Dinah Lord

Guess who's getting a Missile Defense system?

Apparently, President Obama has no problem leaving our allies, Poland and the Czech Republic, defenseless and in the lurch but he's cool with this so-called 'moderate' Islamic country defending themselves.

Turkey to buy missile defence system. 

Turkey's military on Friday said it was planning to spend close to US$1 billion (S$1.44 billion) for its first long-range missile defence system.

The Turkish announcement came a day after US President Barack Obama cancelled a long-planned missile shield for Eastern Europe, replacing a Bush-era project that was opposed by Russia with a plan he contended would better defend against Iranian missiles.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey's move was aimed at strengthening the country's defence, rejecting media speculation that the system is meant specifically to protect the country from Iranian missiles.

'Turkey's purchase of Patriot (missiles) has nothing to do with Iran or directly with any other country,' Mr Davutoglu told CNN-Turk television in an interview on Friday. 'There should absolutely be no connection between Patriots and Iran.'

Unh-huh.  Right.  The Strategy Page has some additional info about the systems being purchased.  Funny how the Russians aren't getting all exercised about these missiles, isn't it??? 

Perhaps because they are too busy testing ways to smuggle them into Iran...

Or perhaps because they're too busy playing all coy about their sale (currently 'frozen') of the S-300 defense system to the Iranians.  If Russia's freeze thaws on these missiles all bets are off.  Israeli MP says S-300 missiles may force airstrike on Iran.

Or perhaps they are just too darn too busy playing our President for the inexperienced fool he apparently is.   For his part, President Obama has sent his all his little aides out with their talking points about 'cost concerns'. 

Make me barf.

Oh boy: Turkish news anchor reports on Obama - in blackface.

From Breitbart.  (h/t FReeThinkerNY)

Turkish threat on Obama now declared a hoax.

Yesterday there was a threat.  Today?  No al Jazeera reporter, no knife, no nothing.  Anonymous email detailing the supposed threat has been traced to a US IP address.  The Secret Service is following up.

Yahoo.

Turkish police detained a man after receiving a hoax tip that he was plotting to kill President Barack Obama but quickly released him without charge, a government official said Tuesday.

The official, who is close to police operations in Turkey, said police detained the suspect — a Turkish national — on Friday after receiving an anonymous e-mail which even gave the suspect's address in Istanbul. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of rules that bar civil servants from speaking to the media without prior authorization.

"There was nothing serious. Police released the man and said he was mentally disturbed," the official said. "The tip turned out to be a hoax. The IP address from which the e-mail was sent was traced to the United States."

U.S. Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said Monday the president was never in any immediate danger. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, who was with Obama in Istanbul on Tuesday, declined to comment on the incident.

Obama did not arrive in Turkey until Sunday, two days after the man's arrest.  "There was no threat to Obama's life," the Turkish official said. "But the police naturally took such a tip seriously."

A Turkish newspaper, HaberTurk, had claimed Sunday that the police detained a Syrian national who would have posed as a journalist for Al-Jazeera television and thrown a knife at Obama while he addressed a forum aimed at bridging gaps between the West and the Islamic world in Istanbul.

"That report was false," the Turkish official said. "He had no such plan or capability. He even probably did not know that Obama was arriving."

As standard procedure involving a threat against the president overseas, the Secret Service is following up with Turkish authorities regarding the case, Donovan said.

Turkish authorities deployed around 9,000 officers to protect Obama in Istanbul. Armored personnel carriers blocked several streets on Obama's route on Tuesday as the president toured the city.

Turkey: Rasmussen eats Muslim crow and meets Khatami...

Some pic.  Do you think Today's Zaman tried to make Rasmussen look both pitiful AND submissive?  Look for it to get wide distribution throughout the ME.

From Today's Zaman.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Monday he would pay close attention to religious sensibilities in his new role as NATO chief in comments aimed at allaying Muslim concern at his appointment.

Turkey had threatened to veto the former Danish prime minister's appointment over his handling of a 2006 crisis triggered by cartoons of Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper.

His comments at an Istanbul conference on Monday fell short of the outright apology which Turkish officials had hoped for.

"I was deeply distressed that the cartoons were seen by many Muslims as an attempt by Denmark to mark and insult or behave disrespectfully towards Islam or the Prophet Mohammad. Nothing could be further from my mind," he said

"I respect Islam as one of the world's major religions as well as its religious symbols," he said during a panel discussion at the conference aimed at building bridges between the Muslim world and the West."

We are just so screwed.

Turkey: Syrian man arrested in Obama murder plot

Well, we may not be at war with Islam, President Obama, but it sure looks like they're still out to kill your a$$. 

From AKI:

As United States president Barack Obama began an official visit to Turkey on Monday, reports surfaced that a Syrian man was arrested in Istanbul in connection with a plot to kill him. The man - who sought to disguise himself as a journalist for the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera - managed to obtain press accreditation and allegedly planned to stab the US president with a knife, said Saudi daily al-Watan.

The Saudi daily contacted Al-Jazeera's bureau in the Turkish capital Ankara and spoke with the bureau's director Yusuf al-Sharif who claimed the Syrian man never worked with Al-Jazeera.

The suspect was arrested last Friday in Istanbul, where he had been permanently living for a number of years. After his arrest, al-Watan said he confessed to having planned Obama's murder and that in case he failed, there were three other accomplices that would carry out the assassination.

Obama arrived in Ankara late on Sunday for a two-day trip to shore up ties with majority-Muslim Turkey, whose support is crucial to the US to solve the conflicts in Iran, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

He is due to meet Turkish president Abdullah Gul and prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Obama was also due to visit the Turkish parliament and address the general assembly.

2:32 pm Update from Today's Zaman:

Meanwhile, two Syrian nationals purported to be in preparations of an attack against President Obama were reportedly detained by the İstanbul police on Saturday. According to a story that was published in Sunday's Habertürk daily, the Turkish police and the CIA unearthed a plan of four individuals using fake identity cards belonging to the Al Jazeera television station to follow the US president's visit as journalists and kill Obama by throwing a knife at him during the president's Alliance of Civilizations meeting at the Çırağan Palace scheduled for tonight. Three others were being sought by the police yesterday in İstanbul, where the police have been carrying out extensive security operations to make sure that the visit passes without a hitch.

Obama: "The US is not and never will be at war at Islam."

 Then he throws the Armenians under the bus... and refuses to say the "G" word.

From Yahoo:

Barack Obama, making his first visit to a Muslim nation as president, declared Monday the United States "is not and will never be at war with Islam."

Calling for a greater partnership with the Islamic world in an address to the Turkish parliament, Obama called the country an important U.S. ally in many areas, including the fight against terrorism. He devoted much of his speech to urging a greater bond between Americans and Muslims, portraying terrorist groups such as al Qaida as extremists who did not represent the vast majority of Muslims.

"Let me say this as clearly as I can," Obama said. "The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical ... in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject."

...

Al Jazeera and Al Arabiyia, two of the biggest Arabic satellite channels, carried Obama's speech live.

Obama said the partnership between the U.S. and the Muslim world is critical in rolling back what he called a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject.  "America's relationship with the Muslim world cannot and will not be based on opposition to al Qaida," he said. "We seek broad engagement based upon mutual interests and mutual respect."

"We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over so many centuries to shape the world for the better, including my own country," Obama said.

Obama also said, to a round of applause, that the United States supports Turkey becoming a member of the European Union.

And then he threw the Armenians smartly under the bus.

Mr . Obama was asked by a Chicago Tribune reporter about his position, as a senator, that Turkey should recognize the genocide committed against the Armenian people by the Ottoman empire during and after World War I, and whether he'd urged President Gul to acknowledge the genocide. This is an extremely sensitive topic, given Turkey's refusal to use the word "genocide" when discussing its past systematic slaughter of Armenians.

"My views are on the record and I have not changed my views," the president said.

That said, he sidestepped the issue saying that "under President Gul's leadership, a series of negotiations and a process has been put in place between Armenia and Turkey to resolve a whole host of issues including that one." 

Thus, Mr. Obama said, he did not want to focus on his views, allowing the Turkey-Armenia deliberations to continue on their own.

About that G- word:

President Barack Obama, steering a delicate course on an explosive issue here, said today that his views on the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks early in the last century had not changed, but avoided using the word "genocide" in front of his Turkish hosts.

According to Obama administration spokesman all acts of genocide, past and future,  are to be referred to as "unfortunate kitten incidents" going forward.  /do I really need this tag?

Turkey: Muslim women told "Prevent honor killings..."

This family of sisters said there had been an honour killing in their village, in one of the most patriarchal areas of Kurdish Turkey, and they live in constant fear

Just go kill yourself.

When Elif's father told her she had to kill herself in order to spare him from a prison sentence for her murder, she considered it long and hard. "I loved my father so much, I was ready to commit suicide for him even though I hadn't done anything wrong," the 18-year-old said. "But I just couldn't go through with it. I love life too much."

All Elif had done was simply decline the offer of an arranged marriage with an older man, telling her parents she wanted to continue her education. That act of disobedience was seen as bringing dishonour on her whole family – a crime punishable by death. "I managed to escape. When I was at school, a few girls I knew were killed by their families in the name of honour – one of them for simply receiving a text message from a boy," Elif said.

So-called "honour killings" in Turkey have reached record levels. According to government figures, there are more than 200 a year – half of all the murders committed in the country. Now, in a sinister twist, comes the emergence of "honour suicides". The growing phenomenon has been linked to reforms to Turkey's penal code in 2005. That introduced mandatory life sentences for honour killers, whereas in the past, killers could receive a reduced sentence claiming provocation. Soon after the law was passed, the numbers of female suicides started to rocket.

Somalia: Pirates release Turkish ship after ransom demands met.

From Reuters:

The MV Yasa Neslihan was en route to China on Wednesday after pirates freed it in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia, Anatolian said, citing Fehmi Ulgener, a lawyer for the Yasa shipping company which owns the vessel.

Yasa officials had been negotiating with the ship's captors for its release and had paid an undisclosed amount of money as ransom, Ulgener told the news agency. The 20 Turkish crew were all safe, he said.

The Marshall Island-flagged Neslihan was carrying 77,000 tonnes of iron ore from Canada to China when pirates seized the ship in the Gulf of Aden in late October.

Update: Contrary to previous rumors the Sirius Star and the MV Faina still remain in pirate hands.  And contrary to the claims of the pirates, it's no picnic being a hostage.  Chinese sailor recalls horror of being captured by Pirates.

Saudi Arabia: Turkish barber accused of blasphemy pardoned.

Oops.  I guess it wouldn't look too good to have King Abdullah going around the world conducting all of these interfaith forums speaking about all the religious tolerance found in Islam and then go and chop off this guy's head.

Bogday had moved to the Saudi city of Jeddah from the southeastern province of Hatay where he was running a barbershop, and was arrested by Saudi officials after being accused by his Egyptian neighbor, a tailor that he had argued with, of "cursing the name of Allah".

 

Saudi authorities arrested Bogday and later condemned him to death. His family had appealed the decision and demanded that the president and prime minister intervene to prevent the execution.

President Abdullah Gul asserted efforts to save the Bogday from execution, sending a letter to Saudi King Abdullah requesting a pardon for Bogday. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had also contacted Saudi officials asking them to spare Bogday's life.

source - Hurriyet.