This is considered a staggering, albeit splendid, defeat considering Turkey was anticipated to be a shoo-in for a non-permanent U.N. Security Council seat.

Previously Turkey had claimed letters of support from 160 countries. However, the actual voting by secret ballot showed they only had 60 countries who supported their bid. The needed threshold is 128 supportive votes. Spain won the seat with 132 votes of support. New Zealand is the other contested victor who won in a previous ballot.
As Newsweek reported: “[Last] Wednesday night, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, hosted a posh party for diplomats at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, where many of the guests predicted an easy victory for Turkey“.
Apparently the ‘pinky swear’ diplomats partook of the ritzy digs; but when push came to shove they knew their ballots would be secret so they ditched the Turks who have become more and more unreliable as Sunni Islamist President Erdogan pushes Turkey further and further into radical Islam. (more…)

Reminder – healthcare workers in Liberia are now on strike.

Pres Obama signs Exec Order authorizing use of Reservists to assist in US Military mission building Ebola treatment centers in West Africa.

— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) October 16, 2014

(more…)

The Daily Beast has another good recap of a speech recently delivered by the evolving wannabe head of ISIS, Recep Erdogan.   Erdogan views himself as natural heir to the recreation of the Ottoman empire – ISIS is a means to accomplish that goal…. 
TURKEY – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took on the iconic Lawrence of Arabia Monday in a furious anti-Western diatribe. The Turkish president compared the outside meddling in the region now to the role the renowned British army officer played during the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans during World War I. And Western diplomats here say the tirade bears a rather striking resemblance to some of the propaganda that has come out of the so-called Islamic State, widely known by the acronym ISIS or ISIL.

[…]  Erdoğan has been accused of at best turning a blind eye to the rise of ISIS and at worst actively encouraging it…

Last week, stung by Western criticism of Turkey’s conspicuous absence from the U.S.-led air combat against the terror organization, and the refusal of the Turkish government to rescue the besieged town of Kobani, just across the Syrian border, Erdoğan insisted he had no sympathy for the jihadists.
But on one very important point of history and geography it now appears there’s a serious convergence of views between ISIS and Erdoğan. In his speech Monday at a university in Istanbul, the Turkish president blasted the Sykes-Picot Agreement, a secret understanding (signed behind Lawrence’s back) that divided up the Middle East after World War I between British and French spheres of influence. (more…)

The Kurdish forces trapped and fighting for Kobane (Kobani) will not surrender, will not relent, and will go to their deaths fighting the Islamic slime that is ISIS. Meanwhile President Obama and Prime Minister Erdogan willingly watch the slaughter. 

In 2011 Obama took us to war in Libya over his doctrine “The Responsibility To Protect”.  Even the usually insufferable United Nations is requesting an intervention.

From Bastogne To Kobane – What a Distance We’ve Traveled !

SURUC, Turkey (AFP) — Islamic State jihadists captured the headquarters Friday of Kurdish fighters defending the Syrian border town of Kobani, with a UN envoy warning thousands would likely be massacred if it falls to them.

Outgunned Kurdish militia were struggling to prevent the jihadists closing off the last escape route for civilians still in the area, prompting an appeal for urgent military assistance.
US-led warplanes have intensified air strikes against IS, which has been attacking Kobani for three weeks, but the Pentagon has warned that, without a ground force to work with, there are limits to what can be done.
Neighboring Turkey has so far refrained from any action against the jihadists on its doorstep, despite four straight nights of protests among its own large Kurdish minority that have left 31 people dead. (more…)

Gee, ya think? Unfortunately, once you get on the jihadi bus – you dress in beekeeper outfits – and you don’t get off until the rides over….

SYRIA – The teenage girls who abandoned their families in Austria to become jihadis for ISIS feel they’ve made a terrible mistake by joining the barbaric lifestyle and they want to come home.

Samra Kesinovic, 17, and Sabina Selimovic, 15, are believed to be married, pregnant and living in the Islamic State-controlled city of Raqqa in northern Syria, Central European News reports.
Dubbed by Austrian media as the poster girls for jihad, the young friends now believe their lives have been turned upside down by their new lifestyles. (more…)

If anyone has sources in Turkey, or knowledge of current dynamics in Turkey, or insight we would really like to hear from you.
The intents, inclinations, sympathies and motivations of Recep Erdogan are brutally obvious. What’s lesser known is how far the underpinning of Turkish politics is willing to allow his ideology to advance. After all, Erdogan is one man – leading one party – and there are opposition forces within Turkey which could, if pressured, become a danger to him.

Our current working theory, given known players, ideology and research into actual behaviors, is this:
The ISIS trade for the 49 Turkish hostages was made without payment. So what would the Quid-pro-quo involve?
Given all of the sympathies and tendencies two things are obvious. Erdogan is essentially more adverse to Bashir Assad then he is to ISIS, and ISIS is politically savvy – far more so than al-Qaeda was, and more in line with the political expertise of The Brotherhood (founded in 1928).
Given that, would the quid pro quo involve an acceptance of, and unwillingness to stop (per se’), the ISIS driven exodus of Kurdish refugees upon the nation of Turkey? If so, how far -and how many refugees- would Turkey allow ISIS to drive into the border region, before Turkey would view the inbound masses as a risk to the societal constructs and domestic objectives of Erdogan? (more…)

The U.K Parliament has voted to join the U.S. led coalition to eliminate NI-ISIS, but only in Iraq. The attacking of ISIS behind the sovereign territorial lines of the Syrian state was not a part of the U.K referendum request put forth by Prime Minister David Cameron.
Unlike President Obama – David Cameron understands the problematic approach of attacking an entity within Syria -without the approval of the Syrian government- as illegal. Indeed, by all international definitions, the incursions into Syria are both illegal and unauthorized.

…”I do believe there is a strong case for us to do more in Syria but I did not want to bring a motion to the house today which there wasnt consensus for”…  (David Cameron 9/26/14)

It is impossible to remain lawfully consistent against unauthorized Russian incursions into Ukraine, and simultaneously carryout the same activity into Syria. There is no structural context in U.S. or International Law which would permit such activity. Yet, Obama does it anyway.  [Prediction – Syria will be Libya 2.0]

UK Via Fox News – British lawmakers voted Friday to join the U.S.-led coalition and launch airstrikes on Islamic State group militants as early as this weekend in northern Iraq, but the motion did not endorse airstrikes in Syria. (more…)

Having recently given safe haven to the leadership of Muslim Brotherhood terrorists exiled from Qatar, Turkey’s President Erdogan delivered a speech at the United Nations in defense of the Sunni extremists ISIS and The Brotherhood – while simultaneously attacking Egypt and Fattah El-Sisi.

Let there be no doubt the NATO member Turkey is not only willing to stand on the sidelines, but is, in actuality, supporting the Sunni extremists with direct support (financial and military).  Erdogan is also supporting with non-action, such as refusing to allow coalition forces to use NATO bases in Turkey.   The reasoning is not complex Erdogan is supporting his ideological ally ISIS against his arch nemesis, Syria’s Bashir Assad.
To deflect attention away from his actual support of ISIS Erdogan chooses another target for his attack.
Defending his friend, jailed and former Egyptian President – Muslim Brotherhood leader – Mohammed Morsi, President Erdogan removed the sheep’s cloak, yet most of the western media avoid peering into the dark eyes of the wolf laying underneath.
Perhaps the media avoid because it is too brutal a reality to admit, or perhaps because Western media suffers from a severe case of willful blindness, you will find few news outlets actually getting to the heart of the reasoning for Turkey’s unwillingness to support the removal of The Islamic State of Iraq and Syrian, ISIS.
Erdogan supports the overall ISIS objective. President Erdogan hates Bashir Assad beyond all else; and the Sunni ISIS methods, while concerning, are, in his mind, effective. (more…)

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron does an effective job describing the danger of “extremism“, not just “violent extremism“, all extremism. (Cameron Speech Here)
However, anyone interested in actually following, researching and analyzing international action against radical Islamist extremism, must also note that Egypt’s President Fatah El-Sisi is about two years ahead in confronting the extremist ideology.

Almost everything both Obama and Cameron have stated in the past month can be viewed curiously against their unwillingness to hold such public views while El-Sisi was pushing back against extremism, and doing something about it.

~ At the root of all extremism lies the fertilizer of hatred ~

Hatred is an outcome of evil manifested.   Readers and visitors to the Treehouse community know full well we have watched Egypt intently. We continue to share that no international leader has done more to confront ALL the tentacles of radicalism than Fattah El-Sisi.
Yet he has also been the recipient of marginalization – at best, from both Obama and Cameron; and significant western political admonishment.   Through the past two years Sisi has consistently carried out a challenging mission to provide secular stability not only to Egypt, but as a direct consequence, also to the entire region. (more…)

EGYPT – In his speech to the United Nations on Wednesday, Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said that the world has begun to understand the reality of the extremism that Egyptians revolted against last year.

“The world has started to grasp the reality and understand why Egyptians revolted against extremism that wanted to break the unity of the nation,” said El-Sisi.
At the beginning of his speech, El-Sisi saluted UN officials and also Egyptian expats who came from different cities to the UN headquarters to “say that a new Egypt is coming.”
El-Sisi said that since his election last June, he and other Egyptians have been working to build “a civil democratic state” by following the roadmap announced last year by different political forces soon after the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
He also stressed the need for an inclusive state that respects the law, the judiciary and human rights. (more…)