Weird Headline?
Dunno quite what to say?
The United States blocked Israel’s participation in the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s (GCTF) first meeting in Istanbul on Friday, despite Israel’s having one of the most extensive counterterrorism experiences in the world.
Israel was excluded from the meeting due to fierce objections by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a Washington-based source told Globes news.
Not much to add. Draw your own conclusions.
Why does this fit at TAH? YMMV
Category: Geezer Alert!, Politics
Erdogan wants to be THE Muslim powerbroker in Eurasia. Excluding Israel is a major victory for him as it comes so soon in the people’s memory of his being unmanned by the Palestinian flotilla disasters.
I think this fits perfectly at TAH. The US is now taking counter-terrorism advice from those that support terrorism, while excluding an ally who has vast amounts of practical experience in dealing with terrorism. Thus the military is about to have some seriously f’ed up CT policy dictated to it.
And WE blocked them? Have we completely lost our foreign policy minds???
We elected this guy a few years ago…
Well, PN, now that you ask, it does appear that yes, we have.
This, from Foggy Bottom, “The GCTF sought from the outset to bridge old and deep divides in the international community between Western donor nations and Muslim majority nations. And it has, I think, done that quite effectively,” a top US official said at the press briefing prior to the opening session. Sounds like the same kind of “outreach” that NASA is engaged in.
Who is “we”??? I didn’t vote for him.
I have become incredibly disturbed by the leaks that have been reported by the media during the last two weeks. Wasn’t Manning’s misbegotten adventure bad enough? And now this, too?
Of course we listen to the country who has yet to admit their involvement in the genocide of the Armenians. It’s sad that they’re the most free Muslim country in the world.
Sounds to me like we’re right on track… what else do you do with a country which has sponsored blockade-breaking convoys of militants to Gaza? Why, support ’em and suck up too ’em. I am sure that any day now we’ll apologize from bringing up that pesky Armenian issue, too….
It’s entirely possible the Turks are angling for something like more control of the Middle East. A lot of it used to be part of the Ottoman Empire, very long ago, and I think busted up after World War I.