OpEdNews Op Eds Is NATO Member Turkey Aiding and Abetting ISIS/DAESH, Add to My Group(s)
|
1 
1 
1It is looking more and more like Turkey, a member of NATO, is massively abetting ISIS, with the United States and NATO looking the other way.
After Turkey shot down a Russian jet, the NY Times reports that Vladimir Putin "called the downing of the Russian fighter a "stab in the back" by those who "abet" terrorism, and he accused Turkey of aiding the Islamic State by helping it sell its oil."
According to journalist, Nafeez Ahmed,
"Earlier this year, the Turkish daily Meydan reported citing an Uighur source that more than 100,000 fake Turkish passports had been given to ISIS... Further corroboration came from a Sky News Arabia report by correspondent Stuart Ramsey, which revealed that the Turkish government was certifying passports of foreign militants crossing the Turkey-Syria border to join ISIS. The passports, obtained from Kurdish fighters, had the official exit stamp of Turkish border control, indicating the ISIS militants had entered Syria with full knowledge of Turkish authorities."
This barely scratches the surface. A senior Western official familiar with a large cache of intelligence obtained this summer from a major raid on an ISIS safehouse told the Guardian that "direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking ISIS members was now 'undeniable.'"
The same official confirmed that Turkey, a longstanding member of NATO, is not just supporting ISIS, but also other jihadist groups, including Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria. "The distinctions they draw [with other opposition groups] are thin indeed," said the official. "There is no doubt at all that they militarily cooperate with both."
In a rare insight into this brazen state-sponsorship of ISIS, a year ago Newsweek reported the testimony of a former ISIS communications technician, who had travelled to Syria to fight the regime of Bashir al-Assad.
The former ISIS fighter told Newsweek that Turkey was allowing ISIS trucks from Raqqa to cross the "border, through Turkey and then back across the border to attack Syrian Kurds in the city of Serekaniye in northern Syria in February." ISIS militants would freely travel "through Turkey in a convoy of trucks," and stop "at safehouses along the way."
A highly damning article by the Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights, by David Phillips, reports the many ways that Turkey is supporting, abetting and enabling ISIS, stating,
"Columbia University's Program on Peace-building and Rights assigned a team of researchers in the United States, Europe, and Turkey to examine Turkish and international media, assessing the credibility of allegations. This report draws on a variety of international sources -- The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, BBC, Sky News, as well as Turkish sources, CNN Turk, Hurriyet Daily News, Taraf, Cumhuriyet, and Radikal among others."
The list of allegations and support for the allegations that Phillips team put together include:
Turkey Provides Military Equipment to ISIS Turkey Provided Transport and Logistical Assistance to ISIS Fighters Turkey Provided Training to ISIS Fighters Turkey Offers Medical Care to ISIS Fighters Turkey Supports ISIS Financially Through Purchase of Oil Turkey Assists ISIS Recruitment Turkish Forces Are Fighting Alongside ISIS Turkey Helped ISIS in Battle for Kobani Turkey and ISIS Share a Worldview
Each of the allegations is supported by evidence, with links. For example, here's their section on Turkey helping ISIS sell oil:
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 TaÅŸtekin 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. TaÅŸtekin 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 accusedTurkey of allowing the transportation of arms to ISIS over its territory, as well as the sale of oil.
Phillips report cites "RT reports on Vice President Joe Biden's remarks detailing Turkish support to ISIS:"
US Vice-President Joe Biden has accused America's key allies in the Middle East of allowing the rise of the Islamic State (IS), saying they supported extremists with money and weapons in their eagerness to oust the Assad regime in Syria.
"America's "biggest problem" in Syria is its regional allies, Biden told students at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University on Thursday.
"Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria," he said, explaining that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were "so determined to take down Assad," that in a sense they started a "proxy Sunni-Shia war" by pouring "hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons" towards anyone who would fight against Assad."
And Patrick Cockburn, in the London Review of Books, also comments on Joe Biden's remarks:
"When the bombing of Syria began in September, Obama announced with pride that Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Turkey were all joining the US as military partners against Isis. But, as the Americans knew, these were all Sunni states which had played a central role in fostering the jihadis in Syria and Iraq. This was a political problem for the US, as Joe Biden revealed to the embarrassment of the administration in a talk at Harvard on 2 October. He said that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE had promoted 'a proxy Sunni-Shia war' in Syria and 'poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad -- except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra and al-Qaida and the extremist element of jihadis coming from other parts of the world'. He admitted that the moderate Syrian rebels, supposedly central to US policy in Syria, were a negligible military force. Biden later apologised for his words, but what he had said was demonstrably true and reflects what the administration in Washington really believes. Though they expressed outrage at Biden's frankness, America's Sunni allies swiftly confirmed the limits of their co-operation. Prince al-Waleed bin Talal al-Saud, a business magnate and member of the Saudi royal family, said: 'Saudi Arabia will not be involved directly in fighting Isis in Iraq or Syria, because this does not really affect our country explicitly.' In Turkey, ErdoÄŸan said that so far as he was concerned the PKK was just as bad as Isis."
Undercoverinfo.org reports,
"In a recent article in the Guardian, Professor David Graeber of the London School of Economics stated how "Back in August, the YPG, fresh from their victories in Kobani and Gire Spi, were poised to seize Jarablus, the last Isis-held town on the Turkish border that the terror organisation had been using to resupply its capital in Raqqa with weapons, materials, and recruits -- Isis supply lines pass directly through Turkey." Graeber added: "Commentators predicted that with Jarablus gone, Raqqa would soon follow. ErdoÄŸan reacted by declaring Jarablus a "red line": if the Kurds attacked, his forces would intervene militarily -- against the YPG. So Jarablus remains in terrorist hands to this day, under de facto Turkish military protection."
It's impossible to discuss the connection between Turkey and ISIS without discussing the Kurds. The Undercoverinfo.org article reports this connection between the Kurds and Turkey:
The Kurds of northern Syria, together with the Kurds of Turkey and Iraq, have been at war with ISIS since the latter rose up and declared their so-called caliphate. It was the Syrian Kurds and their Kurdish comrades in Turkey who helped rescue the Yezidis, after they had fled the ISIS onslaught to take refuge in the Sinjar mountains. It was the Syrian Kurds and their comrades in Turkey who liberated the city of Kobani from ISIS.
But the Kurds of northern Syria have not just been waging war. They have also been waging peace: creating new, democratic structures, declaring autonmous cantons; setting up schools, universities, hospitals. They have taken their inspiration from the Zapatistas of Mexico, who in their thousands retreated into the jungles of Chiapas and together with the Mayans created a new society, free from the oppression of the Mexican authorities.
In short, the northern Syrian Kurds have created and are living a social revolution. It is no wonder, therefore, that the authoritarian and neo-Islamist Erdogan Government of Turkey is doing everything it can to break the Kurds, including providing covert support to the Kurds' main enemy, to ISIS.
CNN acts shocked that Turkey, a member of NATO, has attacked Russia, which is fighting ISIS. The reality is, both the USA and Turkey want Assad out. There lies the rub.
The shooting down of the Russian jet clarifies the reality that the US, in choosing to allow Turkey to engage in a long, aggressive campaign supporting, abetting and empowering ISIS, is itself helping ISIS.
This should be a huge problem for the US and it's surrogate NATO, since we are responsible for supporting Turkey, a NATO member nation. But Turkey, like the US and France and NATO, wants to get rid of Syria's Assad. It is confusing because it seems we are fighting ISIS, but at the same time letting Turkey support ISIS, as an enemy of Assad.
It is hard to imagine France continuing to tolerate Turkey continuing to be a part of NATO, unless their desire to get rid of Assad is greater than their desire to deal with ISIS. But just today, Hollande spoke clearly, stating that Assad must go.
Watching the news of the Turkish shoot-down of the Russian jet, it verges on bizarre, seeing the mainstream media frame the shoot-down without including background on Turkey's history of supporting ISIS.
It seems that without Turkey's support, ISIS might not be the powerhouse terror organization it has become. And worse, without the White House's and Obama's tacit support for Turkey's massive support for ISIS, we wouldn't be where we are today. And lets not forget that because Turkey has refused to allow the US to fly sorties out of its Incirlik airbase, US jets have to fly 1200 miles.
Considering this aspect of the ISIS narrative, one must ask why Turkey is even being allowed to stay a member of NATO? And why are the mainstream media ignoring this, and why haven't members of congress and presidential candidates started calling for doing something about Turkey. And why would we be allowing people with Turkish passports into the US, given the background I've provided.
Turkey is not alone. Saudi Arabia is also a major problem, but that's another article.
Underlying all of this is Assad and those who want to get rid of him. It appears that Turkey blew the Russian jet out of the sky because it was fighting for Assad, attacking non-ISIS areas of Syria. If the US and NATO are allies with Turkey then it would seem they are allies with ISIS, fighting a war defending Syria's Assad. But the US would have us believe that is not the case. The problem is, it's complicated.
One thing that seems less complicated is Russia's role. It is supporting Assad and fighting ISIS.
I wonder about where the leaders in the US military stand on Turkey, on ISIS. I wonder about the Israeli connection.
I'm not expert at international analysis, especially when it gets complicated. But the triangulated relationship between ISIS, the USA and Syria's Assad is very odd. It's hard to believe we are truly fighting ISIS, when we are so friendly to Turkey, such a close friend to ISIS.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten