Gimme Another Crisis Baby

The presidency can illuminate excellence in a person. This is especially the case during times of crisis when some of the greatest presidents became greater. Those who maybe ain't so great maybe ain't so special in a crisis either. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan were wildly different from one another but they shared the virtues that make a leader great: courage, commitment to principle and rule of law, respect for the responsibility bestowed upon them, and common decency. In other words: character.

Those who call themselves conservative used to say that character was crucial to the office and they were absolutely right. Things have changed since then. Nowadays character seems to hold no currency with  supporters of the president. How much belligerence, incompetence, corruption, hypocrisy and dishonesty is enough for them to recognize that he has to go? If tribalism and ideological gangsterism are what matters to the Trumpist right, like it does for much of the identitarian left and virtually all of the anarchist and communist branches of the left, there will never be a recognition of Trump's manifest and manifold unfitness.

Each member of the Trump family has so flamboyantly demonstrated their unfitness for public service through their eagerness to praise totalitarian regimes and denigrate America's allies, their embrace of ludicrous conspiracy theories at the expense of civil and military service heroes, and their total disregard for the traditional legal and ethical standards that our leaders and public servants are traditionally expected to aspire to.  Anyone who thinks that this president won't likely be confronted by anymore crises this year is delusional but they're going to have to explain why over 40,000 out of work and a six figure death toll is a record to be tolerated let alone rewarded.

Those flawed and  humble men who stood where Donald Trump now stands understood duty, honor and sacrifice. They were asked to lead a revolution against a wealthy king and his superior military.  Their revolution lives today.  They were asked to stare down evil and destroy monsters.  They did not blink. They were needed to keep the republic together when seditious malcontents in southern states tore it apart over the slavery question. They lead the republic through a bloody civil war and ended the ancient barbaric evil of slavery. They called Stalin's bluff in Berlin and made him retreat.  They were asked to lead the free world and they lead it to the doorstep of the Soviet Union where they demanded freedom for Eastern Europe. Other presidents have tried to live up to the examples of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Truman and Reagan and that probably made them better presidents than they might have been otherwise. Donald Trump will always be unfit to carry their luggage.  A cult of criminals and charlatans holds power but without courage, humility or common decency they cannot lead. This experiment in presidential buffoonery needs to be wrapped up before the next crisis, but don't hold your breath. It turns out the president is surrounded by cowards, conmen and wet blankets who can't step up to remove this president because they are way too busy blowing him so hey won't tweet at them and rile up his army of imbecile bots to sick balls and threaten their families.   MAGA indeed.

Impeach This Imbecile Immediately

Try to forget the kind words for dictators. Try to ignore the deranged moral equivalency calculus between the United States and the vile ringleader of mafia states Putin.  Never mind the predilection for conspiracy theories that favor the Putin regime at the expense of the West.  Scoff at the mention of corruption even when the FBI director is fired for doing his job. Shrug off the herculean gymnastics done to kiss Russian keister.  It doesn't bother you when the President invites top chekist spies into the Oval Office as a personal favor to our biggest enemy, brags and shares state secrets which jeopardize our allies and assets, with western media barred but Russian state media, cameras and who knows what other recording devices welcomed.  When the campaign manager had to resign because it became known that he worked for Putin and Putin's stooge in the Ukraine, when the campaign is oozing with GRU, FSB and other spooks of the Putinist Cheka, when the Russian version of an NGO; wikileaks is pumping out materials stolen from the Democratic opponent, when the campaign and then the White House regurgitates Russian state talking points on the stump attacking NATO, when the sole change to the Republican party's platform upon receiving the nomination favors Putin regarding Ukraine, when he is forced to fire his National Security Adviser because he worked for Russia and Turkey and lied about meeting with Russian spies, when he still hasn't released his tax returns and he has lied about the millions of Gazprombank dollars he's received.... when each day passes without Trump's legs in motherfucking shackles and I want to scream, that's when I sigh in relief that at least he didn't send a bunch of work emails on his personal computer.

What Happened? Obama: Legacy of Mediocrity

Comrade Communique:
 by Kieran Sprunk

President Obama has delivered his farewell address and it is never too soon to judge a legacy even as the unknowns consume. I'll start with the successes. It is too easy to forget just how good Obama has been when he has been successful. When I first saw him giving the keynote address at the Democratic Convention in 2004, I knew this guy was going to be something special. He transcended political boundaries in a way that I'd never seen any public official do before.

Goodness where do I start? 20 million more people with health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. Does it have flaws? Sure. But the good it has done has vastly outweighed the bad. He has brought America closer to universal coverage than anyone since LBJ introduced Medicare and Medicaid. I am confident that even with a repeal, Republicans will not be so stupid as to abandon every part of the ACA.

Then of course there's steering the economy back from the brink in 2009. Unemployment was in double digits back then, now it's around 5%, which is pretty close to full employment. True one could come back and say that this doesn't count people that have given up on work, but even accounting for that there's still been a massive net gain in employment. America's car companies are thriving thanks to a bailout many were skeptical about. To quote Joe Biden, "GM is alive and Bin Laden is dead."

That of course brings me to al Qaeda. While it's far from dead, Obama did something that his predecessor would not do: attack them anywhere. It took serious balls to order a strike force not just into Pakistan, but into a military town harboring Bin Laden. We still regularly make drone strikes anyplace we can find al Qaeda. Feel free to knock the drone program, but it has killed many more combatants than civilians and I quite like the idea of vaporizing men who throw acid in girls' faces, throw gays off rooftops, and strap suicide vests onto people with Down's Syndrome.

And of course there's a cause near and dear to my heart: marriage equality. When Obama first ran, he only supported civil unions. This puts him in the oh so rare category of politicians who deliver MORE than they promise in a very good way. He put two pro equality justices on the Supreme Court, both of whom sided with the plaintiffs in Obergefell v Hodges, a precedent that will go down in the history books right along side Loving v Virginia, which struck down bans on interracial marriage. Thanks to this man, I can eventually marry a man I love, whoever he may be.

I wish I could be all puppies and sunshine in this post, but I can't. Much as I think the good Obama has done still outweighs the bad, there have been failures which will haunt us for years to come.

Those of you who remember the 2012 election will remember a moment when Mitt Romney declared that Russia was the primary geopolitical foe to the United States. This was met with derision and laughter, mostly from the left. By God he was right. If Vladimir Putin can invade and annex Crimea, launch cyber-attacks on NATO countries in an effort to destabilize them, and even influence an American election (didn't clinch it for Trump, but he definitely helped), then yes: Russia is an enemy and a very serious one at that. Obama's failure to understand this and respond appropriately is going to cost us (and his legacy) dearly.

Then of course there is Syria. The most notable disaster came in Obama drawing a red line for Bashar al Assad and then walking away from it when Assad crossed it. It is NEVER a good idea to make threats you're not willing to follow through on. True, getting us involved in Syria would carry its own problems, but clearly not getting involved also had some problems, not least of all a refugee crisis unlike any since World War II. It also allowed ISIS to fulfill the wish of jihadists everywhere: the creation of a Caliphate, a place of misery and mental/physical degradation. Remember that ISIS got its big break in Syria, not Iraq. And of course refusing to get involved allowed Russia to intervene on Assad's behalf, granting victory to a despot who deserved to be thrown from the tallest building in Damascus.

Then there is the persistent problem of refusing to acknowledge that terrorism, in today's context, is far and away perpetrated more often by Muslim hands than non-Muslim. Feel free to read the Koran and you will find plenty of verses very specifically devoted to ordering the deaths of infidels. It is not bigoted to say that those who follow this particular holy book would be more likely to behave this way than those that don't. Denying this is akin to saying that someone who supports the works of Karl Marx is no more likely to be a Communist than someone who doesn't.

It is also wrong to say that those who commit these acts are not true Muslims. Actually jihadists nowadays follow a long Islamic tradition of holy war stretching all the way back to the prophet Mohammed. Just as European witch hunts were committed by true Christians (trust me, they believed in the saving power of Christ), the attacks on Kurds, Yezidis, gays, women, Christians, Jews, etc are being committed by true Muslims.

If you are wondering why this is consequential, I have two words for you: Donald Trump. Refusing to recognize the problem posed by jihadists as a uniquely Islamic problem makes someone who attacks all Muslims (unjustly) appear more reasonable than they actually are. It leaves a void in political rhetoric that can be filled by hatemongers and idiots. This in no way excuses Trump, but it does explain a large segment of his support. Democrats would do well to remember this in 2018 and 2020, or we could very well be looking at 8 years of this orange-faced buffoon.

I don't want to end on a sad note, so I will say this. President Obama will go down in history as one of the greats, even with the flaws I just mentioned, especially compared with the human dumpster fire that is soon to succeed him. In fact, all the great presidents had terrible flaws. FDR unjustly interned millions of Americans simply for their Japanese ancestry and tried court-packing. Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus. Jefferson owned slaves. I would say that Obama's failures don't come anywhere close to any of those, but they do need to be mentioned. They need to be mentioned because we need to confront our own problems and adapt, just as those who came before us had to do.

Somewhere there is a young and upcoming Democrat who is serious about defending the values of the Enlightenment (with force if necessary), is willing to honestly confront the problems within Islamic culture, and is still willing to embrace many of those great domestic policies that have been so good for this country (healthcare, women's rights, gay rights, campaign finance reform). Just as the president indicated tonight, I live in hope.

Good night :)

Russia Today Orthodox Church Federation:Make America Lindberghist Again

Donald Trump must not be elected.
Vladimir Putin is not a president to be made ally, but a totalitarian dictator weened on the teet of the KGB.

Your Other Left: Sectarian Doldrums

Every journalist, public intellectual and mouthbreathing tv personality has an opinion on what western strategy should be in Syria in light of the Russian involvement.  It makes for a chaos in perpetual regeneration. However, the vacuum we've created in Syria by our inaction and the lack of leadership from president Obama and Mr Cameron having now been filled by the vile dictator Putin might make western strategy more simple.  That is if we operate under the assumption we take advantage of the opportunity.

Many Sunni Arab nations in the region have been unwilling to take action against ISIS and in many cases have been supporting the Islamic State materially and strategically.  This is because the dominant concern for the Sunni regimes is the threat posed by the rogue axis of the Syrian Ba'athist Alawite regime of Bashar Al Assad, the Shia twelver rapture cult IRGC, and their protector Vladimir Putin.  Setting aside the many severe human rights offenses and the warped ideological export regime in Saudi Arabia and the embarrassment that is Turkey under the AKP and the unabashed Hitler loving islamist Erdogan, it isn't difficult to see their point.  Saudi Arabia and Turkey have long been allies to the west.  Saudi Arabia is actually surprisingly eager and cooperative in diplomatic matters despite their vile domestic barbarism and their fetish for pushing wahabbi islam on the world, and Turkey has become a serious liability in recent years after only being a problematic partner in the Cold War.  Perhaps AKP lobbyist Porter Goss has something to do with it.

The Sunni powers are the worst kind of allies but they aren't wrong about the rogue theocratic axis.  The Islamic Republic of Iran is controlled by a Twelver Shia Armageddon cult of revolution hijacking Bonapartists, pseudo-democratic Bolshevists, and sadistic senior citizens with a lust for WMD who lead the world in terror sponsorship, human rights violations, executions, and abuse of civil liberties.  Their private Libyan fascist militia Hezbollah has a nifty flag featuring a not at all subtle mushroom cloud, as if promotion of the Rosetta Stone of anti-Semitism aka the Protocols of the Elders of Zion weren't despicable enough.  The Islamic Republic has been successful at keeping their overwhelmingly young population of regime haters from executing a coup, but their Alawite subsidiary in Syria, the Ba'athist mass murderer Bashar Al Assad has not had the same luck keeping his prison riot of a country under control.

The Syrian Civil War is quite possibly the most confusing conflict in history with the sectarian militias, foreign fighters, state proxies, side dealing enemies, jihadist guerillas and the criminal sex shame cult as alternative makeshift startup state with dystopian fantasy appeal for the young and repressed youth seeking the medieval slave state of their dreams.  The success of the Iranian cult and the survival of the genocidal tumor Assad would not be ongoing if not for their benefactor who is neither Shia or Alawite, the crimeboss, demigod, media magnate and "all things to all creeps" dictator leading the Russia Today Orthodox Church Federation to the ideal Russian imperial future: the Russian imperial past.  Vladimir Putin may seem like a mutant villain from a cyberpunk comic book, but he's much worse.

Imagine the absurdity of a former KGB bureaucrat with a predilection for poisoning, shooting and bludgeoning political opponents being elected, reelected and then claiming squatters rights in the Kremlin.  Once there he merges government with the imperial nostalgist-cum-Stalin revivalist colporteurs of arch-Christian national chauvinism in the Russian Orthodox church, reverses decades of nuclear non-proliferation, recycles the Sudetenland strategy in Crimea, and melds Europe's preeminent cultural felo de se in the masochistic far left and the sniveling far right.   He sashays his way across the wreckage of his Caligulan bacchanalia fueled by adrenaline, tabloid journalism standards and Mafia panache, and remakes his proud country into a bitter vassalage of his knavish personality, a dour thraldom of belligerent jingoism, and a quickly closing society of maimed subjects to a theocratic syndicate of crony corporatist oligarchs and feudal lords oblivious to their state of geopolitical Siberia and with Herculean poll numbers Putin comes to the rescue to "fight Isis." In fact he is the bodyguard of an empowered Assad and the errand boy for the rogue axis of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

 The goal whether he knows it or not is the crushing of Saudi Arabia, which is simultaneously pure tribalism and a totally legitimate threat to the security and economy of the region and the world. The increased influence of Iran and Russia, their support for Assad and the racism against Kurds, Yazidis and other ethnic and religious minorities makes ISIS the more attractive choice for Turkey and their neighbors.  This is obscene, but it is also the reality.

The presence of Russian troops along with Iran and Assad is going to be tough for the Islamic state and the other jihadist and radical groups fighting Assad in Syria.  The alliances between these groups and the regional regimes will be increasingly difficult to conceal as this conflict continues.

The western democracies should leave Syria to this emerging international disaster.  It does nobody any good to have Arab countries see the US and our allies as partners with Iran and Assad.  Let Russia be the visible enemy in that regard.  What western democratic open societies should do is focus efforts on Iraq and the Kurdish areas of Syria.  The strategy should be to support the Kurds, remove ISIS from all Kurdish areas and Iraq, in so doing humiliate ISIS militarily and drive them into Syria where there will no doubt be a clusterfuck of mammoth proportions.

There really is no winning strategy or path to victory conceivable in Syria with Russia and Iran so heavily involved.  We really can't say what victory in Syria would look like. We want to defeat ISIS and al Qaeda but everyone else wants to defeat Assad and Iran (and now Russia). We should define victory as securing Kurdish territory and removing ISIS from Iraq.

In Syria, apart from the Kurdish territory, we have good options.  If we side with the regional regimes we are putting ourselves at odds with our Kurdish friends and cooperating with parties that have different goals and conflicting agendas with regards to ISIS.  Siding with Assad was never an option and Russia can make the entire region their enemy by backing Iran and Assad without our involvement.

This is going to be a mess. It is time to take sides and declare to The Kurds and Yazidis and all people who wish to be free from terror and tyranny: "we are on your side and we are staying there until you're in and they're out."

Your Other Left: Radical Pose: The Chomskyite Tendency

Neoliberalism is a scary word being thrown around lately and it is used most often by people who don't know what it means, but it is gaining steam in the coffee shops and organic dissentary bars on Northeastern campuses ever since the most influential Western capo, yarn spinning anarchist and half crazed Maoist Noam Chomsky printed it in all of his recent pseudo-empiricist and formulaic madlibs mimeographs where he puts his name to preternatural literature ghost written in earnest by a group of his Larouche-esque cult of interns and it magically transforms into canonical scripture amongst true believing apology fetishists.  Anarcho reactionaries ultra faithful to the Chomsky ideological method of self-righteous dishonesty which the walking tenure cautionary poster Noam perfected by refusing to debate a soul since he was the leading academic to hear speak if you need to sleep for finals and wanted to be in a safe space for fellow supporters of totalitarian ideology.  I attempted to find data to back up claims scribbled by students of the MIT resident capo on many occasions but it wasn't until I tapped into my spiritual reservoir of subluxation to find the sacred art of blind  faith in the inherent morality in and regressive powers of pure anti-Western orthodoxy that I could see what ideas were used to pen the latest ode to leftish taqiyya (lie-to-win) identity fascism and conspiracy paranoia smut with idiotic large print.  When he breathes his last bit of anarcho-inhalants his spirit will be harnessed into pure light and moral superiority (or perhaps he will be gifted 72 virgins).  With high powered canisters of virtue signal pomposity as the world's most cited intellectual, the Left Wing Ayatollah of hari kari thinking can now finally eliminate the need for critical thought altogether.  It is only when he lurches forward and drones on about the evils of diplomacy and human rights for eighteen hours to the circle jerk of bespectacled bourgeois anarcho Bolsheviks that it dawns on him: he has made it!  Momma Chomsky would be proud to see her son the demigod of masochistic frippery. Noam prefers to be called Generalissimo in his particular corner of radical posing purveyors of Orwellian doublespeak and mental slavery we call the regressive left.  It is in this tendency that he is finishing up the junta coup plans to take the MIT quad by force of mimeograph and institute a new political party sans candidates or policies or leaders: just Noam.

The event will be organized by Students for Jew-slaughter in Palestine.  The cocktail hour will be held at the Iranian Book Depot and Vegan Pudding Kiosk.

This is only the beginning of our political nightmare.

Your Other Left: NATO's Liability: Sultan Erdogan's Ottoman Nostalgia

The Turkish President is an Ottoman nostalgia fetishist, aspiring Islamist caliph, Sultan of sectarian war by proxy, Hitler enthusiast, and jihadist sponsor. He’s an amateur semanticist and lexicographer who is determined to expand the definition of the word terrorist to include journalists.

Erdogan’s AKP or, Justice and Development Party, has systematically reversed a century of Turkish republican democracy. They deny their democratic opposition at every opportunity, arrest and prosecute everyone (from small children who draw cartoons of the Sultan to German citizens who make jokes about his royal heinous). Shall we forget his brutal ethnic cleansing campaign against the Kurds? Violence and Kafkaesque violations of civil rights are the norm for politicians for AKP opponents, including the pro-Kurdish and pro-democracy HDP, as well as Kurdish civilians, Kurdish grandmothers and writers alike, who have the audacity to terrorize the sanctimonious Sultan by way of their egregious acts of Kurdishness and for writing things which hurt the priggish president’s fee fees.

Turkey Under Erdogan

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has set Turkey on the fast track to dictatorship. Turkey under Erdogan is the ultimate NATO liability and after years spent as the perennial EU candidate, he has opted for the stultifying strategy of supporting ISIS and Al Qaeda. He’s attacking American and European allies in Syria – shooting down a Russian jet, taunting Vladimir Putin, openly dismantling democracy and civil society, and extorting billions of euros out of the EU. He cannot pretend his country is an example of sophisticated Europe. Steadily, over the preceding fourteen years, this reactionary has taken every step to nurture the bitterness which the portentous Turkish nationalism, Sunni tribalism, Salafi Islamism, and Ottoman nostalgia of 2016 were built on.

He is resolute about transforming Turkey into an Islamist paradise; one that is free of pesky Kurdish, Shia, and Alawite peoples within or just beyond their borders. He is through with the archaic tedium of open society hallmarks like democracy, pluralism, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and civil rights for women. Erdogan is equally determined to allow Turkish citizens free access across European borders.

His Brave New Turkey will seek to annex and reassemble the remnants of the Sykes Picot experiment that ripped the Ottoman Empire to shreds and scattered the once mighty caliphate into small colonies which were carved according to resources. The Ottoman caliphate was broken into pieces which were kept under the watchful eye of a monarchy or dictatorship. If you were lucky enough to be the Turks, however, you had a democratic revolution at a time when half of Europe was falling to totalitarian fascists, totalitarian communists, or fighting the odious malignancy of the German NSDAP.

Turkey’s Diminishing Past Progress

The burgeoning Turkish state was fought for and built into an enduring modern secular democratic republic. The Turkish nation had problems and reactionary elements to be sure, but a new secular republic from the ashes of an empire that had fought on the losing side of the Great War managed to endure some tumultuous decades. The Turks built a standout society with a world class education system in a location wedged between the Soviet Union and Gulf kleptocracies on the eastern border, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. A century of continental struggles, civil war, and ethnic strife – just beyond the Mediterranean in the Balkan peninsula and across Eastern Europe – made the former caliphate seem quite serene. For a moment.

Turkey has occasionally proven adept at choosing the ugly, imperialist, and regressive path in spite of a clear memory of a history of empire. It saw the Ottoman genocide of Armenians, Yezidis and Assyrians, multiple bloody alliance realignments, and it had a front row seat to watch its neighbors locked in a brutal cycle of struggles. As a keystone NATO ally, Turkey played a unique role in the Cold War. The strategic bulwark against the Soviet expansion to the west (the oil rich gulf states), was the location for American missiles aimed at the Soviet Union. They were quietly removed after Kennedy and Kruschev’s idiotic nuclear edge-play over Cuba.

The era of Turkey as a NATO liability began with the 1974 invasion of the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus. Cyprus was later to join the EU and has been a United Nations member since 1960. The invasion precipitated the Greek plan to annex Cyprus, and Turkey took control of 40% of the country. Since then, Turkey has received a remarkable four-decades-long silence in protest of this criminal occupation in which the Cypriots, under Turkish rule, see their benevolent colonizers yank large sums of cash directly out of their bank accounts with no recourse.

Holy Territory and the Israel-Palestine Conflict

The long running cause celebre of much of the anti-Western left, most Arab nations, and many Muslim majority states has been the so-called Israeli occupation of Palestine. With a much smaller population at play – few who participate in the settlement of Palestinian territory – it is the fact that the imperfect Israel is a state on land holy to every regional theistic tribe that fuels the never ending debate. The secular democracy that ethnic Palestinians do not wish to leave, let alone return to the fiefdom of militant terror cult Hamas, is the object of global hysteria, racial and religious hatred, cultural resentment, mystery, envy, and conspiracy theory paranoia. What do you know about Cyprus though?

Turkey’s illegal occupation and dehumanizing treatment of Cyprus is a long running Western European and American embarrassment. Turkey still occupies a UN member state, but how many people do you know who frequently attend demonstrations to protest this NATO ally in occupation of nearly half of a European Union member state? Where is the solidarity to the Cypriots who are used as a piggy bank?

The Sultan’s Allies and Adversaries

Erdogan has consolidated his power over the last fourteen years and he now openly declares that freedom and democracy have no value in Turkey. Journalists are terrorists and Turkish citizens who criticize, satirize or otherwise offend the sultan are arrested. Erdogan’s closing society is getting more barbaric, more tribal, more dogmatic, more bigoted, and more dangerous for minority groups and social outcasts. The Sultan can’t help himself it seems. Erdogan has had a beef-on-sight relationship with Russian despot Vladimir Putin, but the two men share so much. They both embrace theocratic fascists, terrorists, and nationalist political movements. Both conduct proxy actions against neighboring countries. Both oversee reactionary governments in former empires where democratic systems are falling by the wayside, and where residual imperial nostalgia is celebrated. There is little resistance to the swift transformation into full blown totalitarian states (organized around propaganda, reactionary populism, national religion, and an aggressive pursuit of war).

Erdogan seems to have stumbled in the eyes of, well, everyone except his friends and his base. Those, and some tiny subset of deranged nihilists who enjoy his Putinesque swagger, mustachioed-violence, and his belligerent message of dissonance. He is oblivious to the fact his contradictory statements are a matter of public record, but this doesn’t matter to the kind of oddball characters who don’t pretend to mask their insatiable appetite for the explosive collapse of society.

Some of Erdogan’s allies are the suicidal terrorists who want a theocratic slave-state on earth, and a penthouse suite after-party in heaven where they can rape and torture 72 virgins as it pleases them. In Erdogan’s Turkey we see the unification of every insidious discipline. The principles of human rights, civil rights, and individual liberty are out of style among leftists who are quick to defend the sectarian tribal cultists and theocratic fascists of every stripe. The Erdogan problem is not on the minds, it seems, of the Western Left.

These beasts of hatred, ideological orthodoxy, intellectual laziness, and absolutism so often admire Erdogan’s unencumbered aggression towards Russia, Assad, and the Kurdistan Worker’s Party or PKK (who are a criminal imperialist dictatorship client of the Iranian Ayatollah’s Guardian Council), genocidal ba’athist cartel client of IRGC, and militant nationalist anarcho-socialist guerilla car bomb cult with a propensity for self sabotage, respectively.

Creating a Refugee Crisis

Erdogan undoubtedly experienced a thrill when he committed the epic yet brazenly sloppy crime of the century: the extortion of billions from the EU for the phony refugee crisis, a portion of which he manipulated by forcing people to repopulate and migrate en masse. Erdogan saw that he could gain from the systematic bombardment of Europe by Gulf state, Afghan, and African refugees who were fleeing jihadists like the Islamic State. He doesn’t care if you fled cruel and genocidal regimes. Nothing matters more to him than the proxy war between the IRGC and the House of Saud being fought through the Syrian civil war with pick-up wars between Turkey and Kurds, Assad and Sunni Arab militias, or Al Qaeda and ISIS. Most people wouldn’t want to wind up in Turkey after escaping the evil and twisted never-ending death orgy of Boko Haram or the Taliban. Erdogan is taking advantage of the massive number of African migrants descending on Europe, and he has allowed ISIS, al Nusra, foreign recruits, and any anti-Assad or anti-Kurd force to cross back and forth over a 60 mile jihadi turnstile of the Turkish Syrian border. ISIS fighters have been given refuge and preferential treatment in Turkey complete with special medical care provided under the management of the Sultan’s daughter.

Russia, Turkey, and the United States

Then we have the looming chaos that is the proxy war between Russia and the United States. It hovers lazily above it all like a smelly Lovecraftian vapor intruding into every aspect of life and personal space. This conflict between the Islamic Republic of the Iran IRGC twelver cult and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Syria, in Lebanon, and at the gas pump is that much worse because of the maniacal Erdogan’s involvement.

He is losing the trust of his western allies, who have been increasingly uncomfortable with his maneuvers against the Kurdish YPG who fight ISIS in Syria, the Kurdish civilians, journalists and political opponents, and the melee between Erdogan and Putin which saw a Russian jet cross into Turkish airspace with no concern – since they’ve tested several NATO members air space this way. Turkey was the wrong NATO member to test: the Russian jet was quickly shot down by Turkmen loyal to the Erdogan regime.

The U.S. led coalition against the Islamic state was happy to be using Turkey for the convenient air base after Turkey was no help with the wars or actions in Iraq or Syria previously. The headlines were jubilant: “Turkey enters fight against ISIS, jihad group is in trouble now”. This, of course, was authentic frontier gibberish by a lazy press who knew little about Turkey besides their NATO membership and EU candidacy. The foreign policy establishment and intelligentsia were barely any better, and perhaps this has to do with former CIA Director and paid U.S. lobbyist Porter Goss representing the Erdogan regime’s interests.

Turkey declared they’d attack ISIS and about six of their bombs fell somewhere near ISIS positions with zero casualties. At the same time, the NATO ally rained hundreds of bombs on the PKK, YPG, and Kurdish civilians in Syria and Iraq. The PKK is some kind of extreme leftist cult and they commit guerilla terrorist acts akin to the IRA in the UK or Basque separatists in Spain. However, they rescued Yazidis on Mount Sinjar, and even though the U.S. lists the PKK as a terrorist group, there was a working relationship between the PKK and the U.S. prior to Turkey’s entrance into the conflict.

Erdogan’s Support of the Caliphate

The U.S. takes Erdogan’s help while ignoring (or paying lip service to) him for his requests for support in his war against the PKK. Perhaps if he hadn’t so blatantly attacked YPG positions and Kurdish civilians in Bashur he could have received some support, but his position that the YPG is a terrorist group is not shared by Americans who have worked with YPG effectively against ISIS. Perhaps he would deserve some benefit of the doubt if he hadn’t behaved like a thug in response to the HDP election gains and if he hadn’t exposed his undemocratic and inhumane police state actions on civilians and political opponents in Cizre. Maybe he’d garner some respect if he hadn’t ordered the Turkish military to stand on the Turkish border and watch as ISIS bombed the Kurdish city of Kobane into oblivion. Turkish troops standing a few hundred meters from Kobane with a full arsenal, missile launchers, and tanks without engaging ISIS looked bad, but it has been confirmed that Turkish military were there to cover ISIS as they returned into Turkey. Captured ISIS fighters have spoken of their leadership announcing that the Turkish military was helping, and that Erdogan himself is a supporter of the caliphate.

Red Flags

Russia has been behaving aggressively for nearly a decade. The agitprop reality show and the client services clause keeping Putin’s client Assad in power and further embarrassing the U.S. are not totally unexpected. The belligerent despotic turn, bellicose behavior, and the bitter persona of Sultan Erdogan should not be surprising. Casual observers could see through the AKP and their thin skinned fascist, genocidal, and imperialist ambitions.

He has severe red flags. The Sultan has revealed his unambiguous totalitarian, fascist, Islamist, and kleptocratic trajectory through:

• His willingness to support jihadists.
• His police action against journalists, political opponents and other critics.
• Openly denying civil liberties to Kurds, all political opposition, and critical media figures.
• His election strategy (when he didn’t like his losing election results he forced a recount and campaigned by killing Kurds).
• His Hitler fantasy remarks.

Like any political boss with a crony operation, Erdogan has his country’s political pulse seemingly all sussed out, fragile though his grip on power will prove to be in time. The Sultan has, however, completely misread his place in global politics. Turkey, under AKP government, has squandered too much faith and prestige in short order. Power has blinded Erdogan. He thought the west would go along with his iron-and-ham-fisted maneuvers despite the media spotlight shining on Syria. The consensus thinking had improved just as there was media coverage of Russia’s role as Assad’s airpower/bodyguard and official mouthpiece for the aggressive theocratic axis because: Russia Today Orthodox Church Federation, Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Shia-Alawite criminal syndicate of Assad regime forces and the IRGC pet terrorists known as Hezbollah know Turkey has played a dangerous game with ISIS.

Kurds are beloved across the west, eastern Europe and the entire free world for their courage and success against the Islamic state and for their example of establishing open society and democratic traditions informed by a unique blend of left wing socialism and western liberalism in a region where the only true democracy, Israel, is seen as a villain by the entire neighborhood of nations, regardless of sectarian differences.

As much as everyone (except Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and Jeremy Corbyn type leftists) agrees that Bashar al Assad must eventually go, the world is pragmatic in understanding that if Assad was removed without a replacement government lined up, and before the various parties including ISIS are defeated or isolated, the vacuum would lead to more war not less. Even if Assad goes and ISIS is too weak to take more territory, the proxy war between Sunni sponsors and Iran over control of Syria is not likely to go smoothly or quiet down.

What can the West do in this Syrian conflict?

The Russians are doing what they need to do to protect Assad and the US should leave them to it. Let Putin inherit this quagmire while the U.S. and the coalition against ISIS help the Kurds secure Iraq, Bashur and Rojava. Perhaps Iran will be preoccupied with their Syrian experiment leaving the Iraqi Shia government free to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the Sunni leadership, and the better-late-than-never three-state Mesopotamia can begin with some sort of economic agreement (the three Iraqi partitions will depend on a resource and revenue sharing scheme to survive, without which the influence of Iran and outside interests would become too strong and peace among the Iraqi trinity would be threatened).

Our allies are against each other. The Putin-Iran-Assad axis is playing games and hurling agitprop nonsense against the U.S., Kurds, Turkey, and all the Saudi proxy groups, with cross purposes. We can focus on Iraq and our friendship with the Kurds and Yazidis. The Kurds in Iraq have demonstrated their potential as a model society in the Middle East and the West needs another regional model and partner besides Israel. A democratic Kurdistan could replace the flailing AKP Turkey for military and strategic purposes. Iraqi Kurds have been brutal to Yazidis and Assyrians and the West can’t effectively encourage Kurds to be civilized towards the Yazidis and Assyrians if the West can’t promote Western principles. Americans may not know about Erdogan, but the rest of the planet does, and the credibility of liberal society and Western power is weakened due to our failure to hold our friends to a higher standard, recognize our enemies, and stand for our principles.

Suspend Turkey from NATO until the AKP is out.