automated service for the umpteenth time that day and discovered that she had received her handout, the last shot in the story showed her at last standing over the sink scrubbing a frying pan. 

What the article and TV news report really did for me was provide some perspective on the welfare state and the establishment and political attitudes that produce it.  In neither case did the journalist inquire about how these poor, downtrodden mothers ended up single, living their pathetic existences in government-funded housing, clinging to government-provided money to go to some horrible store and use it to buy bottom-shelf sustenance for themselves and their children.

All they focused on was the fact that they were waiting for that check, and couldn’t wait to spend it when it came.

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Chad Quella lives with his family near Richmond, Virginia.