Syria/ISIS/Middle East and Global Powers Explained

[vt]

President Assad (who is bad) is a nasty guy who got so nasty his people rebelled and the Rebels (who are good) started winning. But then some of the rebels turned a bit nasty and are now called Islamic State (who are definitely bad) and some continued to support democracy (who are still good). So the Americans (who are good) started bombing Islamic State (who are bad) and giving arms to the Syrian Rebels (who are good) so they could fight Assad (who is still bad) which was good. By the way, there is a breakaway state in the north run by the Kurds who want to fight IS (which is a good thing) but the Turkish authorities think they are bad, so we have to say they are bad whilst secretly thinking they're good and giving them guns to fight IS (which is good) but that is another matter. Getting back to Syria. President Putin (bad, as he invaded Crimea and the Ukraine and killed lots of folks including that nice Russian man in London with polonium) has decided to back Assad (who is still bad) by attacking IS (who are also bad) which is sort of a good thing? But Putin (still bad) thinks the Syrian Rebels (who are good) are also bad, and so he bombs them too, much to the annoyance of the Americans (who are good) who are busy backing and arming the rebels (who are also good). Now Iran (who used to be bad, but now they have agreed not to build any nuclear weapons and bomb Israel are now good) are going to provide ground troops to support Assad (still bad) as are the Russians (bad) who now have ground troops and aircraft in Syria. So a Coalition of Assad (still bad) Putin (extra bad) and the Iranians (good, but in a bad sort of way) are going to attack IS (who are bad) which is a good thing, but also the Syrian Rebels (who are good) which is bad. Now the British (obviously good, except Corbin who is probably bad) and the Americans (also good) cannot attack Assad (still bad) for fear of upsetting Putin (bad) and Iran (good / bad) and now they have to accept that Assad might not be that bad after all compared to IS (who are super bad). So Assad (bad) is now probably good, being better than IS (no real choice there) and since Putin and Iran are also fighting IS that may now make them good. America (still good) will find it hard to arm a group of rebels being attacked by the Russians for fear of upsetting Mr Putin (now good) and that mad ayatollah in Iran (also good) and so they may be forced to say that the Rebels are now bad, or at the very least abandon them to their fate. This will lead most of them to flee to Turkey and on to Europe or join IS (still the only constantly bad group). To Sunni Muslims, an attack by Shia Muslims (Assad and Iran) backed by Russians will be seen as something of a Holy War, and the ranks of IS will now be seen by the Sunnis as the only Jihadis fighting in the Holy War and hence many Muslims will now see IS as good (doh!). Sunni Muslims will also see the lack of action by Britain and America in support of their Sunni rebel brothers as something of a betrayal (might have a point) and hence we will be seen as bad. So now we have America (now bad) and Britain (also bad) providing limited support to Sunni Rebels (bad) many of whom are looking to IS (good / bad) for support against Assad (now good) who, along with Iran (also good) and Putin (also, now, unbelievably, good ) are attempting to retake the country Assad used to run before all this started? I hope that this clears it all up for you.

[touchring]

Re: Syria/ISIS/Middle East and Global Powers Explained

President Assad (who is bad) is a nasty guy who got so nasty his people rebelled and the Rebels (who are good) started winning.

vt, good one! lol

But are there really "good guys" and "bad guys"? Depending on which side you're on.

http://www.religionnews.com/2015/04/...atened-church/

“It’s up to them (the Americans) whether to like him or not,” Jeanbart said of Assad. “But I’m afraid they don’t know him enough. He’s not an angel. He will not be canonized tomorrow. But he’s not bad. Compared to the other Arab leaders, he may be one of the best.”

Asad is bad because he is on the wrong side - with Iranians and Russians. The Iranians are the enemies of the heads loping Saudis, which ironically are the good guys because they buy billions of dollars worth of American weaponry every year.

[gnk]

Re: Syria/ISIS/Middle East and Global Powers Explained

Good summary, which I will add:

It is highly likely that NATO ally Turkey has supported ISIS - my enemy's enemy is my friend kind of geopolitics. It's well known that Turkey's goal is containing the Kurds, and ISIS has been fighting the Kurds for some time now.

Also, Saudi Arabia more than likely has supported ISIS, but not necessarily the royal family. Saudi Arabia's political structure is complex. You have the royal family (US ally, mostly) and then the clerics which abide by Wahhabism - an extreme form of Sunnism, not far from ISIS's ideology. (Remember, Assad, a Shia, is their enemy) The royal family maintains its grip on power so long as the clerics support it, and meanwhile, the clerics get 2-3 billion a year from the royal family. How is that money spent? Religious Education and more than likely funding their kind of Sunnis - it is highly likely ISIS has received some "checks in the mail" so to speak, from the Saudi clerics.

Oil or no oil, American involvement or no involvement, the Middle East is a powder keg of religious fanatics that will be at each others throats for decades to come.

Just recently ISIS has managed to upset China by beheading a Chinese national. Thus, ISIS has managed to infuriate Russia, the EU, the US, and now China.

Why would a third world upstart of a nation do such a thing? Don't such countries seek out a patron power for support?

Because they are truly madmen that want a ground war involving the entire world. They are confident they will win it because these guys are end of times/apocalypse now lunatics. They truly believe that if they force events, their god will show up to save the day and make the entire world a Muslim caliphate.

Make no mistake about it. ISIS is the most dangerous regime on the planet. No one else comes close, not Iran, not North Korea, etc...

[Woodsman]

Re: Syria/ISIS/Middle East and Global Powers Explained

Good summary, which I will add:

It is highly likely that NATO ally Turkey has supported ISIS - my enemy's enemy is my friend kind of geopolitics.

The facts of history and current events do not merit such certitude. Look to the history of your adopted country. Look to the Gladio revelations in Italy, represented by the Grey Wolves in Turkey. Consider the success of strategies or tension there and elsewhere. Review the various cases of blowback, most recently as brought to you by Osama bin Laden. The enemy of my enemy may be my friend, and so all the better to gin up as many enemies as one can manage.

[gnk]

Re: Syria/ISIS/Middle East and Global Powers Explained

I agree, the potential for future blowback is almost guaranteed, with devastating consequences - especially so in the Middle East, precisely because they are so many sects that are so fatally adamant with their theology.

And what's worse, unintended (?) consequences that complicate matters:

Turkey 'downs Russian warplane on Syria border'

That area of the world is beyond FUBAR.

I recall EJ saying Syria may be split apart politically, into different nations. Everyone may get their piece and somehow will have to deal with the locals.

[vt]

Re: Syria/ISIS/Middle East and Global Powers Explained

Wrong place at wrong time. However nations need to show restraint during these perilous times.

http://news.yahoo.com/russian-entry-turkish-airspace-lasted-seconds-u-official-164618732.html

[touchring]

Re: Syria/ISIS/Middle East and Global Powers Explained

Wrong place at wrong time. However nations need to show restraint during these perilous times.

http://news.yahoo.com/russian-entry-turkish-airspace-lasted-seconds-u-official-164618732.html

If you have Turkish stocks, better dump all of it. The war is spreading to Turkey.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Syria/ISIS/Middle East and Global Powers Explained

I agree, the potential for future blowback is almost guaranteed, with devastating consequences - especially so in the Middle East, precisely because they are so many sects that are so fatally adamant with their theology.

And what's worse, unintended (?) consequences that complicate matters:

Turkey 'downs Russian warplane on Syria border'

That area of the world is beyond FUBAR.

I recall EJ saying Syria may be split apart politically, into different nations. Everyone may get their piece and somehow will have to deal with the locals.

EJ's comments were quite some time ago weren't they?

Some things stay the same(major themes), other things change.

Syria is one area of the world where I get very nervous when folks who have subject matter expertise in "A" expand into "B".

A few points on the shoot down:

A Turkish RF4 recce bird got shot down ove Syria, clear violation, but one of those cheeky grey area things that happen.

A couple of Syrian tactical aircraft have been shot down by Turkey.

Syria possesses SU24 aircraft in inventory

What is the relative comparison of paint scheme and national markings between Syrian and Russian SU24s?

What were the Turkish/NATO signals intercepts, did they recognise these as Russian aircraft(coms/data emissions)?

What were the Turkish combat air patrol rules of engagement?

Russia and Turkey have fought eleventeen wars in the last million years. Greece and Turkey, both NATO partners on paper have lost a considerable number of aircraft in overly aggressive sovereignty patrol flights, peacetime dogfights.

Turkey is displaying some rather odd signals of turning away from scularism(at least at he bureaucratic/government level).

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Syria/ISIS/Middle East and Global Powers Explained

vt, good one! lol

But are there really "good guys" and "bad guys"? Depending on which side you're on.

http://www.religionnews.com/2015/04/...atened-church/



Asad is bad because he is on the wrong side - with Iranians and Russians. The Iranians are the enemies of the heads loping Saudis, which ironically are the good guys because they buy billions of dollars worth of American weaponry every year.

If you think that is bad at the macro level.

At the micro level coal face, there are similar "Catch22 on acid" examples within and around coalition camps.

Someone dig up TE Lawrence's corpse and put a billion volts into it. Franken Lawrence.

Or Col Bill Eddy USMC, I think he's buried there.

[gnk]

Re: Syria/ISIS/Middle East and Global Powers Explained

It's all conjecture at this point, but I wouldn't be surprised if the US gave the green light - that's just my take after hearing Obama say Turkey has a right to defend its borders. I can't imagine Turkey calling the Russian bluff without first getting a sense of how the US would react.

But it also could be more than that - if Russia can invade a country (Ukraine) to protect its Russian "brethren," Turkey can protect it's territory against those - intentionally or not - bombing its "brethren' (Turkmen - foes of Assad) just outside its border.

Turkey however has now set a precedent for both Greece and Cyprus. Turkey may still be able to argue that territorial waters are different than land boundaries - but if Turkish jets fly over any Greek or Cypriot landmass - does that mean it's open season on Turkey? (no pun intended)

It's no surprise that here in the Eastern Mediterranean and East beyond, the cradle of civilizations, mind you, with its history of ebbs and flows of empires past and distinct peoples' migrations along the former lines of empires, well... everyone is a little unhinged here, so to speak.

But really, I think the US just wanted Russia to feel some humiliation. I think the US, hegemon that it is, can stomach China's ascendancy to a degree - but not Russia's at the same time - they lost the cold war, period - there's not enough room for all three powers. Maybe two, but not three. I think that's why the US wants to expand NATO - to diminish Russia and rebalance against a growing China.

[Woodsman]

Re: Syria/ISIS/Middle East and Global Powers Explained

It's all conjecture at this point, but I wouldn't be surprised if the US gave the green light - that's just my take after hearing Obama say Turkey has a right to defend its borders. I can't imagine Turkey calling the Russian bluff without first getting a sense of how the US would react..

Sure, and it's well established that Turkey is the main supporter of ISIS. See this comprehensive and damning report by Columbia University’s David Phillips, listing all the ways, financial and otherwise, that Turkey supports ISIS.

Turkey Provides Military Equipment to ISIS

• An ISIS commander told The Washington Post on August 12, 2014: "Most of the fighters who joined us in the beginning of the war came via Turkey, and so did our equipment and supplies."

• Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, head of the Republican People's Party (CHP), produced a statement from the Adana Office of the Prosecutor on October 14, 2014 maintaining that Turkey supplied weapons to terror groups. He also produced interview transcripts from truck drivers who delivered weapons to the groups. According to Kiliçdaroglu, the Turkish government claims the trucks were for humanitarian aid to the Turkmen, but the Turkmen said no humanitarian aid was delivered.

• According to CHP Vice President Bulent Tezcan, three trucks were stopped in Adana for inspection on January 19, 2014. The trucks were loaded with weapons in Esenboga Airport in Ankara. The drivers drove the trucks to the border, where a MIT agent was supposed to take over and drive the trucks to Syria to deliver materials to ISIS and groups in Syria. This happened many times. When the trucks were stopped, MIT agents tried to keep the inspectors from looking inside the crates. The inspectors found rockets, arms, and ammunitions.

• Cumhuriyet reports that Fuat Avni, a preeminent Twitter user who reported on the December 17th corruption probe, that audio tapes confirm that Turkey provided financial and military aid to terrorist groups associated with Al Qaeda on October 12, 2014. On the tapes, Erdogan pressured the Turkish Armed Forces to go to war with Syria. Erdogan demanded that Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey's National Intelligence Agency (MIT), come up with a justification for attacking Syria.

• Hakan Fidan told Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Yasar Guler, a senior defense official, and Feridun Sinirlioglu, a senior foreign affairs official: "If need be, I'll send 4 men into Syria. I'll formulate a reason to go to war by shooting 8 rockets into Turkey; I'll have them attack the Tomb of Suleiman Shah."

• Documents surfaced on September 19th, 2014 showing that the Saudi Emir Bender Bin Sultan financed the transportation of arms to ISIS through Turkey. A flight leaving Germany dropped off arms in the Etimesgut airport in Turkey, which was then split into three containers, two of which were given to ISIS and one to Gaza.

Turkey Provided Transport and Logistical Assistance to ISIS Fighters

• According to Radikal on June 13, 2014, Interior Minister Muammar Guler signed a directive: "According to our regional gains, we will help al-Nusra militants against the branch of PKK terrorist organization, the PYD, within our borders...Hatay is a strategic location for the mujahideen crossing from within our borders to Syria. Logistical support for Islamist groups will be increased, and their training, hospital care, and safe passage will mostly take place in Hatay...MIT and the Religious Affairs Directorate will coordinate the placement of fighters in public accommodations."
• The Daily Mail reported on August 25, 2014 that many foreign militants joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq after traveling through Turkey, but Turkey did not try to stop them. This article describes how foreign militants, especially from the UK, go to Syria and Iraq through the Turkish border. They call the border the "Gateway to Jihad." Turkish army soldiers either turn a blind eye and let them pass, or the jihadists pay the border guards as little as $10 to facilitate their crossing.

• Britain's Sky News obtained documents showing that the Turkish government has stamped passports of foreign militants seeking to cross the Turkey border into Syria to join ISIS.

• The BBC interviewed villagers, who claim that buses travel at night, carrying jihadists to fight Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq, not the Syrian Armed Forces.

• A senior Egyptian official indicated on October 9, 2014 that Turkish intelligence is passing satellite imagery and other data to ISIS.

Turkey Provided Training to ISIS Fighters

• CNN Turk reported on July 29, 2014 that in the heart of Istanbul, places like Duzce and Adapazari, have become gathering spots for terrorists. There are religious orders where ISIS militants are trained. Some of these training videos are posted on the Turkish ISIS propaganda website takvahaber.net. According to CNN Turk, Turkish security forces could have stopped these developments if they had wanted to.

• Turks who joined an affiliate of ISIS were recorded at a public gathering in Istanbul, which took place on July 28, 2014.

• A video shows an ISIS affiliate holding a prayer/gathering in Omerli, a district of Istanbul. In response to the video, CHP Vice President, MP Tanrikulu submitted parliamentary questions to the Minister of the Interior, Efkan Ala, asking questions such as, "Is it true that a camp or camps have been allocated to an affiliate of ISIS in Istanbul? What is this affiliate? Who is it made up of? Is the rumor true that the same area allocated for the camp is also used for military exercises?"

• Kemal Kiliçdaroglu warned the AKP government not to provide money and training to terror groups on October 14, 2014. He said, "It isn't right for armed groups to be trained on Turkish soil. You bring foreign fighters to Turkey, put money in their pockets, guns in their hands, and you ask them to kill Muslims in Syria. We told them to stop helping ISIS. Ahmet Davutoglu asked us to show proof. Everyone knows that they're helping ISIS." (See HERE and HERE.)

• According to Jordanian intelligence, Turkey trained ISIS militants for special operations.

Turkey Offers Medical Care to ISIS Fighters

• An ISIS commander told the Washington Post on August 12, 2014, "We used to have some fighters -- even high-level members of the Islamic State -- getting treated in Turkish hospitals."

• Taraf reported on October 12, 2014 that Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat, a founder of the AKP, said that Turkey supported terrorist groups and still supports them and treats them in hospitals. "In order to weaken the developments in Rojova (Syrian Kurdistan), the government gave concessions and arms to extreme religious groups...the government was helping the wounded. The Minister of Health said something such as, it's a human obligation to care for the ISIS wounded."

• According to Taraf, Ahmet El H, one of the top commanders at ISIS and Al Baghdadi's right hand man, was treated at a hospital in Sanliurfa, Turkey, along with other ISIS militants. The Turkish state paid for their treatment. According to Taraf's sources, ISIS militants are being treated in hospitals all across southeastern Turkey. More and more militants have been coming in to be treated since the start of airstrikes in August. To be more specific, eight ISIS militants were transported through the Sanliurfa border crossing; these are their names: "Mustafa A., Yusuf El R., Mustafa H., Halil El M., Muhammet El H., Ahmet El S., Hasan H., [and] Salim El D."

Turkey Supports ISIS Financially Through Purchase of Oil

• On September 13, 2014, The New York Times reported on the Obama administration's efforts to pressure Turkey to crack down on ISIS extensive sales network for oil. James Phillips, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, argues that Turkey has not fully cracked down on ISIS's sales network because it benefits from a lower price for oil, and that there might even be Turks and government officials who benefit from the trade.

• Fehim Taştekin wrote in Radikal on September 13, 2014 about illegal pipelines transporting oil from Syria to nearby border towns in Turkey. The oil is sold for as little as 1.25 liras per liter. Taştekin indicated that many of these illegal pipelines were dismantled after operating for 3 years, once his article was published.

• According to Diken and OdaTV, David Cohen, a Justice Department official, says that there are Turkish individuals acting as middlemen to help sell ISIS's oil through Turkey.

• On October 14, 2014, a German Parliamentarian from the Green Party accused Turkey of allowing the transportation of arms to ISIS over its territory, as well as the sale of oil.

Turkey Assists ISIS Recruitment

• Kerim Kiliçdaroğlu claimed on October 14, 2014 that ISIS offices in Istanbul and Gaziantep are used to recruit fighters. On October 10, 2014, the mufti of Konya said that 100 people from Konya joined ISIS 4 days ago. (See HERE and HERE.)

• OdaTV reports that Takva Haber serves as a propaganda outlet for ISIS to recruit Turkish-speaking individuals in Turkey and Germany. The address where this propaganda website is registered corresponds to the address of a school called Irfan Koleji, which was established by Ilim Yayma Vakfi, a foundation that was created by Erdogan and Davutoglu, among others. It is thus claimed that the propaganda site is operated from the school of the foundation started by AKP members.

• Minister of Sports, Suat Kilic, an AKP member, visited Salafi jihadists who are ISIS supporters in Germany. The group is known for reaching out to supporters via free Quran distributions and raising funds to sponsor suicide attacks in Syria and Iraq by raising money.

• OdaTV released a video allegedly showing ISIS militants riding a bus in Istanbul.

Turkish Forces Are Fighting Alongside ISIS

• On October 7, 2014, IBDA-C, a militant Islamic organization in Turkey, pledged support to ISIS. A Turkish friend who is a commander in ISIS suggests that Turkey is "involved in all of this" and that "10,000 ISIS members will come to Turkey." A Huda-Par member at the meeting claims that officials criticize ISIS but in fact sympathize with the group (Huda-Par, the "Free Cause Party", is a Kurdish Sunni fundamentalist political party). BBP member claims that National Action Party (MHP) officials are close to embracing ISIS. In the meeting, it is asserted that ISIS militants come to Turkey frequently to rest, as though they are taking a break from military service. They claim that Turkey will experience an Islamic revolution, and Turks should be ready for jihad. (See HERE and HERE.)

• Seymour Hersh maintains in the London Review of Books that ISIS conducted sarin attacks in Syria, and that Turkey was informed. "For months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria's neighbors, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdogan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. 'We knew there were some in the Turkish government,' a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, 'who believed they could get Assad's nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria - and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat."

• On September 20, 2014, Demir Celik, a Member of Parliament with the people's democratic party (HDP) claimed that Turkish Special Forces fight with ISIS.

Turkey Helped ISIS in Battle for Kobani

• Anwar Moslem, Mayor of Kobani, said on September 19, 2014: "Based on the intelligence we got two days before the breakout of the current war, trains full of forces and ammunition, which were passing by north of Kobane, had an-hour-and-ten-to-twenty-minute-long stops in these villages: Salib Qaran, Gire Sor, Moshrefat Ezzo. There are evidences, witnesses, and videos about this. Why is ISIS strong only in Kobane's east? Why is it not strong either in its south or west? Since these trains stopped in villages located in the east of Kobane, we guess they had brought ammunition and additional force for the ISIS." In the second article on September 30, 2014, a CHP delegation visited Kobani, where locals claimed that everything from the clothes ISIS militants wear to their guns comes from Turkey. (See HERE and HERE.)

• Released by Nuhaber, a video shows Turkish military convoys carrying tanks and ammunition moving freely under ISIS flags in the Cerablus region and Karkamis border crossing (September 25, 2014). There are writings in Turkish on the trucks.

• Salih Muslim, PYD head, claims that 120 militants crossed into Syria from Turkey between October 20th and 24th, 2014.

• According to an op-ed written by a YPG commander in The New York Times on October 29, 2014, Turkey allows ISIS militants and their equipment to pass freely over the border.

• Diken reported, "ISIS fighters crossed the border from Turkey into Syria, over the Turkish train tracks that delineate the border, in full view of Turkish soldiers. They were met there by PYD fighters and stopped."

• A Kurdish commander in Kobani claims that ISIS militants have Turkish entry stamps on their passports.

• Kurds trying to join the battle in Kobani are turned away by Turkish police at the Turkey-Syrian border.

• OdaTV released a photograph of a Turkish soldier befriending ISIS militants.

Turkey and ISIS Share a Worldview

• RT reports on Vice President Joe Biden's remarks detailing Turkish support to ISIS.

• According to the Hurriyet Daily News on September 26, 2014, "The feelings of the AKP's heavyweights are not limited to Ankara. I was shocked to hear words of admiration for ISIL from some high-level civil servants even in Şanliurfa. 'They are like us, fighting against seven great powers in the War of Independence,' one said." "Rather than the [Kurdistan Workers' Party] PKK on the other side, I would rather have ISIL as a neighbor," said another."

• Cengiz Candar, a well-respected Turkish journalist, maintained that MIT helped "midwife" the Islamic state in Iraq and Syria, as well as other Jihadi groups.

• An AKP council member posted on his Facebook page: "Thankfully ISIS exists... May you never run out of ammunition..."

• A Turkish Social Security Institution supervisor uses the ISIS logo in internal correspondences.

• Bilal Erdogan and Turkish officials meet alleged ISIS fighters.

Okay, so maybe that's far from "well established." Turkey has geopolitical interest to advance, just the same. They're definitely an important conduit and playing both sides against the middle, re Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Fun and games, they call it.