Ivan wrote, "Being a superpower has its drawbacks. One of them is being manipulated by smaller countries that know that America wants to be "Big Man on Campus" in the world, usually giving its taxpayers only vague "influence" around the globe for all the money they pour into military power and foreign aid. However, sophisticated countries usually flatter the musclebound purveyor of military power, labeling it the "indispensable nation," without which the world would fall into chaos and ruin. These wily countries also normally at least make some attempt to justify U.S. armed intervention into a particular problem in their region in terms of being required for American security, as well as their own. In other words, they try to argue that it also would be in the American interest to solve their problem. But not Turkey.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, not known for his humble governing style, is issuing blunt demands for him to allow the United States to use the Turkish Incirlik air base to essentially help defend Turkey from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a radical army that has taken over the Sunni parts of neighboring Iraq and Syria. In fact, Erdogan has gone farther, aiming his invective against the United States by saying that he was "against impertinence, recklessness and endless demands" emanating from "12,000 kilometers away." In the normal world of "diplospeak," allies rarely speak to each other in these hostile terms."

Direct download: Ivan_Eland_11.Dec.14.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:41pm EDT
Comments[0]

Adding comments is not available at this time.



-->

Syndication

Categories

Archives

March 2024
S M T W T F S
     
          1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31