Δύο άρθρα από το Αμερικανικό Think Tank CATO Institute, ιδιαίτερου ενδιαφέροντος. Αμφότερα επικρίνουν την διπροσωπία και υποκρισία της Αμερικανικής κυβέρνησης και στην περίπτωση του ιδίου του Αμερικανού Προέδρου Ομπάμα ο οποίος ενώ ενδιαφέρεται για την αλλαγή συνόρων στην Ουκρανία αγνοεί ότι αυτό επιχείρησε ένα μέλος του ΝΑΤΟ, η Τουρκία με την τουρκική εισβολή στην Κύπρο το 1974. Η οποία ακρωτηρίασε το 37% της νήσου, τα τουρκικά στρατεύματα έκαναν εθνικό ξεκαθάρισμα εκδιώκοντας τους Ελληνοκύπριους, σύλησαν και λεηλάτησαν ιερούς χώρους λατρείας, για την οποία τίποτα δεν έκανε η Αμερική, εκτός από ένα μικρού διαστήματος εμπάργκο το οποίο ακύρωσε πολύ σύντομα. Και επικρίνει ο συγγραφέας την Αμερική η οποία έκτοτε ποτέ δεν καταδίκασε τη Τουρκία, μέλος του ΝΑΤΟ, για την βαρβαρότητά της εις βάρος της Κύπρου.
Ο TED GALEN CARPENTER προχωρεί και επισημαίνει ότι η Τουρκία είναι το πλέον προβληματικό μέλος του ΝΑΤΟ η οποία ολοένα και περισσότερο μετατρέπεται σε μια απολυταρχική χώρα που ομοιάζει με τη Βόρεια Κορέα και η συνεχιζόμενη τουρκική κατοχή του 37% του Κυπριακού εδάφους προκαλεί πρόβλημα στο ΝΑΤΟ ειδικά μετά την ένταξη της Κύπρου στην ΕΕ για μια χώρα του ΝΑΤΟ να κατέχει παράνομα έδαφος μιας χώρας της ΕΕ.
Είναι δύσκολο για την Ουάσιγκτον γράφει, να καταδικάζει το Βλατιμίρ Πούτιν για προσάρτηση της Κριμαίας ή για εγκαθίδρυση κράτους-μαριονέτας όταν ένα μέλος του ΝΑΤΟ (Τουρκία) είναι ένοχο για παρόμοια συμπεριφορά. Η διπροσωπία αυτή ανησυχεί Αμερικανούς που βλέπουν με ύποπτο μάτι την αμερικανική εξωτερική πολιτική...
Ο συγγραφέας επίσης επισημαίνει και τα προβλήματα στην Ουγγαρία και προειδοποιεί ότι αμφότερες Ουγγαρία και Τουρκία είναι κίνδυνος για το ΝΑΤΟ και την υπεράσπιση της δημοκρατίας και ανθρωπίνων δικαιωμάτων...
( Η έμφαση με κόκκινο από μένα).
Φανούλα Αργυρού – Λονδίνο. 13.2.2015
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FEBRUARY 12, 2015 2:22PM
Obama’s Hypocrisy Regarding Forcible Border Changes
In a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Obama stated that he was considering sending weapons to the government of Ukraine . Noting that Russia had already annexed Crimea and was now backing separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine , the president warned that “the West cannot stand and simply allow the borders of Europe to be redrawn at the barrel of a gun.”
Such sentiments might have more credibility if the Western powers, including the United States , had not engaged in similar conduct. But Washington and its NATO allies have indeed redrawn borders, including borders in Europe , through military force. Two incidents are especially relevant. Turkey, a leading member of NATO, invaded Cyprus in 1974 and amputated some 37 percent of that country’s territory. Turkish forces ethnically cleansed the area of its Greek Cypriot inhabitants and, in the years that followed, desecrated a large number of Greek historical and religious sites.
Ankara subsequently established a client state, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the occupied territories. Turkey has steadfastly refused to atone for its illegal invasion and occupation, much less disgorge the land that it conquered. Yet except for some token economic sanctions imposed shortly after the invasion, which were soon lifted, Washington has never even condemned the aggression that its NATO ally committed.
One might assume that it would be awkward for U.S. leaders to excoriate Vladimir Putin’s regime for annexing Crimea or setting up puppet states in the occupied Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (which Moscow did after a short, nasty war in 2008) when a NATO member is guilty of similar behavior. But such flagrant inconsistency has apparently caused American officials little difficulty.
The other, even more blatant, case of redrawing European borders by force was the 1999 Kosovo war and its aftermath. The United States and its NATO allies launched an air war against Serbia lasting 78 days to compel Belgrade to withdraw its security forces and relinquish control of the rebellious province. A UN Security Council resolution ratifying that action still recognized Serbia ’s sovereignty over Kosovo but mandated international control and governance of the territory for an indefinite period. A NATO occupation force became the instrument of that control, despite Russia ’s misgivings.
In early 2008, the Western powers encouraged and then formally recognized Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence from (a now democratic) Serbia . Russia , China , and other countries strenuously objected to that decision, both because it bypassed the UN Security Council and set what they believed was a worrisome precedent in the international community. Indeed, nearly half of the member-states of the UN (including several members of the European Union) still refuse to recognize Kosovo’s independence.
Given those precedents, it is astonishing for Obama or any other Western official to assert that redrawing European borders by force is unacceptable. Russia ’s actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine deserve condemnation, but the West’s hypocrisy is nothing short of breathtaking.
NATO’s Most Problematic Member: An Authoritarian Turkey
This article appeared on Aspenia Online on February 11, 2015.
Worries about Turkey ’s conduct are growing rapidly among fellow NATO members. There are multiple concerns, some of which have surfaced periodically before, while others are either new or at least much more salient. All of them are now combining to make critics wonder whether Turkey is a reliable or even a tolerable ally. Seth Cropsey, a Senior Fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute in the United States , denounces what he termed “ Turkey’s contempt for NATO principles.” International media mogul Conrad Black urges NATO members to “get tough with Turkey .”
One issue, Turkey’s continuing occupation of northern Cyprus , is a long-standing irritant, but it has acquired new relevance given NATO’s stance against Russia ’s actions in Ukraine . Ankara ’s forces invaded Cyprus and amputated some 37% of that country’s territory in 1974. Turkey subsequently established a client state, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which even today enjoys virtually no international recognition. Since Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, it has become increasingly awkward for countries that are part of both that organization and NATO to ignore the ongoing occupation of a fellow EU member’s territory.
Recent developments have made Turkey ’s stance on the Cyprus issue even more of an embarrassment, especially to the United States as NATO’s leader. It is rather difficult for Washington to condemn Vladimir Putin’s regime for annexing Crimea or setting up puppet states in the occupied Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia when a NATO member is guilty of similar behavior.
“Disgruntled Americans and other Westerners view Ankara ’s overall foreign policy with mounting suspicion.”
Disgruntled Americans and other Westerners also view Ankara ’s overall foreign policy with mounting suspicion. US supporters of Israel especially regard Turkey ’s increasingly frosty treatment of that country as a manifestation of hostility toward both Western interests and Western values. Ankara ’s conduct regarding ISIS has aroused additional concerns that Turkish leaders are conducting a cynical flirtation with radical Islamist forces in the Middle East . Not only did President Recep TayyipErdoğan’s government drag its feet on supporting air strikes against ISIS by the United States and other NATO allies, but there were indications that Turkish leaders actively impeded measures to weaken the terrorist organization. For an agonizingly long period of time, the Erdoğanregime did little to assist besieged Kurdish defenders trying to thwart the attempt by ISIS forces to conquer the city of Kobane on the Turkish-Syrian border.
And as if Ankara ’s behavior on the foreign policy front was not a sufficient worry, there are ominous signs of mounting authoritarianism in Turkey ’s domestic affairs. Civil organizations and independent press outlets repeatedly find themselves under siege. Steven A. Cook, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, documents the extent ofErdoğan’s consolidation of power, contending that “he has become the sun around which all Turkish politics revolve.”
Cook notes in an article on Politico.com that most of the Turkish press now exhibits support bordering on adoration for the President and his policies, and the dominance of that view is largely the result of “forced sales of newspapers and television stations to Erdoğan cronies.” Perhaps even more unsettling than the transformation of an independent Turkish press into cogs in a partisan political machine is the media’s participation in the President’s growing cult of personality. Media outlets routinely refer toErdoğan as “Buyuk Usta or Great Master.” Cook notes that the atmosphere and imagery is sometimes “positively North Korean-esque.”
Former supporters of Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party are now treated as enemies of the state, not merely political opponents. At the end of October, Turkey ’s National Security Council branded the Gülen Movement, once the government’s most significant political ally, as a threat to national security. Erdoğan personally presided over the meeting at which that charge was adopted. At the beginning of February, the Turkish government revoked the passport of Gülen’s leader, FethullahGülen, who resides in the United States . That decision effectively stranded him in exile without even a modicum of due process. Such actions smack of petty political retaliation against a critic of the regime, with an intent to intimidate other potential critics. In December, the US State Department formally protested the arrest of more than two dozen leading media figures — all of whom appeared to be vocal opponents of the Erdoğan administration.
The government’s increasingly oppressive hand is evident in other respects. When investigators conducted a wide-ranging probe of official corruption, leading to the resignation of four government ministers, Erdoğan’s regime retaliated by purging hundreds of police officials and prosecutors. It also pushed through laws giving the President tighter control over the judiciary. According to Reuters, a few weeks later, Erdoğan ominously asserted that the judiciary and other state institutions must be “cleansed of traitors.”
Granted, Turkey is not the only NATO country exhibiting worrisome autocratic behavior. US officials have expressed alarm at the apparent authoritarianism and corruption enveloping Prime Minister ViktorOrban’s government in Hungary . Orban’s crackdown on human rights groups is disturbingly similar to Vladimir Putin’s campaign against domestic opponents. One of Orban’s targets is the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, which, ironically, had supported him a decade earlier when he was under intense pressure from political adversaries.
Over the past few years, harassment of media outlets, civil organizations, and other critics of Orban’srule has steadily grown. In rhetoric reminiscent of Putin, Orban has been reported as asserting that such groups are “paid political activists attempting to assert foreign interests in Hungary .” The Prime Minister now touts the alleged virtues of autocracy, citing China , Russia , Singapore and Turkey , as models of successful countries that Hungary should consider emulating. Orban has even reportedly proposed mandatory drug testing for journalists.
Budapest’s authoritarian drift, combined with the government’s growing foreign policy flirtation with Russia has alarmed not only officials in other NATO countries but pro-Western elements in Hungary itself. Such concerns were evident at the beginning of February when thousands of demonstrators poured into the streets of the capital to protest Orban’s policies and urge visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel not to accord his regime any deference.
As bad as domestic political trends are in Hungary , however, they pale in comparison to the manifestations of autocracy in Turkey . The rising tide of domestic authoritarianism there is not a small concern, nor purely a domestic issue. True, NATO has previously tolerated illiberal regimes and even outright dictatorships as members. Founding member Portugal was a quasi-fascist country under Antonio Salazar. Throughout the Cold War, the military was the decisive power broker in Turkey ’s political system, and on occasion the country even lapsed into outright military rule. Greece suffered under a brutal military dictatorship in the late 1960s and early 1970s without forfeiting its NATO membership.
But it would be far more difficult in the 21st century for the Alliance to look the other way as a member succumbs to dictatorial impulses. During the Cold War, it was widely understood that NATO was primarily an anti-Soviet defense association. The professed commitment to liberal democracy, while important, was secondary. But in the post-Cold War era, NATO leaders repeatedly stress the organization’s commitment to democracy and human rights. It would be more than a little embarrassing to have a Putin-style autocracy emerge in NATO’s ranks. Yet that is now an embryonic worry with respect to Hungary and a looming danger with respect to Turkey .
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