Istanbul Ataturk Airport Bombings

Hello,

So it seems to happen again, another suicide bombing at a large international airport. Though this time in Turkey which truly is a fantastic nation and a modern benchmark on adaptation and moving forward. All  condolences to the friends and families of the atleast 28 dead. Hopefully we will see no more of theese bombings and an end has to be put in this now global conflict. Hopefully Sweden will help end the conflict when entering the United Nations Security Council next year on a two year term and hopefully get the council to actually do something regarding the conflict. My hopes are minimal due to our currently incompetent minister of foreign affairs who shamefully lives in the same city that I was born in (but she is happily not born there).

Regards,

Christian

There is no justification for killing random people. No religion, no race, no history.

42 people died (up until now) - fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, friends...

Those days should make everyone realize that there are people out there who are full of nothing.

They don't feel empathy and they don't feel guilt. They want their "own" good. I don't like to get touchy

but those people are not necessarily only "monsters". Please be good to each other and don't judge

others in a way you don't judge yourself. Unfairness is what turns this world to shit.

On a more worldly note. Saying Turkey is a fantastic and a modern benchmark on adaptation and

moving forward state is something that feels very odd to me.

A country that developed into a dictatorship without any freedom to anyone living "against" the system.

People getting stamped as terrorists for supporting a Kurdish people. As a German citizen the last time

I heard that in our own history about 6 million innocent people got killed and many millions of soldiers

died in a war that caused havoc over the whole planet.

Furthermore Turkey has been pushing its economy so hard that it grew over what it can sustain - at

least if you are about to kill or at least deport a big chunk of your population.

Fantastic? For everyone? Or just for those who were living before quite well and now just gain more?

Adaptation? Of what exactly? Own history in formats of German history? IS' sick believe of something

they try to force on people as "Islam"?

Moving forward? By moving back in history, trying to get rid off of the rest of Kurds?

Erdogan is mainly elected by Turks living abroad in better countries (such as Germany). There is a

reason for that.

I can't believe someone living in Sweden can even think of saying Turkey is "moving forward".

Hi,

the attitude from the Turkish government towards IS/Daesh has been ambiguous. The Turkish-Syrian border was left wide open for European jihadists to join IS. And several reports state that IS exported oil through Turkey. It is hard to believe that the Turkish government would not have noticed those trucks.

And I agree with FENC. Arresting judges and policemen who investigate corruption cases, and arresting journalists who report about it, are not signs of a country moving forward. The same can be said about the changed attitude towards the Kurdish minority in Turkey. I understand that Ankara is afraid that Kurdish people in Iraq, Syria and Turkey might separate from their countries and form an independant state Kurdistan... but I am afraid the current violence will only push the Turkish Kurds further away from Ankara.

That aside, bombing and shooting innocent people is indeed a terrible thing.

Jan

I mean moving on in the way of adapting after being a sultanate to being a modern nation and at the time being one of the few nations to not have a state religion which currently Sweden still has. Just look at the reforms that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk made which truly were revolutionary at the time. Nowadays Turkey has taken a step back with Erdogan but I think he will be gone in a short time and this fantastic nation will again blossom. Even with all this I can not say that I love Turkey due to them switching sides and betraying us when Sweden tried to conquer Russia.

Sadly I have a flight to catch in a couple of hours so I can't continue the discussion.

Hi,

I always look at things from my Belgian, say Western European point of view. I am not sure if this is, or should be the standard of things. Keeping this in mind I strongly agree with you. Religion is religion and government is government. It is one of the great principles enlightenment gave us. Erdogan could indeed learn a few things from Ataturk... Ataturk and Erdogan show us the difference between a statesman and a politician.

I also agree that things will change again. You can gather people around a flag or a religion for only so long. It works best if there is (or if you create) a common enemy. But if you take away more than you give, people will turn away.

Besides, big cities like Istanbul are modern and liberal. It won't take long before they will reclaim what they take for granted.

Jan

[...] being one of the few nations to not have a state religion which currently Sweden still has. [....]

It's kinda easy to not have a state religion, when 99.8%** of the public believe in Islam :P

Although, I have no idea how the general population accept other religions in Turkey? Anyone knows?

**Souce: Wikipedia

Population accepts also other religions in Turkey. Government is different.

Wasnt this thread supposed to condemn the Istanbul attack? After reading the above comments it seems you guys are indirectly saying "they are bad people, yeah they deserved to be attacked". I dont know whether they have been doing business with IS, but if there any such dealing, it is obviously a collective policy of NATO, rather than Turkey alone. 

My point is the most people of Turkey, no matter religious or secular, are peaceful and friendly. Nobody deserves to die this way.

Hi,

Wasnt this thread supposed to condemn the Istanbul attack?

Is this a question ? In that case the answer is no. The first poster condemned the attack, but he also made some political comments. So it is perfectly normal to expect replies with political content.

If it was a hint rather than a question... Christian is a big boy. If he thought we were hijacking his topic, he surely would not need your help to say so.

... After reading the above comments it seems you guys are indirectly saying "they are bad people, yeah they deserved to be attacked".

Huh ?

I dont know whether they have been doing business with IS, but if there any such dealing, it is obviously a collective policy of NATO, rather than Turkey alone. 

My point is the most people of Turkey, no matter religious or secular, are peaceful and friendly. Nobody deserves to die this way.

Obviously ? Do you really think the NATO is one monolythic block ?

At first Turkey did not allow NATO planes to use Turkish military bases for the attacks on IS. I don't think the Turkish government was a friend of IS, I rather believe analysts who say the Turkish government wants the Assad regime gone. IS is one of the groups who are fighting the Assad regime, so the Turkish government turned a blind eye. Only after the first IS attack in Turkey, the Turkish government allowed NATO to use its military airports.

Besides, the reports I refer to don't state that the Turkish government was dealing with IS. The reports state that IS sold oil via Turkey, and the reports suggested the Turkish government must have known this was happening. I mean, you can smuggle one truck with oil, you cannot organise a stream of trucks without the intelligence services noticing.

Anyway, it is a fact that most if not all European jihadi's who joined IS traveled through Turkey. It is true that you cannot completely close such a long land border. But it is also true that the Turkish government was initially not bothered with this stream of jihadi's traveling through their country.

Does the above mean that the attack on the Istanbul airport was okay ? Of course not.

I may be naïve, but in my opinion the world community should have isolated Syria when the protests against Assad changed into a civil war. If that had happened, Assad's planes, tanks and helicopters would gave been grounded a long time ago due to lack of spare parts. If they were still fighting, it would have been with sticks and stones. Instead, half the world sent weapons to support one side or the other.

My point is the most people of Turkey, no matter religious or secular, are peaceful and friendly. Nobody deserves to die this way.

(sarcasm) After reading your comment it seems you are indirectly saying "they are bad people, yeah they deserved to be attacked" (/sarcasm)

Seriously. Read the whole thread again. That is what every poster says. Only an idiot or a psychopath thinks he will solve the problems of this world by bombing an airport, a station, a market...

Cheers,

Jan

I may be naïve, but in my opinion the world community should have isolated Syria when the protests against Assad changed into a civil war. If that had happened, Assad's planes, tanks and helicopters would gave been grounded a long time ago due to lack of spare parts. If they were still fighting, it would have been with sticks and stones. Instead, half the world sent weapons to support one side or the other.

That is how it works. You might remember the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. Both countries were supported by different parties with weapons as this was and is still a huge business. And another reason why the world community did support both parties was that these 2 countries were dangerous for the rest of the world but with this war, they did not expand their operations to other countries. A win-win situation for the US, France and also Russia.

This also applies to Turkey - remember, the Turkish government is fighting against a part of their populations, the Kurds. And this is an ongoing civil war for many years now. When the Assad regime started to fight their own people, the Kurds were busy to support the Syrian population and started quite soon to fight against Assad's troups. In that moment, the Turkish government stopped their fight against the Kurds. And now they also support with weapons (of course not public visible but they make it possible that other countries can sell / deliver weapons to the Kurds).

Did anyone really stop the Russians bombing civil population in Syria? No. Because everybody could sell weapons to either Assad or to the Syrian rebels.

By the way: also IS was supported with weapons as they were fighting against Assad. Now that IS started to attack other countries and expanded their operations to whole Europe (see Paris and Brussels, now Istanbul, soon perhaps Berlin or New York), they world community is fighting back - but still not with all power which they have in Syria. No, because the conflict in Syria is needed to sell weapons... It will take another couple of years, as long as the Iraq crisis with 3 wars. Perhaps Assad will loose his power sooner than for example Saddam Hussein - but as long as he is supported by one part of the world community, he will fight.

Hi Julian,

I am old enough to remember the Iraq-Iran war... The sjah in Persia (Iran) was not a democrat, but he was friends with the US, so they supported him. When the ayatollahs took power, the US government didn't like them so the US supported Saddam Hussain during the Iraqi war against Iran. Saddam Hussain was just as bad a dictator back then as he was later, but that did not bother the Americans as long as he fought against iran. Only when Iraq attacked Kuwait - another US ally that is not very democratic - the US government decided that Saddam Hussain was a dangerous dictator.

And then our governments are surprised that the people think  f*ck you and vote for guys like Trump, Le Pen, Farage, Wilders, Hofer and others.

I am a bit cynical when it comes to politics. But not that cynical that I think wars are started so the weapon facturies can make more money. Wouldn't you think it is rather a matter of geographical strategy ? Syria is Russia's only stronghold in the Middle East, so Poetin would even support Assad if he ate babies for breakfast. Iran and the Saudi's both want to expand their influence in the region. I think the same can be said about Erdogan. I don't know what the Americans want here. I guess the Americans are not sure either... apart from keeping their influence through their allies in the region.

Jan

Weapon factories do not start wars but they have a huge impact in politics. Of course strategies are involved (and it is always good to have some conflicts somewhere as this keeps all parties busy for a while and countries as US and Russia can influence in a way they want to have it). Not to forget also other influences as ressources interests like oil and petrol which had huge impact on the strategy in Iraq. As you are saying, Saddam Hussein did not change and was supported by Western ally (France, GB and the US) for many years - they changed their mind the moment Iraq was not delivering petrol in the way they used to do before. The attack against Kuwait was best reason for the US to stop this but nobody wanted to save Kuwaits population, US wanted to save the ressources in the area. Weapon industry was happy to deliver the bombs and tanks / planes to make it happen.