Turkey - TR

Robinette's 78 years old and he's carrying a suitcase full of launch buttons.

As far as the whole Turkey-US dynamic goes,

The Legend-class national security cutter USCGC Hamilton (WMSL 753) ran through some maritime drills with the Turkish Navy back on April 30, 2021, out in the Black Sea.
https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/Ne...-turkish-navy/

Sam Alvarez4 said:A link from 2019? 🤦

@manchild, spamming mile-long copy-pastes isn't any better or worse than those links you've been digging up from 2016 and 2019.

So what?
We're talking about character here. Erdogan has the character of a peacock. He just loves to show off.

Taylor Walker9 said:Sixty-seven is nothing for a politician; it’s hardly ancient history. Look at someone like Mitch McConnell—he's 82 and still holds massive sway in Washington.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is in the same league. The corruption of these failed political leaders is absolute. His assumption that he’ll be around forever is nothing more than a weight dragging down the country's progress.
The longer he lives, the more satisfying his end will be.

fadedtinker36 said:Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is in the same league. The corruption of these failed political leaders is absolute. His assumption that he’ll be around forever is nothing more than a weight dragging down the country's progress.
The longer he lives, the more satisfying his end will be.

Can you actually explain what Erdogan is doing wrong now that he wasn't doing back in 2012? Back then, the lira and the economy were holding steady. Did he just wake up old one day, or has this decline been a slow burn?

Taylor Walker9 said:Can you actually explain what Erdogan is doing wrong now that he wasn't doing back in 2012? Back then, the lira and the economy were holding steady. Did he just wake up old one day, or has this decline been a slow burn?

Look, I already told him—democracy is basically just a subway train; you ride it to get where you need to go, and you hop off at the right station when you arrive.
Back in the day, he was just playing the part pretty well. He had competent people running the major state agencies (some of them still do, I guess) and foreign investors were actually lining up to bring money in. But the act is over now. He’s lost his grip, gone rogue, and started making some seriously questionable calls. Especially with that whole scandal involving his missing son-in-law.

I don't think he'll live long enough to see the entire country collapse, but honestly? It wouldn't be a shock if the Republican Party loses the next election.

Which missing son-in-law? Are you talking about that Bajraktar fellow? 🤔

electrictrucker82 said:Which missing son-in-law? Are you talking about that Bajraktar fellow? 🤔

Actually, it was Berat Albayrak. Erdogan put him in charge of Energy and Natural Resources first, then later moved him over to run the Treasury and Finance Department. While he was running things, he basically gutted the central bank by bleeding out a massive chunk of the foreign exchange reserves. By the end of his tenure, about $128 billion had just vanished from the treasury—and then, suddenly, he resigned citing "health reasons" and completely disappeared from the public eye. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? ☕

He’s also famous for that one time—you know the one—where people were freaking out about the dollar losing its value and sliding straight into the gutter. His big defense? He basically told them to suck it up because it doesn't even matter. His logic was that since they aren't getting paid in foreign currency and don't have loans pegged to the dollar, they shouldn't be losing any sleep over it. As if that solves everything... right? 🙄

Even Erdogan went as far as saying he might actually appoint him as Secretary of State. Just kidding—but seriously, can you imagine? 😁

David Jackson2 said:Actually, it was Berat Albayrak. Erdogan put him in charge of Energy and Natural Resources first, then later moved him over to run the Treasury and Finance Department. While he was running things, he basically gutted the central bank by bleeding out a massive chunk of the foreign exchange reserves. By the end of his tenure, about $128 billion had just vanished from the treasury—and then, suddenly, he resigned citing "health reasons" and completely disappeared from the public eye. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? ☕

He’s also famous for that one time—you know the one—where people were freaking out about the dollar losing its value and sliding straight into the gutter. His big defense? He basically told them to suck it up because it doesn't even matter. His logic was that since they aren't getting paid in foreign currency and don't have loans pegged to the dollar, they shouldn't be losing any sleep over it. As if that solves everything... right? 🙄

Even Erdogan went as far as saying he might actually appoint him as Secretary of State. Just kidding—but seriously, can you imagine? 😁

Well, he certainly could have at least sent him as an ambassador to Russia; those kinds of intellectual gymnastics are quite popular there.

F. Gulen snatched and thrown into a Turkish prison
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57304094

Turad is back at it—kidnapping people in Nairobi again. I wonder if the European Union will slap them with sanctions, similar to what happened with Belarus.

Why would the European Union even bother meddling in a situation where one Islamist is kidnapping another?

Incident: Turkish vessel opens fire on coast guard ship, chases it toward home port

A Turkish ship opened fire on a vessel from the Tilliria coast guard near the northwestern edge of the Mediterranean island, according to the Associated Press – CNA.

https://www.geopolitika.news/vijesti...-maticne-luke/

So, here’s the deal: Turkey seems to have this massive stockpile of combat and reconnaissance drones, plus they boast one of the most powerful airlines out there, yet somehow they have zero operational Canadairs ready to go. How does that even make sense?

hiddeneagle98 said:So, here’s the deal: Turkey seems to have this massive stockpile of combat and reconnaissance drones, plus they boast one of the most powerful airlines out there, yet somehow they have zero operational Canadairs ready to go. How does that even make sense?

Their priorities were just set differently.

hiddeneagle98 said:So, here’s the deal: Turkey seems to have this massive stockpile of combat and reconnaissance drones, plus they boast one of the most powerful airlines out there, yet somehow they have zero operational Canadairs ready to go. How does that even make sense?

I mean, way more badass companies over here in the States don't even bother making firefighting planes.

hiddeneagle98 said:So, here’s the deal: Turkey seems to have this massive stockpile of combat and reconnaissance drones, plus they boast one of the most powerful airlines out there, yet somehow they have zero operational Canadairs ready to go. How does that even make sense?

Well, since they were already buying S-400s from Russia, they could have easily picked up a couple of Beriev Be-200s while they were at it... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_Be-200

That beast carries about 12 cubic meters of water—which is double what a Canadair (CL-415) can handle—and because it’s twice as fast, it can squeeze in significantly more sorties within the same timeframe, especially when dealing with those hard-to-reach locations... I mean, even the Americans actually toyed with the idea of acquiring them once upon a time...

brightheron64 said:Well, since they were already buying S-400s from Russia, they could have easily picked up a couple of Beriev Be-200s while they were at it... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_Be-200

That beast carries about 12 cubic meters of water—which is double what a Canadair (CL-415) can handle—and because it’s twice as fast, it can squeeze in significantly more sorties within the same timeframe, especially when dealing with those hard-to-reach locations... I mean, even the Americans actually toyed with the idea of acquiring them once upon a time...

Even America considered it, but the Beriev has some differences compared to the Canadair that make it less ideal for our needs.

Christian Torres3 said:Even America considered it, but the Beriev has some differences compared to the Canadair that make it less ideal for our needs.

The biggest drawback, however, is simply that it's Russian.

Christian Torres3 said:Even America considered it, but the Beriev has some differences compared to the Canadair that make it less ideal for our needs.

That was actually an option once—trying to settle some old debts by picking up two Be-200s for about $70 million in claims. But, just like how almost everything involving the US Air Force seems to spiral into a massive scandal, this whole deal eventually turned into a mess too...

Now, sure, maybe it isn't the perfect fit for a spread-out coastline like ours, but Turkey doesn't have those same constraints, and it could actually be quite useful for them.
What if they decide to go ahead and plant massive fig orchards over there? The entire world would suffer from the loss of such a delicious treat... 😁

Dana Robinson4 said:The biggest drawback, however, is simply that it's Russian.

Even the user manual is in Cyrillic...😬

If they’d actually tried to screw them over with that massive debt load, they probably would've ended up with even fewer helicopters.

Knowing our local heroes, though... they’d probably just be left to rot out in some random field somewhere.