Turkey Working To Revitalize The Islamic State
Turkey has been working to bring thousands of Islamic State fighters to the region to launch campaigns in Iraq and Kurdish regions along the Syria-Iraq border, according to informed Middle Eastern defense officials.
The officials finger Turkish intelligence and military personnel as helping to facilitate a resurgence of IS to essentially work as proxies to attack Kurdish positions and pressure the West and regional actors into supporting Turkish interests in Syria. Some of the IS fighters are coming from camps inside Turkey where forces tied to Turkey have helped facilitate training, the officials said.
Turkey strongly opposes an independent Kurdish entity in Syria and has reportedly been pushing for control of a 20-mile deep buffer zone extending into northern Syria, arguing that only Turkey can ensure security in the area where Kurdish forces currently maintain autonomous zones. Any escalating clashes between IS and Kurdish forces could strengthen Turkey’s argument that only it can impose law and order in those zones.
However, the defense officials pointed out that it is Turkey that has been supporting extremists, especially dangerous Islamic fighters under the banner of IS.
The officials warned that Turkish actions are resulting in the formation of a new IS terror army that can wreak havoc in the region after U.S. and allied efforts under the Trump administration massively damaged the IS terror apparatus and essentially destroyed the previously emerging IS caliphate in the region.
Another possible threat could potentially come from IS terrorists, including foreigners, being freed from Kurdish prisons during any IS assault on Kurdish-controlled territory.
The alleged Turkish support for IS comes as Russia, Iran and Turkey held a series of trilateral meetings in recent weeks to discuss the future of Syria.
On Friday, the three countries issued a joint statement following a meeting in Kazakhstan declaring their opposition to the current autonomous zones in northern Syria established by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the largely Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
Last week, a panel of United Nations experts reported to the UN Security Council that there is evidence that IS is seeking to bring about an “eventual resurgence in its Iraqi and Syrian heartlands.” The UN report did not mention Turkey’s alleged role in aiding IS.
Democrats Adopt Jobs-Killing $15 Minimum Wage
At the first night of last week’s Democratic presidential debates, candidate Pete Buttigieg claimed it was anti-Christian not to drastically raise the minimum wage.
Buttigieg, however, failed to note the specific federal minimum wage hike from $7.25 to $15 per hour he and all other Democratic presidential candidates support could lead to disastrous consequences, with the Congressional Budget Office warning the increase could cause 1.3 million jobs to be lost.
The federal minimum wage hike is a longtime progressive plan that in the past was marketed as a “living wage.” The living wage scheme, deployed in the past locally, has a history of hurting small businesses, negatively impacting local economies and decreasing employment opportunities for low income workers. Indeed, the living wage has monumentally failed during numerous high profile trials.
The living wage was a legacy project of the controversial former group known as ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which played a central role in enacting the scheme in several cities. It was backed by a who’s who of radical leftwing groups.
The current bill and the general progressive push for the hike to $15 is the modern day, rebranded inception of the so-called living wage.
As this reporter has previously thoroughly documented, the concept of a living wage got its start in the mid-1990s in Baltimore, when a coalition of left-leaning church leaders, unionists and other groups were able to persuade the City Council to raise the base salary from the federal minimum of $4.25 an hour to $6.10 for city employees and local companies contracted by the city. The living-wage campaign in was a significant factor in the tanking of the city’s economy with 58,000 jobs in Baltimore disappearing even as Maryland added 120,000 jobs during the same period.
In Santa Fe, where the living wage was enacted, the city saw jobs decline within months. The cost of living in Santa Fe increased by a staggering nine percent, while the city’s gross receipts declined since the enactment of the living wage law.
A University of Washington study reviewed the effects of a 2016 minimum wage hike in Seattle to $13 (it was again increased this year to $15 in keeping with a law passed by the liberal Seattle City Council), finding the hike actually resulted in lower wages for low-wage earners.
Forbes reported on what it termed the “ugly side” of the minimum wage movement, contending it has been “disconnecting pay from performance, turning business enterprises into welfare agencies.” The magazine reported on a general nationwide trend of major firms replacing workers with machines as the minimum wage increases.
Contributing to the living wage campaign was the George Soros-funded Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school. The Center’s lawyer, Paul Sonn, took a leading role in helping to craft wage ordinances and ballot measures for numerous cities and states, the Times reported.
ACORN also worked in the 1990s with a coalition of other left-wing groups pushing the living wage agenda, including the Industrial Areas Foundation. The Foundation was the main organizing outfit of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky.
Also, this reporter previously documented that the socialist-leaning New Party was instrumental in living wage lobby efforts in Baltimore. The living wage campaign was one of the main platforms of the party. The New Party and ACORN worked closely together. The New Party, which went defunct in 1998, supported former President Barack Obama’s early political career in Chicago. The New Party’s literature listed Obama as a member although he later denied that was the case.