His Excellency Erdogan

"Speaking to the BBC News program, 'World on the Move', on May 16, Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of the British intelligence service MI6, warned that the number of migrants coming to Europe during the next five years could run into millions. This, he said, would reshape the continent's geopolitical landscape: 'If Europe cannot act together to persuade a significant majority of its citizens that it can gain control of its migratory crisis then the EU will find itself at the mercy of a populist uprising, which is already stirring'."
"Dearlove also warned against allowing millions of Turks visa-free access to the EU, describing the EU plan as 'perverse, like storing gasoline next to the fire we're trying to extinguish'."
Soeren Kearn, Gatestone Institute 

Thousands of newly arrived migrants, the vast majority of whom are men, crowd the platforms at Vienna West Railway Station on August 15, 2015 -- a common scene in the summer and fall of 2015. (Image source: Bwag/Wikimedia Commons)

The last-ditch desperation of the European Union to protect its member-countries from a continuing, unstoppable influx of Middle East refugees from conflict, oppression and economic duress, led to the March 18 agreement with Turkey whereby that country agreed it would close its border to Europe to stifle the migratory flood it had earlier ignored. Turkey visualizes itself as a noble Islamist nation for temporarily accepting the presence of Syrians desperate to escape the Syrian regime's assaults against its rebellious Sunni Syrian population.

While Turkey is answering a need that has been studiously ignored by wealthier Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States which have collectively taken in zero refugees, the temporary stay in Turkey represents a better fit for the migrants in geography, enabling them to return at some future date to Syria, as well as in culture and in language and familiarity with Islamist heritage. Europe opened its doors to hapless refugees in the compassion of those who live in comfort for those who have been tormented for years by their conscienceless and brutal tyrants.

At the same time as accommodation was taking place, the realization that the flood continued and the capacity for Europe to absorb any more than the plus-million it has already taken in was exhausted. Indications came swiftly that many of the refugees from Eritrea, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Palestinian Territories and Iraq among others, represented an economic migration as much as it did an escape from pernicious oppression. A culture and a religion foreign to Europe with an overwhelming presence of young Muslim men who respond to a different cultural beat turned out to be an awkward fit.

Germany, which has been leading initiatives, both social and economic in the European Union for years, felt responsible to find a solution to the swamping of Europe by the Middle East discards of their dictators. And so, Angela Merkel whose generosity in accepting a million of the refugees and migrants has transformed Germany in ways little imagined, spearheaded the initiative to find a way to convince Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to close the gates at the border of Turkey. Mr. Erdogan drove a hard bargain, not surprising for someone so bitterly averse to a Europe that has denied his country entry to the EU.

He insists on his entitled $8-billion, and free visa entry for Turks to Europe, among other bits of extortion. "When Turkey is under attack from terrorist organizations and the powers that support them directly, or indirectly, the EU is telling us to change the law on terrorism," Erdogan said in Istanbul. "They say 'I am going to abolish visas and this is the condition.' I am sorry, we are going our way and you go yours." The 'terrorists' to whom he refers are not, needless to say, Islamic State, but Turkey's Kurds. And Turkey's military has been terrorizing those Kurds, along with journalists.

Opening Europe up to Turks to travel freely without visas as Erdogan demands, threatening to unleash upon Europe another flood of refugees, has been identified as a formula for disaster for Europe. A leaked report from the European Commission warns that opening Europe's borders to 78 million Turks has the potential for increasing the risk of EU terrorist attacks:

"It can be expected that, as soon as Turkish citizens will obtain visa-free entry to the EU, foreign nationals will start trying to obtain Turkish passports in order to pretend to be Turkish citizens and enter the EU visa free, or use the identities of Turkish citizens, or to obtain by fraud the Turkish citizenship. This possibility may attract not only irregular migrants, but also criminals or terrorists."

The report  states that as a result of the deal, the Turkish mafia, trafficking in vast amounts of drugs, sex slaves, illegal firearms and refugees into Europe, may seize the opportunity to advance toward "direct territorial expansion towards the EU. Suspect individuals being allowed to travel to the Schengen territory without the need to go through a visa request procedure would have a greater ability to enter the EU without being noticed."

Turkey's Erdogan, Prime Minister, President, dictator-for-life, has been busy filing lawsuits against 2,000 people who have insulted him. A crime punishable under Turkish law for up to four years in jail. One might think that ensconced within his thousand-room $800-million presidential place, he would be immune to insults, but this is a man with a notoriously thin skin who considers himself an Eastern potentate to be venerated, and those who fail to do so will feel his wrath.

And he has ample time to continue his silencing of the news media through closing down TV stations and newspapers which fail to render unto this Caesar that which he feels he is entitled to. In Germany photos were posted on Facebook with Erdogan dressed as Hitler; those pictures were projected on a wall of the Turkish embassy in Berlin, in reflection of Erdogan's outrage over a poem he found offensive, and it was, labelling him a pedophile, accusing him of bestiality. When he is guilty of offences against humanity of a far more pedestrian but atrocious kind.

An image purportedly showing a Turkish army truck dragging the body of a Kurdish man through the streets of Sirnak, a Turkish town in south-eastern Turkey, has gone viral. The photo, widely being circulated online, has caused an outrage in the Turkish town, where hundreds participated in the funeral of the dead man on Sunday.