Tag Archive for: Turkish President Erdogan

Turkey Needs To Go Play In Its Own Sandbox

Turkey’s President Erdogan, and close Obama friend, recently spoke to a group of you guessed it, mostly Muslim crowd, at the opening of a Turkish funded Islamic school in Lanham, Maryland, which is not far from D.C. The opening of the $110 million Diyanet Center is said to go three stories beneath the ground with a pool, fitness center and last, but not least a Turkish bath.

The opening of America’s largest Islamic Center coincides with a recent story of five Northern Virginia Muslims arrested for ties with ISIS. Understandably, local Maryland residents are concerned as the frequent reporting of Islamic terrorism occurring not only world-wide, but state-side increases.

According to an RT article Erdogan, speaking at the dedication of the center, chastised the politicians in America and our society by stating that,

 “there are still people walking around calling Muslims terrorists.”

He added that Muslims in America are making this country stronger, and shouldn’t have to hear anti-Muslim sentiment.

He continued,

“It is unacceptable for the Muslims of the world to be forced to pay the price of a horror of a pain and suffering created by a handful of terrorists, infamous terrorists here in the aftermath of 9/11,”

First of all, no leader of another country should be allowed to step foot on our soil and proceed to tell Americans what we can or cannot say, nor do we have to look as far back as 9/11 for Islamic terrorists. It is hard to swing a dead cat and not hit one these days.

Yet that is what Obama,  Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and  Hillary Clinton along with the rest of the liberal left and the democrats are pushing in the way of UN 1618, which is to criminalize any criticism of Islam.

As a matter of fact,House Resolution (H.Res. 569), was introduced towards the same ends as the UN 1618. It is about,

“Condemning violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States”.

An article contained in The Counter Jihad Report states,

“The Resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives by Democrat Donald S. Beyer (Virginia) on December 17, 2015 — a mere 15 days after Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook gunned down 14 innocent Americans and wounded 23 in an ISIS-inspired terror attack at a Christmas party in San Bernardino, California.”

The bill sounds like an angle right out of Ergodan’s playbook.

“the victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes and rhetoric have faced physical, verbal, and emotional abuse because they were Muslim or believed to be Muslim,” and the House of Representatives “expresses its condolences for the victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes.”

Secondly, it is rather difficult to take this man seriously when he demands respect be paid to all Muslims in America, when his own security team is involved in violence right outside the Brookings Institute  in D.C. where he chose to visit.

Apparently several journalists were kicked, pushed and thrown to the ground outside the liberal think tank when they were peaceful protestors gathered. The State Department condemned the behavior as “totally unacceptable.” Yet this is a perfect example of  leaders and movements who cannot tolerate an opposing view, so they must crush free speech and any form of expressing it.

Incidentally, while Erdogan is in the Eastern United States spreading the Islamic ideology and symbolically conquering land for Islam, Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric and billionaire who lives in the Poconos, is attempting to open up an Islamic school on an Air Force base in Colorado. Gulen presently is uner investigation as he is living here under a self-imposed exile avoiding prosecution in Turkey.

According to Dr. Rich Swier’s article quoting Robert R. Amsterdam, founder of an international law firm based in D.C. and London, of The Hill,

“A secretive Islamic movement is trying to infiltrate the U.S. military by establishing and operating publicly-funded charter schools targeted toward children of American service personnel.”

He continues,

“Our investigation, still in its early stages, reveals that the Gülen organization uses charter schools and affiliated businesses in the U.S. to misappropriate and launder state and federal education dollars, which the organization then uses for its own benefit to develop political power in this country and globally.”

These two Turks need to be shown the door, and not to let it hit them on the way out. Mosques and Islamic Centers are breeding grounds for Islamic terrorism.  Trump is right, there needs to be a ban on Sharia compliant Muslims coming into America. In addition, we must have a halt in the construction or designating of any more mosques or Islamic centers in this country.

Maybe Erdogan and Gulen would do well to play, or in their case fight in their own sandbox and leave us alone.

*Please research the Gulen movement here. This group takes numerous legislators, school teachers, parents, and school children on expense paid trips to Turkey.

EDITORS NOTE: You may follow Suzanne on Twitter here @srs808.

Florida: U.S. Arrests Iranian Turk in $110 Billion Illegal Gold for Gas Deal

Patrick Goodenough’s CNS article chronicles this latest expose of corruption by Turkey’s Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a $100 billion dollar gold for gas scheme, discovered in 2013, evading UN and U.S. sanctions against dealing with a  Nuclear Iran Iran-Related Arrest in Florida Could Have Political Implications for Turkey’s Islamist Ruling Party.  Goodenough gives credit to the investigation team at the Washington, DC based Foundation for Defense of Democracy research uncovering this duplicity, while the Administration was actively pursuing negotiations over an Iran nuclear pact.  Goodenough writes:

The arrest in Florida of a prominent Iranian-Turkish businessman accused of conspiring to conduct hundreds of millions of dollars in financial transactions to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions may have major political implications in Turkey, where the same man was linked to a corruption scandal reaching into the upper ranks of the ruling party.

A senior opposition leader expressed the hope that the arrest of Reza Zarrab, an Iranian-born Turkish businessman, may lift the lid on a scandal which many critics suspect was covered up by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The Hurriyet daily quoted Republican People’s Party (CHP) chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu as saying in parliament Tuesday that as a result of Zarrab’s arrest, “I am sure many will not get a wink of sleep tonight; they won’t be able to sleep in comfort in their beds.”

“Reza Zarrab will speak there, you will see,” he said, adding that “dirty relations will be exposed” and the facts will emerge about four AKP cabinet ministers who were the subject of massive fraud and corruption allegations three years ago.

The Department of Justice announced Monday the unsealing of an indictment in the in the Southern District of New York against dual Turkish-Iranian citizen Zarrab, 33, who was arrested in Florida on Saturday; and two Iranian nationals who remain at large, Camelia Jamshidy, 29, and Hossein Najafzadeh, 65.

John Carlin, assistant attorney-general for national security, said that according to the charges the three had “circumvented U.S. sanctions by conducting millions of dollars-worth of transactions on behalf of the Iranian government and Iranian businesses.”

“These alleged violations, as well as the subsequent efforts taken to cover up these illicit actions, undermined U.S. laws designed to protect national security interests,” he said.

According to the indictment, between 2010 and 2015 the three allegedly conspired to thwart U.S. and international economic sanctions against Iran by concealing financial transactions that were on behalf of the Iranian government or government-controlled banks and other entities.

They used a network of companies located in Iran, Turkey and elsewhere to conceal from U.S. banks, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and others the fact that the transactions were benefiting and on behalf of Iranian entities.

The indictment quotes from a Dec. 2011 letter from Zarrab, addressed to the general manager of the Central Bank of Iran saying in part, “[i]t is not secret that the trend is moving towards intensifying and increasing the sanctions, and since the wise leader of the Islamic Revolution of Iran has announced this to be the year of the Economic Jihad, the Zarrab family, which has had a half a century of experience in foreign exchange, … considers it to be our national and moral duty to declare our willingness to participate in any kind of cooperation in order to implement monetary and foreign exchange anti-sanction policies …”

[…]

Earlier research into the “gas for gold” scheme by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Roubini Global Economics found that Iran and Turkey’s Halkbank were exploiting loopholes in U.S. sanctions law.

Here’s what we wrote about Zarrab and the emergence of the illegal gold trading back in a NER/Iconoclast post in January 2014.

Meanwhile the main secular opposition, the People’s Republican Party (CHP) lead by Kemal Kilicdaroglu in Turkey’s parliament has kept up a stream of constant criticism of Erdogan endeavoring to place him at the center of the corruption probe. Yesterday, he questioned the Turkish Intelligence (MIT) report on the illegal gold trading submitted in April 2013 involving Azeri Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab. Today’s Zaman reported Kilicdaroglu saying:

In a weekly meeting of his party’s parliamentary group on Tuesday, Kilicdaroglu addressed reports published Monday in a number of media outlets claiming that the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) submitted a report to Erdogan on April 18, 2013 detailing the shady relations – involving bribery and influence-peddling – of certain ministers with Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab, who is under arrest. “I would like to ask the prime minister about what he did upon receiving this report. Did you call these ministers and talk to them? Did you talk to your children? He didn’t. He is the one who gave these orders,” Kilicdaroglu said.

These latest developments on the Zarrab illegal gold trading for Iranian gas call into question the Administration’s policy of supporting Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS supporters like Erdogan. Erdogan’s Turkey, while criticized  by the US and  NATO, hasn’t been dismissed as a member of the mutual defense pact,   given his war against the Kurds inside the country,  across the border in north Syria and even in the Iraqi Kurdish region. All while surreptitiously supporting ISIS emboldening his family’s shipping and oil smuggling profiteering. Question why Israel wants to renew relations with Turkey after the May 2010 Mavi Mamara free Gaza incident paying $20 million in alleged wrongful death compensation for the nine Turkish nationals killed in the scuffle with Israel Naval commandos.  Note this recent anti-Semitic comment by the AKP woman official following the Istanbul blast that killed three Israelis, two of whom were American citizens, injuring ten others, from a Jerusalem Post report:

 An official from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AKP Party tweeted that she “wished the Israelis” who were said to be wounded in Saturday’s Istanbul suicide blast were dead. Irem Aktas made the provocative tweet immediately after the attack. Turkish sources said that Aktas is the head of the party’s media relations and women’s outreach department.

Credit the team at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies for sleuthing the gold for gas scheme from open sources that we wrote about back in 2014.   Cliff May, President of FDD wrote this in an email:

This week, the Department of Justice announced the arrest of Turkish-Iranian national Reza Zarrab, upon his arrival in Miami. Among the charges: defrauding the US government.

Zarrab briefly made news in late 2013, when he was arrested on charges of corruption in Turkey, where he then resided. He was presumed to have coordinated Iran’s largest and most sophisticated sanctions evasion scheme on behalf of Babak Zanjani, an Iranian formerly under U.S. and EU sanctions who was recently sentenced to death in Iran for embezzlement.

The Turkish government quashed the police investigation against Zarrab — presumably because of the involvement of senior government officials in the corruption scheme he devised to grease the wheels of his operation.

The U.S. administration, keen not to undermine the chances of a nuclear deal with Iran, declined to pursue the dozens of companies and individuals involved in a giant financial scam that enabled Iran to launder more than $100 billion worth of oil and gas revenue, transform it into gold and ship it back to Iran through a trail of companies that went from Dubai to Turkey, from Istanbul to Tajikistan, from Tashkent to Malaysia.

For years, FDD has tirelessly and doggedly documented these networks. FDD Senior Fellow Emanuele Ottolenghi identified Mehdi Shams, one of Zanjani’s key associates, and mapped out his network of front companies in Europe and the Middle East as early as September 2013.

Despite reluctance by U.S. officials to take any action against Shams, Emanuele kept pushing the story as did others at FDD. When the Zarrab-Zanjani connection was exposed in December 2013, the Daily Beast extensively quoted Emanuele and exposed Shams’ links to Zanjani.

FDD’s Executive Director Mark Dubowitz and VP for Research Jonathan Schanzer detailed in hard hitting pieces the nature of the sanctions scheme. Their work helped inspire Congress to make important legislative changes designed to close a critical loophole in the sanctions architecture.

With the corruption scandal case in full swing in Turkey, Emanuele and FDD Fellow Saeed Ghasseminejad exposed another Zanjani associate in early January 2014 in a piece published in Turkey’s daily, Hurriyet. The man they named, Hamid Sallah Heravi, was sentenced to death along with Shams and Zanjani two weeks ago.

Then, in March 2014, with Turkey’s Erdogan determined to quash the investigation, the Turkish prosecutor’s indictment was leaked. FDD Turkish affairs analyst Merve Tahiroglu provided critical analysis based on a 330-page document that FDD promptly provided to Treasury.

Our team continued to follow the story and its many angles and to provide critical open-source intelligence to government authorities.

Our efforts have now paid off: Revelations from the Zanjani trial vindicate our insistence on going after his networks and his associates. They confirm our fellows’ open-source research on Iranian illicit finance networks. And the arrest of Zarrab in the United States is now sure to further expose the high levels of collusion and corruption within the Erdogan government.

Meanwhile, President Obama fresh from his fractious trip to Cuba with autocratic aging Communist dictator Raul Castro disputing the country’s notorious human rights record and family control over the economy has another problem upon arrival in Buenos Aires when he meet with President Mauricio Macri, whose election ended the corrupt 12 year reign of the Peronista Justicia party of former President Cristina Kirchner and her late husband. It concerns the release of US intelligence on Iranian involvement in the 1994 AMIA Jewish Center in Buenos Aires that figured in the murky circumstances behind the murder of the late Argentinean special prosecutor Alberto Nisman in January 2015.  Stay tuned for developments in these stories dogging the President’s valedictory lap in Cuba and Latin America.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Greece, Cyprus and Israel to build Eastern Mediterranean Gas Pipeline

Auspicious meetings were held in Nicosia, Cyprus with members of the emerging Trilateral Eastern Mediterranean Gas Pipeline alliance: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

Watch this Jerusalem Post news video of the historic triple alliance meeting in Nicosia:

leaders on mediteranian pipeline

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras at Nicosia trilateral meeting, January 27, 2016.

The Jerusalem Post reported the triple alliance leaders announcing plans to set up the long delayed Eastern Mediterranean gas pipeline:

NICOSIA – Israel, Cyprus and Greece decided at their first ever tripartite meeting to set up a steering committee to look into laying a gas pipeline from Israel to Cyprus, and then to Greece for further export to Europe.

The decision was announced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, standing next to Cyprus President Nikos Anastasiades and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

Each leader delivered a statement noting the historic nature of the meeting, and highlighting the possibilities this emerging alliance has for the region. They did not answer any questions from the press.

While both Anastasiades and Tsipras stressed, without mentioning Turkey by name, that this cooperation was not “against anyone else,” Netanyahu did not make a reference at all to Turkey, either directly or indirectly.

National Infrastructure, Water and Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, who was part of the Israeli delegation, told reporters on the plane en route to Nicosia that Israel wanted to have the ability to export the gas both through Greece and Turkey. Laying the pipeline to Turkey is considerably cheaper than through Cyprus and Greece.

Anastasiades, as host of the summit, spoke first, and said this cooperation was based on an appreciation that “it is imperative to work collectively through coordination.” He said that the three leaders signed a joint declaration, which he termed a “historic document” that deals with cooperation in the energy, tourism, research, water-management, anti-terrorism and immigration spheres. He said that a trilateral steering committee will monitor the agreement.

Netanyahu, who said that as the son of a historian he was averse to using the term “historic,” said that the term did however fit the meeting. “I believe this meeting has historic implications,” he said. “The Last time Greeks, Cypriots and Jews sat around a table and talked about a common framework was 2,000 years ago.”

In addition to the gas pipeline, Netanyahu also spoke of a plan to lay an underwater cable to connect the electric grids of all three countries. “You can export gas through electricity,” he said.

Tsipras said that cooperation with Israel and Cyprus was a “strategic choice” for Athens.

EasternMedPipeline(1)In a January 2015, New English Review article, “Could Israel Lose the Energy Prize in the Eastern Mediterranean,” we noted this about the prospects for the Triple Alliance Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline.

“On December 9, 2014, Israel, Cyprus and Greece pitched the Eastern Mediterranean pipeline a day before a conference organized jointly byNatural Gas Europe, the Greek Energy Forum, ESCP Europe, RCEM and the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). The conference was titled “2030 EU Energy Security, the Role of the Eastern Mediterranean Region” and took place at EESC headquarters in Brussels. Natural Gas Europe in an article on the EESC conference noted the comments of Greek Energy Minister, Ioannis Maniatis:

Europe will need an extra 100 bcm of natural gas in the next 15 years, and in light of Europe’s increasing dependence on imports to fulfill its energy needs, the EU must find a sustainable model to ensure it is a competitive economy.

The EU needs to reduce external dependence, increase efficiency, diversify its sources and routes of supply, and improve interconnectors, he added. Fully connected energy grids, greater transparency, good governance and a thorough understanding of global events should also be the focus of the EU according to Maniatis. He explained that Greece’s importance is growing. The East Med pipeline pitched by Israel, Cyprus and Greece would run from Israel and Cyprus via Greece to Italy and then to the rest of Europe is technically feasible and attached to attractive prospects said Maniatis. He told the audience that the results of a feasibility study on the East Med pipeline will be released next year and that the pipeline would serve as a new source and provider of natural gas comparable to the Southern Corridor. The attractiveness of the East Med Pipeline, said Maniatis, is that unlike the Southern Corridor, it would pass exclusively through four member states and hence deserves strong EU backing for its materialization.

The Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline had received the endorsement of the EC as a priority project for underwriting in November 2013. According to The Guardian that could provide the Eastern Mediterranean pipeline project “access to a €5.85bn fund, and preferential treatment from multilateral banks.”

Natural Gas Europe reported at the time the options under consideration:

The basic plan will see the pipeline stretch from the Leviathan field offshore Israel on to Cyprus ending in eastern part of the Island of Crete in Greece. Three alternate routes were discussed:

  • To the Peloponnesus Peninsula joint via spur with the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP)
  • From Crete to northern Greece where it would join the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB)
  • From Crete to the Revythousa LNG terminal close to Athens. The terminal would be significantly upgraded to accommodate large amounts of gas exports thereafter.

The technically difficult 1,880 kilometer long submarine pipeline project, reaching depths of more than 2,000 meters, would connect Leviathan and Aphrodite gas fields ultimately to Italy. Cost for the project was estimated at over $20 Billion and would likely not be concluded at the earliest until 2020, assuming that production of the Leviathan field in the Israeli EEZ begins in 2017. With the demise of both the Turkish Leviathan-Ceyhan pipeline and the Australian Woodside Pty. Ashdod LNG –Eilat pipeline for delivery of gas to the Asian markets, the Eastern Mediterranean pipeline project may have serious consideration. There is the alternative of the onshore LNG facility at Vassilikos on Cyprus’ south shore to be built by the Consortium at an estimated cost of $10 billion. A Memorandum of Understanding for planning the Vassilikos LNG complex was signed by Cyprus and the Consortium in June 2013. In the interim, offshore floating LNG processing platforms that might be leased to ship processed gas via pressured LNG vessels to receiving terminals in Greece and Italy. However, Noble Energy was not initially supportive of the Eastern Mediterranean pipeline option, instead concentrating on sales from Leviathan to regional users like Jordan and Egypt and building the proposed Cypriot LNG processing facility.”

Israel has overcome the ruling of its former Anti Trust Authority general director, approving an offshore gas development plan with US Partner Noble Energy, inc. and Israeli partner Delek Group involving the Leviathan, Tamar and adjacent Aphrodite gas fields in the Cyprus Exclusive Economic Zone. With yesterday’s announcement in Nicosia by the Triple Alliance of Israel, Cyprus and Greece, a way can now be seen to go forward with the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Pipeline and the LNG facility in Cyprus.  At the time we wrote the January 2015 NER article, Russian President Putin and Turkish President Erdogan had announced a $12 billion Turkey Stream pipeline deal to supply Europe with natural gas. Given the break off in relations between Russia and Turkey over the latter’s downing of a Russian Su-24 bomber, Putin has suspended the project.  That sent Erdogan scrambling to re-open diplomatic relations with Jerusalem seeking supplies of Israeli gas.  The dour circumstances propounded in our January 2015 article appear to be lifted by the geo-resource and political wars in the Syrian and ISIS conflicts.  That is enhanced by the settlement of Israel’s plan for development and distribution of its offshore gas and oil fields.

RELATED ARTICLE: 10 Reasons Israel Is Not An ‘Apartheid’ State

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

France to Turkey: Strike the Islamic State not the Kurds

The revelations about the Moroccan Jihadi, who brave Americans, Brit and French took down on the Thayles fast train last Friday, clearly indicated Ayoub El-Kanazzi’s travels to Turkey, were to confer with alleged French ISIS fighters. Following the glowing tributes and medals bestowed at the Elysee Palace to Americans, Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler and Brit Chris Norman, French President turned his political attention to Turkey’s President Erdogan.  He issued a statement today suggesting that Erdogan concentrate hitting ISIS targets instead of Kurdish PKK forces in both Syria and Iraq. Reuters reported these developments in an article, “France’s Hollande: Turkey Needs to Ramp up Islamic State Fight:”

French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday Turkey must do more to tackle Islamic State in Syria and urged it to restore dialogue with Kurdish groups after launching strikes against them more than a month ago.

Hollande delivered his annual foreign policy speech to French ambassadors a day after the Turkish foreign minister told Reuters that Turkey and the United States would launch air operations to push Islamic State from a border area in northern Syria, something that could help prevent the militants bringing in fighters and arms in.

“All the players need to be part of the solution. I’m thinking of Gulf Arab states and Iran. I’m thinking of Turkey that needs to be involved in the fight against Islamic State and needs to relaunch dialogue with the Kurds.” Hollande said.

Turkey’s critics say it has used its role in the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State as a cover to attack Kurdish PKK fighters and stem Kurdish political and territorial ambitions. Ankara says it is conducting a “synchronized war on terror”

[…]

Hollande also said the deal reached with Iran over its nuclear program opened a window of opportunity to include it in resolving regional crises such as Syria, where it is Assad’s primary backer.

“We must ask Iran to associate itself with the resolution of crises that are devastating the region,” Hollande said. “Iran must be a constructive player.”

Hollande is putting on brave face following the close call last Friday with a heavily armed Moroccan Jihadist on the Thalys train taken down by U.S., Brit and French heroes. He’s requesting that Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan go after ISIS instead of the PKK and Kurdish resistance forces in both Iraq and Syria. Add to that hoping that Iran, an accomplice in the Axis of Evil including Russia, Syria and North Korea, would aid in removal of Bashar Assad is truly whistling past the graveyard. But then Hollande acquiesced to approval of the Iran nuclear pact given glowing economic opportunities for French companies like Total and Peugeot.

Erdogan is caught in a trap of his own making. He snookered his admirer Obama by relenting on the use of the Incirlik air base, while sending his F-16s to attack PKK bastions on the Quandil Mountain in northern Iraq, leaving the USAF to attack ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq. Then he rounded up the usual PKK suspects in southeastern Turkey and found both he and his security forces in an internal revolt by Kurds in Southeastern Turkey.

Because the minority Kurdish party in the Ankara parliament, the HDP, won eighty seats, by attacking the Kurds inside Turkey, that will ensure another political fiasco now that he’s called for a new snap election in October. So-called Conservative Kurds who fell for his sinuous Islamist appeal are bailing, which translates to the HDP increasing its stake of possible seats in this coming election. Add to that the swooning Turkish economy. So, the neo Ottoman Sultan in Ankara may find himself in a stalemate quagmire of his own making and the elusive executive authoritarian Presidency beyond his reach.

Having said all that Hollande unlike Obama is correct that Turkey has to shut down the cross border flood of ISIS wannabees into Syria. But then Erdogan wouldn’t make illicit profits from the sale of antiquities and smuggled oil from the Islamic State. Moreover, his ally, the IHH Muslim charity, involved with the Mavi Marmara incident off Gaza in 2010, wouldn’t be able to ship cash and weapons for the Sunni supremacists in Raqaa, Syria. Further, his seeking that 60 mile buffer zone in northwest Syria abutting the Turkish frontier may not become a reality. The U.S. and others suggest that a no-fly zone based on the model from the 1990’s in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq may be the best solution. Besides the buffer zone was supposed to solve two problems: a means of sending back Syrian refugees and blunt a Kurdish push to seal the frontier perhaps all the way to the Mediterranean. So, thank you President Hollande for the honors you bestowed on our heroic boys and for the clarity of your message to Islamist recalcitrant, Turkish President Erdogan, an alleged NATO ally.

On Iran, M. Hollande, you bought into the nuclear pact because of glittering economic prizes to French companies.  You may have inadvertently have let loose the dogs of war against Israel via proxy Hezbollah.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Arizona AG Horne refuses to recognize Stealth Jihad of the Gulen Movement

arizona ag horne

Arizona Attorney General Thomas Horne

Yesterday, the usual restrained, moderate informative format of the Lisa Benson show ended in an uproar.  The kerfuffle was over the refusal of incumbent Arizona Attorney General Thomas Horne to recognize the stealth jihad agenda of the Gulen Movement here in the US.  Horne, a former Democrat is in the final days of a fractious Republican primary that ends Tuesday amidst accusations of alleged abuse of office encompassing campaign funding and resignation of former aides objecting to questionable practices. This has resulted in investigations by the FBI and his own department’s Solicitor General.

The New York Times  article, “Legal Woes Pose Hurdles for Attorney General Tom Horne of Arizona in Campaign” chronicled Horne’s problems in a mid- July 2014 article indicating that he had been abandoned by luminaries in the State Republican Party  over accusations of questionable practices.   His opponent in the primary battle, Mark Brnovich is making much of these accusations.  Horne’s presence came as a result of a call from his campaign office requesting time to defend his support of the Gulen science and math academies.  We had Nidra Poller back on the program to address the blood libel of the Al Dura affair. That concerned the 55 second video on France 2 TV news of the faked death of a 12 year Palestinian youth, Mohammed al Dura, on September 30, 2000 in Gaza.  That fostered a slogan used by  Osama bin Laden to justify the Al Qaeda  9/11 attack  that still appears in pro-Hamas protests across Europe and here in the US during the current Gaza war: ‘ Israel murders Palestinian children’.  Poller is the author of Al-Dura: the long range ballistic myth.

When the matter of Turkey came up in the discussion with Attorney General Horne, this writer discussed the background of how Sufi Sheikh Mohammed Fethulleh Gulen came to be a resident alien in a fortified compound in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. This followed his flight from prosecution by the then secular Turkish government in 1998. We also noted his 2008 US Department of Homeland Security immigration hearing and support from a number of leading figures in the Islamic and US political firmament.  Those endorsements came from the likes of former President Clinton and Professor John Esposito of Georgetown University Center for Muslim Christian Understanding endowed by Saudi billionaire Prince Talal. We also discussed the contretemps between Turkey’s newly elected President, former Premier Recep Erdogan and Sheikh Gulen over massive charges of corruption by the former. These two had been allies ousting the long term secular rule of Turkey’s military and political parties in the tradition of Kemal Ataturk, first President of the Turkish Republic.  Sheikh Gulen is said to control a fortune estimated at over $25 billion, including media outlets, such as Turkey’s leading news daily, Today’s Zaman.  Erdogan has been a supporter of Hamas, ISIS and al Qaeda Affiliates and engaged in gold for gas schemes with Iran stifling US and EU attempts  at sanctioning the Islamic republic ‘s nuclear development program.  He is often referred to as the rising Sultan of the new Turkish Caliphate. Not to be upstaged, Gulen has been characterized as the most dangerous Islamist in the world because of the GM’s Hizmat (service)  control  of nearly 80 percent of  enrollment in Turkey’s preparatory schools, as well as the global network of GM controlled academies.

Both Erdogan and Gulen are united in opposition to Israel, once an ally to Turkish secularists and now accused of “enslaving Palestinians in Gaza”.  Both were particularly incensed over the May 2010 assault on the Turkish vessel the Mavi Marmara during which Israeli naval commandos killed 8 Turks and one Turkish American that tried to pierce the Gaza blockade.  The Mavi Mamara is owned by a global radical Muslim charity based in Turkey, IHH that has supplied funds and weapons to both al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria.

Nidra and I drew attention to Turkey as a questionable member of NATO, whose request for entry to the EU had been rebuffed for years over charges of human rights abuses and denial of due process under the 11 year term of Erdogan and his party’s super majority in the Turkish Parliament.

But the main issue was the world wide network of 1,100 GM Schools in over 100 countries. In the US there are more than 135 GM charter schools with an enrollment exceeding 50,000 in more than 26 states; 12 of which are in Arizona. All funded by taxpayers in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually. We noted the private investigations that had been conducted in 12 states and the FBI raids on GM schools in Louisiana and Illinois over abuses of students and other allegations.   We discussed legislation passed in Tennessee and under consideration in Louisiana and Mississippi. See our June 2011 presentation, Unveiling Gulen Schools in Tennessee.  Those legislative proposals contain restrictions on the proportion of foreign workers brought in under the HB 1 visa program as administrators and faculty at charter schools specifically targeting the abuses by the GM operated science and mathematics academies.  We told how state legislators were often entreated by free trips to Turkey to sample the cuisine, culture and vibrant economy of the country.  GM US academy sponsoring groups have also made contributions to the political campaigns of state legislators in those jurisdictions that have granted charter licenses.

A caller drew attention to a report on a GM Sonoran academy in Tucson that Attorney General Horne had visited in his capacity as the former Superintendent of Public Instruction for Arizona, an elected post.  Lisa Benson cited pamphlets that she found extolling the virtues of the GM movement, Turkish nationalism and the Sheikh’s version of Islam. However, she also evidence of rejection of genocide. At that Attorney General Horne interjected saying that was concerning Armenian genocide and not the holocaust. Horne who is Jewish said that he came from a family of Shoah survivors and had relatives in Israel.   Horne is a graduate of both Harvard University and its Law School. Doubtless, he should have known that Hitler who fomented the murder of six million European Jewish men, women and children,  predicated the final solution of the Holocaust based on the West’s indifferent reactions to the plight of millions of Armenians lost in the Ottoman jihad death marches  during WWI.

 He justified his defense of the GM academies in Arizona by the academic performance of Gulen charter school students. Moreover, given the history of Jews during the holocaust, he indicated that it was unseemly to criticize another religion, in this case, Islam.  Notwithstanding, the presentation of information we provided on the GM academies in the US and the stealth jihad agenda of the GM doctrine propounded by Sheikh Gulen,  he saw nothing that would cause him to investigate their operations in Arizona.  This is notwithstanding the evidence of both state and FBI investigations in other jurisdictions.  Lisa Benson noted that he endorsed the Gulen even after she presented him with open source information that they supporter him when he was Superintendent of Public Instruction in Arizona.  Horne suggested to Benson that he wanted to focus on the charter schools run by La Raza rather than on Gulen. La Raza is an extremist Latino group were fostering rejectionist views of America replete with posters of Argentine Cuban icon, Che Guevara were the problem du jour for Horne.

Horne told Benson that, “I am not soft on Islam issues, but I don’t see anything wrong with Gulen.” Yet he would not admit that Islam could be so overt and obvious. My co-host Lisa Benson reacted angrily to Horne’s comments.  Horne came with an agenda to yesterday’s program. It was to put both he and his GM supporters in Arizona in the best possible light.  As I said in an after program dialogue with both Benson and Attorney General Horne, he came with a closed mind not to engage in meaningful dialogue. Problem is that he evinced no curiosity about the evidence presented. That was not his purpose; it was trolling for votes in a hotly contested Republican primary for the top law officer position in Arizona.

Listen to the podcast of the Lisa Benson Show of August 24, 2014 with Nidra Poller and Arizona Attorney General Thomas Horne.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Sufi Sheikh Mohammed Fethulleh Gulen and is courtesy of HizmetNew.com.