The wily Erdogan meets his match

The Trump-Erdogan gab-fest was all but missed by the mainstream news purveyors today, mainly because they are busy having fake shit-hemorrages over Trump's supposed spilling of top-secret beans to Lavrov and the Russian ambassador last week. Another media-manufactured tempest in a teacup, but it's a good one, isn't it?

First Donny J fires FBI boss Comey to kill that investigation into his collusion with the Ruskies, and then he turns around and shares national secrets with those very same Ruskies!

Holy moly... this man must be stopped, at least if you take your cues from the NYT and the Washington Post!

Those commies... er, I mean Russians, obviously have Trump by the short and curlies.


Trump must be tempted to take a few tips from Erdogan on how to deal with pesky media. In America the Trumpists chant lock 'em up. It's a feel-good thing, much along the lines of chanting "go Leafs go!" In Turkey they're just locked up indefinitely, thereby proving that America still has something called a "free press."

Erdogan dodged a few bullets last summer, quite literally, when his former pal turned arch nemesis Fethulla Gulen launched a surprise attack on this government. Gulen has been cooling his heels a couple of hours north of CIA HQ for what, twenty years now? Does anybody really believe that this leader of a global socio-religious educational organization with millions of followers worldwide could enjoy US hospitality for that long without the express connivance of the highest levels of America's multi-faceted  spook infrastructure?

The CIA may not have invented Gulen, but they've certainly nurtured him over the years. Had things gone to plan, the ornery and unpredictable Erdogan would have given way to the infinitely more pliable Fethullah Gulen.

The failure of the coup last summer was a bitter pill for the Deep State, a disappointment trumped only by the election of you-know-who in November.

The string-pullers must have been seething today, and the "free press" did their bit by ignoring the Erdogan-Trump shindig.

Shouldn't take more than a few days for the Times and the Post to front-page a list of state secrets Trump spilled to the Turks today.

Axis of Evil redux

You remember when W introduced us to the Axis of Evil. Ya, that was the brainchild of a certain Canadian speech-writer whose speech-writing contract went for a shit soon after.

At the time, the "Axis of Evil" was comprised of Iran and Iraq and North Korea.

But we've got a far more evil axis in play today...

Yup; the Ruskies have joined up.

And not only that, but our erstwhile democratic ally the wily Erdogan seems to be swiftly slipping into the club too.

And who can blame him... I mean the coup that was not a coup and definitely had nothing to do with Gulen, well, shit happens.

Just because shit happens doesn't automatically mean that Uncle Sam is pulling the strings behind the scenes, does it?

Of course not!

The fact that Fethullah Gulen has been cooling his heels a couple hours drive north of The Farm for the past twenty years doesn't mean a damned thing!

Here's some news you won't see on your evening newscast

How are things shaking out at Incirlik air base over there in Turkey? As far as we know, the place has been locked down since the coup attempt two weeks ago.

"Locked down" means that the 50 to 90 US nukes on site are not under the control of the US military establishment. Yes, they're still being guarded by some 1500 US troops on site, but what's that worth? They're under lockdown too.

That's why you had Marine General Joe Dunford, who happens to be Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, over there kissing ass this week. Normally you'd expect a trip like that to end in photo-ops and lovey-dovey joint pressers. What did you hear after Dunford's trip?

Nothing.

The think tank here at Falling Downs believes the wily Erdogan is holding out for the extradition of Fethulla Gulen before he lifts the lockdown on Incirlik. Will that happen?

Who knows. No question that the rogue Islamic cleric has been a CIA asset being groomed for big things. I suspect the big things he was being groomed for were expected to unfold two weeks ago. That obviously didn't unfold the way we expected.

Now Uncle Sam is up a stump.

Erdogan is talking normalized relations with Russia, Iran, and Syria.

Uncle Sam can't let that happen at any price...

Hold onto your hats!

Is the jig finally up for the wily Erdogan?

As I write this multiple media reports have President Erdogan playing hide-and-seek with military police firing live rounds in his 1,000 room palace.

The myriad contradictions that have come to contaminate Erdogan's reign over the past few years made it inevitable that things would come to this. Turkey is a NATO ally, the world's premier club for "freedom and democracy," but under Erdogan it has become anything but free and a democracy only in a very limited sense.

Freedom of the press? If Erdogan doesn't like what he sees in your newspaper or on your TV channel, his thugs will take over your newsroom.

He's been waging a vicious war on his Kurdish population for the past year, because although a cease-fire had been largely successful, he needed to ramp up violence to assure an absolute majority in the second of last year's elections. It was a cynical strategy that worked, and allowed him to even further consolidate his power. At the cost of thousands of Turkish lives.

He's been playing a double game in the "war on terror" for years, supposedly fighting ISIS while at the same time supplying them with weapons, facilitating their trade in stolen oil, and allowing free passage through Turkey for ISIS fighters.

He alienated Israel and Washington with the Mavi Mamora fiasco.

He's risked a major escalation of the Middle East inferno with the reckless downing of a Russian jet. He has alienated virtually every one time ally, to the point where he'd have a tough time finding a place to seek sanctuary today.

Maybe he can swap digs with Fethulla Gulen. Gulen gets the 1,000 room palace and Erdogan gets that lovely country get-away in Pennsylvania.

Wily Erdogan flies to US to mend fences with Fethullah Gulen

If you've been paying attention at all, you'll know that everything that's gone off the rails in the Islamic Republic of Turkey for the past ten or fifteen years has been masterminded by the double-wily Fethullah Gulen and his extra-wily band of Gulenists.

Popular uprisings against grossly corrupt real estate projects? A Gulenist plot!

ISIS terror attacks in Turkey? A Gulenist plot!

PKK terror attacks in Turkey? A Gulenist plot!

Erdogan family members exposed up to their necks in the ISIS stolen oil trade? A Gulenist plot!

Mainstream Turkish journos questioning Erdogan's disastrous decisions? A Gulenist plot!

Random citizens questioning the divinity of the wily Erdogan? A Gulenist plot!

German media mocking the Emperor? A Gulenist plot!...

Truth is, the reason the wily Erdogan needs a thousand room palace is because every one of those rooms is full of filing cabinets over-flowing with files on the multitudinous Gulenist plots!

That's why Erdogan will take a few hours out of his busy schedule being snubbed by Obama to pop over to the Poconos and have a sit-down with the Caliph of the Gulenites.

But, sorry to say, it's way too little and much too late.

Fate (with a little help from Uncle Sam) hangs Gulen's garland on front door of Erdogan's palace

Erdogan's power-play is in its death throes.

The think tank here at Falling Downs has been entertaining speculations re the Erdogan Gulen feud for some time.

You can't put all the blame on Erdogan.

It was his NATO betters who convinced him to be point man in the Assad regime change. Assad wouldn't last more than a few months, at the most.

That's what they told the reluctant Erdogan.

After all, Assad and Erdogan used to be pals!

But no, Erdogan took the counsel of the NATO brain trust... and there he is today, issuing ultimatums to the US; you back the Kurds or you back me...



...that long silence you heard was the sound of Gulen's garland being hung on the front door of the palace.

Who told you Turkey was heading down the terror toilet?

Things aren't going that great for the wily Erdogan these days.

The dumbfucks at the think-tank here at Falling Downs certainly saw this coming.

Turkey is a NATO member that is on its way to becoming a failed state. That's mainly because the wily Erdogan has paid way too much heed to the counsel of his NATO betters.

"Just give it a little push, and the Assad regime will collapse," they told him.

The wily but not all that smart Erdogan took his NATO betters at their word. He stabbed his former regional bestie in the back. He kept stabbing...

But, the think tankers here at Falling Downs do not necessarily deem the current state of affairs the complete disaster it appears to be.

The Masters of the Universe have been holding Fethulla Gulen in their back pocket for years...

And not for nothing.

Will NATO toss Erdogan under the bus?

And will this signal the rise of Fethullah Gulen?

Gulen has been cooling his heels in America, being groomed for goodness knows what, but definitely something that can benefit the American Empire.

Meanwhile, Erdogan's antics are more erratic than ever. Yes, he's finally taking a stand against ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State/Daesh, after supporting and nurturing the supposedly mysterious Al Qaeda offshoot for years.

But now he's not only let loose the Turkish military on the Jihadists, but on the very Kurdish "allies" that the US and Canada have been busy training up to assist in the battle against the Islamic extremists!

This is a bizarre situation. On the one side, you have NATO training the Kurds. On the other, you have NATO bombing them.

Something's got to give!

When you look at NATO, and you see the US and their poodle Canada doing one thing, and Turkey doing the opposite, it's not hard to figure out what's gonna give...

Goodbye, Mr. President!


Hello Mr. Gulen!

Turkey to legalize polygamy?

You have to wonder what the wily Erdogan has up his sleeve for his next surprise. The think tank here at Falling Downs had a round table discussion around the round table in the computer room the other night, and we've concluded that all signs point to the legalization of polygamy!

Polygamy has been illegal since 1926 in Turkey, the first Muslim country to pass such a law. This is the legacy of Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey. While Erdogan often pays lip service to Ataturk, he is also very much a conservative Muslim, and this would be a chance to roll back one of Ataturks excesses.

That would cement Erdogan's legacy as the father of post-modern Turkey!

What are the signs pointing in such a direction? First of all, it is obvious that the man is driven to leave his mark on the nation. He wants a bigger legacy than Ataturk. So far he only has a bigger palace.

Secondly, he seems obsessed with the role of women in Turkish society. The tide of secularism that Ataturk unleashed on the land has resulted in a lot of Turkish women getting comfortable with the idea that they are equal to men, which isn't how Erdogan or any other pious Muslim male sees it.

Thirdly, Erdogan's concern over Turkey's birth-rate affords a unique opportunity to down several birds with one shot, so to speak. Birth control may be a crime against the state, but not one which can be readily criminalized. Imagine the international uproar! Erdogan would come away looking like a misogynistic third-world-despot buffoon!

That is not the legacy he envisions for himself.

But properly implemented, the restoration of the honourable practice of polygamy would undo the damage done to the nation by birth control. A programme of generous financial incentives would soon see many Turkish men appreciate the wisdom of having three, four, possibly even five wives!

Hell, why stop there? What's wrong with twenty or thirty wives? Come to think of it, this could also help alleviate the Syrian refugee crisis!

So remember, you read it here first! Having declared victory over his arch-nemesis Gulen, the wily Erdogan is looking for a lasting legacy.

Polygamy could be it!

Wily Erdogan kicks the crap out of Gulenist rivals while he still can

There's a whole lot of hoo-ha in Turkey today after authorities came down hard on the Gulenist cult.

Fethullah Gulen is the dude who has been groomed for 25 years by the CIA to be the future Caliph of the Islamic world.

There's no question that Gulen has serious cred in the Islamic world. He talks a lovely lovey-dovey message of peace, and his school network reaches all around the world, and is especially influential in the charter school system in the US, where he's been cooling his heels for the last several decades.

While once a resolute ally of Erdogan, the Turkish PM come Pres now considers Gulen little more than a CIA stooge.

He's probably right.

NATO's weakest link will be the first domino to fall

It's definitely NOT coming up roses for the wily Erdogan these days.

Erdogan is being pushed into a corner by his NATO overlords. He has spent three years building up ISIS at their behest, and now that it's become more than obvious that ISIS has (supposedly) slipped its leash, he's being fingered by Biden as the shady dealer who has facilitated the rise of the Islamic State.

No wonder he's pissed!

Tonight, as the Turk army watches from across the border, NATO's Frankenstein is taking the city of Kobani in Syria, and ethnic Kurds are rioting in at least 30 major cities in Turkey.

The Erdogan regime almost collapsed not too long ago over plans to build a shopping mall.

Now it's caught between ISIS and NATO.

Realistically speaking, the Erdogan regime is a partner of both.

The Beltway nabobs are ready with an Erdogan replacement; Fethulla Gulen has been biding his time there in Pennsylvania, waiting for his turn in the spotlight.

Unfortunately for the masters of the universe, it is unlikely that their bumboy of choice could conjure up more than token support on the ground in Turkey.

Which means that going forward, Turkey is destined to become one of the ruined states like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, that have been deliberately destroyed by American meddling.

This scenario isn't going anywhere good.

Turkey at the crossroads

Turkey has always been at the crossroads, geographically speaking.

Turkey is where Asia meets Europe.

Turkey was also one of the very first colonies to throw off the yoke of colonialism, under Ataturk.

Today Turkey finds itself the only Muslim country in NATO.

It has become, pursuant to the above, the only NATO country that has objected to Israel's latest war crimes in Gaza.

At the same time, Turkey has worked harder to foster relations with Israel than any independent state in the Muslim world.

While that was going on, Turkey found herself one of the few surviving outposts of Muslim Brotherhood influence.

Turkey is at the crossroads of many competing forces.

Turkey scored an unfortunate own goal with its connivance in the Syrian civil war, offering itself up to its NATO betters as a staging ground for "rebels" of all stripes, even after it became obvious that those stripes were dominated by fundamentalists who were never going to be reliable NATO allies.

So where is Turkey today? The US keeps the Gulen card up its sleeve for a rainy day. Erdogan is recognized as a liability one day and an asset the next.

Turkey is at the crossroads, again.

Messiah takes wrong turn, pops up in Pakistan!

Perhaps He was relying on Google Maps?

Considering that he has a bigger following than any politician living in Canada, you don't hear much about Tahirul Qadri. It's Harper this and Kenney that but Mr. Qadri is 99% below the media radar.  Maybe that's because while he lives in Canada most of his followers live in Pakistan.

And over there he is a definite headline grabber. In fact, he's probably the biggest story in the land at this moment. He has returned home and promised Pakistan a "peaceful revolution."

Suuure!... that's what they all say!

There are some interesting parallels in the career trajectory of Qadri and Fethulla Gulen. Both claim to be peace-loving men of God, messengers for a benevolent Allah. Both spend most of their time living among infidels, Qadri in Toronto, Gullen in Pennsylvania. Both are allegedly being groomed by Western security agencies for leadership roles in the Islamic world.

So what is the significance of Tahirul Qadri turning up in Islamibad at this point in time?

Principles of Propaganda 101: only tell half the story

This story at CBC News by Trinh Theresa Do makes an interesting case study. It is interesting in the main because it appears to go beyond the usual anti-Putin boilerplate that we have come to expect from Western media.

Why lookee, there's even a quote from David Carment, Fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, advising the US to butt out of Ukraine! What could be more fair and more balanced?

What makes the story a propaganda classic is what it includes and what it doesn't. Included is the Turkey-Russia economic relationship. And yes, we are told that Turkey has been since 1952 and remains today a NATO member and therefore our staunch ally.

All true.

Not mentioned is President Erdogan's concerns over America's efforts to undermine his democratically elected government, concerns he voiced on the Charlie Rose Show just a few days ago.

And he has a point. The US has been actively working to undermine and eventually overthrow Erdogan for years. That's the NATO big dog working against the democratically elected government of another NATO nation.

Erdogan should be pissed off.

Also not mentioned is the Gulen gambit. America has been grooming Erdogan's successor, providing Fethullah Gulen with a lot more than sanctuary in the US for many years. Gulen is destined to be more than an Erdogan replacement; in fact, simply being leader of Turkey is probably far too trivial a trinket to entice Gulen at this point.

Gulen is destined to become the face of moderate Islam world-wide, fully endorsed by the CIA, Pentagon, and the beltway think-tankers.

So there's at least a couple of angles that escaped this otherwise well-balanced progaganda piece.

Which is why it's propaganda and not news.

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.

It's all but over for Erdogan

Turkey is yet another chosen nation, chosen alongside Venezuela and Ukraine and so many others as a target for the "democracy promotion" antics of the National Endowment for Democracy.

The NED has invested millions in promoting accountability and strengthening democratic institutions in the country, and the rioting on the occasion of Berkin Alvan's funeral has proved that the money has not been wasted. But Erdogan probably can blame himself as much as outside meddling for his imminent demise.

It was he and he alone who undercut his own stature as a favored bumboy of Washington. First strike was that prissy refusal to allow the US access to Turkish bases in the Iraq war. That's quite something between NATO brothers, and you can believe the US has never forgotten or forgiven.

Then there was the Mavi Marmora incident. Did he really think he'd keep "favored friend" status after that debacle?

Lately he can scarcely keep ahead of the scandals, and now the generals he so gleefully put away are having their verdicts annuled. Thus far they're not having their commissions re-instated, but nevertheless this is a body-blow.

And let's not forget that America has been grooming an even more pliable candidate for Turkey's top job.

Erdogan v Gulen

Al Jazeera has an article posted today by Yaduz Baydar of Today's Zaman entitled Erdogan v Gulen: a zero sum game?

There follows a lengthy screed heavy with both anti-Erdogan and pro-Gulen sentiment. Erdogan is portrayed as a corrupt, paranoid, anti-democratic autocrat.

Gulen is a "reclusive cleric, writer, and preacher... loved by millions of followers in and outside of Turkey for his staunch advocacy of a moderate, tolerant, modern brand of Islam, and peace and interfaith dialogue."

Not hard to take sides in the battle of Erdogan v Gulen, is it? You've got the devious despot on the one hand; the man of peace, modernity, and interfaith dialogue on the other.

Gulen good. Erdogan bad!

While Yaduz Baydar is identified as a columnist for Today's Zaman , nowhere does Al Jazeera inform us that Today's Zaman is part of Fethullah Gulen's vast empire of media holdings.

In effect, you're reading anti-Erdogan propaganda written by an employee of Fethullah Gulen.

An unfortunate oversight, I'm sure.

The Teflon Turk

Haaretz has this perspective on the wily Erdogan.

Haaretz generally has a liberal/secular take on ME issues. If the linked article is any indication, they too see Erdogan's main challenge coming from the Gulen loyalists in his country.

Turkey-Israel relations have been all over the map since Erdogan came to power. Turkey is a full-patch NATO member, and Israel is "the only democracy in the Middle East", so on an official level one might expect a substantial overlap in interests.

The Mavi Marmara incident was a turning point. Regardless of what one thinks of the illegal and immoral Gaza blockade, any realist will first need to acknowledge that there are plenty of others who view it as legal, moral, and necessary. Turkey's connivance with those who took direct action in attempting to breach the blockade was a classic case of over-reach.

In hindsight, that was the turning point in Erdogan's tenure, and also a turning point in the fortunes of the Muslim Brotherhood. The NATO bigs in Brussels and Washington realized that the NATO chapter in Ankara was no longer on the same page as the rest of the gang.

The Chinese missile deal was the last straw.

That's why you're hearing more these days about the influence of Fethullah Gulen, whose minions are poised to dispose of Erdogan. What then?

The appeal of the Muslim Brotherhood in Washington and Brussels was always that, all things considered, they were more moderate, more pliable, more US/Israel friendly than the alternatives.

The MB star is fading because there is a more moderate, more pliable alternative waiting in the wings.

Unfortunately, for a lot of conservative folks who held their noses and put up with the MB, any option that is even more moderate and pliable will simply be unacceptable.

The Teflon Turk may be on his way out. Whoever comes next will have a very serious problem with the fundamentalists who have taken root next door.

Crappy Christmas for Muslim Brotherhood

Washington's Cairo satrap General el-Sisi has taken the gloves off... no more Mr. Nice Guy!

A gentle summer coup, months of patient negotiations about a transition to a more acceptable brand of democratic government, more acceptable than the democratically elected Morsi at least, and still the Koran-crazed fanatics run riot in the streets!

Enough of that!  The Muslim Brotherhood has been officially declared a terror organization. And there could not be a more symbolically significant day to make such a declaration than on the birthday of the baby Jesus!

Meanwhile, across the Mediterranean, Morsi's comrade in arms, the wily Erdogan, is lurching from crisis to crisis. As is usual for these radical Islamists, they must constantly blame their troubles on the USA. Erdogan's reckless slandering of American motives became so outrageous that US Ambassador  Francis Ricciardone was forced to issue a harsh rebuttal.

"Baseless attacks" and "intentional slander" is what those false tales in Turkish media were. The mere idea that anyone associated with the US embassy would ever have anything to discuss with the Ankara Young Businessmen's Association is outrageous!

I rather suspect that with denials so vehement, the story is probably true!

This would seem to be the end of America's long flirtation with the Muslim Brotherhood. There is a new champion of Islamic moderation waiting in the wings, a much more reliable chap than that MB crowd.

Fethulla Gulen, come on down!

Slow-motion coup unfolding in Turkey

When we looked in on Fethullah Gulen a year ago we speculated that American security services were grooming him for something special.

Recent goings on in Turkey draw into focus what that "something special" might be. Gulen is to be nothing less than the Washington-endorsed unifier of Islam and saviour of the Muslim people.

The wily Erdogan is now fighting for his political life. There are enough Gulen allies throughout his government that they know where the bodies are buried (sadly, this may soon prove to be more than a metaphor). Corruption allegations against Erdogan's inner circle will be a high bar for him to clear. What will most likely happen is that in his heavy-handed way Erdogan will over-react against his perceived enemies, public confidence in his government will erode, and Gulen-linked challengers for the leadership will emerge.

All of which seems quite an achievement for a pious man of peace who makes his home in the Pennsylvania hills an hour and a half west of New York City. When you read his "sermons"  they remind you of nothing so much as typical New Age self-helpy claptrap that could come from any crystal rubber working to cultivate a following.

It's not hard to see why his message of working hard in this life to get your reward in the next would appeal to the American authorities. If you get enough Muslim folks believing that, chants of "death to America" will be a thing of the past. His attitude towards big business is also welcome. Indeed, the humble man of God has a global business empire of his very own that spans banking, insurance, construction and much more. Unlike his philosophy for individuals, his businesses seem to operate with a view to making a profit in this world, not the next.

So the next few months will be interesting indeed for Turkish politics. Look for pro-Gulen candidates to emerge in time for the elections. Gulen himself will not directly dirty his hands in Turkish politics; he will stay put in Pennsylvania.

After all, he has bigger kebabs to fry; he has been anointed to unify ALL Muslims, not just the Turks.