A Turkey before Thanksgiving

 

 

"A friend in need, is indeed a......."

What a pal. What a teammate. Okay - what a load. Yes, our closest NATO partner, located right next door to the ISIL conflict, has been about as much help as a one armed paper hanger. Who am I talking about? The greatest fence sitter of modern times - Turkey.

Soldiers in the Turkish Army have been given a front row seat to watch the destruction and genocide taking place in the Syrian town of Kobane. Could they help? Absolutely. Why won't they help? Good question. One reason is the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Old feuds in the Middle East go back years, and some are never forgotten. It seems that Erdogan is far more concerned about getting rid of Assad than ridding the planet of ISIL.

And then for reasons that really baffle me, he will not even let us, a NATO partner, use his forward staging areas to support our fight against ISIL. What is the most amazing is simply this - as mentioned before, the "L" in ISIL stands for Levant. Part of Turkey, albeit very small, is a part of Levant. If ISIL really wants to reclaim Levant for it's own, Turkey could be next. It seems to me it would be in Turkey's best interest to fight ISIL now, before they cross the border.

So where does that leave the "coalition" in the fight against this bloodthirsty group of terrorists? Nowhereville, that is where. Yesterday a military expert was on one of the channels and brought up a very good point. We can say as much as we want about ISIL, but they are not dumb. They are concealing themselves better and better all the time. Result - the cost to kill an enemy combatant keeps going up. Putting it another way - the air war against ISIL is becoming less and less effective all the time.

As much as our Commander-in-Chief does not want to hear this, I will say it anyway. Help is not coming. ISIL will continue it's reign of terror on innocents. Turkey should be thrown out of NATO. WE NEED TO PUT BOOTS ON THE GROUND TO BEAT THESE GUYS! More and more people are coming around to idea that "boots" could either be US troops or mercenaries. Either one would work a whole lot better than dropping bombs on empty desert sand.

Louis Pasteur's famous quote "chance favors the prepared mind" is something we need to remember. We are not prepared for ISIL. They caught us napping. Now our strategy seems to be "wish them away". Turkey has shown us their true colors, and they are not pretty. The leader of ISIL has vowed to have his black flag flying over 10 Downing Street as well as the White House. I take that threat seriously.

So Turkey, our friend, we will call you if we need you. Our advice to you is simple - don't hold your breath. And don't call us if (I mean when) you get in trouble.