Erdogan threatens Europe

Seems like things are heating up here with Erdogan getting upset that European nations won't let his people run political campaigns in their countries to get Turkish expats to vote expanded powers for he budding and growing dictatorship.

1. When are we going to kick Turkey out of NATO?

2. Will Europe finally stand up to Erdogan's threats and cut Turkey off completely and secure their borders (i.e. Erdogan is coercing Europe by threat of sending waves immigrants)?

I wonder where this will end up. It will be interesting and I hope that Europe will finally start waking up and defend themselves.

Erdogan warns Europeans 'will not walk safely' on streets | Daily Mail Online

Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan has issued a chilling warning that Europeans 'will not walk safely on the streets' as tensions between Ankara and the EU escalated further today.
Erdogan has been locked in a row with Germany and Holland after his officials were barred from drumming up support on the continent for an April referendum on boosting his powers.
During a speech in Ankara, the president said: 'If you continue to behave like this, tomorrow in no part of the world, no European, no Westerner will be able to take steps on the street safely and peacefully.

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Right about now I figure Merkel is wondering what she was thinking when she decided to try to stay on. This thug is plenty willing to make good on his threat to flood Europe with humans to make sure she loses as Germany breaks under the weight.

Fishking said:

Seems like things are heating up here with Erdogan getting upset that European nations won't let his people run political campaigns in their countries to get Turkish expats to vote expanded powers for he budding and growing dictatorship.

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Where's a COuP when you need one?

Fishking said:

1. When are we going to kick Turkey out of NATO?

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The nation and its people? I hope never. Erdogan's dicatatorship? Yesterday wouldn't be too soon.

Fishking said:

2. Will Europe finally stand up to Erdogan's threats and cut Turkey off completely and secure their borders (i.e. Erdogan is coercing Europe by threat of sending waves immigrants)?

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They need to lock down their borders immediately and ostracize the Turkish government from normal diplomatic channels. Maybe if the Turks are shown by the rest of the European and Asian countries that keeping Erdogan is detrimental to their personal livelihoods then maybe they will topple the bastard and go back to a secular democratic republican form of government.

Fishking said:

I wonder where this will end up. It will be interesting and I hope that Europe will finally start waking up and defend themselves.

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Europe sat up and took notice when Erdogan abandoned NATO and started spooning with Putin and Russia to cement regional power in Syria and the surrounding area. They also opened an eye when Erdogan began openly threatening European nations and comparing modern Germany to Nazis. Which I find ironic as hell given that Erdogan is the one that has been rounding up political prisoners and putting them in concentration camps as well as killing them off en masse.

The Turks will have to clean their own house. There are too many entanglements such as the NATO treaty (the US has nuke capable delivery systems and other critical military assets in Turkey) for current NATO members to do much of anything directly. However, as you've said above, indirect action such as closing the borders both physically and economically, as well as isolating Turkey from the rest of the world diplomatically is a reasonable option at this point. IMHO. The US would need to redeploy its assets to Israel or even better, Jordan, before that happened, however.

Beaudreaux said:

Where's a COuP when you need one?

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The moderating secular force that was the military lost it's last gasp breath when they failed in the recent coup. Turkey is now a lost cause.

The nation and its people? I hope never. Erdogan's dicatatorship? Yesterday wouldn't be too soon.

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Yes, the nation and it's people. The people have become too radicalized at this point and actually worked on the side of Erdogan during the last gasp coup attempt. Turkey is lost and you don't lie in bed with snakes.

They need to lock down their borders immediately and ostracize the Turkish government from normal diplomatic channels. Maybe if the Turks are shown by the rest of the European and Asian countries that keeping Erdogan is detrimental to their personal livelihoods then maybe they will topple the bastard and go back to a secular democratic republican form of government.

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Agreed that they need to cut Turkey off but there will be no toppling happening anymore. That's a fanciful idea from a time that has passed.

Europe sat up and took notice when Erdogan abandoned NATO and started spooning with Putin and Russia to cement regional power in Syria and the surrounding area. They also opened an eye when Erdogan began openly threatening European nations and comparing modern Germany to Nazis. Which I find ironic as hell given that Erdogan is the one that has been rounding up political prisoners and putting them in concentration camps as well as killing them off en masse.

The Turks will have to clean their own house. There are too many entanglements such as the NATO treaty (the US has nuke capable delivery systems and other critical military assets in Turkey) for current NATO members to do much of anything directly. However, as you've said above, indirect action such as closing the borders both physically and economically, as well as isolating Turkey from the rest of the world diplomatically is a reasonable option at this point. IMHO. The US would need to redeploy its assets to Israel or even better, Jordan, before that happened, however.

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Yes, we need to start pulling our military assets out of Turkey. It will be a tricky proposal because I'm not sure what their response would be once we started doing it.

Erdogan is a wannabe tinpot dictator and a loser. As we saw in the (failed) coup attempt, much of Turkey does not like him. However, a good number of Turks are Erdogan-loyalists, enough to risk plunging Turkey into a Civil War in the near future (if the President accelerates his dictatorial and repugnant policies). I would be against 'kicking Turkey out' of NATO until that happens, however. Anything like that would widen the gap between NATO and Russia and set us par for the course for a European or World War.

I would like to see the West take a firm position on opposing Erdogan, if the amendments pass on April 16th there will be strict sanctions imposed on Turkey.

Fishking said:

Seems like things are heating up here with Erdogan getting upset that European nations won't let his people run political campaigns in their countries to get Turkish expats to vote expanded powers for he budding and growing dictatorship.

1. When are we going to kick Turkey out of NATO?

2. Will Europe finally stand up to Erdogan's threats and cut Turkey off completely and secure their borders (i.e. Erdogan is coercing Europe by threat of sending waves immigrants)?

I wonder where this will end up. It will be interesting and I hope that Europe will finally start waking up and defend themselves.

Erdogan warns Europeans 'will not walk safely' on streets | Daily Mail Online

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Truthfully he needs to be taken care of, through sanctions or war or whatever. The big obstacle though is russia, who most likely does not care one way or another about turkey except passing through their sovereign waters, which is required for russia to leave the black sea and enter the mediterrainian.

If erdogan is threatening though, the russia obstacle could easily be bypassed and we could even get russia in on the fight by simply putting into treaty russian use of the straight. Syria and iran will likely do nothing to protect the turkish govt, since he has been a thorn in both of their sides.

Armenia would likely join the fight, as the only thing that has kept turkey from attacking armenia has been russian troops under the permission of the armenian govt. Now armenias neighbor(too long to spell) sides with turkey.

I think turkey is in a bad position, if they threatened enough to justify a war, they have more enemies than friends surrounding them, they also have armenians, kurds, and assyrians who all in around the last 100 years have been subject to genocide and ethnic cleansing, this would create instability within turkey itself if these groups saw any weakness in the govt, especially if attacked by another govt.

beerftw said:

Truthfully he needs to be taken care of, through sanctions or war or whatever. The big obstacle though is russia, who most likely does not care one way or another about turkey except passing through their sovereign waters, which is required for russia to leave the black sea and enter the mediterrainian.

If erdogan is threatening though, the russia obstacle could easily be bypassed and we could even get russia in on the fight by simply putting into treaty russian use of the straight. Syria and iran will likely do nothing to protect the turkish govt, since he has been a thorn in both of their sides.

Armenia would likely join the fight, as the only thing that has kept turkey from attacking armenia has been russian troops under the permission of the armenian govt. Now armenias neighbor(too long to spell) sides with turkey.

I think turkey is in a bad position, if they threatened enough to justify a war, they have more enemies than friends surrounding them, they also have armenians, kurds, and assyrians who all in around the last 100 years have been subject to genocide and ethnic cleansing, this would create instability within turkey itself if these groups saw any weakness in the govt, especially if attacked by another govt.

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Well...I'm not about playing Team America World Police. The easiest and least we can do is to kick them out of NATO. Then the people of Turkey can worry about fixing themselves.

if america didn't need turkey, turkey would not be in NATO;
so, it is clear about geopolitical interests. nato and the US will continue to play double games with turkey because they still need turkey, to prolong the war in Syria and make a profit from the war. the owners of military industry in the US are against kicking turkey out of NATO.

Fishking said:

Seems like things are heating up here with Erdogan getting upset that European nations won't let his people run political campaigns in their countries to get Turkish expats to vote expanded powers for he budding and growing dictatorship.

1. When are we going to kick Turkey out of NATO?

2. Will Europe finally stand up to Erdogan's threats and cut Turkey off completely and secure their borders (i.e. Erdogan is coercing Europe by threat of sending waves immigrants)?

I wonder where this will end up. It will be interesting and I hope that Europe will finally start waking up and defend themselves.

Erdogan warns Europeans 'will not walk safely' on streets | Daily Mail Online

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Kicking them out of NATO is one thing, but going nuclear on every last provocation is exactly what has gotten us into many wars that simply were not worth the blood and treasure.

Mr Person said:

Kicking them out of NATO is one thing, but going nuclear on every last provocation is exactly what has gotten us into many wars that simply were not worth the blood and treasure.

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Well, there hasn't seemed to be much to stop Erdogan. He has rapidly grown his power and committed all kinds of human rights violations. The recent threatening of all European citizens by saying none of them will be able to walk the streets safely was somehow not as big of a deal as it should have been.

This is a very serious issue that's spiraling out of control.

Fishking said:

Well, there hasn't seemed to be much to stop Erdogan. He has rapidly grown his power and committed all kinds of human rights violations. The recent threatening of all European citizens by saying none of them will be able to walk the streets safely was somehow not as big of a deal as it should have been.

This is a very serious issue that's spiraling out of control.

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What has happened to Turkey is so sad, both in the long term and these last few decades.

It looks to me that it is coming unglued. Given the mess the whole region is in largely thanks to the once great USA and the fact that Europe is also looking about ready to crash because of their failure to build things right I dont see how Turkey pulls out of this dive. Maybe China has a great idea the West never thought of? Their power in the region is growing.

Fishking said:

Well...I'm not about playing Team America World Police. The easiest and least we can do is to kick them out of NATO. Then the people of Turkey can worry about fixing themselves.

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A lot of oil that supplies Europe runs through Turkey. You cut them out of NATO and force them into Russia's camp (Who supplies most of Europe's natural gas) and you put Europe in an immense economic deadlock.

Jredbaron96 said:

A lot of oil that supplies Europe runs through Turkey. You cut them out of NATO and force them into Russia's camp (Who supplies most of Europe's natural gas) and you put Europe in an immense economic deadlock.

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Europe can figure that out for themselves. The U.S. cannot afford, neither is it appreciated, to play Team America World Police.

I don't think he realizes how easily we can turn Turkey into another Iraq or Syria.

Abbazorkzog said:

Erdogan is a wannabe tinpot dictator and a loser. As we saw in the (failed) coup attempt, much of Turkey does not like him. However, a good number of Turks are Erdogan-loyalists, enough to risk plunging Turkey into a Civil War in the near future (if the President accelerates his dictatorial and repugnant policies). I would be against 'kicking Turkey out' of NATO until that happens, however. Anything like that would widen the gap between NATO and Russia and set us par for the course for a European or World War.

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Kicking Turkey out of NATO is just plain stupid. The present Govt will eventually change. Looking at any map will support the strategic importance of Turkey to NATO.

beerftw said:

Truthfully he needs to be taken care of, through sanctions or war or whatever. The big obstacle though is russia, who most likely does not care one way or another about turkey except passing through their sovereign waters, which is required for russia to leave the black sea and enter the mediterrainian.

If erdogan is threatening though, the russia obstacle could easily be bypassed and we could even get russia in on the fight by simply putting into treaty russian use of the straight. Syria and iran will likely do nothing to protect the turkish govt, since he has been a thorn in both of their sides.

Armenia would likely join the fight, as the only thing that has kept turkey from attacking armenia has been russian troops under the permission of the armenian govt. Now armenias neighbor(too long to spell) sides with turkey.

I think turkey is in a bad position, if they threatened enough to justify a war, they have more enemies than friends surrounding them, they also have armenians, kurds, and assyrians who all in around the last 100 years have been subject to genocide and ethnic cleansing, this would create instability within turkey itself if these groups saw any weakness in the govt, especially if attacked by another govt.

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Armenia would not join the fight. If that happened Azerbaijan would take that opportunity to take Nagorno Karabakh. The Azeri military to my knowledge is better equipped and larger than the Armenian military

That leaves Syria, Iraq, Iran and Georgia

Syria is a mess so is Iraq. Iran has no interests in that area (the last thing Iran would want is more Kurds). Georgia can not do it as it would be concerned about Russia moving into Georgia during the chaos.

The only current regional threat to Turkey are Kurdish separatists (namely the PKK)

If I am not mistaken the Turkish military has the second largest standing army and is rather safe from attack from other regional countries.

If the US was to attack, Turkey would likely have enough forward knowledge as the US would most likely remove the nuclear weapons it has based there before any attack. Any strike that failed to topple the Erdogan government would see the Turkish military make a plat for those weapons

JANFU said:

Kicking Turkey out of NATO is just plain stupid. The present Govt will eventually change. Looking at any map will support the strategic importance of Turkey to NATO.

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He may be stupid enough to risk it (Bulgaria Recalls Turkey Ambassador As Tensions Rise in Europe).

This guy is a ****ing lunatic as is obvious from the Newsweek video alone.

There's also this:

Turkish-Bulgarian dual citizens blocked from voting by far-right extremists.

I bet these far-right extremists are controlled opposition from the Putin-Erdogan camp to incite public appeal toward the Kremlin puppets. If NATO does kick Turkey out, Turkey would become the third Eastern European country directly threatening the NATO alliance in addition to Russia and Hungary (and a Turk-backed Bulgarian puppet government), and Turkey is big, one of the top ten foremost military powerhouses on the planet.

JANFU said:

Kicking Turkey out of NATO is just plain stupid. The present Govt will eventually change. Looking at any map will support the strategic importance of Turkey to NATO.

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So keep an unstable government that is threatening other allies is a good country to have an alliance with that we have a mutual defense agreement with is a good idea? No thank you. I wouldn't want to defend that POS government because they did something stupid. What if Russia had responded more aggressively to their bomber getting shot down?

They government isn't going to be turning around anytime soon. Their coup attempt was the last-gaps of a secular attempt at moderating the government (the traditional role their military played).

Abbazorkzog said:

He may be stupid enough to risk it (Bulgaria Recalls Turkey Ambassador As Tensions Rise in Europe).

This guy is a ****ing lunatic as is obvious from the Newsweek video alone.

There's also this:

Turkish-Bulgarian dual citizens blocked from voting by far-right extremists.

I bet these far-right extremists are controlled opposition from the Putin-Erdogan camp to incite public appeal toward the Kremlin puppets. If NATO does kick Turkey out, Turkey would become the third Eastern European country directly threatening the NATO alliance in addition to Russia and Hungary (and a Turk-backed Bulgarian puppet government), and Turkey is big, one of the top ten foremost military powerhouses on the planet.

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Turkey is already threatening NATO and Europe. As far as their military, it's clown shoes. No country in the world can even stand in our shade. Conventional military force is the only area where we remain king, by a long shot. No, there is no conventional military threat from Turkey. It would all be asymmetric threats, with releasing a tide of refugees and migrants probably being their best option.

Fishking said:

Turkey is already threatening NATO and Europe. As far as their military, it's clown shoes. No country in the world can even stand in our shade. Conventional military force is the only area where we remain king, by a long shot. No, there is no conventional military threat from Turkey. It would all be asymmetric threats, with releasing a tide of refugees and migrants probably being their best option.

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The conventional threat is not nonexistent. While the U.S. may be far superior militarily, Turkey is far from non-threatening. Turkey is a regional power with political influence in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Syria, Iraq and the Caucasus - not to mention the Turkish military is the second-strongest military in the entirety of NATO.

Abbazorkzog said:

The conventional threat is not nonexistent. While the U.S. may be far superior militarily, Turkey is far from non-threatening. Turkey is a regional power with political influence in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Syria, Iraq and the Caucasus - not to mention the Turkish military is the second-strongest military in the entirety of NATO.

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I remember when Iraq was this big, giant, threat as well. It had the 4th or 5th largest army in the world. We curb-stomped them. There is no conventional threat from any military in the entire world. It's all about asymmetric threats.

I could NEVER understand why The United States has this love affair of getting involved with authoritarian politicos & dictators .........

Lord Tammerlain said:

Armenia would not join the fight. If that happened Azerbaijan would take that opportunity to take Nagorno Karabakh. The Azeri military to my knowledge is better equipped and larger than the Armenian military

That leaves Syria, Iraq, Iran and Georgia

Syria is a mess so is Iraq. Iran has no interests in that area (the last thing Iran would want is more Kurds). Georgia can not do it as it would be concerned about Russia moving into Georgia during the chaos.

The only current regional threat to Turkey are Kurdish separatists (namely the PKK)

If I am not mistaken the Turkish military has the second largest standing army and is rather safe from attack from other regional countries.

If the US was to attack, Turkey would likely have enough forward knowledge as the US would most likely remove the nuclear weapons it has based there before any attack. Any strike that failed to topple the Erdogan government would see the Turkish military make a plat for those weapons

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I am not sure armenia would avoid the fight, they beat the azeri army before pretty badly. Their issue would be a two front war, if they fought turkey, the other guys would march and and take advantage of the division of a small military.

This would still leave russia though, who still backs armenia and has had friendly relations with them since even before the socialist revolution.