Saudi Arabia & Turkey are greatest dangers to world peace – VA state Senator
Republican Virginia state Senator Dick Black said Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the greatest threats to world peace in an interview with RT, adding that Saudi Arabia’s “absolute barbarity” is overlooked because of its long-standing relationship with the US.
“I believe that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the two greatest dangers to world peace,” Senator Black told RT. “It is Saudi Arabia, through the Wahhabist doctrine, that is spreading terrorism across the globe. It’s not Iran, it’s not Syria or any other country.”
Saudi Arabia’s state-sponsored teachings of Wahhabism promote an ultra-conservative, austere version of Sunni Islam. Meanwhile, Black told RT that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intends to impose an absolute dictatorship.
“Erdogan has a dream of becoming a new Ottoman Empire,” Black said. “He’s a very calculating, very vicious individual and, I think, a great danger. Erdogan won an absolute majority of the Turkish parliament, which will enable him to rewrite the constitution. Once he had that total power to impose an absolute dictatorship – which he intends to do – and he publicly said that his model is that of Adolph Hitler.”
At its height in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ottoman Empire encompassed southeast Europe, western Asia, the Caucasus, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. During World War I, the Ottoman Empire declared a military jihad on France, Russia, and Great Britain, but ultimately lost.
The Adolph Hitler comment Black referred to comes from an interview back in January when Erdogan told journalists that he wanted to transform his office into a US-style executive “super-presidency,” through constitutional reforms.
“In a unitary system (such as Turkey’s) a presidential system can work perfectly,” said Erdogan, according to Agence France-Presse. “There’s already examples in the world and in history. You can see it when you look at Hitler’s Germany.”
After that analogy caught news headlines, the president’s office said in a statement that it was “unacceptable” to interpret Erdogan’s remarks as endorsement of Nazism.
“Our president…has declared that the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, along with Islamophobia, are crimes against humanity,” a press statement read, adding that Hitler’s Germany "had disastrous consequences” for the political system and could not be held up as a model.
Erdogan’s party, while controlling a majority of seats in the parliament, does not command the required two-thirds necessary to change the constitution without the support of other parties.
Senator Black thinks the civil war in Syria would never have happened without the efforts of Saudi Arabia and Turkey. He said the war in Syria was not a domestic uprising or part of the Arab Spring, with civilians seeking democracy. Instead, he called it an uprising of hardcore jihadists, aided by the CIA and MI6, with the help of Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Saudi Arabia was able to control governments across the world with its financial strength, and the Turks had their own agenda with regard to Europe, Black argued.
“Virtually all arms, ammunition, equipment, supplies, jihadists, medical support – all of it comes from Turkey. Right now, ISIS sends 44,000 barrels of oil per day – stolen barrels, most of it from Syria – across the border into Turkey,” said Black. “The State Department has publicly said that there’s only a trickle of oil that gets into Turkey, but I have personally spoken to Kurdish activists … [who] observed hundreds of ISIS oil tankers carrying stolen Syrian oil into Turkey on a daily basis.”
Black said Turkey is “actively assisting the ISIS rebels,” and also “helping the Al-Nusra rebels which are linked with Al-Qaeda.”
“In both places we’ve got terrorists, and in both places their major support comes out of Turkey. And it comes out of Turkey with approval from the highest levels of government.”
As for Saudi Arabia, Black believes the latest spike in tensions between the Saudis and Iran is proof of how Washington has been turning a blind eye to Riyadh’s actions.
“The US has been so in bed with the Saudi Arabians for so long. The Bush family – Herbert Walker Bush, George Bush, Jeb Bush – all of them have been closely tied with the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia,” he said. “The same thing with the Clintons – Bill, Hillary – very closely tied to the money from Saudi Arabia. And because of this Saudi Arabia has been able to do the most outrageous things,” said Black.
“We tend to condemn various secular nations in the Middle East because they do don’t do this quite right, or that quite right. And yet we overlook the absolute barbarity of the Saudi Kingdom, their absolute dictatorship.”
Black said that there is not a single Christian church in Saudi Arabia, but the US is quick to condemn other countries lacking in religious freedoms.
“What’s happening is that they [the Saudi family] are trying to restore some of the hostility between Shiites and the Sunnis. The Saudis massacred 47 people,” Black told RT. “I’m sure some of them were genuine criminals, but many of them were simply political opponents. And then there was an inevitable reaction which they knew there would be. And the Saudis, in typical fashion, have now shown a sense of outrage that people would be angered by the level of their debauchery – and this is typical of the Saudis.”
Black served in the US Marine Corps and retired as a Colonel in the Judge Advocate General (JAG) corps before being elected to the Virginia legislature. He maintains that the Assad government is effectively fighting against Islamic State and protecting the remaining Christians of Syria. Its fall, he says, would allow IS to quickly seize Jordan and Lebanon, and continue its drive westward.
BERNIE SANDERS FOR PRESIDENT, CALLING FOR WALMART TO GET OFF WELFARE:
BERNIE SANDERS FOR PRESIDENT, CALLING FOR WALMART TO GET OFF WELFARE:
Washington (CNN)Vice President Joe Biden offered effusive praise for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders Monday, lauding Hillary Clinton’s chief rival for doing a “heck of a job" on the campaign trail and praising Sanders for offering an authentic voice on income inequality.
ReplyDeleteAnd while Biden said Democrats had a slate of "great candidates" running for president, he suggested Clinton was a newcomer to issues like the growing gap between rich and poor.
"Bernie is speaking to a yearning that is deep and real. And he has credibility on it," Biden said during an interview with CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger.
"It's relatively new for Hillary to talk about that," Biden continued, acknowledging that Clinton has "come forward with some really thoughtful approaches to deal with the issue" of income inequality.
"Hillary's focus has been other things up to now, and that's been Bernie's -- no one questions Bernie's authenticity on those issues," he said.
Clinton and Sanders are locked in tight races in both Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold the nation's first nominating contests in less than a month's time. That's a distant cry from the start of the race, which saw Clinton an overwhelming favorite among Democrats.
The tightening in polls prompted Sanders, a Vermont senator who identifies as a Democratic Socialist, to jab at Clinton's campaign as being in "serious trouble" during a campaign stop in Iowa Monday.
Biden expressed little shock that Sanders was drawing ample support among Democrats, claiming that Sanders' self-identification as a socialist mattered little to his party's voters.
"If Bernie Sanders never said he was a democratic socialist, based on what he's saying people wouldn't be calling him a democratic socialist," he said, claiming Clinton entered the race with an "awful high bar for her to meet."
"I never thought she was a prohibitive favorite," he said. "I don't think she ever thought she was a prohibitive favorite. So I think it’s, you know, everything's sort of coming down to Earth."
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Sanders has sufficiently come around on the issue of gun control, Biden said, even as the Clinton campaign continued to launch withering criticism of Sanders' past vote allowing legal immunity for gun manufacturers whose products are involved in fatal shootings. President Barack Obama recently wrote in an op-ed he wouldn't campaign for any candidate that doesn't support "common-sense gun reform."
"What Bernie Sanders has to do is say that the Second Amendment says -- which he has, of late -- the Second Amendment says you can limit who can own a gun, that people who are criminals shouldn't have guns," he said. "People who are schizophrenic and have mental illnesses shouldn't own guns. And he has said that."
Biden, who spent much of last year contemplating a third presidential bid, announced in October he wouldn't pursue the Democratic nomination, saying window had closed on jumping into the race as he and his family grieved the June death of his eldest son Beau.
He insisted Monday that was the "absolute right decision for my family" and offered little indication his mind could be changed given outcomes in the upcoming primary season.
"I don't think there's any door to open," he said when asked if he was closing the door fully on a 2016 bid, adding that even if Sanders ekes out victories in the early voting states, he still confronts an uphill climb to the nomination.
"Even if Hillary loses votes -- I've thought this through -- it's a long way to go in the nomination," he said, calling Sanders' prospects of winning South Carolina -- which holds its primary after New Hampshire -- "tough sledding."
Biden offered little praise for the leading Republican in the presidential race, saying Donald Trump would likely come to wish he hadn't used such disparaging language in this year's context.
"If Donald Trump gets the nomination and wins the election, if he's as smart as I think, he's going to regret having said the things he's said and done," Biden said. He suggested Trump enroll in "a couple crash graduate courses before he started to try to exercise the role of president."
But Biden did reveal a longing for the campaign trail, a setting he occupied regularly for four decades as a U.S. senator, and later as vice president, but will no longer experience again as a candidate.
"I wish sometimes that I was able to be out there making the case why there's such reason for optimism for this country," he said. "But I'm able to do that as vice president."
He still thinks about his late son "all the time," Biden said during the interview, remembering Beau Biden as "the most fastidious, honorable, straight guy."
The onetime prospect that Beau might have to resign as Delaware's attorney general, due to potential cognitive complications after a stroke, prompted a striking moment between Obama and the vice president, Biden recalled.
Describing a conversation during one of their weekly lunches, Biden said he was concerned about caring for Beau's family without his son's salary.
"I said, 'but I worked it out.'" Biden recalled telling Obama. "I said, 'but -- Jill and I will sell the house and be in good shape.'"
"And he got up and he said, 'Don't sell that house. Promise me you won't sell the house,'" Biden continued, speculating Obama would be "mad" he was retelling the story.
"He said, 'I'll give you the money. Whatever you need, I'll give you the money. Don't, Joe -- promise me. Promise me.' I said, 'I don't think we're going to have to anyway.' He said, 'promise me,'" Biden said.
Hillary Clinton losing New Hampshire and Iowa as well as Trump winning the Republicans would be at least a temporary moment of joy.
ReplyDeleteI unabashedly support and will vote Bernie Sanders for US President.
ReplyDeleteI would also support a corporate surtax on corporations that use a low wage business model that forces underpaid workers to rely on state and federal welfare payments to supplement their income needs.
ReplyDeleteLet the games begin.
ReplyDeleteIf I ever supported The Bern for anything I'd make darn certain I never told anyone about it.
ReplyDeleteI won't want to ever be thought of as one of those that attempted to turn the USA into Venezuela or Cuba.
The Bern is a sleeze oid old spike, his two claims to fame being honeymooning in the USSR and ending the publishing of pornography when he became a politician.
Other than that it's been nothing but sit on the ass.
Further he's simply too old to be President.
I get the feeling he's running on the off-chance he might die in office and some decent medical care during the process.
Don't forget to buy your lotto tickets today.
ReplyDeleteYou will get more out of that experience - just the temporary hopefulness of it, than you'll ever get out of Bernie Sanders.
ReplyDeleteHome
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Quinnipiac: Trump leads Cruz in Iowa for the first time in a month. 31/29
posted at 6:01 pm on January 11, 2016 by Allahpundit
That’s within the margin of error, but Trump leads of any sort have been scarce in Iowa lately. He also topped Cruz in the last Quinnipiac poll of the state taken in early and mid-December, 28/27, and led narrowly in a PPP poll of Iowa taken around the same time. But of the last 10 surveys conducted there, those were the only two where he took first. He trailed Cruz in the other six and tied him in another.
Is this statistical noise or Cruz’s grasp beginning to slip?
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/01/11/quinnipiac-trump-leads-cruz-in-iowa-for-the-first-time-in-a-month-3129/
The Donald's secret program -the L2 - is starting to have its effect.
Cruz is beginning to slop.
ReplyDeleteThe lubricant ?
L2, applied by Trump's trump card, "Q", working diligently behind the scenes.
The Donald's promise to "Q"?
"We win, "Q"Boy, you get to be 'social director'"
Cruz is beginning to 'slip'.
ReplyDeleteJust got up, took a sleeping pill last night.
It is Tuesday, isn't it ?
Niece's e mail is down, and something about getting a new phone number.....
All is confusion.....
Go, Ben !