Missing The Point
Some people are obviously unaware that this season is about ‘peace on earth to men of good will’: (that translation is not a mistake)
Shooting in Turkey – “Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, Andrey Karlov, has been shot and killed in Ankara.” The perpetrator was an off-duty Turkish policeman who was killed by officers responding to the killing. The shooter referenced Aleppo and Syria.
At a Berlin Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) on the Breitscheidplatz in front of the Kaiser Wilhelm Church a semi drove into the crowd and killed at least 9 people. The similarity to the attack on Bastille Day in Nice is on the minds of the investigators. One person has been arrested.
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Man, that Turkish situation is… complex. The government of Turkey has been very critical of Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war. They’re backing one of the factions fighting Assad, Russia is backing Assad. On the other hand, on a personal basis, Erdogan and Putin get along just fine as two peas in a pod. Erdogan is publicly blaming Fethullah Gulen, who he blames for everything from the state of the Turkish lira to the common cold. But did Erdogan order the hit himself to send a message to Russia? Or was this actually an ISIS hit? Or was it really Gulen’s people after all? Man, I don’t want even to take a guess. This is the part of the word that put “Byzantine” into the vocabulary, after all.
And meanwhile, some jerk shot up a mosque in Switzerland. Hmm, why are we all linking to the British press? Oh wait, that’s because the American press is useless. Doh.
Season of peace my a$$…
I also link to the Canadian and Australian press and occasionally to Agence France-Presse. American journalists have stopped reading or listening so what they write isn’t worth reading.
Turkey is a total mess, but shooting an ambassador has traditionally been classified as a political assassination rather than terrorism. Of course both Erdogan and Putin call just about everything terrorism to justify repression, while the Republicans only call it terrorism if it was perpetrated by non-whites or non-Christians.