US orders families of consulate staff to leave Turkey
In recent weeks, the Turkish government has taken advantage of the Mosul attack in Iraq to attack Kurdish forces in Turkey. Now, the situation there is so volatile that the State Department has ordered families of their employees out of the country, according to AFP;
The order was announced in the second travel warning that the State Department issued for Americans in Turkey in less than a week, reflecting US concerns about “increased threats from terrorist groups.”
The decision to evacuate the families of staff was made “based on security information indicating extremist groups are continuing aggressive efforts to attack US citizens in areas of Istanbul where they reside or frequent.”
From CNN;
Meanwhile, Turkey’s intrusion into the Syrian civil war has strained relations with the United States.
Turkey says it wants to help Syrian rebel forces fight ISIS, but Turkish warplanes have also bombed US-allied Kurdish fighters who are also fighting ISIS. Kurds are a large ethnic minority along the Turkish-Syrian border.
With friends like these….
Category: Terror War
……who needs enemas?
Non CPOs need enemas?
Mwahaha!!!!
Very family friendly website.
Ahhh, the continuing blowback from Bush’s war in Iraq just never stops, does it. Thanks George!
I saw your comment in another thread, Joe, and it, too, was asinine. I refrained from saying as much but I’m afraid that only encouraged you to comment again. Is it true that you nearly stopped huffing spray paint a few months ago?
Can we get him to go back to climbing rocks? I hear there’s a landfall in the eastern Rockies waiting for a climber.
Was it the one where he referenced Waco wrt the recent acquittals in the Northwest? I saw that as well and it was despicable, but exactly what I would expect from an authoritarian bootlicker like Joe.
Armed cowpokes are not little kids. They are, um, adults. Quit infantilizing them.
I am certain that you are completely incapable of understanding the moral arguments against using the power of the state under any circumstances given that you were slobbering over just that in the other thread. It’s hilarious that you presume to lecture the rest of us given that, on your best day, you struggle to achieve semi-coherence.
Infantilizing? You actually typed that with a straight face?
I thought ‘truthiness’ was inane.
Tell, me boys and girls, can we make up any more silly words today? I knew that you could…
ISIS/Daesh wasn’t around until 2014, you imbecile.
That’s OBAMA’S WAR, the one with NO BOOTS ON THE GROUND, that mission creep thing you may have heard of.
Just when you think Joe the rock climbing socialist can’t get any dumber, he finds a shovel and keeps digging.
Newsflash, dickcheese–the Turks have hated the Kurds for CENTURIES. Blame that on Bush if you want, but I will say that this feckless administration certainly hasn’t helped matters, most recently with the attempted coup of Erdogan.
Then again, why let a bothersome little thing like facts get in the way of your agenda, and the fact that Bush has been gone for eight years now.
“the Turks have hated the Kurds for CENTURIES”. Duh. And the Arabs hate the Kurds, and the Kurds hate the Arabs, and the Shiites had the Sunnis, and the Sunnis hate the Shiite, and Iran hates Saudi Arabia, and ISIS hates them all…..and on and on and on. That’s why a little thing called regional stability was so crucial, something George Bush totally ignored at our peril; he opened a Pandora’s Box that will plague us for generations. No one, not the world’s leading expert on the middle east, whoever that might be, has a clue how it is gong to play out, like trying to predict the orbital motions of 1,000 planets. Again, thanks George. One of the worst influences in modern history.
The kind of diatribe expected from a true believer in “the cause”. Anything to retroactively justify those “minor excesses” of Stalin and Mao, eh Joe?
After all: those two imposed stability in their respective nations and regions, right? So what if they had to impose dictatorship and murder around 135 million of their own citizens to do that?
Stability is important – but only on terms that support US national interests. A power which dominates a critical region of the world and which is also hostile to US interests is not preferable to instability in that same region.
Go back to fapping yourself to sleep while reading Mao’s “Little Red Book”, Joe. Leave the discussion of US foreign relations to adults who actually have a clue.
Your analogies to Stalin and Mao are more false parallels, completely misplaced and irrelevant. You guys seem to need these simplistic narratives…..
Umm. Ok.
Don’t fear the commie!
Joe, is your entire reason for existing just to show everyone how fucking stupid you are?
If so, congratulations, mission accomplished.
Thank the current Occupant, 1600 Penn Ave, Wash DC. He’s the one whose
clueless gang of naive sycophants and feckless foolsAdministration went against the recommendation of their own experts and refused to negotiate a SOFA with Iraq allowing a reasonable stay-behind force. Had that happened, no Daesh – and thus no excuse for Turkey to start up with the Kurds yet again.Besides, as others have pointed out the Turks and the Kurds have been at odds for literally centuries. So blaming anyone in the last 100 years for anything in that conflict merely exposes your ignorance of both history and foreign relations.
Go back to fapping yourself to sleep reading Das Kapital, Joe.
Hey Joe, GFY sideways wit rusty tangled barbed wire wrapped in asbestos. Jimmeh Kahtuh fucked up on Iran, but the current feckless gang of fools has fucked up the entire Middle East.
But on a positive note, I think I found Joe’s theme song. It’s Zappa, so you know it’s both non-PC and NSFW/around children/clergy/prudes. Enjoy.
Wanna know what too much snorting detergent and wild plooking does to you over time? Just read Joe’s comments here. (smile)
I definitely need to get back to Montana. That dental floss isn’t going to harvest itself.
Give my regards to Nanook if you see him. I understand he’s vacationing there this year. (smile)
Is there any place left where people still think with their brains, instead of their stomachs?
Yes – unless Texas BBQ is involved. Then I think with my stomach.
If this were happening eight years ago, maybe you could’ve had a point. Unfortunately for you, there’s lots and lots of Obama in this particular mix, far too much for BDS to apply. The chickens coming home to roost in the Middle East are property of your Glorious Leader.
You know, it’s like how I’ve heard so many liberals blame Nixon for Vietnam. They never like to acknowledge how it was LBJ’s mess from the first combat deployment to January 20, 1969. Something in there about a childish aversion towards taking responsibility for things you’ve done.
I may have said this before, but — well, Joe the Rockclimbing Non-Migratory Bird Offender is so dumb, he’d turn down a free sample of Mary Jane, because he doesn’t like girls with that name.
IMHO he’s the proverbial “Joe Shit the ragbag”.
I wonder what plan you geniuses have for the intractable problem of Turkey vs the Kurds, much less the entire chaotic cauldron that is the middle east? Crickets……
Actually, Joe, the problem of “Turkey and the Kurds” (as you phrase it) is indicative of your shallow understanding of the entire region and how it’s related to US interests.
The Kurdish people are spread across four different nations: Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria. So solving the problem of “Turkey and the Kurds” doesn’t solve squat. That would require solving a 5-way problem: one involving the Kurds and the governments of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria.
That ain’t gonna happen any time soon. And if/when it does happen, it will be settled violently, and likely only temporarily. The history of that entire region is one of near-constant warfare dating back to Biblical times. That ain’t gonna change any time soon, either.
Further, as cold as it may seem to say this: the Kurds are close to irrelevant regarding overall US interests in the ME. Our primary interests there are threefold: (1) prevention of regional domination by a power hostile to the US; (2) combating radical Islamic terrorism directed against the US and US allies; and (3) ensuring free access to ME oil. Anything over and above those three is a secondary US interest at best.
The last item (ME oil) is not hugely important to the US these days, but it’s vitally important to certain US allies and trading partners (Europe, East Asia). And we’re economically interdependent with those trading partners for our own economic well-being, so even though we don’t need the oil we do need to be concerned.
Now, how about you go read a 1970s issue or two of Pravda? Who knows: maybe you’ll find the issue with “Miss Outstanding Collective Farm Milkmaid 1970” as the centerfold!
Actually, of all the multitudinous participants in the chaos, the Kurds are perhaps the most rational and perhaps offer the best hope of a region of stability in the intermediate future. We tend to use them when it supports out interests, then forget about them when they become inconvenient.
“(1) prevention of regional domination by a power hostile to the US?” Well there are already two dominant powers in the region, and neither may have our best intersts at heart. It’s complicated
“(2) combating radical Islamic terrorism directed against the US and US allies”. That very notion implies a level of stability and elimination of failed states that breed terrorists. You cannot work to eliminate terrorists without working to increase stability and rule of law. You don’t “combat radical Islamic terrorism” in a vacuum.
But I respect that you put some actual thought into it and didn’t just distill it down to “Joe is a communist (? fascist? socialist? Maoist? Stalinst?)”.
Anyway, back to the meat of the actual subject matter, instead of trading barbs with someone …
To be quite honest, if I were posted somewhere like Turkey, especially in this day and age, my family would not be coming with me. And if my family were, for whatever reason, in-country with me, I’d have gotten them the hell out a long time ago.
Waiting around for the State Department to say it might be a bit dangerous is pretty damned stupid. Anyone with half a brain should have seen the writing on the wall months, even years, ago.
We’re good at multi-tasking, Gravel. Besides, it’s not a trade. It’s entirely lopsided, all of the good guys against the lone bad guy. As for the warning, the State Dept says that “This order applies only to the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul, not to other U.S. diplomatic posts in Turkey.” So, since terrorists don’t read US State Dept warnings or the gazillion posts of it in the media, they won’t know to attack diplomatic posts outside of Istanbul.
Much like the jihadis didn’t know to attack a diplomatic post in Benghazi. Oh, wait. Never mind.
This sounds like it has more to do with Erdogan’s movement towards dictatorship than anything to do with the Kurds. It’s not an exact parallel but I would be watching for something like what happened in 1979 when the US Embassy in Pakistan was overrun by protesters. Given what it takes to get state to actually evacuate families, things have to be really bad in Turkey right now.
And how much of that turmoil a few months ago is connected to what is happening now? I’m referring to Erdogan’s arrests of 9,000 Army officers, and their failed coup.
And Erdogan is trying to re-instate the death penalty in Turkey.
I’m sure that is not related to this at all…..
The only reason I could think of to be stationed in Turkey (hardship, no family), is to pick up and send home several pounds of quality meersham to be made into smooth smoking pipes.
I sort of thought the same thing earlier lol
Has ‘Joe’ submitted his application to be the newest chew toy?
It would be helpful if he had his ‘facts’ straight.
No, that’s just crazy talk on my part. He couldn’t be a chew toy if he knew the facts. Keep it up, Joe. If nothing else, you’ll serve as entertainment.
Fun times for the NEO Wardens.
Is that same smelly brown stain going to keep appearing here under different names all the time? Can’t he be limited to one name so I don’t have to get pissed off all the time from reading his drivel?