Does Turkey Secretly Support ISIS?

Turkey is a covert supporter of the brutal regime of ISIS, according to expert critics who are becoming increasingly outspoken.

McClatchy, for example, a chain of 29 newspapers in 28 U.S. markets, published an investigation last week reporting that Turkey “orchestrated” the kidnapping by radical Islamists of about 50 newly deployed “moderate” Syrians trained by the U.S. at a cost of $500 million. The result was the deaths of nearly 10 percent of the recruits regarded as America’s major strike force against ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIL and Daesh).

Additional claims of a hidden alliance between ISIS and Turkey, a NATO-ally of the United States, are summarized below. These are bolstered by reports that Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently undertaken hundreds of air bombing attacks against Kurds fighting ISIS compared to less than a half dozen such attacks against ISIS itself. President Obama is shown meeting with Erdogan at the White House on Dec. 7, 2009.

None of the 2016 presidential candidates from either party or prominent congressional leaders have sought to resolve the questions even though U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is heavily focused on fighting ISIS, a group of radical Islamists from many nations that some allege include former U.S.-trained militants. 

Meanwhile, U.S. authorities last week obtained an 11-year prison sentence for a 17-year-old Virginia resident who admitted using social media to raise funds for ISIS, which Turkey clearly has also been coddling if not supporting in vastly more substantial ways than a teenager could.

Listed below (roughly in reverse chronological order) are headlines from recent reporting and commentary attacking Turkey, and implicitly the Obama administration. The attacks target also the administration’s anti-ISIS “czar” John R. Allen (right), a retired Marine four-star general, and the bipartisan congressional leadership that has forged the nation’s Middle East strategy in recent years, albeit with some disputes on the margins of policy:

• McClatchy, Syrian rebels: Turkey tipped al Qaida group to U.S.-trained fighters, Mitchell Prothero, Aug. 24, 2015.
• American Conservative, How Turkey Plays the War on Terror, Philip Giraldi, Aug. 25, 2015.
• Consortium News, The Case for Pragmatism, Robert Parry (shown in file photo), Aug. 24, 2015.
• Business Insider, Senior US military official: Turkey ‘needed a hook’ and tricked us on ISIS, Natasha Bertrand and Michael B. Kelley, Aug. 25, 2015.
• OpEdNews, Insouciance Rules The West, Paul Craig Roberts, Aug. 19, 2015.
• Huffington Post, Turkey Pays Former CIA Director and Lobbyists to Misrepresent Attacks on Kurds and ISIS, Harut Sassounian, Aug. 19, 2015.
• Fox News, Turkey’s strikes on Kurds could drag US into new front, military sources fear, Lucas Tomlinson and Jennifer Griffin, Aug. 10, 2015.
• American Conservative, Deep State America, Philip Giraldi, July 30, 2015.

Allen, former chief of the Pentagon’s Central Command (CENTCOM) in Tampa, has resurrected his career following his hundreds of email exchanges with Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, who had come to public attention in November 2012 after President Obama obtained the resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus for an affair with Army Reserve Lt. Col. Paula Broadwell, his biographer. Kelley was reputed to have assisted if not initiated the investigation because she suspected Broadwell was becoming too friendly with Petraeus, a former CENTCOM commander in Tampa. Kelley and her twin sister, both born in Lebanon, were along with their husbands involved in the social and defense contractor scene surrounding the CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa.

As reported by the Washington Post in Gen. John Allen cleared in misconduct inquiry, a Pentagon inquiry promptly cleared Allen of wrongdoing regarding the emails, which sources described as flirtatious. Little is known about the substance of the emails, but he and others officially undoubtedly had serious duties given the multiple military operations underway.

Allen declined an offer to command NATO after denying impropriety in his hundreds of emails with the Lebanon-born Kelley. Obama then appointed Allen in 2014 to lead coalition-building against ISIS and in late July named career State Department official Edward Ratwell to augment the effort.

Immediately below is a sampling of commentaries by other pundits who assert that Turkey, ostensibly a non-religious democracy, is increasingly controlled by a hidden “Deep State” that works with similar factions elsewhere.

Under this analysis, Turkey is not necessarily double-crossing the official governments of United States and its other allies who say they want to eliminate ISIS, but is instead advancing the interests of radical “Deep State” miltarist factions within allied nations. The dissident factions are claimed to include parts of the Pentagon, CIA, and State Department that contend against those U.S. colleagues who seek to crush ISIS because of its murderous brutality. 

• Tax Wall Street Party, State Department Spokesman Forced To Defend ISIS Czar Allen From Clear Implication He Was A Mastermind Of “Reworking” Euphoric Pentagon Intel On Alleged Defeat Of ISIS, Webster G. Tarpley, Aug. 30, 2015.
• WMR, By design — Many of ISIL’s enemies are also America’s enemies, Wayne Madsen, June 22, 2015 (Subscription required).
• Zero Hedge, Secret Pentagon Report Reveals US “Created” ISIS As A “Tool” To Overthrow Syria’s President Assad, Tyler Durden, May 24, 2015.

Yet just six weeks ago, the United States announced what purported to be a major breakthrough: Turkey’s permission for the U.S. and other allies to use a Turkish base to bomb ISIS. Critics increasingly argue that Turkey’s supposed cooperation under Erdogan cannot be taken at face value because he has emerged as his nation’s leading pro-Islamist force in a decade of rule. These news reports from July summarize the initial conventional mainstream view announced by U.S. State Department and other officials in their briefings:

• Washington Post, Turkey agrees to allow U.S. military to use its base to attack Islamic State, Liz Sly and Karen DeYoung, July 23, 2015.
• BBC,Turkey attack: Border security to increase, says PM, Staff report, July 21, 2015.