Turkey: Future Gaza Aid Ships Will Have Military Escorts

[YumYum]

Don't we have a B-52 bomber base in Turkey?

 

[eproxy100]

I don't know if Turkey has any Soviet/Russian weapons, but don't look down on those. The S-300 and Moskit, and many others, are superior to the NATO equivalents.

 

[DAFTEK]

SO Turkey has more balls than the US did when Israel actually took out our ship. Good for them.

I keep wondering if Rand Paul will get suckered into commenting on this. I think the "Let the US stay out of it" answer would be popular, but I never know any more.

Agreed, i pray he is smart and wont fall into a trap..

 

[angelatc]

So the line up for WWIII looks like this:

Turkey, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, France, Eastern Europe, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Italy, North Korea and Greece.

versus

Israel, Beverly Hills, Miami Beach, Florida and New York City.

Yes, but who provides most of the military might for the majority of those countries up there?

And there's a huge faction of people who want WWIII to happen because they believe it means Jesus is finally going to return.

 

[YumYum]

I don't know if Turkey has any Soviet/Russian weapons, but don't look down on those. The S-300 and Moskit, and many others, are superior to the NATO equivalents.

Yes, but the Israeli fighter jets are the best in the world.

 

[DAFTEK]

I wonder if the German president resignation has anything to do with this event..

Turks march against Israeli attack

Israeli security forces fired tear gas at protesters in the occupied West Bank [AFP]
Thousands of people have taken to the streets in the Turkish city of Istanbul and around the world to denounce Israel over its attack on the convoy of Gaza-bound aid ships that left at least nine people dead.

Around 10,000 people marched from the Israeli consulate in Istanbul towards the city's main square shouting slogans and waving banners saying "Killer Israel".

Bulent Arinc, Turkey's deputy prime minister, said there were up to 400 Turks among those aboard the Mavi Maramara, the Turkish cruise vessel which was leading the so-called Freedom Flotilla.

Other demonstrations denouncing the Israeli raid have been held in many cities around the world, including the capitals of Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and the UK.

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank clashed with Israeli security forces who responded with tear gas, injuring many people.

An emergency session of the United Nations Security Council is under way to discuss the matter.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, condemned Israel's actions and called for an investigation.

European anger

Pro-Palestinian campaigners marching in London spoke of their fears about the fate of British citizens aboard the flotilla.

Several hundreds activists blocked Whitehall, the main administrative area for the UK government, shouting "Free Palestine" and carrying flags and banners with slogans such as "Stop Israel's War Crimes in Gaza" and "End the Criminal Siege of Gaza".

Hundreds of protesters marched in London against the Israeli raid [Jacqueline Head]
Kate Hudson, chairwoman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), who joined the demonstration, said: "Obviously we have great support for the humanitarian convoy which has gone there to try to bring relief to the people in Gaza.

"It is devastating and deplorable that the Israeli forces have attacked civilians on the flotilla.

"We have close friends on the boat on which people were killed and we are here waiting for news.

"We are trying to get through to them but we are not getting any answers."

Turkey, Egypt, Cyprus, Spain, Greece, Denmark and Sweden have all summoned the Israeli ambassadors in their respective countries to protest against the assault.

Greek police fired tear gas at demonstrators protesting outside the Israeli embassy in Athens after about 2,500 protesters rallied outside the building, chanting "Hands off Gaza".

In Paris, hundreds of protesters also clashed with police after charging at the Israeli embassy.

Police responded by firing tear gas, and some officers used police batons to beat back protesters.

Paris police headquarters said about 1,200 people had joined the demonstration.

Consulate stormed

Earlier on Monday, protesters in Istanbul attempted to storm the consulate, scaling over the compound's walls, but were blocked from going further by police.

Protests also took place in Ankara, the Turkish capital.

"Since the Gaza war [Turkish-Israeli] relations have nose-dived and it would be absolutely fair to say that this is the lowest point."

Anita McNaught, Al Jazeera correspondent

A charity in Turkey has said most of those killed in the raid on six ships in international waters were Turkish nationals.

Israel has advised its citizens to avoid travel to Turkey and instructed those already there to keep a low profile and avoid crowded downtown areas.

Arinc said that the nation would be cancelling three joint military exercises and recalling a youth football team from Israel.

Anita McNaught, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Istanbul, said relations between Israel and Turkey have deteriorated since Israel's recent war on Gaza.

"Up until that point they had ... a constructive military alliance and for many years they saw the issue of domestic terrorism as one they had to share information about," she said.

"But since the Gaza war relations have nose-dived and it would be absolutely fair to say that this is the lowest point."

International condemnation

Israeli forces stormed the flotilla, which was carrying 700 pro-Palestinian activists and 10,000 tonnes of aid, while they were 65km off the Gaza coast in international waters.

PEOPLE ON BOARD


Two Palestinians who are also members of Israeli parliament
Swedish author Henning Mankell (unharmed according to the Swedish foreign ministry)
Northern Irish Nobel peace prize laureate Mairead Maguire
Aengus Snodaigh, member of the Irish parliament
Irish writer and historian Fintan Lane
Three German parliamentarians

The action has brought widespread condemnation, with the EU foreign affairs chief demanding that Israeli authorities mount a "full inquiry" into the attack.

Catherine Ashton also reiterated a longstanding demand for "an immediate, sustained and unconditional opening of the crossings for the flow of humanitarian aid, commercial goods and persons to and from Gaza," a spokesman said.

France and the UN's Middle East envoy have also condemned the attack, while Greece suspended a military exercise with Israel and postponed a visit by Israel's air force chief.

There are about 700 activists on board the flotilla, included people from the US, Britain, Australia, Greece, Canada, Malaysia, Algeria, Serbia, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Kuwait.

The majority of people on the ships are from Turkey.

 

[DAFTEK]

Haven't seen much talk about this...

German president quits over remarks

Koehler's resignation is expected to cause further problems for Chancellor Merkel (left) [AFP]
Horst Koehler, the German president, has unexpectedly resigned following criticism over comments he made about military action abroad.

He cited the fallout from a radio interview he gave following a visit to German troops in Afghanistan as the reason for the surprise move.

"I regret that my comments could lead to a misunderstanding about an important and difficult question for our nation," Koehler said in a statement on Monday.

He had said in the broadcast that, for a country with Germany's dependency on exports, military deployments could be "necessary ... in order to defend our
interests, for example free trade routes".

His remarks were taken by many as relating to Germany's unpopular mission in Afghanistan, although his office later said that he was referring to anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia.

Koehler's resignation is likely to cause further problems for Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who is already facing a euro zone debt crisis, sinking popularity and an increasingly awkward coalition partner.

Search for successor

Koehler, 67, a former head of the International Monetary Fund, had spoken out on the debt crisis enveloping the euro zone.

Now she will have to find a new and successful candidate for president.

Merkel's conservatives had backed Koehler, who was a year into his second term, for re-election by a special assembly last year.

Discussing Koehler's resignation, Thomas Kielinger, London correspondent of the German newspaper Die Welt, told Al Jazeera it "adds to the instability that we have in many areas of the political culture in my country.

"Does it add to the embarrassment of Merkel? Only to the degree that he is a member of the CDU, and he was given the job of president after a finally balanced poll five years ago, which said it was the time for a member of the conservative party to be president".

Political sensitivity.

The role of president is largely symbolic, but the row leading to Koehler's resignation underscores the sensitivity of military issues in Germany even 65 years after the end of the second world war.

"We had a hard time rationalizing and defending the deployment of German troops because my country, after the Hitler experience, has become largely a pacifist nation," Kielinger, the Die Welt journalist, said.

"It's not certain whether the conservative party is entitled to find a replacement. [The resignation] throws the possibility of who might succeed Koehler wide open. It's totally unpredictable."

A new German president must be elected within 30 days.

A special Federal Assembly, made up of all the members of parliament and an equal number of delegates sent by the 16 state assemblies, elects German presidents.

 

[RSLudlum]

Yes, but who provides most of the military might for the majority of those countries up there?

Interesting facts to consider...

US Treasury Holdings:

Turkey: $29 billion
Israel: $22 billion

http://www.ustreas.gov/tic/mfh.txt
(who aren't we in debt to??)

US arms aid to Turkey up to 80-99 = $11.5 billion
http://www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/turkey_fmschart.htm


Anybody have any recent numbers on total aid we've given to Turkey in the past decade? I imagine it's been quite abit since the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

U.S. WEAPONS AT WAR 2005:
PROMOTING FREEDOM OR FUELING CONFLICT?
U.S. Military Aid and Arms Transfers Since September 11

Military Aid and Weapons
As a member of NATO and Washington’s ally in the war on terrorism, Turkey is the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, behind Israel and Egypt. Between 1994 and 2004, it received well over $1.3 billion in FMF and another $21.4 million in IMET.[224] Congress granted another $33 million in FMF and $4 million in IMET in 2005. The President’s request for 2006 is more modest-- $25 million in FMF and $3 million in IMET.[225]
In the midst of a thirty-year plan to modernize its military, Turkey purchases an enormous quantity of weapons and other military equipment from the United States. Between 1994 and 2003, Turkey took delivery of more than $6.8 billion in U.S. weaponry and services.[226]

Turkey and Iraq
Throughout the course of the U.S.-led war against Iraq, military relations between the U.S. and Turkey have been strained. Ankara was unwilling to allow use of Turkish territory as a Northern front for intervention into Iraq and refused the U.S. military access to its Incirlik base. This was a shocking reversal as the U.S. had the privilege of using this base for the past 50 years.

Recently, Ankara has been more amenable to Washington’ s requests, and the two countries are discussing housing 72 F-16 fighter planes on the base. According to a senior Turkish military official, "the bottom line is that we will gain nothing by rejecting the U.S. request. Plus a failure to accommodate the request could be unnecessarily costly. So Turkey’s final response should be a yes."[227]

http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/wawjune2005.html#15

 

[RM918]

If U.S. is involved they all get mopped up.

Our military spending is larger than the rest of the world combined.

Also all our technology feeds into Israel. They can get back door military supplies and funding through various channels. I wouldn't be surprised to see Israel mop the tables in 1v1 with turkey.

This is a movement dedicated to fight the excesses of big government, under the pretext that it oppresses freedom and it doesn't work. Do you really think our military is worth, dollar for dollar, that of every other country and that it is the ONLY branch of government mismanagement where more money = better magically works? I find that hard to believe.

 

[sratiug]

Well, say goodbye to that military escort. Israel won't put up with it.

Aren't we obligated to retaliate against Israel if that happens? We have no treaties with Israel, they are not our allies. The turks are. In fact. Aren't we obligated to retaliate now?

 

[virgil47]

My question is who gave the Turks the right to stick their noses into this mess. Or for that matter who gave the members of the "so called" relief convoy the right to interfere. The members of the convoy should not have been interfering in the business of other countries. At least that's what most of those on this forum advocate. If they had minded there own business no one would have been hurt or killed. Now let's here how this is different and it's ok for these bottom feeders to poke their noses into other peoples business.

 

[Agorism]

Yes because we spend it much on R and D. North Korea has a million man army but all they do is feed and shelter it.

The other countries are all divided up. It's why we were able to NASA but they weren't, which is kind of a military project in many senses.

 

[speciallyblend]

Yes, but who provides most of the military might for the majority of those countries up there?

And there's a huge faction of people who want WWIII to happen because they believe it means Jesus is finally going to return.

i have actually heard right-wing gop Christians say this in their explaining the undeclared wars in the name of god!! CRAZY, this is the neo-con wing of brainwashed republicans! this is the wing of the gop that needs to be shut up asap!!

 

[LibertyWorker]

If U.S. is involved they all get mopped up.

Our military spending is larger than the rest of the world combined.

Also all our technology feeds into Israel. They can get back door military supplies and funding through various channels. I wouldn't be surprised to see Israel mop the tables in 1v1 with turkey.

We been mopping up for 10 years and still can't get out of Iraq or Afghanistan.

 

[speciallyblend]

My question is who gave the Turks the right to stick their noses into this mess. Or for that matter who gave the members of the "so called" relief convoy the right to interfere. The members of the convoy should not have been interfering in the business of other countries. At least that's what most of those on this forum advocate. If they had minded there own business no one would have been hurt or killed. Now let's here how this is different and it's ok for these bottom feeders to poke their noses into other peoples business.

turkish aid ship!!! no one interefered except the idf and israel when they violated international law!! virgil what right did israel have boarding a private aid ship in international waters??

 

[Dr.3D]

Aren't we obligated to retaliate against Israel if that happens? We have no treaties with Israel, they are not our allies. The turks are. In fact. Aren't we obligated to retaliate now?

It won't play that way. Israel will be on the defensive and claim to be just defending it's coastline. It will be Turkey that will be called the aggressor and thus there wouldn't be any kind of retaliation needed.

One must look at the situation as to who is in the area where they don't belong? Obviously Turkey has no business being in that area.

If the U.S. were to be doing what Turkey claims it is going to do, then the U.S. ships would end up under attack. It's about who's territory is being invaded.

I'm sure those boats would sooner or later end up being inside of the territorial waters of Israel and that is when they would run into problems.

 

[speciallyblend]

It won't play that way. Israel will be on the defensive and claim to be just defending it's coastline. It will be Turkey that will be called the aggressor and thus there wouldn't be any kind of retaliation needed.

One must look at the situation as to who is in the area where they don't belong? Obviously Turkey has no business being in that area.

If the U.S. were to be doing what Turkey claims it is going to do, then the U.S. ships would end up under attack. It's about who's territory is being invaded.

I'm sure those boats would sooner or later end up being inside of the territorial waters of Israel and that is when they would run into problems.

why not board the ship in territoral waters instead of international waters?? then they would of had an argument!

 

[Dr.3D]

why not board the ship in territoral waters instead of international waters?? then they would of had an argument!

Perhaps they were trying to avoid that argument by trying to dissuade them from entering territorial waters. From what I understand, they were advising those boats to turn back before entering territorial waters and came under attack at that time. This is why the U.S. is trying to gather the facts of the circumstances of the situation before making any kind of hasty decision about what stance it should take.

 

[fj45lvr]

It's about friggin time that people in the region helped Palestine with some balls.

too bad other "turkeys" didn't help the American Indian, aborigines, Maoris, Africans, etc. and etc.


Hopefully the follow through with it and break this immoral seige on Gaza and its people that have UNALIENABLE RIGHTS....not granted by any government (even their corrupt HAMAS thugs!!!)

 

[Imaginos]

So the line up for WWIII looks like this:

Turkey, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, France, Eastern Europe, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Italy, North Korea and Greece.

versus

Israel, Beverly Hills, Miami Beach, Florida and New York City.