With over 5,000 USAF airmen spread over an enormous and strategically placed base, the Incirlik 39th Air Base Wing has stood since the early 1950’s. Erdogan’s aggressive behavior has the US considering a move to Greece. What does that mean for both countries and our NATO partners?
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https://youtu.be/tNnDLTQMARs
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brad johnson september 16 2020.
00:03
um those of us that have been watching
00:06
turkey and its belligerence toward the
00:09
west and so on and so on for quite a few
00:11
years now
00:12
have frequently wondered
00:15
since turkey’s a nato member and that
00:17
there’s a giant u.s base there
00:19
and according to many pundits that base
00:21
contains
00:22
aircraft that are carrying nuclear
00:24
weapons or capable offenses
00:26
allegedly those weapons were there so it
00:29
does seem like a peculiar place
00:31
to have that base now is it is it a
00:34
function of keeping your friends close
00:35
and your enemies closer
00:37
or is it time that nato and the u.s base
00:41
get uh get the hell out of turkey
00:44
yeah now that base has been around for a
00:46
long time uh and i
00:48
uh if i’m mispronouncing it it’s
00:49
incirlik is how it’s written if that’s
00:51
mispronounced forgive me in advance
00:54
but that is an air force base there u.s
00:56
air force base there although there’s a
00:57
lot of other elements of that it’s a big
00:59
big base uh that was placed in that
01:01
region because it was very forward
01:03
position and of course what you want to
01:04
do is have
01:05
you know as much firepower as close to
01:07
where something might pop
01:08
up as possible out of reach but still
01:11
you know as close as possible so
01:13
uh turkey was the perfect solution for
01:15
that and remember you know turkey used
01:17
to have that
01:18
you’d be right on the essentially the
01:21
border with russia so it was a
01:23
it was a forward base coming out of the
01:25
cold war times uh
01:27
things have shifted it’s still kind of a
01:29
forward base for that region something
01:30
needs to be there
01:32
and so it’s important and this is one of
01:34
the things that turkey has said over and
01:36
over and over
01:37
you know you need us we don’t need you
01:38
as much as you need us
01:40
this air force base has been one of the
01:42
sticks that turkey’s tried to beat the
01:44
united states with for years demanding
01:46
more money and
01:47
military support and all all of this
01:49
what you’d expect i mean there’s no real
01:51
surprises there
01:52
nothing particularly tricky now what has
01:55
happened is
01:55
over these last particularly say last
01:57
five years where we’ve seen
01:59
uh since uh president erdogan has taken
02:02
charge and
02:03
and uh consolidated his control and
02:05
become a
02:06
basically a dictator who’s who’s trying
02:08
to
02:09
move into a neo-ottoman type empire
02:12
and this aggressive policies that he’s
02:15
taking just
02:16
essentially in a in a 360 degree circle
02:19
around him
02:19
including you know fighting in certain
02:21
areas with with turkish troops
02:23
outside of turkey um
02:26
and now what’s happened is there’s begun
02:28
to be some push back
02:30
and now ron johnson senator ron
02:33
ron johnson u.s senator ron johnson
02:35
wisconsin
02:36
has come out with an interesting piece
02:38
now uh senator johnson himself is
02:40
he’s a republican but i wouldn’t call
02:42
him a conservative he’s kind of a
02:44
you know standard uh republican if you
02:47
will
02:48
good guy votes the right way a lot of
02:49
the time and so on but he’s not
02:51
not like a hardcore conservative so
02:53
interesting that he
02:54
came out with this now he’s senior he’s
02:56
been around he holds up some power and
02:58
posts and things like that
02:59
within the senate and he’s coming out
03:01
saying look we need
03:03
this this is clearly going bad with
03:05
turkey
03:06
so we need to start doing something and
03:08
what he announced is that we’re
03:10
considering
03:12
what type of acts we can do and
03:15
that we’re probably going to have to
03:16
move this air force base
03:18
out of turkey that that is a
03:21
stunning stunningly significant thing
03:24
now the other half of that
03:26
is what senator johnson suggested is
03:28
that we move it to one of the greek
03:29
islands
03:31
you know of course that then is it’s not
03:34
only stunningly significant but it’s
03:36
it’s a clear-cut threat to turkey uh
03:39
and saying look you know we don’t need
03:42
you as much as you
03:43
think we do and greece is just as
03:46
forward positioned as you are
03:48
and having it on a greek island uh greek
03:51
of course
03:52
greece of course i think would be you
03:53
know thrilled to have the opportunity
03:55
it would be a huge influx of of of
03:58
capital into their system
04:00
and funding into their system having
04:02
that much money spent in greece and the
04:04
development of the airport and all of
04:05
that that would be
04:06
required to support a a us military air
04:09
force base i mean they make
04:11
serious runways and things and so
04:14
greece would be thrilled they’ll i think
04:16
they would be i would be stunned if they
04:18
weren’t you know
04:19
chomping at the bit to get this and that
04:21
is just absolutely a stick
04:23
you know inches away from the eye of
04:25
turkey ready to be poked
04:26
and we’ll see what they do so far turkey
04:29
has been silent on that
04:30
they haven’t retorted because i think
04:33
turkey recognizes that if that gets
04:35
pulled their value really starts to drop
04:40
and if the united states is willing to
04:42
relocate that base
04:44
uh everything else then is on the table
04:46
so this is
04:47
is the very first serious
04:51
meaningful uh threat
04:55
from the united states aimed at turkey
04:58
turkey’s
04:59
economy is already in the toilet they’ve
05:01
already had a lot of problems going on
05:03
and that of course is part of the reason
05:05
why turkish president erdogan is being
05:07
so
05:07
militant against the world it’s the
05:09
age-old thing that dictators have always
05:11
done is they
05:12
when the economy goes south you know you
05:15
point north to this
05:16
this outside enemy that’s the cause of
05:18
all your problems and
05:19
rally the you know the people behind you
05:21
based on this this outside enemy and
05:23
your
05:24
your your uh you know the things you say
05:27
about them become more virulent and
05:29
and uh that’s and that’s precisely what
05:31
we see going on in turkey and he’s
05:33
pointing the finger outside to all these
05:35
external enemies that are the reason for
05:36
the problems inside turkey
05:38
so this would be something quite
05:40
different it would be
05:41
in a class all its own economically it
05:44
would be devastating to at least that
05:46
region of turkey
05:47
for the relationship with the united
05:49
states it would be
05:50
absolutely devastating and there’d just
05:52
be no way around it
05:54
uh it would it would have now the
05:56
detractors from this concept would be
05:58
saying it’s driving it would drive
06:00
turkey into the arms of our enemies but
06:03
i would say
06:04
turkey’s already got one arm around our
06:06
enemies now
06:08
and are kind of looking at us across the
06:10
table with a distant look
06:12
so i i don’t think our loss is something
06:14
that that would be that serious and i
06:16
think our gain
06:17
would actually be substantial because
06:19
then we can start to crack down on
06:21
turkey for all these things that they’re
06:22
they’re actually doing and uh impose
06:25
sanctions
06:26
and distance ourselves from a lot of
06:28
these things they’re trying to do so
06:30
this is very very significant it’s only
06:33
a threat at this
06:34
point but now we have to wait for the
06:36
other shoe to drop and see how
06:38
turkey responds do they back down on
06:40
some of these issues or do they double
06:41
down
06:42
erdogan up to date has always doubled
06:44
down so i wouldn’t be surprised if if
06:46
erdogan comes out and says screw
06:48
you we don’t need you you know you need
06:50
us we don’t need you
06:51
get out then if that’s what you want and
06:53
he’s threatened many times in the past
06:55
to throw the united states out so it’s a
06:58
very very interesting turn offense
07:00
it’s does he double down or back down
07:02
and we’ll find out
07:03
fairly quickly i would expect on that as
07:14
well
07:28
so
07:46
you
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