The New Sultan

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. Many things, including a novel virus at large in the world, make me think Friday the 13^th really is unlucky. But I know that God controls the universe. So today we talk not about the virus, but about a new Sultan. Yes: a new Ottoman dictator has arisen in the Middle East.

History of the title of Sultan and its holders

The Ottoman Empire, established in the year 1299, lasted for 624 years. Then it was finally dissolved by World War l and Great Britain in 1923. The Empire became one of the most powerful in the world. But the war, and Great Britain, cut it down to size. It then became the Republic of Turkey. The first leader of Turkey was Kemal Ataturk. His influence, to some extent, is still felt in the Middle East today. The Turks recently celebrated his reign as a national holiday.

The Ottoman Empire, whose leader carried the title Sultan, conquered Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire. It then drove to the very gates of Vienna in 1529. A European army led by Polish King John Sobieski turned it back. This king understood what Muslim conquest of Europe would mean.

From the old Sultan to a new Sultan

The Sultan of the Ottomans was an inherited title, which passed to the eldest son upon the Sultan’s death. Today a new Sultan has arisen in modern Turkey. He is a man who apparently thinks of himself as the successor to Suleiman the Magnificent and to Ataturk. His name is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and he is quite open about his plans for the Islamic conquest of Europe. Unlike the siege of Vienna, he says he will conquer Europe through migration by releasing millions of Moslem migrants across his border.

A demographic invasion

So, his strategy is not military this time, but demographic. He threatens Europe with the release of millions of migrants who will Islamize the west. He’s been making these kind of threats for several weeks now, just as he did in 2015. That time the Europeans bribed him. They paid him something like a few billion Euros to stop and hold the migrants in his own country.

This time is different for many reasons. Erdogan is following through on his threat to use the migrants encamped in Turkey as a weapon against Europe and NATO. It’s been 71 years now since NATO was founded to jointly defend its members from invasion. But by a strange quirk of fate, the invasion comes from a NATO member. Yes, Turkey, an obvious enemy of Europe and the United States, is a NATO member.

The Battle of Vienna against an earlier Sultan

In 1529, the Ottoman empire sent a large army to lay siege to the Christian city of Vienna. Forces from several allied regions of Europe and led by John Sobieski, the King of Poland and Lithuania, turned back the Moslem army and prevented the Islamization of the European Continent. This time there are some similarities and some differences.

The new Sultan: will Europe resist?

The new Sultan, Recep Erdogan, has unleashed his army of tens of thousands of mostly young men of military age upon Europe. He is in clear violation of the agreement that brought him great wealth from the collectivized efforts of Europe. The European states would much rather pay tribute to the Moslem dictators who threaten them than defend themselves.

I wonder if the European leaders could muster the courage to resist Hitler’s invading army today. My guess is that they would, with U.S. help, be willing to do so. But a demographic attack is a different matter. When a Moslem dictator announces in advance that he intends to Islamize your continent through demographic invasion that is tantamount to a declaration of war. But there he is as the fox in the NATO chicken coop.

A running record of migrant numbers

The Turkish government has kept a running record of the number of “migrants, or refugees” unleashed against the border of Europe as weapons of Islamization. Most of the border trouble is divided between Bulgaria and Greece at a key border city. The former city of Adrianople now takes the name Edirne from the Turkish Islamic occupiers.

This invasion could be resisted and defeated by a determined European community. But first it takes a knowledge that your home, the sacred soil under your feet, your way of life, your heritage, your civilization are yours and they are worth defending. There are things that must be fought for and political correctness ignored, as well as the insults of others. The Europeans drove back the Ottomans and eventually drove back Hitler. A determined and combined effort could drive back these invaders.

Is Europe more ready to resist now?

Europe does seem more resistant this time than they were during the 2015 invasion. Even the mildest of European leaders, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany said,

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to bus thousands of migrants from refugee camps to Turkey’s border with Greece was the wrong approach, even if Ankara currently does not feel sufficiently supported by Europe.

Coming from Ms. Merkel that very mild disagreement is the equivalent of a declaration of war.

Turkey has declared its border with Greece open so that Europe will have to accept its share of the burden. What Turkey didn’t say is that Turkey’s war against the Syrian Army, against Iran, against Russia, and against Hezbollah in Syria is creating the refugees swarming north. Greece has fortified its border and has sent troops there. Reportedly Greek troops have fired on people trying to force their way through the border barriers.

The Greek islands

Greek Islands are another problem with many migrants landing on the island of Lesbos. The E.U. bureaucrats in Brussels have sent money to Greece to help them financially with the crisis, along with several bureaucrats who traveled to Greece this week to see the situation on the ground.

The new Sultan uses force together with “new arrivals”

Turkey has announced that it is sending 1000 special operations troops to prevent Greek authorities from returning people who manage to cross. That will leave thousands of migrants trapped in no-mans land. Never mind Europe and how the European Union directs Greek action. Turkey’s actions are acts of war against Greece, a once sovereign nation with self-respect. Meanwhile, several NGO’s, including Amnesty International, have expressed concern to Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis about how Greek authorities were handling “new arrivals”.

I would recommend telling them that Greece doesn’t have a problem with new arrivals. But it does have a problem with invasion and Greece will resist by any means necessary. Greece and Turkey are long time regional foes and apparently the two leaders still feel that way. Erdogan reportedly refused to fly on the same plane or even appear in a photograph with Mitsotakis.

The EU throws money at Greece

So, hundreds of millions of Euros will be sent to Greece by the E.U. to enable Greece to do Europe’s fighting for it. The E.U. foreign policy chief told migrants,

Don’t go to the border, the border is not open. If someone tells you to go to the border because it is open, that is not true.

How would this Brussels bureaucrat reach people in refugee camps in Turkey, you ask? It seems that even migrants living in refugee camps today have social media. So I suppose you just put it on Facebook or Twitter.

The new Sultan fights on two fronts

So, Erdogan, the new Sultan who fancies himself the reincarnation of Suleiman the Magnificent, or Kemal Ataturk, has declared war on Europe by his actions of using migrants as weapons. Europe is resistant as long as Greece will do the fighting for them. Time will tell if Europe is finally starting to grow a backbone or not.

Meanwhile Erdogan is fighting a two-front war. He is at least symbolically at war with Europe, specifically Greece. But he also is fighting a real shooting war in Syria. Turkey’s war in Syria is taking place primarily in the Idlib province. This sits on the northern border of Syria and the southern border of Turkey. It cuts down into Syria affecting areas fought over by the Syrian army, the Russian forces deployed in Syria, the Iranians and their Lebanese terrorist allies Hezbollah, but hopefully not the United States.

Turkey v. Russia

NATO, oddly enough, has expressed support for Turkey’s position regarding Russia in Syria. The conflict has been escalating for several months. Several Turkish troops have died in battle and from Russian air strikes. Last Thursday, Erdogan went to Moscow for talks with Vladimir Putin to diffuse the situation.

Trying to give him a way out

Putin, ever the skillful diplomat, tried to leave Erdogan a graceful way out. Putin’s introductory remarks:

At the beginning of our meeting, I would like to once again express my sincere condolences over the death of your servicemen in Syria. Unfortunately, as I have already told you during our phone call, nobody including Syrian troops, had known their whereabouts.

I suppose that was how a world leader tells a local leader that if he positions troops in a war zone who appear to be Jihadis, or at least enemy soldiers, they might be targeted by mistake. The final way that Putin allowed Erdogan to save face in the talks was a ceasefire followed by joint Russian and Turkish patrolling along a common Turkish, Syrian highway in Idlib.

A crisis out of hand

Back in Europe the front in a crisis, created in part and continually stoked by Turkish participation in the Syrian War, is already out of hand. Greece is an economic basket case and has been for several years. It is totally dependent on credit from European Central Banks and the IMF. Greece has started to voice concern and to defend itself in recent weeks. Greece used to take a welcoming and hospitable tone with Muslim migrants. But now it has far more than it can afford and care for. Some Greek Islands reportedly have more migrants than Greeks.

What does citizenship mean?

So query if, as certain organizations such as Amnesty International suggest, Europe and especially Greece cannot resist migration. Say they cannot refuse asylum applications by reason of a sense of responsibility for the foreigners. (Many of them appear to be military age males.) So what if any, responsibility do they have to their own citizens? What, if any, advantage is citizenship in any country? Does citizenship simply bestow upon one the obligation to pay taxes for the support of others? Or is there more to it than that?

Greece stands alone against the new Sultan

Greece finds itself alone and facing an onslaught of perhaps millions, but at least hundreds of thousands, conservatively. The E.U. is not lifting a finger to help, except a few dollars of which their banks will expect repayment. Armed civilian militia patrol Greek villages along the border and on the Greek Isles. It is to the E.U. bloc’s advantage that Greece resists this invasion because Greece is not the invaders’ destination. Greece is in such poor shape economically that the migrants are ultimately moving on to where the welfare states are more stable and lucrative—nations such as Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden.

It would, then, be to the advantage of the other nations of the E.U. to help the Greeks defend themselves. Right now, they are fighting for all of Europe, but they are fighting alone. If the Greeks lose the fight, then Europe will be forced to fight without Greece as a buffer or surrender.

Conclusion

Finally, folks, Franklin Roosevelt knew that England fought alone for the entire free world. So he wanted to help them rather than see them go under. He got around the Neutrality Act by “lending” ships and other war materials to England on provision that England would return them after the war. That was lending and not selling war materials. He didn’t want America fighting the NAZIs alone if he let England be conquered. A similar event plays out in Europe once again.

At least that’s the way I see it.

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle.

Editor’s Note:

Steve Turley, PhD, offers a slightly different perspective.

About the image

“Arrival of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey” by G20 Argentina is licensed under CC BY 2.0