Turkey unleashes massive barrage of tank and artillery fire on ISIS

I see where Turkey PM Ahmet Davutoglu is doing a little chest-thumping over those 200 ISIS baddies his guys have dispatched in the past 48 hours. This is apparently pay-back for that terror-bombing in Istanbul's tourist quarter the other day.

Really?

Is Davutoglu admitting that Turkey knew the locations of 500 ISIS encampments all along, but has done absolutely nothing about them until now? That would seem to support the school of thought that believes the Turks have been mentoring and coddling the "Islamic State" all along...

Sounds like a massive barrage of bullshit to me.

After years of sponsoring ISIS, Erdogan and Davutaglu pretend they didn't see the blowback coming...

Sure, they're going to increase "border security" now that an ISIS suicide bomber has lit up on their side of the border.

Border security between Turkey and Syria has been a complete joke for at least the past four years. Turkey under Erdogan and Davutaglu has been a no-holds-barred conduit for fighters and weapons heading into Syria to unseat Assad.

But now they pretend to be utterly shocked that the very "terror" entities that they have been feeding and promoting all along have turned on them?

Erdogan (and make no mistake, Turkey remains Erdogan's show regardless of who the nominal leader is) has been playing a double game all the way down the line.

Now that duplicity is coming back to bite him.

Unfortunately, it's the little people who pay the price.

Iran's President touring top NATO country

Iran's President is in Turkey to talk trade. Has the wily Erdogan not heard that the Nations of Virtue are not permitted to trade with the Axis of Evil? Does he not care if his NATO membership card is revoked?

I suppose he has no worries because NATO needs Turkey a lot more than Turkey needs NATO. The fact that Turkey has been a long-standing member has always allowed NATO apologists to pretend that the organization is something other than a bullies club for white Christian European nations.

So Iran and Turkey talk trade while the dimwits in Ottawa talk trash. By the way, those Turks will talk to anyone; here's Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman expressing optimism that Israel and Turkey will soon "normalize" their relationship. That means more trade.

Harper and Baird could learn a few things from Erdogan and Davutoglu.

Floundering Erdogan lashes out at YouTube over false flag expose

Just days after an attempted ban on Twitter spectacularly backfired, the wily Turk PM Erdogan found himself forced to ban YouTube.

Why? Because YouTube had posted a recording of high-level Erdogan insiders planning a false flag operation in Syria. The plan was to send a small team of Turkish special forces into Syria and fire a few rockets at Turkey, thereby giving the Turkish military an excuse to move into Syria.

Obviously those years of close cooperation with the IDF were not for naught!

Naturally enough, Team Erdogan is doing its level best to pin this latest embarrassment on Team Gulen, which I think misses the main point. Yes, it would be an outrage to think that ones enemies have such insider access that they could record the particulars of this discussion, but the real embarrassment is that they were having such a discussion in the first place!

And banning YouTube is just another desperate act from a leader who has little else to offer. We said it here two years ago; Erdogan will be long gone while the evil Assad next door remains in power.

Jihad is not terrorism

That's straight from the lips of Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey's Foreign Minister.

That's because jihadis are fighting for the honor of Allah, while terrorists are fighting for something else.

Any confusion between jihad and terror can be laid at the feet of American neo-cons and the Israel lobby.

Davutoglu is speaking in the context of explaining Turkey's support for al Qaeda "rebels" in Syria. Seems that those al Nusra Front dudes that America has labelled "terrorists" are just jihadis.

I'm guessing his NATO allies will have some questions for him at the next NATO summit.

Saudi Prince calls for missiles and heavy weapons for Syrian rebels

Speaking to reporters  in Davos, His Royal Highness Prince Turki Al-Faisal has called on the Nations of Virtue to equip the Syrian "rebels" with the sophisticated weapons that they need to shoot down fighter jets and destroy tanks at a distance.

Obviously mindful of concerns in some quarters that the Syrian "uprising" has been hijacked by extremists, His Excellency also addressed this question. Apparently by giving the heavy-duty hardware to the "good" rebels, it will prevent the jihadis from gaining too much influence!

Hmm... what could possibly go wrong with such a plan?

Quoted in the same article is Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutolgu of the Middle East's rising giant, who signaled that he is totally on board with the Prince's line of reasoning, claiming there are no limits to Turkey's help for the Syrian people.

Now that those Patriot anti-missile missile batteries in Turkey are up and running, he may feel confident in shipping anti-aircraft missiles over the border, but his NATO allies may need some time to get their Patriots set up at Heathrow and Charles de Gaulle before they give this plan the green light.

Why Nations of Virtue need to coordinate propaganda efforts

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, one of the top Global Thinkers of 2012, is being quoted all over the world today to the effect that his government knows where every one of Syria's 700 missiles is located, and who is in control of each one.

That should be making red flags with big question marks emblazoned on them pop up in the mind of every reader. Syria has 700 missiles?

For many years we have been hearing about how Syria is a conduit for the traffic in Iranian missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon. I don't believe there is any reason to doubt that, although it is well possible that Hezbollah has more missiles sourced elsewhere.

Estimates of the number of missiles held by Hezbollah number anywhere from 30,000 into the hundreds of thousands. What we know for sure is that in the last Lebanon war they fired off thousands and showed no signs of running low, and no one doubts they have vastly more today.

But Syria, the conduit for tens of thousands of missiles to Hezbollah, only kept back 700 for herself?

File that under "highly unlikely".

I have my doubts about Davutoglu's claim on "Global Thinker" status, but there is no question he is a world class bullshitter.