While other problems dominate the news, Erdogan’s moves, unwatched and yet important, seem to mirror current global crises. Bent on recreating the Ottoman Empire, Erdogan’s expansionist dreams result in much saber rattling from Russia. Between Syria and Turkey lies the ongoing Kurdish problem in the middle. Brad Johnson, former Senior CIA Operative and President of Americans for Intelligence Reform, analyzes the fray and its implications.
https://youtu.be/uOsosunDMNk
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Brad Johnson a June 8th of 2020 and
00:04
of course Turkey which is again one of
00:07
the great unwatched stories in the world
00:11
because it’s just so important what
00:13
they’re doing and it’s so consistent and
00:15
there’s a there’s but there’s some very
00:17
interesting developments but you know
00:19
one of them is that Turkey supported
00:23
President Trump in the hydro chloric one
00:25
thing they came out with a whole thing
00:27
about how they’re using it to great
00:28
effect and they recently even came out
00:31
with the thing saying that they would
00:33
help the United States deal with
00:35
communist groups like a knife and so on
00:38
but they want the u.s. to reciprocate by
00:41
coming down on the Kurdish which of
00:43
course some of them are communists oh
00:44
hey but and of course there’s also
00:47
increased Turkish aggression and
00:51
manifest destiny when it comes to
00:53
drilling for oil and resource you know
00:56
taking other people’s resources I think
00:58
from Greece so can you give us a quick
01:00
update on what’s going on the turkey
01:02
because wow yeah no this is this is
01:10
another area I mean what we have right
01:11
now is the chaos and the streets caused
01:13
by the extreme left in the United States
01:17
it kind of takes everybody’s eye off the
01:19
ball so this gives the opportunity for
01:21
other people to do a lot of things
01:23
turkey has been very aggressive for a
01:25
long time we’ve been talking about it
01:26
and there there there’s no question that
01:30
the president of Turkey air Diwan it
01:33
fully intends to or his goals are to
01:36
reestablish the Ottoman Empire and so he
01:40
needs he’s very expansionist and working
01:43
on that in basically every direction so
01:45
this is kind of centered on Turkey but
01:48
exactly that yes and he’s he’s not a
01:52
stupid man he’s clever in his
01:54
negotiations as well and so he’s
01:56
essentially negotiated a couple of
01:57
things with President Trump Trump’s
02:00
administration that are favorable to
02:02
Turkey and he does those by what he
02:04
gives up to the United States is nothing
02:06
to him
02:07
it doesn’t hurt or hinder him in any way
02:10
from his expansionist ideas
02:13
so these are things he’s willing to give
02:15
up because any other terrorist group or
02:17
something like that that’s that’s being
02:19
targeted by the United States he’s happy
02:21
to have them destroyed because those are
02:23
competition for power in his arena if
02:26
you will in the Middle East so some
02:30
first one of the things you just
02:31
mentioned there
02:32
he’s absolutely planning to drill in
02:35
Greek waters then and part of the reason
02:37
is the philosophy of Islam and because
02:41
I’m the Ottoman Empire these are areas
02:43
that had been previously conquered for
02:46
him all that stuff belongs to him so
02:49
it’s his so he feels completely within
02:51
his rights and justified to go drill in
02:53
Greek waters for oil because he fused
02:55
that as as as resources that belong to
02:59
him and so he’s just taking what’s
03:01
rightfully his
03:03
of course I refuse it differently those
03:07
are their territories so they’re very
03:08
much against it now Greece cannot fight
03:11
the Turkish military so what’s happened
03:14
there is graces of course looking for
03:16
help both our NATO members and so the
03:19
United States is means they believe they
03:23
need turkey more than they need Greece
03:25
which thought you know turkeys in a
03:26
position to be more useful than Greece’s
03:29
as we all know Greece has been in
03:31
economic meltdown for a long time and
03:33
their military is a you know suffered a
03:37
great deal as a result and put it that
03:39
way and so so Greece cannot take these
03:43
guys all along alone but now what’s very
03:46
interesting out of this is Russia is now
03:48
doing a little bit of saber rattling
03:50
coming to the aid of Greece that’s a
03:55
very interesting thing now Turkey and
03:57
Russia have long long been in it like
03:58
three major Wars and some skirmishes and
04:00
stuff over time so they’ve always been
04:02
antagonistic powers in that region and
04:05
view each other with a lot of distrust
04:08
and you know dislike I’ll put it again
04:13
that way so this is starting to is
04:17
something that could grow wider now take
04:19
that and with another thing what we’ve
04:22
seen in Syria now that’s on the southern
04:26
border
04:27
of Turkey so they’ve expanded and have
04:29
that what is it five mile wide strip now
04:32
all right they know they took more ended
04:34
up at 15 or 20 mile wide strip of
04:36
northern Syria that abuts Turkey and
04:39
which is of course where the Kurds were
04:42
and that is again part of the deal that
04:44
as you mentioned Turkey is pushing for
04:46
with the United States is to declare all
04:49
Kurds as terrorist group and of course
04:52
what the Turks line is all Kurds dead
04:54
and you know of course the issue with
04:57
that from the United States is that part
05:00
of the groups of the Kurds are people
05:03
that we’ve worked with very well on
05:05
ominous you know type leftist groups
05:09
that that are the ones that are doing
05:10
most of the fighting inside Turkey so
05:12
you’ve got distinct just groups within
05:15
the curve like birds one of which we’ve
05:17
been very friendly with and one of which
05:19
has been kind of an enemy to the United
05:21
States and those that’s what Turkey is
05:23
trying to take advantage of to get all
05:24
Kurds targeted and that’s also part of
05:26
what they’re doing in this area of Syria
05:28
now again Russia has big interests in
05:30
Syria and are backing the Assad regime
05:34
or Syria and Turkey is trying to come in
05:36
and use their own militia and other
05:38
troops they’ve gotten from other
05:39
countries as proxies in these area and
05:41
they’re arming them to go fight so you
05:43
have fighting taking place between
05:44
Syrian troops and basically Turkish back
05:46
groups the Kurds are kind of mixed up in
05:49
the middle of all this trying to keep
05:50
their head down I think and in the mix
05:54
also you have China there was just a
05:56
report out in the news that the Chinese
05:59
have a surface-to-air missile radar set
06:02
up there that when Israel was flying
06:04
some missions in the area with the f-35
06:07
such a very advanced aircraft that those
06:10
were picked up and that the missile
06:11
system didn’t work so I didn’t fire
06:13
against the Israeli aircraft but you
06:15
have Chinese providing support in that
06:16
in that area as well so this is this is
06:20
something poised to turn into a real
06:22
peace on the newer pretty quickly with
06:25
all of these these sides facing off now
06:28
well another element to this again link
06:30
to Turkey Turkey has been basically
06:34
backing the government in Libya which
06:37
really only owns the two major cities
06:40
and they’ve been backing them because
06:44
their surrogates for turkey key
06:47
so taking expand they want to take oh
06:50
yeah that’s why they’re backing them and
06:51
what they’ve done in their negotiations
06:53
is kind of not a trick or force or
06:57
cajole the United States into backing
06:59
their play Libya so the United States
07:01
has been backing without a great deal of
07:04
emphasis put on them but they in backing
07:06
Turkish interests in Libya on the other
07:09
side you have general Hoffs our our us
07:11
educated pro-us guy who we should be
07:15
backing who’s taken over in almost the
07:17
entire country of Libya except for those
07:19
two main cities as I said the capital of
07:22
Libya and I forget Sara’s here or
07:27
something like that the other town the
07:28
other major city at any rate forgive me
07:31
for not remembering the name of that
07:32
town but yeah those two areas they were
07:36
they were going to be wiped out that’s
07:38
when the Turks stepped in back then
07:40
started providing a lot of material and
07:42
training and who knows how many troops
07:44
and certainly they were providing
07:46
surrogate groups to help help this
07:49
Libyan government fight back and they
07:53
inserted to make some successes against
07:56
the general hostile forces so once again
07:58
now what we’ve had is an outside force
08:01
come in now in Egypt views Turkey with
08:04
alarm there again is is some competition
08:07
between them Turkey is the largest army
08:11
in that area the only other one that can
08:13
really compete with size and strength
08:15
and troops and all of that is Egypt all
08:17
the other countries are quite small by
08:20
comparison and no matter how good their
08:21
military is they’re just very small so
08:24
Egypt has stepped in and now they’re
08:26
backing general haft R and they’ve
08:28
brought in tanks so military armored
08:31
vehicles and tanks which apparently are
08:34
being driven and fought by Egyptian
08:37
troops supporting general Haftarah
08:39
troops so now this brings general haps
08:42
our back up into parity as far as what
08:45
weapons are available to each side and
08:47
this means that they’re going to fight
08:48
it out again and general haft are will
08:50
start to move forward because he has the
08:52
advantages of basically having these
08:53
places surrounded and
08:54
closing ends and so they won’t be able
08:57
to take back now that’s going to ratchet
08:59
the situation up again so you’ve got you
09:02
know northern Syria you’ve got the the
09:05
Turkish oppression in the Greek waters
09:07
you’ve got Turkish and grush reckon in
09:11
Libya all of these things being backed
09:14
by different side and it’s one of the
09:15
things that always kind of worries me
09:17
just taking a look at this stuff you’ve
09:19
got a group of people or a military
09:22
that’s very aggressive and expansionist
09:24
in Turkey and you’ve got all these other
09:26
sides essentially kind of trying to
09:28
defend themselves against it and you’ve
09:30
got a lot of countries then starting to
09:32
come into play and this arena backing
09:34
different sides out of all of this that
09:37
is a formula for expanded conflict
09:40
bringing in these other countries this
09:42
is a flashpoint this needs to be watched
09:44
and it’s not being discussed outside of
09:47
myself and very very few others is this
09:50
even being looked at but it’s a very
09:52
dangerous situation it could get a lot
09:54
lot worse so it’s one of those areas to
09:56
keep an eye on here and see how all this
09:59
unfolds if Turkey goes in to drill in
10:03
Greece you know Greece has to try and
10:05
respond and apparently they’re going to
10:08
be backed by Russia in this so it could
10:11
be shooting war very quickly
10:13
well this there should be little doubt
10:15
that air21 has ottoman intentions and
10:18
the more the United States is distracted
10:21
the bet the more likely he’s gonna see
10:23
opportunity in that Brad Johnson thank
10:25
you very much for that turkey update
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