Cutting down olive groves? Moving armaments to the border? Conflict between Turkey and Greece is escalating once again and may lead the U.S. to have to take sides should a war break out. Who else will join in the fray? Will the Turks press on until the Ottoman empire rises again? Russia may get involved as a Greek ally, further complicating any conflict. Brad Johnson, former Senior CIA Operative and President of Americans for Intelligence Reform, brings us up to date on what many in the States overlook that could bring deadly consequences.
https://youtu.be/Wi0g6QXYWlM
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Brad Johnson it is Saturday June the
00:03
13th of 2020 on the last update we did
00:06
about Turkey and Greece week there were
00:09
some very interesting movement toward
00:14
well conflict in terms of Turkish
00:18
drilling for resources and and Russian
00:20
assistance for Greece which is kind of a
00:23
surprise to everybody I think and now
00:25
it’s only been a couple of days since
00:26
that update and there there’s more
00:28
developments can you catch us up on that
00:30
yes there is there is an interesting
00:33
aspect to this and yeah it is kind of an
00:36
interesting bedfellows situation where
00:39
you see Russia kind of stepping in being
00:40
very supportive supportive of Greece but
00:43
Russia and Turkey have long been at odds
00:45
and have been competitors in that area
00:49
of the world for power and certainly
00:51
have had multiple wars in the past in
00:53
conflicts so I mean they’re they like
00:55
each other and so yeah it’s a it’s a
00:59
natural situation where Russia would do
01:02
something to stop turkeys expansion
01:06
efforts so it just happens to be Greece
01:09
in this situation so they’re cooperating
01:10
now what Greece has done is they’ve just
01:14
moved a whole bunch of equipment up onto
01:17
the border with Turkey and and I’m
01:20
talking leopard tanks armored vehicles
01:24
artillery ground-to-air missiles very
01:28
important and very significant because
01:31
air power and air superiority will need
01:34
to be established immediately if if the
01:36
conflict comes so all significant
01:39
equipment that’s being moved up there
01:41
and of course tanks are are something
01:43
that would be used in grassley you know
01:45
to to counter attack quarter or to stage
01:47
an attack so the Greek Minister of
01:50
Defense has come out and said that
01:52
Greece is getting ready for war now
01:56
that’s a pretty belligerent comment to
01:59
make and so I think that’s what we’re
02:03
out Greece views this now Turkey’s out
02:05
there saying no no we’re going to
02:08
negotiate we don’t have that
02:09
and a problem we’re not going to war
02:13
there’s been long conflicts between
02:15
Greece and Turkey again many many you
02:18
know a history of long periods of
02:21
conflict and war and aggression and
02:23
let’s not forget Turkey basically
02:26
invaded Cyprus took over half of the
02:30
island and now maintain control of that
02:33
turkeys view of everything that Greece
02:37
has and its resources particularly those
02:40
in the Aegean Sea to be there and that’s
02:44
just their view of it this is something
02:46
we’ve talked about before but it’s part
02:47
of the the belief system that they have
02:50
being former Ottoman empires and Islamic
02:54
it’s part of the Islamic belief system
02:56
that all of those resources that are in
02:58
greek territorial waters that greece is
03:01
exploiting is being stolen by greece
03:04
because they turkey views it as
03:05
belonging to them because that was once
03:08
conquered conquered territory once
03:09
conquered it belongs to them so everyone
03:13
needs to understand and looking at this
03:15
that greece understands everything I’ve
03:18
just said perfectly there’s no question
03:21
in their mind that that is precisely the
03:23
situation turkey has said they’re gonna
03:26
go in and start exploiting those
03:28
resources and Greek territorial waters
03:31
and they’re gonna do it well that’s an
03:33
act of war by everybody standard except
03:36
for Turkey turkey views that as well
03:37
that’s part of negotiations so that’s
03:40
turkeys perspective on this but as we
03:42
noted in our previous discussion they’re
03:45
aggressively expanding and looking to to
03:48
to grow any way they can and you see the
03:51
fighting in Yemen and Libya and Syria
03:54
and the border disputes with Greece and
03:57
let’s not forget they have been taking
04:00
refugees of which many end up in Turkey
04:04
and sending them in waves into Greece
04:06
and these are Muslim refugees who don’t
04:12
like Greece and part of what they’ve
04:14
done and we’ve had there’s many pictures
04:16
of this out on the internet is they’ve
04:17
done things like just gone gone into all
04:20
of orchards at night olive tree orchards
04:22
at
04:23
and just wipe them out cut them down to
04:25
Nub’s on the ground so that they’ll die
04:27
now again this is something that doesn’t
04:30
mean much to us in America without that
04:32
background but that’s deeply significant
04:35
in an emotional way for Greeks but it’s
04:37
also in an economic way because all of
04:40
trees are a huge cash crop very you
04:45
economically easy to grow and make money
04:49
on but it takes a long time for trees
04:52
olive trees to grow and become
04:54
productive so if you come in and cut
04:56
down somebody’s orchard and huge swathes
04:59
of these things you’re essentially
05:01
destroying the economy for a generation
05:03
and probably meaning that many of those
05:06
people are going to have to move away
05:07
which of course is the objective to
05:09
brand that’s why Turkey is sending these
05:11
waves of people in so we’re seeing
05:13
Greece put under a lot of stress and
05:15
threat from Turkey turkey refusing to
05:19
acknowledge that that’s what they’re
05:21
doing because in their opinion that’s
05:23
not what they’re doing so this is this
05:25
is one of those things where the world
05:30
is going to be essentially on the Greek
05:33
side of this but here in the United
05:35
States we’ve got a bit of a problem
05:36
because turkeys much larger military far
05:39
more strategic and economically
05:41
important than Greece who’s been in free
05:44
flow economically as we’ve talked about
05:45
before so the inclination for the United
05:49
States and and the powers that be
05:51
politically here the United States is to
05:53
come down on the side of Turkey so
05:54
that’s something we’re gonna have to
05:56
figure out and I’ve been warning for
05:57
about a year now that these problems are
06:00
growing and there’s a good chance that
06:03
turkeys behavior could spark at least a
06:06
limited war in that region where you
06:08
begin to have other players and that’s
06:09
dangerous the thing to do would be to
06:11
nip it in the bud now if we were smart I
06:13
don’t know how smart we are I don’t
06:15
think that most of the people are
06:17
advising the White House that that’s the
06:20
direction they need to go but by
06:22
allowing things to continue what you do
06:24
is you start to raise the chance of
06:25
conflict in the area and of course once
06:27
a conflict explodes under the scene
06:30
other players are going to start to come
06:32
in and
06:34
when that happens I mean that’s more or
06:37
less how world where one got kicked off
06:39
yet an assassination of an individual
06:41
and it more people on different sides
06:43
started to come into it till it grew out
06:45
of control and that’s my fear with these
06:48
sorts of things and why I would much
06:49
rather see a policy of where you see
06:51
somebody who’s getting sobre festive
06:53
like turkey that you begin to take steps
06:55
to curb those those expansionist
06:58
tendencies on their part well if I could
07:01
be so bold as to make a prediction if
07:03
there is a kinetic war between Turkey
07:06
and Greece I predict that the middle to
07:09
long term consequence is that all
07:12
European Union members will see how
07:15
useless the European Union is because
07:16
they will do nothing about it
07:18
probably the Euroskeptic nations
07:20
possibly the UK but probably hungry and
07:23
countries in that region will come in to
07:25
help Greece and a new union will form a
07:28
new European Union full form of
07:30
Euroskeptic Nations
07:32
there’s my long-range prediction well
07:35
some of that would be to the good I hope
07:37
it I hope not the fighting kinetic stuff
07:39
but a reformation of a European
07:43
organizations I think would be
07:45
fundamentally a positive change so it
07:47
separately step right one one that isn’t
07:50
socialist it would be terrific Brad
07:51
Johnson thank you very much for that
07:53
update thank you
08:03
you
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