NATO In Syria: No No No

There are reports that Turkey will invoke Articles 4 & 5 of the NATO Charter (thereby invoking its common defense policy), after Syria shot down a Turkish fighter jet last Friday, July 22, 2012.

In my view, Turkey renounced its right to invoke Article 4 & 5 after refusing the United States (a NATO member) the right to move troops and materials through Turkey for an invasion of northern Iraq in March, 2003 (the start of the Iraq War). I believe American lives were lost because of their action, and the insurrection was given time to ferment.

Turkey we are told is a "secular democracy." Under the Constitution promulgated by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey was a secular democracy. However, under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey since 2003, sadly it is no longer true. Mr. Erdogan has purged all opposition in Turkey, including the military that has been the protector of Kemal Ataturk’s Constitution. So today Turkey is an Islamic state no matter what Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton wish us to believe.

Furthermore, Erdogan’s Islamist Turkey is a repressive state that jails journalists and political opponents. Freedom of the press and political expression is a tag line in Turkey – not a right. 

Turkey is a friend of Iran, and a financial backer to the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas. Turkey’s support of Hamas and shield of Iran’s nuclear program infers that Turkey's foreign policy is antithetical to US and NATO interests.

Whether or not NATO ought to exist at all, and Turkey be allowed continued membership, are important questions. But it does, they are, and there is little doubt that Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton, and the unremitting interventionist John McCain are looking for any excuse to get US involved in yet another Islamic blowup.

Turkey is not a reliable ally – regardless of what Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton say, and the United States of America and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should not get involved in its dispute with Syria.