NATO ally Turkey, under nearly two decades of rule by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has descended from a democratic secular nation to an autocratic, Islamist, terror-enabling quasi-dictatorship. Tens of thousands who disagree with Erdoğan are in prison now, and laws have been passed making it a crime to criticize him.
Erdogan's army is now in Iraq, Syria and Libya. In Syria he supports and supplies organizations that are on American and European terrorist lists, while pretending to be present to fight terrorism. Iraq has repeatedly demanded that his army leave, ever since it entered years ago to end "Kurdish terrorism." To assist his army in Libya, he transferred thousands of jihadists from Syria to fight as paid mercenaries.
Inside Turkey he is persecuting the Kurdish minority and imprisoning anyone he deems to be a threat.
Now Turkey's strongman is showing his Islamist roots publicly and proudly.
The official language of Turkey is Turkish; however, the official language of Islam is Arabic. Only a Quran in Arabic is official. This is very key to know, because only imams and Islamists in Turkey would speak in Arabic. Erdoğan just delivered a divisive speech in Arabic, one that is a challenge to the secular West and to Christians.
On July 10, President Erdogan delivered a speech in Arabic in which he announced that the Hagia Sophia would be converted from a museum to a mosque. In the speech he said, "With this court ruling, and with the measures we took in line with the decision, Hagia Sophia became a mosque again, after 86 years, in the way Fatih the conqueror of Istanbul had wanted it to be." (He was referring to the monster Fatih who captured the Christian city of Constantinople in 1453 after a 55 day siege, when he led a bloody slaughter of the remaining Christians.)
The Hagia Sophia (Arabic) or SanctaSophia (Latin), was also called the Church of the Holy Wisdom, or Church of the Divine Wisdom. It is a cathedral built at Constantinople (now Istanbul) between 532–537 under the direction of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I. It is a United Nations World Heritage site. It was over 900 years old when captured by Fatih.
On Friday, July 24, Erdoğan led thousands of men in Muslim prayers at the newly converted Hagia Sophia.
Western powers, including the United States, aided this madman's rise to power. They should have known what he was and what he would do when in 1996 he said, "Democracy is like a train: when you reach your destination, you get off." That is exactly what Adolf Hitler did in Germany. Hitler road the democracy train to power and then stopped the train.
Recep Erdoğan is stopping the democracy train in Turkey, and there will be further repression of the few Christian left as well as the Kurdish minority and secularists who refuse to fall in line and show up to pray with him in Arabic.
Erdoğan is making Turkey more dangerous to Western interests as each day passes. Erdoğan's army has NATO weapons and all of NATO's codes. His actions in Libya are now threatening war with Egypt. In his latest adventure this year, he is sending oil-drilling ships into Greek territorial waters to drill for oil, threatening war with that NATO nation.
In July I signed a group letter with other organizations, calling for the United States to condemn the conversion of the Sancta Sophia to a mosque by the Islamist president of Turkey. But far more needs to be done to stop this monster's reach than a call for condemnation.
A start would be expelling Turkey from NATO and pulling out American and European forces that are protected Erdoğan while his own armed forces conduct real war in Iraq, Syria and Libya. The pretense that Turkey would participate in the defense of Europe must end. Erdoğan's goal is to Islamize Europe not to protect it. He has already helped millions of Muslim "refugees" from the Middle East and North Africa make their way to Europe where many of them have perpetrated terrorist acts.
Military sales to Turkey, including parts for the arms they now have, should be stopped at once. The special trade privileges the United States and Europe have given Turkey should be ended as well.
If the West gets tough enough with this would-be dictator, the secularists of Turkey can and will rise up to restore a rational government.
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