Too few people know that the Turkish leader, a man who the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood declared to be the one true Caliph according to NSA’s Arabist, Barry Webb, spent 4 months in jail for reading an illegal poem early on in his career as an Islamic leader.
(This link to the video of Barry Webb works at the moment)
Erdogan, it seems, learned the opposite lesson from his stint in jail. In 1997, as mayor of Istanbul, he too spoke poetry to power. At a rally in the city of Siirt, Erdogan loosely referenced a poem by the Turkish nationalist Ziya Gokalp:
The mosques are our barracks,
the domes our helmets,
the minarets our bayonets,
and the believers our soldiers.
Flash forward to this week, November 15, 2019:
Erdogan: “Our God commands us to be violent to the kuffar”
On October 25, a leader of a NATO member nation openly incited violence against non-Muslims.
On that day, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended the Friday prayers at the Great Çaml?ca Mosque in Istanbul. He was accompanied by Istanbul’s governor Ali Yerlikaya, mayor Ekrem ?mamo?lu, Istanbul’s chief of police Mustafa Çal??kan and the head of the Istanbul branch of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Bayram ?enocak.
After the prayers, the hafiz of the mosque recited the Koranic Verse Al-Fath, which means “victory, triumph, conquest” in English. Then Erdogan took the microphone, reciting a part of the verse in Arabic and then in Turkish. He told the congregants:
“Our God commands us to be violent towards the kuffar (infidels). Who are we? The ummah [nation] of Mohammed. So [God] also commands us to be merciful to each other. So we will be merciful to each other. And we will be violent to the kuffar. Like in Syria.”
It continues and deserved to be read over at Israel National News
So we know three things.
He was willing to do time in jail as Mayor of Constantinople to read a poem about Islamic global conquest.
He was named the Caliph by the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and the Muslim Brotherhood moved from Egypt to Turkey.
He has now been increasingly strident about the Islamic motivations for military actions, as witnessed by the linked article above.
This is more than a trend in general propaganda. Please see this MEMRI report on the Turkish invasion of Northern Syria to understand how Islamic scripture is the driving force behind contemporary Turkish military actions.
To put it kindly Erdogan is a very nasty piece of dung, He is going to push too hard (he can’t help himself) and Trump will use his favorite weapon (economic force) destroying their economy will put a temporary stop to Erdogans plans but as long as Erdogan is in power he will remain a threat. by weakening Turkey by destroying their economy Trump may create a situation where Putin will take care of Eredogan for us.
When you can get two enemies to fight each other get some popcorn and set back to watch the fight.
But Erdogan has a powerful hole card. That is the millions of migrants he keeps threatening to set loose on Europe.
How long can Turkey be a Nato member if they are against non-muslims?