A Turkey of a Mayor

Eric Adams assumed the position of Mayor of the City of New York promising to do something about crime.

And he did.  It seems he got involved it. 

The federal government indicted Mayor Adams for seeking and accepting improper gifts, including luxury travel and illegal campaign contributions from wealthy foreigners.  Some of those foreigners were from Turkey, who bribed him an enormous sum of money to get a large building in Manhattan approved for the new Turkish consulate in New York.  And the mayor was even accused of overruling the Fire Department of New York - who know a thing or two about the dangers of fire in large buildings, particularly two very tell buildings in the Financial District - when the building the Turks wanted to set up shop in failed fire-code inspection.  

Oh yeah, this had been going on since Adams was Brooklyn borough president. His alleged undisclosed travel dates back to 2016, totaling more than $100,000.

Mayor Adams deserves the presumption of innocence until he's proven guilty in a court of law.  But with so many issues besetting New York - an affordable-housing shortage, a larger migrant population, education - how can Adams serve effectively as mayor and still seek his vindication in a court of law at the same time? 

A Turkey of an Election

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, has repressed and silenced opposition to his government and within his government as well.  He has a failing economy on his hands.  He badly mishandled the earthquake that hit central Turkey earlier this year.  A lot of people in metropolitan areas like Istanbul, Ankara and . . . er, the metropolitan areas of Istanbul and Ankara don't like him.

So how did he just win re-election?

Stuff that would bring down any other world leader only seemed to strengthen Erdogan.  The results of the election demonstrated his invincibility.  Ballot recounts should confirm his victory, but he's a very crafty and resourceful leader, like Vladimir Putin.  Box Erdogan in a corner and he'll come out fighting hard.

And what exactly did he do to win?  Well, just go back to the previous paragraph, take the first word of each sentence, and make a new sentence out them in the order of appearance.

And that's not all. He exercised control over Turkish media.  He gave himself one hour of air time on Turkish broadcasting for every minute his opponent (I could look up hs name, but he's irrelevant) got.  And Erdogan was very good at activating his base of rural voters (sound familiar?).   

The Turks see to have given up on democracy after a hundred years of an uneasy relationship with Westernization.  Rather than fight for democracy, they're sitting down and putting their feet up on their ottomans.

See what I did there? 

War in Syria

Now that Turkish forces are going into Syria to fight the Kurds whom they consider to be terrorists - i.e., all of them - the Kurds are now aligning themselves with their old enemy Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which will give Iran and Russia even more influence in the Middle East.

But that's all right, because Trump is going to approve of sanctions against Turkey for invading Syria despite having given Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan a green light to go ahead with the invasion, even as Islamic State fighters are now being released in the fog of war. Besides, if Biden were President, his son would be making money off his name somewhere and foster more international corruption!  (Sarcasm.)

Islamic State fighters are probably going to work their way to Europe.  Europeans don't trust us.  (I'd better forget about traveling abroad any time soon or any time later.)  The Kurds don't trust us either.  Even Israel's Netanyahu doesn't like what's happening   Both parties in Congress are angry at Trump and want to undo the chaos he's caused.

Too late.

Achieving Peace

One day after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Barack Obama is already fulfilling his promise. He actually got Turkey and Armenia to reach an accord that establishes diplomatic relations between the two countries and opens their shared border. Thanks to a little shrewd diplomacy from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it also calls for dialogue on the historical dimension of the mass killings of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I, when the Ottoman Empire was in its final death throes and the Armenian homeland was divided between Russia and the Turks. The Turks, allied with Germany and Austria, terrorized and eventually killed a good deal of their Armenian population, distrusting them and fearing they would collaborate with Russia, allied with the British and the French.

Armenian grievances were overlooked in the 1920s the wake of Kamal Ataturk's established of the modern Turkish state after the Ottoman Empire collapsed and the Russian part of Armenia was incorporated into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They re-emerged after the Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1991 and Armenia regained its independence. The tension has led to Turkish condemnation of the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over a disputed Azerbaijani region populated by Armenians (Nagorno-Karabakh, whose status remains undetermined despite the ethnic Armenian victory in 1994) and a subsequent sealing of the border. Armenia, by contrast, has insisted that Turkey admit to the Armenian Genocide of 1915. The fact that both sides are talking and have agreed to work for a permanent, peaceful solution means that Obama's efforts and building global trust and understanding are paying off.

Armenia and Turkey have a long way to go, but this breakthrough is clearly a step in the right direction.