Every once in a while, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan just blows your mind! (With his distorted views/recollections of history...) The problem, Erdogan told students at Marmara University in Istanbul on Monday, is that new Lawrence of Arabias are tearing up the Middle East. He was referring to the British army officer T.E. Lawrence, who helped to stir Arab tribes to rise against their German-allied Ottoman rulers during World War I, leading to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. So who are these modern day Western meddlers, and what are they trying to do? According to Erdogan, Lawrence was an English spy disguised as an Arab. His recent incarnations are new voluntary Lawrences, disguised as journalists, religious men, writers and terrorists, Erdogan said, adding that it is our duty to explain to the world that there are modern Lawrences who were fooled by a terror organization. No doubt this formulation was intended to cover the five foreign journalists arrested as they covered Kurdish protests over Turkeys blockade of Kobani. The religious man Erdogan has in mind is surely the U.S.-based preacher Fetullah Gulen, with whom he is at war politically. And the terrorists are the Kurds of the PKK, and of the Peoples Protection Units in Kobani. But Erdogan thinks bigger. These Lawrences are making Sykes-Picot agreements hiding behind freedom of press, a war of independence or jihad, said Erdogan. Sykes-Picot, of course, refers to the British and French diplomats who made a secret 1916 agreement to carve up Ottoman territories between the two colonial powers. :) :) :)
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 16:42:36 +0000
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