Erdogan's Enemy-Terrorists: Kurds, Gulenists

"[This would represent] a landmine for our relationship [between Turkey and Canada]."
"Canadian officials, Members of Parliament], policy chiefs [and] many high-level people, they think they can use in future (sic) [to accept bribes such as paid trips to Turkey from Methullah Gulen's organization]." 
"People are brainwashed, they use these schools [Gulen Hizmet charter schools] for recruitment. This is dangerous for Canada as well. Our advice is be careful about these schools."
"We [Turkey] did not receive any kind of statement from any Western government that they support the democratically elected government [of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, post-attempted-coup]."
Cemalettin Kani Torun, deputy chair, Turkish parliamentary foreign affairs committee

Recep Erdogan has accused the West of 'supporting terrorism'  AFP

It's not exactly a charm offensive.  Mr. Kani is leading a cross-party delegation in Canada, to raise the alarm of the 'terrorist threat' represented by Methullah Gulen and his followers. More in the nature of a vitriolic blame offensive, the repeated declarations that a 'democracy' has been threatened by the violence of a military coup that failed because the courageous ordinary people of Turkey stood up to defend their president and his Islamist political party, while the West simply yawned.

Failing the most basic courtesy of commiseration, of offering assistance to the Republic of Turkey in its hours of turmoil. We should hang our heads in shame and abject apology. And perhaps round up all those Turkish-Canadians who subscribe to the Gulenist ideology. We would then have the option of imprisoning them or returning these Canadian citizens to a revenge-ridden Turkey. And that would most certainly ensure that the Canada-Turkey relationship will be healthy and sound.

Not that democratic Turkey is failing to defend itself on the home front, having used the expeditious occurrence of the failed coup to strike hard against all those within the country that Ankara suspects have plotted against the government. And here we speak not of thousands of military personnel of high-to-middling rank persuaded that their president-for-life has dismantled the traditions that secular-governing Turkey was so proud of, but of tens of thousands of Turks.

The Turkey that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk bequeathed to his nation as a forward-looking, cosmopolitan nation wedged between progressive, modernized, secular-governed Europe and the backward Middle East mired in its quagmire of theism, sectarian and tribal antipathies and ruling kingdoms and sheikdoms has undergone a 90-degree seachange, a steady return to the grip of Islamism. And Islam excels at punishing its enemies.

President Erdogan has recovered the momentum he had briefly squandered in his imperial autocratic impulse, caught between NATO membership and its solidarity in battling Islamic State, expecting Turkey as a member to do likewise rather than nurture ISIL, and his blind rage at Russian intervention in a conflict where the detestable Bashar al Assad has been slaughtering Sunni Syrians with the backing of Shiite Iran, Hezbollah and Iraq.

How does all that disquieting violence and wretched misery impact on Canada? The reach of a cleric who once supported Erdogan, but became disgusted with his totalitarian Islamist compulsion to transform the nation in fond memory of the glory days of the monolithic and powerful Ottoman Empire. What was, can once again be recalled. Just as Vladimir Putin, Erdogan's newfound buddy has his own aspirations to reinstate the Soviet Union.

Cleric Methullah Gulen, despite years of exile voluntarily removing himself to the United States to be domiciled there and out of reach of Erdogan's vengeful grasp, has a wide and faithful Turkish following who prefer to subscribe to his brand of Islam. Mr. Gulen in fact, runs an empire with his followers integrated throughout every level of Turkish society and professions, both within Turkey and among Turks who have emigrated to other countries.

And it is the Gulenists who escaped persecution in Turkey by migrating elsewhere that Erdogan's emissaries warn about. Having arrested tens of thousands of Turkish police, military, journalists, lawyers, academics and students, Ankara has turned its sights on Turks abroad who support Mr. Gulen and his aspirations for Turkey. They are terrorists all, and those countries who support their citizenship are nurturing terrorists.

Turkey is now turning its face away from its former Western allies, who were never quite convinced that Turkey was as much European as it is part of the Middle East. Under the long propaganda arm of the Justice and Development Party, Turks no longer take pride in their tradition of having one foot in Europe the other in Islamism. The West and its interests have been transformed into the enemy.

More than 30,000 Erdogan supporters marched in Cologne, Germany in early August. Getty

The West, in fact, has been well infiltrated with the presence of Turks, most of whom support Erdogan and their version of Islamist democracy. Like many immigrants, retaining the fondness of dual nationality. The divisions between Turks with those loyal to Erdogan as opposed to those faithful to the Gulenist ideology of tolerance and secular-type government has been brought to the West and will play out as it will.

Erdogan's rage that the United States insists on proof that Methullah Gulen was behind the failed coup before they would begin to entertain the Turkish demand that he be returned to Turkey to stand trial for treason, for which the death penalty appears to be on the cusp of reinstatement, manifests itself in the extension of anger directed toward all Western nations, none of whom have expressed solidarity with a government on a witch-hunt.

The Syrian Refugee Conundrum

"My counsel would still be to the prime minister [Justin Trudeau] that we ought to just suspend the [December 31] deadline [for Syrian refugee intake]. We don't have to stop the initiative, but we shouldn't be working toward a deadline."
"Let's just make sure we're driven ... to ensure good settlement results for the refugees themselves in the communities to which they're moving -- and also from a security perspective."
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall

"There's no way [the government can meet a Dec.31 deadline] without shortcuts]."
"If they don't do [all] the processing abroad and end up doing  it in Canada, like we did with the Kosovars, there is a risk because once they're in Canada, quite frankly it's too late."
"[If a terrorist arrives in Canada], he will disappear and end up in the woodwork and the next time we hear of him, either here or in the States, will be because he's been nabbed or because of some other violent act that will make it all apparent that a mistake was made."
Gerard Van Kessel, former director-general Canada's refugee resettlement program

A refugee, his son and daughter, arrive on the Greek island of Kos -- CNN

It seems now that the new Canadian Liberal government which had pledged during the recent election that it would commit to taking in 25,000 Syrian refugees before the end of 2015 has not been dissuaded from that line of action. The soberingly fearful attacks that took place in Paris aside, with the message that two to three of the attackers had infiltrated refugees streaming into Europe through Greece, the new government is determined to proceed with its election promise.

It normally takes an average of two years to process refugee applications; in some instances when the need is urgent, that time is pared down considerably, but always for far lesser numbers than that committed to by this new government determined to do things far differently than their predecessors did, although in actual fact, the previous Conservative government had announced a similar number of refugees to be taken in, but over a much more reasonable length of time. The Liberal government has extended the time-frame to February of 2016.

Security concerns have been highlighted, sufficiently so that the Canadian public feels great unease at the prospect of that many refugees being brought into the country on such short notice. It is a given that they will all require medical assistance of some kind; preliminary medical checks aside and that alone will be costly in time and funding to an already overburdened public health care system. Their need for housing, for food, for language assistance and social orientation all bespeak a deep and broad commitment by both government and private sponsoring groups.

The focus, it now appears, will be on the most vulnerable of the refugees among the millions who are languishing in refugee camps in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. Women and children and families are given priority, and so are single, gay men. There is no conversation on whether they should be Christians escaping murderous persecution, or Yazidis who have been targeted the same, or Sunni Muslims running from a murderous Shiite tyranny. These are people living in a culture and a society that is unforgivingly inhumane.

Syrian Christians and Yazidis and gay men tend to try to separate themselves from Muslim groups because even in the refugee camps they represent a persecuted and threatened minority. In an effort to protect themselves these minorities try to remain out of the refugee camps. And of course, there lies the rub; mainstream Sunni Syrian refugees while themselves being among the oppressed and the persecuted turn around and vent their hatred on the others among them who are not of them, and this traditional enmity is migrating with them.

The political pressure for tight security in absorbing refugees from among the teeming tide of Syrians in camps awaiting a hoped-for return of some semblance of normalcy in their lives and the harrowing conditions in which they live after having fled barbaric assaults on their humanity call for action from other people whose lives have never been tarnished by such degrees of human depravity. Yet in doing so, there's a gamble that all being absorbed will be innocent of being a part of the problem.

Photo essay: "Where Syrian refugee children sleep" by Magnus Wennman, an award-winning photojournalist from Stockholm

Sabotage alert: Iran moves to secure nuke facilities

Fears West, Israel will target sites before next talks

Published: 14 hours ago

by Aaron Klein Email | Archive

Aaron Klein is WND's senior staff reporter and Jerusalem bureau chief. He also hosts "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" on New York's WABC Radio. Follow Aaron on Twitter and Facebook.More ↓

JERUSALEM – Iran fears Western or Israeli sabotage operations against its nuclear facilities and is currently working to strengthen the protective measures around its nuclear sites, according to Egyptian security officials.

The Egyptian security officials said they did not have any confirmation that Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordow suffered an explosion, but they were continuing to look into the reports, which originated with a WND article.

Jordanian security officials also contacted by WND said they had no information about an explosion at Fordow.

The Egyptian and Jordanian officials, meanwhile, said Iran has also stepped up its on-the-ground support for the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The Egyptian officials said Iranian Revolutionary Guards units are operating openly to protect Syria’s missile sites.

“Soldiers of the Revolutionary Guards are on ground almost publically,” said one Egyptian security official. “They are not hiding their involvement in Syria.”

Regarding Iran’s fear of a Western or Israeli operation, the Egyptian officials said Tehran believes its nuclear sites may be targeted before the next round of nuclear negotiations with the West.

World powers have asked Iran to hold renewed talks about its nuclear work in February, but Tehran has yet to schedule any negotiations.

A spokesman for the EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said Monday Iran had not agreed to her proposal to meet at the end for talks, issued on behalf of the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/sabotage-alert-iran-moves-to-secure-nuke-facilities/#ooC2dc3wjVJV0i7r.99