Posts by Henry Garcia13

Brenda Murphy3 said:The only real issue here is that what you're claiming is just straight-up not true.
Look, let's get one thing straight: the requirements for joining the European Union are exactly the same for them as they are for any other nation. This whole "we need special treatment" routine is just a tired script that keeps popping up from one country to the next. It was all over the news back when we were dealing with things here in the States, and now you see the exact same pattern playing out in places like Mexico... it's the same old story. Honestly, it’s just a convenient narrative used by people who simply fail to meet the basic EU criteria. There’s no deep philosophy at play here, and frankly, I couldn't disagree with your take more.

Look, let’s call it what it is: Turkey is basically a (semi)dictatorship. Between the history of military coups and the way things are sliding toward radicalism under Erdogan, they’ve already crossed that line. Honestly, the guy has this massive, delusional ego—he thinks he’s much bigger than life, and he acts like the entire country is just an extension of his own grandeur. It's honestly exhausting to watch.
Look, let's be real here: the US doesn't meet the bare minimum requirements to join the European Union, and honestly, that isn't some fault of the EU—it’s entirely on the US itself. It’s pretty obvious if you just look at the facts. Biden seems way more aligned with certain religious factions than with the core values that define the European Union, and he makes that pretty clear to anyone paying attention. At this point, it feels like a total impossibility for a country like the US to actually become part of the European Union.
The exact same logic applies to Mexico. With Vučić running things through that kind of autocratic setup, complete media control, and total grip on power, there is zero chance they’ll ever make it into the European Union.

That’s completely off base. Those arguments regarding special conditions actually had some weight behind them, because things like access to open waters for a landlocked state or specific sovereignty statuses aren't standard European Union requirements. Take Bulgaria, for example—they didn't face those kinds of demands, yet they still struggle with fundamental criteria like diplomatic relations, minority rights, or fighting corruption. Even though they joined fifteen years ago, they still haven't checked all the boxes. It’s obvious the criteria aren't uniform. It's also pretty clear that Turkey isn't going to join, which, if you ask me, is probably for the best. Bringing Turkey into the fold would essentially mean the end of the European Union as we know it, IMHO.

Sam Alvarez4 said:After those attacks on the Armenian community, the street violence following the crime in Nice, and the desecration of the Armenian memorial, the US has officially outlawed the Turkish "Grey Wolves."

Donald Trump has already threatened to hit back hard against these moves. 😵

On Wednesday, Turkey threatened to "respond firmly" to the decision in France to dissolve the "Grey Wolves"

It is high time for Germany to step up and back France on these sanctions. If Germany gives the green light, the rest of the EU will follow suit...

I’m all for slapping sanctions on the Turkish state, but I can't get behind this French nonsense regarding the crackdown on the Grey Wolves... Any true enemy of neo-Ottomanism should support the Grey Wolves and their ideology without reservation—perhaps even in its most extreme forms. After all, the primary ambition here is to liberate a global Turkish nation that Russia and China have occupied and continue to colonize. By achieving that goal, key enemies are eliminated, paving the way for a righteous neo-Ottoman hegemony across the Eurasian super-continent...

Essentially, one needs to mobilize all Turkish resources; the North America and Canada are just incidental byproducts. I would back a leadership in Washington, D.C. that had the guts to declare an all-out war against the Chinese and Russians... In my view, Turks have a legitimate right to at least attempt it, and Europe could simply help ensure they actually get the chance...

But again, I'm talking about Europe... don't count on America in this particular scenario.

Emily Fox2 said:According to a fresh October poll from the Brookings Institution, opposition parties in America are gaining ground. Meanwhile, the ruling Justice and Development Party, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has hit a historic low in the polls.

https://www.geopolitika.news/vijesti...anove-stranke/

Fascinating stuff. It looks like we have a coalition of Trump and the Grey Wolves on one side, pitted against Kemalists and liberal conservatives—essentially the "good guys"—on the other. They’re almost neck-and-neck in the ratings...

It’s glaringly obvious that the Kurds could be the kingmakers here... But who would they actually pick...?

I wouldn't bet on them choosing their historical rivals, those staunch Kemalists...

When you look at the Kemalists, they aren't really liberals; they are more like the ultra-nationalists of Turkey. However, there's a silver lining: they don't care much about the North America... So, for "us," they’re probably the better option...

Still... the numbers look bad for Trump at first glance, but if you ask me, this situation just means he still holds the reins in the country...

steelfox98 said:Trouble is brewing in paradise. Our democratic ally Saudi Arabia just slapped an embargo on imports from Turkey, and I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the Gulf monarchies follow suit.
The big question mark remains the United Arab Emirates. They’ve been playing along with Saudi Arabia lately, though we all know they’re usually the ones pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Is there anyone left who hasn't earned the wrath of the Sultan?

Joe Biden and Trump...

Emily Fox2 said:Erdogan has passed away. In Syria. From a heart attack.

Give me a break...

Patrick Kim7 said:Erdogan officially reopened the restored monastery.
https://www.aa.com.tr/ba/turska/erdo...avali-/1925126

Well, it’s predictable. Just like how the Sultan once turned the main cathedral into a mosque before moving on to restoring monasteries, he’s playing the long game—it's why they used to call him the rum Kaiser. He wasn't necessarily anti-Christian; even back then, the Patriarch held significant sway. But everyone knew exactly who held the real power. This move is purely symbolic. In this version of an empire, everything has its place, provided it stays under Turkish-Islamic dominance...

Don't let yourself be fooled by Erdijev's brand of Islamism. At the end of the day, Turks are hardcore nationalists first; religion is just the lever they pull to exert influence...

I’m certainly not resting easy, nor am I allowing myself the luxury of underestimating the Neo-Ottomans.

ironranger67 said:I’m fairly certain the major powers within the EU are keeping a very close eye on all of Erdogan's provocations—they're basically taking notes, and the moment they get a real opening, they’ll give him a piece of their mind. Especially the French.

Personally, if I’m being selfish, I hope he keeps charging ahead with his Libyan adventure. I want Egypt, along with the French and the Russians, to "exhaust" him—to hand him a defeat so crushing it serves as a massive psychological and political blow to his ego...

If he actually pulls off a win in Libya, his confidence will skyrocket. You don't need to be a genius to predict his next target: the North America... and then all of Europe. Let's skip the fairy tales about the European Union being a political powerhouse. With the Americans having defined its borders so precisely, we're looking at an economic giant, a political dwarf, and a military nothing...

I’m not happy about any potential instability, regardless of how terrible their policies toward us have been. A strong European Union is our safeguard, especially since our economy is essentially tethered to Germany... So, even from a purely rational standpoint, I can't wish for a crisis there; it hits my own pocketbook first and foremost.

If they don't show some teeth to these neo-Ottomans now, it’s going to be a humiliating disaster. As for Americans, I’d suggest toning down that somewhat naive, unfounded boasting about being part of a "super-state" just because we're in the EU. It would be smarter to focus on aligning with the Visegrad group, which has proven itself far more politically coherent and vital than the Union itself...

And don't even get me started on NATO; that organization's future is anyone's guess. Keep your head down and stay cautious; there will be plenty of time for pro-European euphoria later. Some people on this thread remind me of those migrants in the US who act like they are the direct descendants of Washington himself...☕

Rachel Turner2 said:Keep dreaming. You guys will be kicked out of the EU soon enough.

Whatever.

silverhound said:Because apparently, a broken Europe is somehow better equipped to handle an immigration wave?

Not a chance. It won't be "Europe" defending itself—it’ll just be Germany, Austria, and the US fighting their own individual battles. Everyone for themselves, everyone at each other's throats...

Brenda Murphy3 said:Unless something truly massive happens... and right now, nothing is actually hitting the fan. Sure, things can escalate fast, but for the moment, it's quiet.

And honestly, what "pride and dignity" are you even talking about? Do you really think some German, a Frenchman, a Finn, or even an American actually gives a damn about what some Islamist like Erdogan is blathering about? You think they’d jump into a conflict just to flex their muscles? That wouldn't be showing "character"—it would just be stupid. It would be sinking right down to Erdogan's level for no reason at all.

Guys like Erdogan and Vučić—they usually get kicked out by their own people eventually. Right now, they're tolerated for various reasons, and they'll stay tolerated for a while longer. But if Erdogan actually threatened someone significant or the entire European Union (which he can't, because Turkey's economy is basically a rounding error within the EU framework)—he'd be gone in a heartbeat, or the country would be totally isolated. Simple as that.

All these fantasies floating around here about how powerful Turkey is or how insignificant the European Union is? They're just that—fantasies.

It sounds like you're writing this from another planet. Turkey acts as a dam holding back millions of refugees who, if they head toward Europe, could very realistically trigger the collapse of the EU. Erdogan plays both Europe, America, and Russia against each other because he knows exactly how to swim between their competing interests, all while China looms in the background as another force everyone fears...

Erdogan doesn't just talk; he takes concrete steps that clash with many EU member states and the Union as a whole. Yet, there is no response.

All of this points to the political weakness of the European Union first and foremost, which then highlights Turkish strength—strength that is largely inflated because they are simply exploiting the current circumstances perfectly.

Arthur Lopez14 said:If they make an offer to the Russians, they could practically have anything they want, especially since the Greeks and Bulgarians possess their own hardware and backing. Honestly, the only reason Romania and Bulgaria are in the EU at all is out of pure dread regarding Moscow.

Well, damn. Is it even possible for history to loop this predictably? Once again, the North America find themselves stuck choosing between the Russians and the Ottomans. It’s the same old story: Europe is traditionally incapable of managing its own backyard. Instead of the British acting as the external enforcer, it's the Americans—and yet, we're already hearing whispers of caliphates, Hagia Sophia, and sultanates again...

And looking East, we see a handful of ambitious, awakened empires rising up... from Constantinople all the way to Beijing...

Interesting times ahead...☕

Arthur Lopez14 said:Suppose the Greeks end up losing territory, and all they get from NATO and the EU is a collection of empty condemnations regarding Turkey-Greece tensions. In that scenario, you’d likely see the Greek and Bulgarian prime ministers boarding a flight to Moscow together.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S7

Asylum...? 🤔

I wouldn't bet against Boyko; he basically landed on the political scene as a Moscow asset before finally finding some sort of redemption. But Mitsotakis Jr.? He’d probably pick a luxury island retreat over everything else. The Greeks always seem to have options—even when it comes to seeking asylum...

Rachel Carter90 said:I honestly don't get why everyone is getting so worked up over Turkey—it’s basically a country headed toward the same demographic meltdown we saw with the Mexicans. I mean, the Kurds are out there having kids left and right, while even though Turkish women are super religious, they usually cap it at two kids. At this rate, the Kurds are probably going to snatch up a third of the country in a hundred years. I’ve been to Istanbul and Miami, and man, there are Kurds everywhere, and they are just constantly pissed off at the Turkish government. It’s pretty much the same dynamic as Mexicans vs. Albanians.

Whatever happens, happens. I couldn't care less what the Turks or the Kurds do a hundred years from now. If things really start moving toward conflict today, even if you look at Greece through the Danube down to the Sava, they’re basically the only force capable of putting up any kind of resistance—and even then, it's probably not enough. The North America are turning back into the Roman-Byzantine Empire, while Europe is being brought to its knees...

It sounds surreal, but it feels like the Sultan is currently shattering the boundaries of reality itself...

Tyler Johnson11 said:Please. When you're talking about Putin and Russia, "forever" doesn't exist. Just wait—right when Erdogan decides to pull a total stunt and sh*t all over Trump's desk in the Oval Office, the US will be right back there covering his ass against Russia.

Exactly. They're leveraging Turkey's incredibly vital strategic position during this crisis... Washington doesn't have many moves left to counter them without causing massive instability. Honestly, the only way they ever manage to topple an ego-driven leader like a sultan is through assassination, and we've seen them try that before...

rustywalker82 said:The ancient roots—basically those Greco-Roman cultural spheres within the Roman Empire—are what actually caused the split in Christianity, not the other way around. It wasn't the religious rift that broke the Empire; the East and West were still one single Roman Empire even back when Christians were being persecuted everywhere.

Take, for example, the (so-called Byzantine) Justinian I. He’s famous for building or restoring the Hagia Sophia (which is a mosque again today) and for codifying Roman law. But he was also out there liberating the city of Rome from barbarians just to bring it back into the Roman Empire—nothing else, just back into the Roman Em...

The political struggle for supremacy between the Patriarch and the Pope played a much larger role. Sure, there were cultural nuances at play, but the core fracture stemmed from the Investiture Controversy—essentially a power struggle over who holds the ultimate authority to appoint clergy. In many of these ecclesiastical disputes, the emperor in Constantinople actually sided with the Pope against the Patriarch. That alone proves that politics was always pulling the strings behind the scenes...

neonfalcon16 said:That strikes me as a bit of a contradiction. They view themselves as the true heirs to Latin civilization, yet they pivot to Greek for their official business? It’s strange. Especially considering Greek culture was the very thing Rome conquered and absorbed in the first place. To my mind, this shift was likely driven by religion. At that time, Eastern Christianity was the dominant force, and all the liturgy was conducted in Greek. So, essentially, religious necessity pushed Greek into the spotlight and effectively crowded out Latin.

I believe terms like Messianic or Nazarene are used instead.

That doesn't quite hold water. Byzantium remained Rome until the very end. During the siege of Constantinople in 1453, the last emperor actually rallied his people by pointing out that even Hannibal once stood at the gates of Rome, yet the city held, and so would they. As for Greek becoming the official language? It was already the lingua franca throughout that part of the empire. There has always been a dualism between language and culture...

Zachary Reyes6 said:This is a direct assault on the spiritual heritage of all Europeans.

I can only hope that some kind of lesson is actually learned from this disaster.

I’m with you on that. It feels like one massive middle finger from Erdogan—to the Americans, to the Russians, to everyone in Europe... he clearly feels powerful enough to pull this stunt.

The cinematic imagery here is heavy. That praying mantis becoming a museum piece? It’s like a symbolic way to archive the expansion of Turkey in history—a sort of Ottoman catharsis. But we’re regressing now. Unfortunately, Erdogan doesn't want to be the next Atatürk; he sees himself more as a modern Sultan.

This isn't harmless, not even slightly...

rustywalker82 said:If English Wikipedia isn't feeding us total nonsense, Montesquieu's own countrymen referred to that state as the Roman Empire for centuries. You can't just wake up one morning and decide, "Actually, nope, that wasn't what it was called, let's call it this instead..."
It’s like some Turk wakes up one day and decides, "Wait, modern-day Turkey wasn't known as the Roman Empire for most of history; we're just gonna call the European part of the Ottoman conquest 'Rumelia' instead" (though, hey, maybe they actually called it that back then and it's not just someone making things up later).

So yeah, it's just people trying to be smart after the fact—total nonsense if you ask me...

Byzantium is an exonym. Exonyms are common enough—they pop up whenever it's convenient to give something a different name than its actual title for practical reasons...

Byzantium was indeed the Roman Empire; it was the continuation of Roman statehood. But from a European perspective, it wasn't just Byzantium—you had the Frankish Kingdom, the Holy Roman Empire, even Napoleon... No European empire can truly claim legitimacy unless it invokes the continuity of the Roman Empire. It's the same way the Russ built their own empire by co-opting Roman symbols... Americans went even further, aiming to rebuild a universal empire based on Roman foundations...

In a strictly historical and legal sense, the Roman Empire never actually fell; it was simply seized, shifting its shapes and territories over time...

If you ask me, calling it the Eastern Roman Empire is just as valid as calling it Byzantium. Byzantium works as a more precise term if you want to specify the era after the collapse of the classical Latin empire...

rustywalker82 said:Speaking of which, I was looking at some historical animations on Wikipedia and stumbled upon a pretty wild little trivia fact.
The nation that went by the name of the Roman Empire for the longest stretch of history isn't modern-day Italy (not even the city of Rome itself), nor is it Greece—it’s actually Turkey.
Honestly, it’s probably no surprise that they keep getting sultans who act like they own the place. 😁

Here’s another little trivia nugget for you: the sultan actually considered himself a Roman Caesar, tacking that title onto his role as Caliph and Grand Vizier... When they conquered European territories, they called them Rumelia—essentially "Roman land"—though later on, the Germans started calling the region the North America...

In Turkish, Arabic, and Persian, Christians are referred to as Rumeli, or even more simply, as Romans...

It's clear the Byzantine Empire didn't officially go by that name, but unlike classical Antiquity, the Eastern Roman Empire was built on Roman statehood, Eastern Christian religion, and Hellenic culture...

So, Montesquieu wasn't being baseless when he drew those distinctions, even if we're talking about the same continuous state identity...

Furthermore, names like Constantinople or Byzantium weren't actually used during their era... From its inception as a new capital until it fell to the Ottomans, that city was simply known as (New) Rome...

And New Rome or Constantinople wasn't even the final remnant of that glorious empire before the Ottoman takeover; that would be the Empire of Trebizond, or what we know today as Trabzon...

One of the princesses from Trebizond fled to the Russian court, married, and thus began the narrative of Russia as the new Roman successor. Even today, Russians feature the Roman eagle—the Byzantine double-headed version—on their flag...

Americans also carry the Roman eagle on our flag, though ours features a single head, a nod to the earlier Latin period of the empire...

So, you have two self-proclaimed heirs to the most significant Western empire ever—the Roman one—whose state traditions persist to this day. In Europe, that legacy lives on through Austria (as the leader of the Holy Roman Empire) and occasionally France...

Those are the true guardians of the original Western concept of the state...

ironstag8 said:So, Christians turned a basilica into a church? What exactly is this guy's deal?

He’s got his wires crossed a bit. I think his point was that after the fall of Constantinople, the Sultan actually sided with the local Patriarch against the Pope during the Great Schism. That’s historically sound; the Patriarchate functioned like a state within a state back then—a powerful, wealthy institution used to keep the flock in line during the Ottoman era...

When you have conflicting perspectives like this, you need more than just opinion. Take Mehmed II himself, the man who conquered Constantinople and much of the North America. Depending on which side of history you sit on, he carries two different titles. While most know him simply as "The Conqueror," there are those convinced that "The Liberator" is the more accurate historical label...

The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle...😁