Turkey has sent 2,000 troops into Iraq without getting permission from Baghdad.
The Iraqi government has demanded they withdraw, calling it a “hostile act”, but Ankara has decided to ignore Baghdad’s wishes.
This is only the latest act that undermines the wisdom of having Turkey as a military ally.
Turkey and the U.S. State Department scoffed when Russia accused the Turkish government of being involved with smuggling ISIS oil. However, after Moscow presented convincing proof of Turkey’s involvement, the Obama Administration changed its story.
While the US has long hyped the problem of ISIS oil smuggling, the recent Russian Defense Ministry presentation, showing significant evidence of Turkey being involved in buying ISIS oil and taking it to refineries run by the Turkish government, has changed their tune. After a previous denial of the allegation against Turkey, the US is now admitting that the oil is ending up smuggled into Turkey, but insists it is “of no significance” because so much of the oil produced in ISIS-controlled parts of Syria is consumed inside Syria. “The amount of oil being smuggled is extremely low and has decreased over time,” claimed US special envoy Amos Hochstein, a stunning admission which suggests the US was well aware of oil smuggling into Turkey even before the Russian evidence.Just in case we don’t want to believe the Russian videos, Moscow has a solution.
“If the American colleagues are not satisfied with those ones, they should watch videos gained by their own UAVs,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Facebook.
The ever-changing political spin in Washington to avoid admitting the obvious looks increasingly dishonest.
With the U.S. government knowing about Turkey’s government involvement (Russia’s photos show ISIS oil smuggling trucks passing through border crossings without stopping), it begs the question of what our objectives actually are?
Just based on these facts, Turkey appears to be a very unwelcome ally. However, this isn't the worst that Turkey has done.
Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of Turkey’s The Daily Cumhuriyet was arrested on November 26 along with Erdem Gul, the paper’s bureau chief in the capital city of Ankara. The arrest followed a story published in Cumhuriyet about Syrian-bound Turkish intelligence trucks filled with weapons for rebel groups fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Mr. Dundar and Mr. Gul were charged with espionage and for being members of a terrorist organization. Video footage the journalists released in May was also allegedly in violation of state security. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally filed the charges against the newspaper. “This paper has engaged in acts of espionage,” he said in May. “Whomever wrote this story will pay a heavy price for this.” If found guilty, the two will face life in prison.
Erdogan is correct that it involved state security, but that state security involved Turkish intelligence agencies sending weapons to terrorists. That’s not to mention that Turkey is bombing our Kurdish allies.
Putting this all together, it appears the Turkish government is doing business with ISIS by sending them weapons in exchange for smuggled oil. By any measure this makes a NATO ally a terrorist state.
Of course, all of this is over and above the more publicized event of Turkey shooting down a Russian bomber over Syria. A spat that has now escalated to seizing each other's ships.