Operation Featherweight: Month 21, Week 2, Day 2.

Since 2011 Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been trying to illegally overthrow the government of Turkey's immediate neighbour Syria.

The purpose of the exercise is to install a Sunni-Islamist puppet regime. This will stand alongside the Sunni-Islamist puppet regime that Turkey is trying to install in Gaza/Palestine and the Sunni-Islamist puppet regime that Turkey had installed in Egypt. Together these are supposed to form a modern day Ottoman Empire that stretches all the way from Bulgaria and Greece in the European Union (EU) down to Egypt's border with Libya. 

However with the complete political chaos in Libya and the growing instability in Tunisia there is no guarantee that Erdogan's new Empire will even stop when it arrives at the Basque country.

To this end on June 22nd 2012 (22/6/12) Turkey sent an F4 Phantom jet to invade Syrian airspace knowing full well that this would result in the aircraft being shot down. The intention being to use the shooting down to trigger the Article 5 mutual defence clause of the NATO Charter in order to bring about a Turkish led NATO invasion of Syria.

When that failed Turkey massively increased its support for terror groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and their associates such as the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front (ANF) and the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham). The idea being that these groups would work together with the irregular divisions of the Turkish army operating in Syria - known as the Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB) - to wage war against and eventually overthrow the Syrian government on Erdogan's behalf.

In June 2013 roughly one third of the Egyptian population took to the streets demanding the removal of the Turkish backed Sunni-Islamist puppet regime of Muhammad Morsi. The Egyptian military promptly obliged and Morsi was removed on July 3rd (3/7/13). Having lost a key part of his new Empire Erdogan responded to this by launching a campaign to destabilise Egypt and ideally re-install Morsi as President against the will of the people.

As within Syria the main tactic was to get terrorist groups to organise 'peaceful protests' which were then used as a cover to attack the police and security forces. This of course left those security forces with no option other than to respond. This response was then used as evidence of 'repression' in order to further delegitimise the government and grow the protests. 

A prime example of this was the clearance of the protest camp that was installed close to Cairo's Rabaa Mosque following the overthrow of Morsi. While much has been made of those killed or injured during the clearance - often by the protesters themselves - much less coverage was giving to the murder victims that were being recovered from dump sites close to the protest site on an almost daily basis in the weeks leading up to the eviction.

To their eternal discredit much of the western media and western political leaders were hoodwinked into supporting this Turkish campaign against Egypt. Particularly with their support for the  "Free Al Jazeera Staff" campaign despite even Saudi Arabia demanding that Al Jazeera's operations in Egypt be closed due to their rabid support for terrorism. 

Despite all this international support the Turkish campaign against Egypt has largely faltered. As a result being unable to stage mass protests the Turkish backed terrorists have resorted to the more traditional terror tactics of gun and bomb attacks against the Egyptian security forces. This massively increased threat prevents the Egyptian government making the changes to those security forces needed to see through the objectives of Egypt's 2011 Revolution. 

There is of course nothing that scares Erdogan more than a legitimate revolution in the Middle-East.In the summer of 2014 it became impossible for the World to hide from the horrors of ISIL and their associates any longer. This prompted US President Barack Obama to begrudgingly begin a military operation to defeat the group. Or at least give the impression of trying to defeat the group.

With his Imperial aspirations struggling in both Egypt and Syria Erdogan's behaviour has become increasingly erratic and dangerous.In July 2015 Erdogan ended a three year long ceasefire with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Curiously this was done in response to ISIL attacking Kurdish peace protesters in the Turkish border city of Suruc on July 20th (20/7/15). 

The domestic agenda behind Erdogan's renewed war with the PKK was to sweep his own Justice & Development Party (AKP) to the simple outright majority if not the super Parliamentary majority needed to re-write Turkey's constitution. The wider agenda was to give the Turkish military an excuse to attack Kurdish forces in both Iraq and Syria where they have proved to be the most effective anti-ISIL force. These attacks continue without opposition from the United Nations (UN) or the wider international community.

In that same summer Erdogan decided to weaponise the refugees it has created through the conflicts in Syria and Iraq by shipping them en masse to the EU. The purpose here has simply been to blackmail the EU into refusing to criticise Erdogan's increasingly extreme behaviour for fear of being accused of Islamaphobia. With Turkey still refusing to ratify the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees are therefore not considering a single Syrian or Iraqi to be a refugee quite how Turkey has been able to claim the moral high-ground on the issue is utterly beyond me.

Beyond merely weaponising the refugees Turkey also seems to be using them as a way to assist ISIL in launching terror attacks against the EU. It was of course the Turkey to Greece smuggling route that at least one of the November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) Paris Massacres attackers used to enter the EU. Then there is the recent Brussels attacks of March 22nd (22/3/16). Here I don't want to expand much on what has already been said. However there already seems to be sufficient evidence to issue an arrest warrant for Recep Tayyip Erdogan for personally directing those attacks.

Since the start of the US-led anti-ISIL campaign Turkey has massively increased its support for terror groups within Syria the full support of the US under the "Train & Equip" program. Turkey has even gone so far as to demand that the US-led coalition cannot cut ISIL's main supply line between Azaz and the Euphrates River. 

This massive increase in Turkish support led to the Northwestern offensive of spring 2015 that saw ISIL seize the city of Palmyra. It was this that prompted a Russian intervention in the autumn of 2015 to tidy up the mess.

Turkey's response to this Russian intervention has been particularly violent. On November 24th 2015 (24/11/15) they violated Syrian airspace in order to shoot-down a Russian jet involved in anti-ISIL operations. Again this seemed intended to trigger a NATO intervention to protect the Turkish backed terrorist forces from Russian air-strikes.

In response to the shooting down of the Russian jet Turkey started to come under diplomatic pressure from Italy within the EU. 

So Erdogan responded by getting the terrorists he backs in Egypt to kidnap and murder Italian student Giulio Regeni. The method used to murder Mr Regeni was torture. Specifically a form of torture synonymous with the Egyptian security services. The intention being to make it appear as though Mr Regeni had been murdered by the Egyptian security forces. That would shift Italy's diplomatic focus away from putting pressure on Turkey towards doing Erdogan's bidding by putting pressure on Egypt instead.

Unfortunately this appears to have worked to an extent with something of a diplomatic spat developing between Italy and Egypt. The Italian Tourism Association even went so far as to suspend all tours to Egypt in response to the killing heaping even more pressure on that beleaguered sector of the nation’s economy. With there being a very obvious clue early on in the case on March 25th (25/3/16) the Egyptian authorities were able to track down and kill the criminals for hire who had murdered Mr Regeni. This obviously caused the Italians rather a lot of embarrassment so don't expect a retraction any time soon.  

Emboldened by his success in tricking Italy to go after Egypt Erdogan has continued to repeatedly threatened to and carried out terrorist attacks within Russia. Most noticeably the bombing in Nazran in the Russian Caucus region of Ingushetia on March 11th (11/3/16). 

Beyond the campaign of terrorism Turkey also seems to be trying to start a proxy war with Russia over the disputed Armenia/Azerbaijan border. Ever since the 1915 Armenian genocide Turkey has had extremely poor relations with its neighbour. 

As they do every year between February 25-26th (25-26/2/16) Azerbaijan held commemorations for what they refer to as; "The Khojaly Massacre." In this 1992 incident 161 ethnic Azeris were killed in fighting with Armenian forces in the village of Khojaly. This year Erdogan issued a statement to the people of Azerbaijan on the anniversary promising Turkey's full support both in having the "Khojaly Massacre" formally recognised as a genocide committed by the Armenians and helping Azerbaijan take control of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Shortly afterwards the Azeris unilaterally launched an attack on Armenian and Yervan forces in Nagorno-Karabakh achieving what they broadly described as; "The destruction of more than 100 military objects."

Following that attack Erdogan travelled to the Azeri capital Baku in person and again reassured Azerbaijan of Turkey's full support. He even went so far as to describe Azerbaijan and Turkey as; "One Nation, Two States." That was a reference to how the Ottoman Empire functioned with various ethnic statelets operating within the Empire. 

The Azeris obviously took this to mean that because they had Turkey's support they also had international support to launch military operations against Armenian/Yerevan forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. The thinking being that when the Armenian/Yerevan forces are forced to respond Russia will be blamed and international sanctions will be imposed against it. After all this is what happened when Georgian forces attacked their ethnic Russian minority during the 2008 Summer Olympics and when the US overthrew the Ukrainian government in order to attack the ethnic Russian minority during the 2014 Winter Olympics. 

Perhaps buoyed by Erdogan's trip to the US on Friday (1/4/16) night through to Saturday (2/4/16) morning Azerbaijan launched the largest attack on Armenian/Yerevan forces in Nagorno-Karabakh since a ceasefire went into effect in 1994. Making no distinction between Armenian and Yerevan forces the Azeris are talking in terms of six Armenia tanks being destroyed with more than 100 Armenian soldiers being killed. The Yerevan's however claim that they repelled the attack destroying two Azeri helicopter gunships and several tanks in the process.

Armenia has now responded by by massing troops to send to Nagorno-Karabakh in response to the unprovoked Azeri attack. This has prompted Azerbaijan to, this morning, declare a unilateral ceasefire. 

Probably the most serious outrage committed by Turkey in its recent rampage was its role in the bombing of Russian Kogalymavia airlines flight 7K9268 over Egypt killing 224 Russian civilians on October 31st 2015. (31/10/15). 

Although apparently Russian lives don't matter that a nation feels that it can bomb a civilian aircraft out of the skies with impunity is utterly beyond the pale. Even in the golden age of aircraft terrorism in the 1970's people were only interested in hijacking aircraft and landing them to negotiate the release of hostages for prisoners.

In light of Turkey's increasingly outrageous and dangerous behaviour the US decision to grant Turkey a formal invitation to visit this past week was. Well I don't think there are really words to describe just how shocking it was.

The first unusual thing about this Turkish visit was its length. Adding together the two days that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu spent in Washington prior to Turkish President Erdogan's arrival on Wednesday (30/3/16) for five days the total visit was seven days in length. In fact it is still going on as I write.

To put that in perspective US Secretary of State John Kerry managed only a five hour visit to Belgium following the Brussels attacks. Later this month US President Barack Obama will visit the UK and Germany. Each visit will last for just a day and the whole tour will be over in three.

The second highly irregular thing about this US invitation is that it was extended to President Erdogan rather than Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. As with many Parliamentary democracies it is the Turkish Prime Minister who holds all the executive power with the President acting merely as a ceremonial figurehead. 

The reason why the AKP want to change Turkey's constitution is to grant executive power to the President now that Erdogan has exceeded his term limits as Prime Minister. With the AKP not enjoying popular support for this plan it has become bogged down in the Turkish Parliament.

By inviting Erdogan rather than Davutoğlu the US seems to be recognising Turkey's President as the executive power in complete defiance of both the Turkish constitution and the will of the Turkish electorate.

The centre piece of the visit was originally intended to be Presidents Obama and Erdogan going together on Saturday (2/4/16) to open the "Diyanet Centre for America" Mosque/cultural centre in Lanham, Maryland. As the name suggests this Mosque is built and operated by the Diyanet religious affairs department of the Turkish government. 

The problem with this is that Turkey is very open about the fact that its Mosque building is an attempt to spread Turkish soft-power across the World. With Turkish political values being mixed in with the religious teachings these Mosques are used to manufacture a groundswell of support for Turkish political objectives that can be used to pressurise the host government. 

It is for this reason that the Mosque-led, Erdogan supported backlash against the February 10th 2015 (10/2/15) Chapel Hill shootings rang alarm bells with seemingly everyone except Obama.

I personally think the solution for the US is for more US funded Mosques to be built. However I'm struggling to see why Turkey was given permission to build let alone operate this Ottoman inspired Mosque in the US. It is certainly something that Obama nor any other US President wants to associate themselves with in any way.

The major problem created by the Turkish visit to the US though is that it has forced the US to resume the Train & Equip program. 

On Monday (28/3/16) night it was confirmed that three armed pick-up trucks (technicals) had crossed from Turkey into Syria to join up with Al Qaeda fighters closed to Azaz. However this news came not from an official US statement but from Russian aerial surveillance of the area. The Russian announcement prompted US officials to confirm - off the record - on Friday (1/4/16) that the US has indeed fully resumed the Train & Equip program despite support for Al Qaeda being a clear act of treason against the US.

As I said at the time of the Russian draw-down from Syria on March 14th (14/3/16) it left US President Obama with sole responsibility to complete two tasks critical to the defeat of ISIL. 

The first of these was to resist Turkish demands to resume Train & Equip. The second was to close the supply route from Turkey into Syria in the area between Azaz and the Euphrates River which is known as "Erdogan's Pocket."

It is now clear that Obama has failed in both of those tasks and it took him less than a month to do so. The stage is now set for a repeat of the failures of the spring 2015 Northwestern offensive. The second time around there are certainly no guarantees that Russia will once again swoop in to tidy up the mess.

Another cause for alarm from the Turkish visit to the US was indications in Monday's (28/3/16) meeting between John Kerry and Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu that the US is about to reverse its longstanding position on Cyprus.

On July 20th 1974 (20/7/74) the Turkish military invaded and annexed northern Cyprus. I think it was only the Cold War that prevented NATO from intervening to liberate Cyprus from Turkish occupation and the issue has been a major source of tension between Turkey and the rest of the World ever since. Certainly no-one recognises the Turkish occupation.

Despite that oft repeated US mantra that "The borders of Europe cannot be re-drawn through force" the deep love affair between Erdogan and Obama seems to suggest that the US now intends to pressure the EU into recognising the Turkish occupation and annexation of northern Cyprus.

It should hardly come as a surprise then that this belligerent and offensive US invitation to Turkey was met with a widespread international backlash.

The first part of this actually came from the US itself. On Monday (28/3/16) two unwelcome visitors appeared in Washington D.C trying to force their way into both the Capitol Building and the White House. Apparently the undesirable at the Capitol Building was convinced he was a god and brandished a toy gun. This was obviously no match for the real guns carried by US Capitol security.

Shortly afterwards two, twin towers were destroyed by fire in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE of course sits between Saudi Arabia and the Persian (Iranian) Gulf. As such this seemed to mock the US assertion that Iran rather than Saudi Arabia was responsible for the September 11th 2001 (11/9/01) terror attacks on the US including the destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre.

On March 7th (7/3/16) US Vice President Joe Biden visited the UAE. In preparation for the visit the US killed senior ISIL commander Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvili (AKA: "Abu Omar al-Shishani" "Omar the Chechen") in an air-strike in Syria. They also killed Victoria McGrath - famous survivor of the April 15th 2013 (15/4/13) Boston Marathon bombings - in a car crash in the UAE. Both of these things were done in an effort to garner UAE support for Turkey's terror campaign against Russia. It was three days later that a US Court bizarrely blamed Iran for the Sept 11th attacks.

The most tremendous complaint though was filed on Tuesday (29/3/16) when a man claiming to be in possession of a suicide bomb hijacked an internal EgyptAir flight. 

The hijacking forced the aircraft to divert to Cyprus.The fact that a bomb appeared to have once again been smuggled through Egyptian airport security onto a flight obviously invoked memories of the 7K9268 bombing. Following that bombing Egypt employed the British private security firm Control Risks to upgrade their airport security. I gather the situation has now improved to the point people feel confident enough to have some fun with it.

Initially the hijacker demanded that the aircraft be flown to Istanbul, Turkey. This obviously highlights the link between Turkey and the 7K2968 bombing. However the pilot who may well have been briefed in advance instead flew the aircraft to Cyprus. Here Cyprus was serving as a metaphor for Cyprus. The hijacking of an aircraft harked back to the 1970's where this sort of thing seemed to happen every week. The Turkish invasion of Cyprus happened in 1974 in the midst of this sort of golden age of terrorism.

As for the hijackers demand that he be allowed to win back his estranged wife by delivering a love letter I'm guessing the sort of person you can nudge into doing this type of thing isn't that emotionally stable to begin with. However it seems to have been a reference to the way I've been treated by the UK on numerous occasions at the behest of US intelligence.

Obviously I'm not going to list every example over a ten year period here. However I think the most recent and high profile example is that of my popstar wife Rihanna and her 2013 Diamonds World Tour. Here the US seemed to be under the impression that just because a pretty girl fluttered her eyelashes in my direction I'd lose all sense of reason and make a fool out of myself. The shorthand for this is the Johnny Cash song "Tear Stained Letter" which is essentially about a man really not dealing with a break-up.

The US' Rihanna operation of course not only failed but failed on a spectacular scale. So much so the UK has been forced to hand the Premier League title to Leicester City in an effort to repair the diplomatic relationship with Thailand. 

As such Rihanna has become a convenient way to mock US intelligence. Or the lack there of. 

That said Obama reacted to the Brussels attacks by invoking the Boston Marathon bombings - particularly as they relate to Rihanna and the Diamonds World Tour. On Thursday (31/3/16) Rihanna released a new single "Kiss It Better" which seems to be a plea for one of her ex-lovers to get over his ego.

As such I think it's fair to assume that not everyone is in on the joke.

At one point during the negotiations the hijacker demanded that all women prisoners be released from Egyptian prisons. Pushing women and children to the front of any violence has been a key part of Erdogan's strategy in both Egypt and Syria. The issue of women prisoners has been a particular issue within Egypt. Therefore this could have been a reference to that.

However being such a big issue the treatment of women prisoners are on the news a lot in Egypt. Therefore it could simply be something he pulled from the back of his brain and mixed with his view of his estranged wife being held prisoner in her new life. I gather he wasn't making much sense at that point. 

Obviously there is going to be a part two.

12:10 on 3/4/16 (UK date).