Libya: Turkish Leader Demands Gadafi Step Down Highly Significant

From Denny: The entire planet is aware Turkey is a key player in the Muslim world. Turkey has encouraged the many recent democracy movements sweeping rapidly throughout the Arab world. Up until now, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has resisted handing over the public gift of full support to the rebel revolt in Libya.

Now, times have changed. Erdogan says it's time for Moammar Gadafi to go. Mark this day on your calendar for Turkey decisively turned against the Libyan leader. Erdogan urged Gadafi to step down from power - immediately.  Erdogan says the Libyan people have changed, in so many words saying the people have outgrown the stagnant toxic 41-year-old dictatorship of Gadafi.


From Erdogan: "We wish that the Libyan leader pulls out from Libya and cedes power immediately, for himself and for the future of his country, without causing more bloodshed, tears and destruction. A person on whom everybody will agree should come in to rule in Libya in order to restore peace and stability in the country."

Turkey is considered the regional power broker. Erdogan's strong support of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt helped topple the rulers. In fact, it was Erdogan who bald-faced told Egypt's Hosni Mubarak to leave office.

But, for some reason not stated, Erdogan held back on strong support for the uprisings in Libya and Syria. In these two incidences of Gadafi in Libya and Bashar Assad in Syria it was Erdogan who called for reforms and reconciliation.

Considering that Assad has been found to be torturing children I doubt anyone will be successful in calling back the cries of revenge from hurting parents. Too much has happened in the recent brutal crackdowns for reconciliation to occur in Syria. As it was, Assad's father put down another uprising decades ago, killing 40,000 people. Those kinds of brutality are not easily forgiven nor forgotten for generations.

Turkey has often complained about and questioned the United Nations Security Council - and authorized Western-led - military effort to protect Libyan civilians. He did not like the establishment of a No-Fly Zone.

Erdogan has been experiencing domestic political pressure to reverse course on his criticism because of the mounting death counts in Syria and Libya. Even his own Justice and Development Party advises him to straighten out his many foreign policy inconsistencies. Erdogan is also under public scrutiny for when he vacationed with Syria's Assad family last year.

The political reality for  Erdogan's party is that crucial general elections are arriving in just six short weeks. His moderate, Islamist-rooted political party is considered the favorite winner. It is predicted to take about 48.7 percent of the vote. Four years ago the party took 46.6 percent of the vote. (from Turkish newspaper "Sabah")

This sudden shift in position from Turkey is highly significant. Remember it was originally the Ottoman Empire, now the new Turkey, that once ruled Libya for centuries. Erdogan's comments came a day after Turkey shut down its embassy in Tripoli, the Libyan capital. This new attitude toward Gadafi will resonate strongly throughout Gadafi's inner circle, causing rifts and uncertainty.

The perception of Turkey making this very public announcement is that they are furious with Gadafi's brutal regime, continuing to bombard rebel held cities, killing hundreds of civilians. Yet all the while Gadafi publicly maintains he is abiding by the cease-fire agreement. No one respects a weasel whose word cannot be trusted.

This statement from Prime Minister Erdogan sure sounds like frustration: "Gadafi preferred to shed blood instead of heeding our calls. We are done talking in Libya."

The whole world is tired of Gadafi.  We hear you, Mr. Erdogan.  Terrorists and dictatorships need no longer apply for leader of any country in the world.


Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, photo by Osman Orsal/Reuters

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The Social Poets: Jon Stewart Interviews Egypt Revolution Activist Gigi Ibrahim

The Social Poets: Jon Stewart Interviews Egypt Revolution Activist Gigi Ibrahim: "From Denny: Stewart dishes out the political satire in a semi-serious interview aimed at exposing how for decades American policy has had little to do with the reality of every day Egyptians.

What is so funny about the experience of this young woman is how she became involved in the Egypt Revolution this past January in Tahrir Square.  She went to a class, 'The Social Mobilization Under Authoritarian Regime,' at the American University in Cairo."

Elections Have Consequences

For the past year it has become the public mantra of Democratic Party politicians: "Elections have consequences." Whether they were talking about bailing out large corporations or taking over the banking, auto, and health care industries, that simple phrase has been their fallback position.

To some extent, that is true. When the nation elects a leader such as Barack Obama, the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, it has definitely sent a message. A majority of the citizens of the United States spoke up in November of 2008 and sent the message that the direction the country was headed during the Bush years was not one that they wanted to continue following.

The American electorate sent a clear message for 'change' to Washington politicians at that point. The problem, however, and it is a big one for the Dems, is that the voters quite obviously wanted 'change' with a small 'c', not the "Change" that marked the Obama campaign's signature slogan.

What Obama was trumpeting was "fundamental change", a message that he banged home time and time again. The mass electorate heard those words and decided that he meant a simple change in direction, something they wanted indeed. What he actually meant was to change the very nature of what it meant to be America as a nation.

After winning election, Obama got his house in order, got his Democratic Party leadership organized, and then set out down the path towards that fundamental change from a democratic, capitalist society to a full-blown European-inspired socialist one. The American 'system' that had made us the envy of the world for generations had somehow "failed" in is words and needed to be almost completely trashed.

Problem was, the American public didn't go along for the ride. As the depth and scope of Obama's vision of change came into view and practice, as Dem national leaders like Nancy Pelosi in Congress and Harry Reid in the Senate began to push the legislative agenda, it became crystal-clear to Americans that socialism was the order of the day.

The Democrats were making a fundamental political mistake, one that the Republicans had made a couple of times in the last couple of decades. They assumed that their election to power now gave them a mandate for major changes to America, and they began to institute those major changes.

Quickly, the American public began to voice their concerns. In every major public opinion poll, the public shouted at the top of it's lungs for the Dem leadership to slow things down. Some changes were needed to the system, yes. But almost no one wanted socialist restrictions and control to replace democratic capitalism's freedom and liberty.

Socialism has failed everywhere that it has every been tried on earth. The reasons are quite simple. Taking away incentives from individuals to work harder, to dream bigger, to achieve more results in less production. Citizens come to rely on their government to provide for them. Eventually, the government can no longer do so, because it simply lacks the resources.

You cannot possibly tax individuals and businesses enough to sustain government control. And let's face it, that is the only place that government gets it's money. Government is, in fact, you and I. We pay into the system to keep it functional. We elect people to run things as our representatives. In a socialist system, those representatives just keep raising and raising our taxes to take on more and more control over our everyday lives.

Eventually a system such as the Obama administration is attempting to install will collapse on itself because it is economically unsustainable. But before it does, society will degenerate into a mess of ennui and disillusionment, or worse. If those who have control in a socialist system see that control slipping away, their response has often been to use force to remain in power. They change the laws and keep themselves in the life boats to protect their own interests as the ship sinks around them.

Many Americans did understand that this would be the direction that Obama and the leading Dems would take once in power. Those are the tens of millions who voted against them. They are now being joined by the millions 'in the middle', those Americans who wanted the small 'c' of 'change', not the capital 'C' of Obama's socialism.

Yes, Democrats, elections have consequences. However, what you are failing to remember is the lessons of politicians and Parties past. That there is always another election coming. This November, Americans will again go to the polls. All signs point to the Dems losing control of Congress, which will seriously cripple Obama's ability to continue his agenda.

Obama and Pelosi and Reid have led America down this path of 'Change' at full speed, recklessly disregarding the public's wishes time and time again. Reid and many of his Dem leadership co-horts will undoubtedly pay the price in the Fall of 2010. They will pay that price because, despite their election victories in 2006 and 2008, they are now ignoring the American electorate in 2010.

Now is a time of opportunity for the Republican Party to reassert itself, but it must be willing to return to basic American principles of democracy, capitalism, and traditional exceptionalism in order to take full advantage. The Republicans must reflect core American values, pledge a change in direction to fiscal sanity and responsibility, and to fully and effectively preserving and defending our nation and it's founding principles.

In the fall of 2010, the Democrats will be reminded that elections do indeed have consequences. When they lose their control over Congress, their control over the purse strings and the power and the direction, then they will cry and wail and moan. They will blame one another, point fingers, and become disgruntled. And they will have no one to blame but themselves, because elections do indeed have consequences, the next one as strongly as the last one.