Keeping An Eye On Turkey

[HisDaughter]

Turkey Leads The Way For The Coming Islamic Caliphate
by Joel Richardson
wnd.com

Several years ago, I began publicly stating that the world will witness the rise of a Neo-Ottoman Caliphate. With the Islamist party in Turkey poised to win yet another sweeping election victory next week, now is another appropriate moment to revisit the subject.

The first thing that the West must understand concerning the concept of the caliphate is that it is somewhat of a blank canvas for Muslims. To the Muslim socialist, it is through the concept of the caliphate that a socialist utopia will become a reality. For the moderate Muslim, it is in the idea of the caliphate that a tolerant Muslim empire will arise. For the radical Muslim, the caliphate is the means by which Islam will arise to supremacy in the earth. The point is that the dream of reviving a caliphate is a wide-ranging vision and is certainly not restricted to the radicals.

Second, the West must come to terms with the tectonic shift that has only recently taken place in the Middle East, beginning in 2003 in Turkey.

But first, let's define the old order of the region. This old order saw the Middle East divided up primarily between the Arab block and the Iranian block.

Imagine a random Arab Sunni Muslim (Sunnis comprise 85-90 percent of Muslims) who has long desired to see the unification of the Islamic world under a caliphate. In yearning for someone to rise up and lead the Islamic world, this Sunni Muslim first turns his eyes toward the leaders of the Arab block (Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt). On one hand, he identifies with the fact that they are both Sunni and Arab. But they are also either corrupt monarchies or dictatorial autocrats and hopelessly compromised through their relationship with Israel and/or the United States. To the average Muslim, these nations are led by MINOs (Muslims in name only). Frustrated, this Muslim shifts his attention to Iran. On one hand, the Iranians are seen as courageous, bold and assertive. They thumb their noses at Israel, the United States and any who would defy them. This is admired, but there is still the gaping sectarian divide. In other words, being Shia, they are essentially heretical. Without hope, this Sunni Muslim lets out a long sigh and prays that Allah will soon raise up a genuine Muslim leader capable of reviving Islam's former glory.

This was the old order of the Middle East for the past 30 years.

But suddenly, this has all begun to change. Through the rise of the Turkish AK party over the past several years, the Middle East has experienced a political shift of tectonic proportions.

Let's briefly summarize what Prime Minister Erdogan's Islamist party has achieved in just the past few years. First, they were able to gain control of both the presidency and the seat of prime minister. They also gained a large majority in the parliament. After they win the elections on June 12, they are set to pass a bill authorizing them to literally rewrite the Turkish Constitution. This will give them far greater control over both the judiciary and the military, the two entities that have historically served as the greatest check against an Islamist takeover of government. Not surprisingly then, through two manufactured conspiracies, the ruling AK party has effectively decapitated the secularist leadership of the Turkish military, arresting nearly 200 top military officials. Instead of a military coup to remove the Islamist party, the Islamist AK party has successfully taken over the military. And they were masterfully successful.

Erdogan has also filled the courts with his own judges. Over 70 percent of the police are also Islamists. And finally, the Islamists have gone after the media. Erdogan's son now runs one outlet, while a second company was hit with a $2.3 billion fine. There are more Turkish journalists in prison than any other nation in the world.

We are now nearing the conclusion of a perfectly executed plan to purge Turkey of its secular Kemalist system and ensconce the Islamists in power indefinitely. In the name of democracy, the Islamists have toppled what was once a shining beacon of hope for the Middle East. And behind it all is the architect, Prime Minister Erdogan, who once projected, "Democracy is like a streetcar. You use it to get you where you wish to go, and then you get off."

Today, Turkey has a thriving economy as well as the largest army in the region. And of course, only Turkey has a proven track record of ruling the Middle East. Now place yourself back in the shoes of the Sunni Muslim. None of these facts are missed by those who have been looking for a viable Islamist strong horse to get behind. And it is precisely for this reason that Erdogan is now the single most popular leader in the region. The starry-eyed Islamists of the Muslim world have solidly fixed their hopes on Turkey.

Finally, it is absolutely essential to understand Turkish Islamist methodology. Since 9/11, Ankara has been all too willing to portray themselves as the most natural counterbalance and answer to al-Qaida and radical Islamism globally. For the past decade, the Turks have pursued the methodology of the world's most powerful Islamist group, the Fethullah Gulen Movement, of which Prime Minister Erdogan and President Gul are both students. The goal of the Gulen movement is quite simple really. They want to be endorsed. Through the use of outreach, they have successfully branded themselves as paragons of religious tolerance. While radical groups such as al-Qaida have utilized terror to achieve their goal of a caliphate, Turkish Islam has championed the approach of presenting itself in a form specifically custom-tailored to win the hearty approval of the West. But their ultimate goal is the same: the unification of the Islamic world, the revival of the caliphate. And to date, we have fully fallen for their ploy.

The Turkish goal of regional influence has progressed steadily and deliberately. Seven years ago, only myself and a few others were warning of these realities. And when we suggested such, we were mocked. Seven years from now, we'll all be looking back, asking ourselves how we could have been so blind not to have seen it sooner. 

[HisDaughter]

Preparing The Hordes of Magog - Why Is The Largest Army In The Middle East About To Double Its Size?
prophecynewswatch

With Prime Minister Erdogan's Islamist AK party having seized its third landslide election victory in Turkey, many throughout the international community have been watching to see what will be next on the Turkish agenda.

Now there are strong indicators in the Turkish media that Turkey is planning on literally doubling the size of its army – this coming from the nation that already has the largest army in Middle East and the second-largest army in NATO, second only to the United States. Presently, Turkey's army has over 500,000 troops. Its army is larger than France, Germany and England combined. And now Turkish media are reporting that they are planning on adding another 500,000 paid soldiers.

According to Egemen Bağış, a state minister and Turkey's chief EU negotiator, the purpose of the army is to kill two birds with one stone, overcoming two of Turkey's biggest challenges: terrorism and unemployment. This move would create half a million new jobs for Turkey while answering once and for all Turkey's problem with Kurdish separatist terrorists in the southeast.

Bağış spoke to journalists at the Turkish ambassador's office in Brussels. "The government is prepared to hire 500,000 people. ... This structural change will also contribute to our struggle with unemployment," he said.

Turkey's nation defense minister, Vedci Gonul, stated that the new army is "the future of Turkey." But he also said that the actual number of paid soldiers is yet to be determined pending a government study. According to Gonul, the creation of such a large army could take several years to complete.

A poll conducted shows that 80 percent of Turks support the idea while only 9 percent are opposed.

Despite the government's claims that the purpose of the army would be to address terrorism, skepticism concerning such a massive force is well-deserved. First of all, creating an army this size merely to address Turkey's terrorism problem, primarily from the PKK, a Kurdish separatist group in the southeast, would be like trying to kill an ant using a nuclear warhead. Secondly, such a move certainly will only reinforce the concerns of those who believe that Turkey has broad-ranging neo-Ottoman regional aspirations.

The silence of the Western media has been surprising. Imagine Israel announcing an expansion of its forces by 500,000 men to address its Palestinian terrorism problem. Yet the Western media has yet to comment regarding Turkey's grandiose plans.

Such an expansion would be particularly concerning in light of the Turkish government's recent swing toward Islamist political alliances. They have worked to significantly reinforce strategic alliances with both Iran and Syria, two of the most well-established state sponsors of terrorism globally, while significantly cooling its relationship with Israel and the United States. Despite this, the Obama administration this past January, sold the Turkish Air Force 100 F-35 Lightning II fighter jets. Turkey already manufactures it's own F-16s.

It is also essential to once again remind ourselves of the recent accomplishments of the Islamist AK party under Prime Minister Erdogan's leadership. In just the past several years, the AK party has edged ever closer to establishing a full-blown dictatorship, all in the name of democracy. Since 2002, they have managed to accomplish the following:

•occupy the presidency;
•occupy the seat of prime minister;
•gain a large majority of seats in the parliament;
•fill the judiciary with Islamist-leaning judges;
•behead the top echelons of the military;
•infiltrate the police force (over 70 percent of officers are members the Islamist Gulen movement);
•intimidate and imprison Turkish journalists (there are more Turkish journalists in prison than any other nation in the world – more than China or Iran).

The nation's leadership is now working toward a bill authorizing them to rewrite the Turkish Constitution, giving them far more sweeping powers over the military and judiciary.

In last month's victory speech, Prime Minister Erdogan couldn't have made his regional ambitions any clearer:

"Believe me, Sarajevo won today as much as Istanbul, Beirut won as much as Izmir, Damascus won as much as Ankara, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, the West Bank, Jerusalem won as much as Diyarbakir."

In a follow up commentary piece, J.E. Dyer, a retired U.S. Naval intelligence officer asked how the world would take it if Nicolas Sarkozy had proclaimed that a victory for him was a victory for Moscow as much as Paris, for Washington as much as Lyon, for Ankara as much as Marseilles. Dyer then very appropriately reminded us that such comments are, "imperialist at worst, absurdly arrogant at best – to speak of your electoral victories as conferring benefits on foreign humanity – especially on those once occupied by your nation in its days of empire."

For years, several others and I have been warning of Turkey's neo-Ottoman dreams and regional ambitions. And for just as many years, the compliant left-wing media has mocked the notion. Within the next several years, with doubling of the Turkish army, it appears as though there will be 500,000 more reasons to worry about Turkey's regional ascension.

[nChrist]

Preparing The Hordes of Magog - Why Is The Largest Army In The Middle East About To Double Its Size?
prophecynewswatch

Interesting and timely article - thanks!