Chomsky: Erdogan helped IS, reinforced his tyranny under pretext of coup d'état

NEWS DESK

The American thinker Noam Chomsky accused the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of double standards on terrorism when Erdogan chose him specifically among hundreds of academics who were signed a petition opposing the Turkish practices against the Kurdish people against the Kurdish people, describing him a terrorist.

After the brutal terrorist attack in Istanbul directly, Erdogan launched a violent attack on the signatories, declaring on Bush's method that you either "be with us or with the terrorists."

Turkey accuses Daesh that was helped by Erdogan and is fighting the Kurds who fought it

Against this background, the Turkish media and friends asked the American thinker to reply where the Turkish situations site quoted Noam Chomsky's response to the Turkish president and wrote,

"Turkey accused IS that was helped by Erdogan in several ways that he was behind the attack, while Erdogan supports Jabhet al-Nusra which is not different from Daesh and then began an attack on those who condemn his crimes against the Kurds who are the basic force on the ground confronting IS in both Syria and Iraq . Does this need a comment? "

Chomsky adds that the Turkish academics who signed the statement were arrested and threatened, others were physically assaulted, while the governmental repression continued to escalate. The dark days of 1990s are still present in the minds. As previously, the Turkish academics and others have shown remarkable honesty and courage in the strong opposition to the crimes, exposing themselves to danger and sometimes being severely punished for their respectable positions. Fortunately, there is growing international support for them although it is still much lower.

Chomsky pointed out that Turkey, of course, was a very important ally of the United States, and even became the first recipient of American weapons in Clinton as Clinton poured weapons into Turkey to help it to carry out the massive campaign of murder, destruction and terrorism against her Kurdish minorities. Turkey was also a key ally of Israel since 1958 as part of a general alliance included the non-Arab states sponsored by Washington to ensure the control of the world's major energy sources by protecting the ruling dictatorships against what is known as "fundamental nationalism."

Turkish support for Jabhet al-Nusar was too excessive

Commenting on the Turkish intervention in the Syrian situation, Chomsky says that what is happening in the Syrian horror story is beyond imagination. It seems that the main forces opposed to Daesh on the ground are the Kurds, just as in Iraq, and they were on the list of the American terrorism. In both countries, they are the main target of the attack of our Turkish ally in NATO which also supports the branch of al-Qaeda in Syria, Jabhet al-Nusra.

About whether there is a geopolitical change in the regional role of Turkey, which was the main reason for the failed coup d'état in July 2016, and is this change in progress? Chomsky believes that there has certainly been a change in regional politics since the reign of the former Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davut Oglu who talked about zero-problem policies, but that change came because the problems exacerbated.

Turkey was seeking to become a regional state, sometimes described as the new Ottoman which seemed to be ongoing, if not accelerating. As tension with the West increases as a result of the tyrannical rule of Erdogan's government with completely extreme repressive standards. It is natural for Turkey to seek for alliances elsewhere, specifically with Russia.

He also thinks that Erdogan's first visit to Moscow after the coup d'état was to restore the friendship between Moscow and Ankara the same as it was before landing the Russian plane by Turkey in November 2015 when it claimed that it penetrated the Turkish border for a few seconds while it was carrying out a bombing mission in Syria. He finds that for the coup d'état, its background is still ambiguous. "I see no evidence that changes in regional politics have played a role in it," he says.

The alleged coup d'état reinforced Erdogan's tyranny against the Turkish people

Chomsky points out that the coup d'état against Erdogan has ensured the strengthening of a very authoritarian regime in Turkey, where Erdogan arrested thousands of people and closed the media outlets, schools and universities of the coup d'état. Perhaps the effects of the coup d'état have increased even the role of the army in the political relations since it would be under the direct authority of the president himself in a movement that Erdogan had begun earlier.

Whether this affects Turkey's relationship with the United States and the European powers if we take into account the recent allegations of human rights and democracy in Turkey and Erdogan's efforts to establish close relations with Putin, Chomsky mentions that "allegations" is the right word. During the nineties of the last century, the Turkish government carried out brutal acts, targeting the Kurdish people, killing tens of thousands, and destroying thousands of villages and towns and taking out hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of people from their homes with all the imaginable torture. 80 percent of the weapons came from Washington, and the percentage increased with atrocities.

The relationship between Erdogan and the West is tense and the deal of immigrants is about to fail

"The relations between Erdogan's regime and the West become tenser," Chomsky says. "There is strong anger against the West from Erdogan's supporters because the Western attitudes toward the coup d'état moderately criticize him, but not enough for the regime. In the direction of the increasing tyranny and repression, criticism is not strong, but the regime sees it very much. In fact, there is a great belief that the United States is the one that started the coup d'état."

Chomsky also addressed the recent deal of the migrants between Turkey and the EU and considered that it is about to fail, and said, "European leaders were not honest."

He believes that the results will reflect Turkey's relations with the EU, and on the refugees themselves if the deal fails. He believes that Europe has essentially bribed Turkey to prevent the desperate refugees fleeing the crimes to reach Europe. He describes this as a moral contradiction, but better than letting them drown in the Mediterranean. "The deterioration of relations will make them travel in ways that are probably worse," he concluded.

(T/S)

ANHA