I've been saying for a while now that Turkey can no longer be considered a reliable member of NATO and a trusted ally of the West given Erdogan's arch Islamist sentiments and therefore its continuing membership in the Western alliance should be deeply questioned and the sale of the F 35 to them should be suspended or at least brought under review - and yet we hear absolutely nothing from the leaders of the West.
Two recent events should absolutely bring an end to that silence and if they do not then one will only be able to conclude that political correctness by Western leaders is judged as a more important thing than strategic coherence. Erdogan has openly declared in a speech that the West is the enemy of Islam and went so far as to say that the people of the west enjoy watching Muslims die - there's no way to rationalize rhetoric like that in defense of Turkey's continuing membership in a Western alliance - but damning as those words are there's something worse: Israeli intelligence has uncovered material support by Turkey for Palestinian terror by allowing Hamas to set up a 'command' infrastructure in Turkey - this is completely unacceptable and should be condemned at the highest level.
And yet we hear nothing except of course from Israel which is rightly outraged. Only a fool at this point would expect leadership on an issue like this from Obama and so it will be up to the Republican controlled Congress to raise the appropriate concern - if they don't one is really going to have to wonder just how detached from coherent strategic thought the West overall is.
Now I suppose one could argue that booting the only Muslim entity from NATO would do more harm than good and so the best of the Bad options is to ignore Erdogan's abuses and that amounts to a form of strategic coherence. Okay, maybe - it also amounts to a form of sticking ones head in the sand when it comes to the problem of Islamism not being compatible with Western notions of liberty and personal freedom and the open marketplace of ideas enshrined in our democratic institutions. I get that you often form alliances with people you don't agree with - but you do not form binding alliances with people who see you as the enemy and give open support to the enemies of your strategic partners - that's insane.
Two recent events should absolutely bring an end to that silence and if they do not then one will only be able to conclude that political correctness by Western leaders is judged as a more important thing than strategic coherence. Erdogan has openly declared in a speech that the West is the enemy of Islam and went so far as to say that the people of the west enjoy watching Muslims die - there's no way to rationalize rhetoric like that in defense of Turkey's continuing membership in a Western alliance - but damning as those words are there's something worse: Israeli intelligence has uncovered material support by Turkey for Palestinian terror by allowing Hamas to set up a 'command' infrastructure in Turkey - this is completely unacceptable and should be condemned at the highest level.
And yet we hear nothing except of course from Israel which is rightly outraged. Only a fool at this point would expect leadership on an issue like this from Obama and so it will be up to the Republican controlled Congress to raise the appropriate concern - if they don't one is really going to have to wonder just how detached from coherent strategic thought the West overall is.
Now I suppose one could argue that booting the only Muslim entity from NATO would do more harm than good and so the best of the Bad options is to ignore Erdogan's abuses and that amounts to a form of strategic coherence. Okay, maybe - it also amounts to a form of sticking ones head in the sand when it comes to the problem of Islamism not being compatible with Western notions of liberty and personal freedom and the open marketplace of ideas enshrined in our democratic institutions. I get that you often form alliances with people you don't agree with - but you do not form binding alliances with people who see you as the enemy and give open support to the enemies of your strategic partners - that's insane.
