Last Minute Survival

Let me be upfront.  Turkey is not an ally and needs to be kicked out of NATO immediately.  Turkey is led by a highly corrupt and fanatical zealot that is playing a suicidal game of chicken with the Russians.  By itself, Turkey would get justifiably stomped by Russia and that would be the end of it.  However, as a NATO ally, Turkey has the ability to suck the US and the world into WWIII by literally picking a fight with Russia.  Most recently, Turkey invaded Iraq and so far has refused to remove its forces against Baghdad’s wishes.  Iraq is now in the process of requesting Russian support to forcibly remove those forces.  This, without doubt, will lead to a huge escalation that hopefully, Europe and the US will have enough sense to distance itself from.  Nonetheless, Turkey’s leader Erdogan is hell bent on provoking a war as a way to solidify his waning grasp on power in Turkey.  Although, I am quite confident Russia has done its homework, let me pontificate for a moment on some points for Russia to consider.

First, Russia can’t be seen as weak and being bullied by Turkey.  Generally this leads directly to escalation, but I am pretty comfortable in saying Russia is the wrong country to pick in this particular game of brinkmanship.  My analysis concludes that NATO will not back Turkey should Russia retaliate in a future confrontation with Turkey over Syria.  As such, Russia should be diplomatic, but be ready to protect their assets with their full military might should they again be threatened by Turkey.  This is a dangerous gamble, but consider that no country in Europe right now looks at Turkey favorably.  “Europe” does not see Turkey as a member of the EU for good reason and it has everything to do with it not being Christian.  Further, Europe knows Turkey is covertly supporting ISIL and is not willing to doom their countries over what amounts to an Arab problem.  Add to the fact Europe still remembers the horrors of World War II and is also very reluctant to trigger a WWI Sarajevo situation where one small event brings down all of Europe in a bloody war because of treaties and alliances.  If not enough, Europeans have become generally pacifist cowards.  So again, yes, Russia should not fear Europe.  However, the US is another issue.  There are lunatic elements within the US government that are dreaming of a chance to start WWIII and battle the Russians.  They are thankfully a minority, but nonetheless influential lot that often joins ranks with the defense industry lobby.  Whether or not they could force the US population to get behind a war is in doubt, but these same forces control the media’s propaganda machine, which is a powerful mind controlling force of the masses.  Nonetheless, as long as Russia isn’t tricked or baited into directly attacking a US ship or jet, I think Turkey will have an impossible challenge trying to convince Americans to go fight and die because they tried to shoot down another Russian jet and got blown out of the sky.

Russia needs to fight fire with fire.  Erdogan has been completely comfortable destabilizing a sovereign nation using terrorist proxies.  Perhaps, he would reconsider his actions if Turkey suddenly found itself being overrun with foreign terrorists.  Even better, when he tries to put down their resistance just as Assad did, he is presented as a brutal murderer of his people by the media and international community.  Russia should realize that it has a ready-made proxy that could be leveraged to really piss off the Turks.  By this I mean arming the hell out of the Kurds and setting them lose on both ISIL and Turkey.  Sure, an invigorated PKK would be almost a blessing for Erdogan at first to solidify power, but a very well-armed PKK could spell not just the end of Erdogan’s regime, but of Turkey as we know it.  Right now, the US has been the reluctant ally of the Kurds because they know they are in a tough political position trying to find a viable force to counter ISIL while not angering their “ally” Turkey.  Thanks to Turkey’s arrogance and aggressive actions, Russia doesn’t have this problem.  Russia should set up operations in Erbil and begin to provide legitimate military support to the Kurds, which would quickly marginalize the US operations in Kurdistan.  The area adjacent to the international airport in Erbil would be an ideal expeditionary base for this operation.  For humor, they could even set it up directly across from the US military’s base in the same location.  Once the Russian foothold is established, they should use the airport as an air bridge to begin shuttling in mountains of Chinese, Iranian, and Russia weapon systems to include RPG-29s with tandem warheads, which would be a nightmare for Turkish armor.  Providing some updated MANPADS like the US has to ISIL elements would also be a nice counterbalance.  Once the PKK and other Kurdish elements are rearmed, all hell would break lose in Turkey.  The violence would get so bad, Turkey would be unable to continue its covert operations to overthrow Assad.  If the Kurds needed some support, Russia could open a second front against Turkey using more proxies.  By this I mean that I am pretty sure there are more than a few Armenians that still would love to revisit old grievances with the Turks.

Finally, just as Russia has been doing, it should continue to expose Erdogan as the corrupt fraud he is to Turkey.  Doing this covertly would make the effort all the more effective.  Anything Russia can do to weaken Erdogan is beneficial.  Further, by attacking Erdogan’s sources of income, Russia really strikes at the heart of Erdogan’s greedy soul.  Russia, the US, Iraq, Syria…they all know Erdogan is profiting hugely from buying ISIL oil cheap and reselling it on the market.  Russia should continue to expose and destroy these channels of wealth.

One may ask why I would take the time to point out to Russia some of Turkey’s weaknesses and to that I would say the American people and Russia have common interest.  Whether or not our leaders in the US will get serious about the extremist menace they created in the Middle East, Russia is serious about wiping out ISIL.  As a Christian and a citizen of the West, I am as good as dead if ISIL gets its way.  I am also smart enough to know that the longer ISIL exists, the tougher it will be to destroy.  Therefore, the quicker someone destroys ISIL, the safer and happier we will be.  Respective of Syria, the last time I checked it has been an ally to the US and has never attacked the US.  Our attacks against Syria are a direct violation of Syria’s sovereignty and as a war, both internationally illegal and domestically unconstitutional.  Respective of our “ally” Turkey, I don’t have much good to say.  They spill our NATO secrets, they refuse to provide support for NATO military missions, they have not so covertly been supporting ISIL and the flow of international terrorists to Europe and the US, and they are reckless in how they are picking a fight with Russia, which could start a nuclear war.  Also, I kind of liked things better as Constantinople and as a student of history haven’t forgotten how close Europe was to being put to the sword by those bastards.  As such, I say to hell with ISIL and Turkey.  If it takes Russia to unscrew the world and they derive some benefit from my pontifications, so be it, god bless them in their endeavor, and shame on the US for not standing up for the rule of law, its own citizens, and the Christians of the world.

By Guiles Hendrik

December 6, 2015