The question of Turkey and its place in NATO has become discussed more and more in Washington, Brussels, and Ankara as relations are very sour between Turkey and many NATO countries, making cohesion very tough, and an important thing any right-minded person wants any military alliance to have cohesion within the alliance.
In 1974 NATO allies Turkey and Greece fought a bloody war on the island of Cyprus, as Greece’s military dictatorship backed a coup d’etat in Cyprus, which then was followed by Turkey invading the majority Turkish northern half of the island, and then Turkey threatened all-out war ending Greek claims to the island. Turkey has maintained control in the northern part of Cyprus ever since then as the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus remains the government that runs the north of the island. NATO did nothing in this war to stop it, and only after did the US impose a brief arms embargo on Turkey, and also on Cyprus.
In 2018 and into 2019 tensions between Ankara and Athens have flared up again on a range of issues between the two longtime adversaries. The tensions began to build in February 2018 over the disputed uninhabited pair of islets of Imia (Greek name) and Kardak (Turkish name) as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s chief advisor Yigit Bulut threatened Greece with facing Turkey’s wrath far worse than in Afrin and threatened to break the arms and legs of any Greek official who steps on to the disputed islets. The two countries almost went to war in 1996 over Imia/Karmak before the US intervened and prevented a war among the NATO allies.
In Greece in late 2017 when he visited Athens stunned his Greek hosts by railing against the Treaty of Lausanne as he says in Western Thrace a 32% Muslim region along the Greek Turkish border the large saying “the Muslim minorities on the Greek border of Western Thrace were not able to choose their own chief mufti, while the Christian communities in Turkey enjoyed greater freedom when choosing their Patriarch.” Turkey claims 127 islets and 25 islands which officially are Greek but Turkey says belong to them, and the reversal of the Treaty of Lausanne is one of the ways Ankara feels it can gain the upper hand in their efforts to regain territory they claim is their’s. Greece’s President Prokopis Pavlopolus slammed the suggestion saying “The Treaty of Lausanne defines the territory and the sovereignty of Greece, and of the European Union, and this treaty is non-negotiable. It has no flaws, it does not need to be reviewed, or updated.” Greece’s then Defense Minister Panos Kammenos from the Independent Greeks Party a populist nationalist breakaway party from the main Center Right New Democracy Party, led the way in responding to the confrontational aggressive situation with Turkey saying ”if they make the slightest move, we will crush them”, adding later that Greece wants peace and harmony, ”but we are not prepared to concede a single centimeter of our land.” He has made other comments along the lines of daring Turkey to actually try to step foot on Greek Islands.
In March Turkey arrested two Greek soldiers on espionage charges after the two soldiers who were doing regular training in Northern Greece, when in bad weather they crossed into Turkish territory when it was difficult to make out what was on Greece’s side of the border, and what was Turkey’s side of the border. Both Greek and Turkish soldiers often by accident cross into the borders of the other country when the weather is very bad, but this time these two Greek soldiers were arrested by Turkish forces. This incident raised tensions considerably between the two NATO allies. Many arguments were made on both sides of this issue, as the Turkish side was saying there was evidence, and the Greek side saying this was just another authoritarian act of aggression by an aggressive Islamic strongman in Turkey. We won’t likely ever know what really is the truth as they were released by a court in August but it wasn’t the court who was putting them on trial, they were released on bail, and the trial was to happen at a later date, a day the two Greek soldiers will not ever show up f0r, as they went back home to Greece.
In April 2018 on the island of Mikros Anthropofas officially a Greek islet but disputed by Turkey, the Turkish coast guard removed a Greek flag escalating tensions to the point the Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said the incident was similar to the crisis at Imia/Karmak in 1996 when the two countries nearly went to war, and he warned Greece against provocations.
In December on the island of Kastelorizo minutes after then Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos left the island and said that a special economic zone would be created there, tensions further soared with Ankara as two Turkish F-16 jets flew at 4,000 feet over the island for several minutes before the jets flew back to Turkey.
“If Turkish forces land on a rocky islet in the Aegean, it will be razed,” said Admiral Evangelos Apostolakis, chief of the Hellenic National Defense General Staff.
“If the Turks land on a rocky islet we will raze it to the ground. That is a red line that is espoused by the government,” Apostolakis said.
As the New Year has entered the rhetoric in Ankara against Athens has gotten more confrontational as the chief advisor to President Erdoğan doubled down on his October statements when he said “Greece will totally end up in a catastrophe within three to four hours if it wages a war against #Turkey” saying “Turkey’s presence in the Aegean Sea is 3 times that of Greece’s.”
In 2015 the self described Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus elected Mustafa Akıncı as President, he is a man who seeks to reunify Cyprus and then in 2018 voters reelected a coalition of parties who seek to reunify with the rest of Cyprus. Things actually looked promising for reunification but as the tensions rose between Greece and Turkey negotiations have been postponed till June according to the Turkish Cypriot leader. The question of the future of Turkish troops in Northern Cyprus was answered two weeks ago when the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that any withdraw of Turkish troops is a Greek Cypriot dream, saying“Greek Cypriots should wake up from a sleep, or give it up if it is a dream, about Turkish troops withdrawal, I’m not mocking them or insulting them but no troops, no security, no guarantees are impossible and we should negotiate based on this fact”
The Eastern Mediterranean is set to become another major energy hub as massive gas reserves have been found off the coasts of Cyprus Egypt and Israel, as they are on a collision course with Turkey a nation completely reliant on energy imports. Israel Egypt and Cyprus joined together with the full support of Athens and Washington, the formation of a joint group to develop the infrastructure to get the gas out of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Turkey soon after the Greek Cypriots tapped into the massive energy reserves, followed suit as the Foreign Minister said
“Our second platform is coming in February. We were going to send it to the Black Sea, now we are sending it to the Cyprus area,” Çavuşoğlu said.
“Our drill ship Fatih is currently in the Alanya-1 area, its work there will be done in March. We are shifting that to the south too,” he added.
Israel has signed gas deals with Jordan and Egypt and is seeking in the new mini alliance to bring the Greeks and the Greek Cypriots into the fold, by building pipelines through Cyprus into Greece so they can sell the gas to Europe.
“Turkey is unlikely to interfere with American companies, lest it provokes the U.S. military. But it might disrupt the operations of the French oil company Total, which has partnered with Eni on its contract to drill in waters in the Cypriot waters claimed by Turkey,” Charles Ellinas, the former CEO of the Cypriot National Hydrocarbon Co. said. The energy battle in the Eastern Mediterranean would then bring France another NATO ally into the conflict between NATO allies as the Turkish state runned Anadolu Agency exposed the locations of French troops in Syria guarding the YPG, an issue that has soured relations between Turkey and many NATO allies.
Turkey has warned Israel and Egypt to not “exceed their limits” as they join with the Greek Cypriot government and the government in Athens on the dispute. Egypt’s ambassador said that Egypt would not for a minute hesitate to take military action against Turkish vessels. The US Ambassador slammed Turkey’s behavior in Cyprus as “unacceptable.” Egypt the non NATO member has the support of US and Greece on this issue, against the NATO ally Turkey.
The peacetime rhetoric has never been this vicious between Greece and Turkey, the relationships Turkey has with many NATO allies have reached historic low points. The risk of war is at its highest in decades. What is the US and the other members of NATO going to do? Who’s side are they supposed to take? What is NATO doing to decrease tensions between the two NATO allies Turkey and Greece?
The Hellenic Parliament narrowly passed the name change agreement with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to change the name to North Macedonia, giving way for FYROM to join the European Union and NATO, at the expense of long term stability in the Balkans.
FYROM is a deeply unstable country with a fragile peace that has existed with the large Albanian minority in the country. FYROM’s Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said of the deal “Macedonia is a geographic region of the Balkans. We now have the north, eastern Macedonia is in Bulgaria, the west is in Albania, and the south belongs to the Greeks.” Territorial conflicts within the Balkans have started for much much less than the kinds of things the FYROM Prime Minister is proposing.
FYROM has a very large population of Albanians who do hold very fierce loyalties to Albania in their hearts, and the claim of Albania being part of this wider Macedonia it won’t go well with the Albanians in FYROM or in Albania.
Greece will vote out the incumbent SYRIZA government and replace it with the opposition New Democracy Party who is ferociously opposed to the deal, and would seek to rescind it leading to more tensions. FYROM will continue to lay claim to the name Macedonia, despite the fact Alexander the Great was Greek and not Slavic.
Bulgaria has been very uneasy over this deal also as Sofia and Skopje continue to have tense relations. Bulgaria’s Defense Minister Krasimir Karkachanov said that the separate Macedonian language doesn’t exist, infuriating the FYROM government. The Defense Minister said “Macedonia had continued to “play tricks … falsify history and to force a Macedonian identity and language not only within Macedonia, but also on Bulgarian territory”. Friends FYROM and the use of the name of Macedonia was done by Tito and the people there long identified as Bulgarians and the territory of FYROM was long Bulgarian and they spoke Bulgarian. The Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva said that if FYROM didn’t accept their demands that they would not accept EU and NATO membership for FYROM. “One of these conditions is to have good neighborly relations during the accession talks, not to pursue isolationist and nationalist policies, and to not steal your neighbors history or deny your shared history. Bulgaria will impose these demands very clearly” Zaharieva said.
With the brewing conflict that is inevitable in the very unstable FYROM that will further divide NATO as Turkey and the US support FYROM, any future Greek government will oppose FYROM, Albania and Bulgaria two solid Turkish allies will be against Turkey on this important matter, further splintering a badly divided alliance. What are we then expected to do when the situation in the Balkans falls apart?
US Turkey relations have dramatically deteriorated as many issues divide the two NATO allies. The US has refused to extradite deep state coup mastermind Fethullah Gülen back to Turkey really viewed as a stab in the back by the US. Turkey and Russia have rebuilt the relationship which was destroyed after the Turks took the bait by the globalists and shot down the Russian jet, Turkey apologized for the downing of the jet, and now the purchasing of the S-400 missile system has enraged US policy makers, and some parts of the Trump administration. President Trump put sanctions on Turkey for the jailing of Pastor Andrew Brunson. The support for the YPG who are fighting the NATO ally Turkey has in the eyes of many made the two’s commitment to the defense of the other nation as stated under Article 5, seem completely pointless.
Montenegro’s accession into NATO has been a very controversial decision for many reasons as it is another very volatile unstable country in the Balkans. The people of Montenegro don’t want anything to do with NATO membership as polling shows. Montenegro was never given a choice on whether they wanted to join NATO. The country is deeply divided among religious and ethnic lines, and as history shows often that peace is very fragile, like their peace with Kosovo who they had a territorial dispute with for a long time. Montenegro has no strategic importance, the economy is so weak that if they further took Chinese loans to fund their highway to nowhere then there would be an economic collapse as the debt levels are unsustainable. If Montenegro defaults on the debt payments as they likely will, then China will have a Sri Lanka in Europe. Montenegro was forced the government to raise taxes, partially freeze public sector wages and end a benefit for mothers to get its finances in order and the debt continues to rise. Montenegro sent 20 non combat troops to Afghanistan a war we have no chance of winning, is that 20 non combat troops worth defending a country who doesn’t pay its 2% of GDP on Defense, an economically very troubled country, that has been mismanaged by corrupt oligarchs and multinationals. The right thing to do with Montenegro is not to keep them in NATO against the wishes of the people, but instead for the 20 non combat troops offer them a large trade deal which would help the financial state of the small Balkan country.
Iceland doesn’t even have a military but they are a member of NATO for what reason?
Let us look as to the question of is NATO is this force for peace we are always told that it is.
NATO was not remotely a defensive pact for peace in Serbia when they bombed Serbia and Montenegro into the stoneage. Slobodan Milosevic was not a good man but NATO was not supporting particularly good people in Kosovo. The main fighting force in Kosovo for the separatist side was the Kosovo Liberation Army. Human Rights Watch detailed a disturbing set of reports detailing horrific war crimes committed against Serbs Roma and non separatist Albanians.
“The KLA was responsible for serious abuses… including abductions and murders of Serbs and ethnic Albanians considered collaborators with the state. Elements of the KLA are also responsible for post-conflict attacks on Serbs, Roma, and other non-Albanians, as well as ethnic Albanian political rivals… widespread and systematic burning and looting of homes belonging to Serbs, Roma, and other minorities and the destruction of Orthodox churches and monasteries… combined with harassment and intimidation designed to force people from their homes and communities… elements of the KLA are clearly responsible for many of these crimes.”
The International Organization for Migration in Kosovo discovered an astounding 10% of the KLA soldiers being children with some even younger than 16.
The KLA engaged in atrocities against Serbs in Kosovo they bombed cafe’s police station’s killing countless innocent civilians in the process. A lot of the money they got also came in from drug running. In massacres across Kosovo against the Serb minority hundreds were killed. In the Lapušnik prison camp – Haradin Bala was found guilty of torture and crimes against prisoners in the camp. Bill Clinton’s Special Envoy to the Balkans admitted that the KLA the main group in Kosovo was a terrorist organization.
Between 1999 and 2004 the astounding reports came out that in a minority Serb province; land which has been Serbia’s since the 1300s that 140 holy sites were destroyed in attacks by different separatists in Kosovo.
Slobodan Milosevic being a bad man doesn’t mean that you need to solve the solution by aligning with terrorist organizations and in addition bomb Serbia and Montenegro into the stone age, bombing every bridge on the Danube and killing mostly civilians. The conflict in Yugoslavia was an internal war in one of the province’s Kosovo between two sides who neither of who were good.
Libya was not attacking anybody and it was having an internal conflict between secularist Gaddafi’s forces and the Islamist terrorists who know control large parts of Libya.
First you should all know what Libya was like before the regime change against the secular strongman and compare it with what Libya now is thanks to NATO and the globalist countries who illegally overthrew Gaddafi. Keep in mind with the facts I will mention that isn’t an endorsement of everything Arab Socialism stands for on policy, and also Gaddafi was able to get rid of all debt in Libya.
The 10 facts report on Global Research is simply astounding just what happened in Libya under Gaddafi
1. In Libya a home is considered a natural human right
In Gaddafi’s Green Book it states: ”The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not be owned by others”. Gaddafi’s Green Book is the formal leader’s political philosophy, it was first published in 1975 and was intended reading for all Libyans even being included in the national curriculum.
2. Education and medical treatment were all free
Under Gaddafi, Libya could boast one of the best healthcare services in the Middle East and Africa. Also if a Libyan citizen could not access the desired educational course or correct medical treatment in Libya they were funded to go abroad.
3. Gaddafi carried out the world’s largest irrigation project
The largest irrigation system in the world also known as the great man made river was designed to make water readily available to all Libyan’s across the entire country. It was funded by the Gaddafi government and it said that Gaddafi himself called it ”the eighth wonder of the world”.
4. It was free to start a farming business
If any Libyan wanted to start a farm they were given a house, farm land and live stock and seeds all free of charge.
5. A bursary was given to mothers with newborn babies
When a Libyan woman gave birth she was given 5000 (US dollars) for herself and the child.
6. Electricity was free
Electricity was free in Libya meaning absolutely no electric bills!
7. Cheap petrol
During Gaddafi’s reign the price of petrol in Libya was as low as 0.14 (US dollars) per litre.
8. Gaddafi raised the level of education
Before Gaddafi only 25% of Libyans were literate. This figure was brought up to 87% with 25% earning university degrees.
9. Libya had It’s own state bank
Libya had its own State bank, which provided loans to citizens at zero percent interest by law and they had no external debt.
10. The gold dinar
Before the fall of Tripoli and his untimely demise, Gaddafi was trying to introduce a single African currency linked to gold. Following in the footsteps of the late great pioneer Marcus Garvey who first coined the term ”United States of Africa,” Gaddafi wanted to introduce and only trade in the African gold Dinar – a move which would have thrown the world economy into chaos.
The Dinar was widely opposed by the ‘elite’ of today’s society and who could blame them. African nations would have finally had the power to bring itself out of debt and poverty and only trade in this precious commodity. They would have been able to finally say ‘no’ to external exploitation and charge whatever they felt suitable for precious resources. It has been said that the gold Dinar was the real reason for the NATO led rebellion, in a bid to oust the outspoken leader.
(Credit all goes to Global Research for the facts shown)
Libya has now become a hotbed of Islamic extremism, it risks destabilizing Tunisia and even Time Magazine reported on the shocking extent of the slave trade now in Libya.
NATO is anything but a force for peace but with the fall of the Soviet Union what has the point of it become? The left and the neocons endlessly will scream Russia, they’re the reason… put aside the fact there is a thing called nuclear deterrent, do the Europeans take the Russian threat seriously? Germany has 34,805 US troops in their country, they sign a massive energy deal with Russia, and they spend less than 1.5% of their GDP on Defense Spending. Germany has practically no air force, it has less than 1/3 the tanks it had in the 2000s and less than half the tanks they have are ready to fight, they have only 12 helicopters ready, and 6 submarines. On our southern border, we have a humanitarian and national security crisis, we are going to be overrun by the latest caravan, and our troops in a Russian energy colony who spends nowhere near 2% on Defense. NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg vowed to push Germany harder to fulfill their 2% obligation and he has been hesitant to criticize the lack of spending by NATO allies, but he is all too happy when more money is spent.
Surely France would meet its 2% obligation I mean President Macron goes to Russia and acts like a tough guy against Putin saying oh I am not scared I have an army we will fight, and of course Macron lecturing Trump about being a reliable ally, surely his country fulfills its obligations to NATO… Nope France only spends 1.8% of its GDP on Defense. This is the same Emmanuel Macron who called the US a threat and wants to build a European Army. Why we would continue a NATO alliance with any country who chooses to join with the European Army instead of NATO is beyond me.
We are on the hook for the territorial integrity of Lithuania and Latvia two of the Baltic Countries who scream the loudest about the Russian threat, they don’t pay the 2% and they aren’t planning to reach 2% this year.
Russia is not the threat it was in the Soviet era, Ukraine was an illegal coup against a democratically elected government replacing it with neonazis, the current Interior Minister Arsen Avakov appointed a neo nazi Azov Battalion commander as the number 2 in the ministry, and can’t forget the Parliament Speaker Andriy Parbuiy ex Neo Nazi from the party that preceded the Svoboda Party, and in Georgia even the EU said they started the war. Russia spends 1/10 America does on Defense, it has 1 aircraft carrier. Russia’s a developing economy still, as the economy was wiped out in the 1990s.
We should not be afraid to debate the question of NATO membership! We should ask the questions like what do you do when Turkey and Greece are on the verge of war. We should ask questions like what will NATO decide regarding Turkey? We should ask why we bring unstable corrupt volatile Balkan countries into NATO. We should ask what we are willing to sacrifice in an age most Americans are sick of endless war. The left, the neocons don’t want to debate this question because they don’t have answers to these questions and countless more about NATO.
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