Jimmy Carter talking about Israel and Palestine
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Even with U.S. airstrikes, a struggle to oust ISIS from Libyan stronghold
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, August 7, 2016
SIRTE, LIBYA–The black flag of the Islamic State flutters above a two-story house that serves as a sniper’s nest. The deserted street is under its control, as are all the nearby buildings. The banner and the occasional crack of the marksman’s bullet are the only signs of the militants on this afternoon.
Two blocks north, less than a football field away, Libyan militiamen are gathered with handheld rocket launchers and Mad Max-style pickup trucks mounted with large machine guns. Since last Monday, U.S. airstrikes have pounded Islamic State targets in this battered seaside city, the stronghold of the Middle Eastern militants’ Libyan affiliate. Yet the pro-government militia forces have not crossed this front line.
“If we move forward, their snipers will be firing at us like hell,” said Suleiman Shwairf, a pro-government fighter, peering at the flag from behind a wall Friday.
The American air intervention has altered the military equation on the ground and given a much-needed boost to the morale of the fighters battling the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. But in a densely packed urban environment, where territory is seized street by street and house by house, eradicating the militants from Sirte remains a formidable struggle, illuminating the limits of the U.S. air campaign.
The fall of Sirte could be a major setback to the ambitions of the Islamic State. But since May, when the campaign to liberate Sirte began, the militias have been confronted with a sophisticated and coordinated strategy used by Islamic State fighters to protect their bastion in Sirte’s urban center. Hundreds of pro-government fighters have been killed or wounded by buried mines, explosive-laden doors, tripwire bombs, suicide attackers and snipers. The Islamic State remains in control of roughly 70 percent of the city’s urban area over a stretch of four miles.
In their first week, U.S. airstrikes mostly targeted Islamic State tanks and armored personnel carriers, as well as mobile ammunition depots and rocket launchers. Now, the Islamist fighters are altering their tactics to counter the air assault, hiding their military vehicles, moving command posts frequently, and staying out of sight during the day, according to pro-government commanders.
“The armored personnel carriers, the tanks are not their strongest weapons, anyway,” said Mohamed Darat, 45, the top commander for the largest front line in the city. “Their strongest weapons are the land mines, booby-traps and the snipers. Those are the biggest problems we face.”
Still, of the several thousand Islamic State militants initially in the city, most have either fled or been killed. Only an estimated 500 to 1,000 remain, and they are surrounded–by pro-government forces on land and by Libyan vessels patrolling the sea. Add the American air support, and a long-term hold on Sirte by the militants seems implausible.
The questions many Libyans ask: When will the city fall? And at what human cost?
In early 2015, the Islamic State seized parts of this sprawling metropolis in the heart of Libya’s oil crescent, home to most of its petrochemical resources. The birthplace of Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi, the city was the last major stronghold of his loyalists during the revolution five years ago that toppled his regime. Gaddafi was killed here by rebel fighters in October 2011.
The Islamic State within a few months swiftly consolidated its grip on Sirte, using it as a base to stage attacks on oil facilities and other targets. With pressure growing on the militants’ parent body in Syria and Iraq from U.S. airstrikes and attacks by Iraqi forces, Sirte was viewed as a possible fallback capital of the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate.
It was those ambitions that triggered the current fighting here. When Islamic State fighters advanced west up the coast in May, militia brigades from the nearby city of Misurata counterattacked. Within days, they had pushed the militants back inside Sirte, retaken the outer suburbs of the city and moved into the urban zones. Small groups of American and British elite troops helped target Islamic State positions with surveillance drones and other technology.
Then their advance into the city center slowed.
The Islamic State forces, a mix of foreigners and Libyans, were pummeling the brigades with tank and artillery fire. The land mines and snipers were planted on streets and at hospitals, universities and other large complexes. The militants had cached weapons, as well as supplies of food and water, in different parts of their territory.
The militants also are using creative ways to kill. They have jury-rigged refrigerators to blow up when militia fighters search houses. Bombs are planted inside bags of bread and left in visible places for their enemy to pick up. They have transformed baby monitors into voice-activated bomb triggers, and used paper clips touched together to ignite explosives.
“They are using the most devious and inhuman ways to kill our fighters,” said Darat, a former civil engineer.
In the past three months, some 400 militiamen have died, with more than 2,000 injured, according to doctors at a military field hospital outside the city. There was also anger and frustration among the fighters, who had felt that the United States and the West had abandoned them by not taking stronger actions to help them combat the Islamic State.
The mounting casualties and military stalemate in the city prompted Libya’s Western-backed national unity government to request the U.S. airstrikes last week.
But on the front lines, the U.S. intervention, while welcome, remains bittersweet.
“It’s a little late,” Darat said. “If the Americans started supporting us from the beginning, we would have saved so many lives.”
The road into Sirte from the west is littered with the debris of war. Charred cars from a suicide bombing. Aging Soviet-made tanks, some stalled in the sand. Walls covered with the graffiti of myriad militias.
Inside, Sirte is a ghost city.
Nearly its entire population of 80,000 has fled. Buildings are pocked with grapefruit- size holes from artillery rounds. Houses have been shattered by crossfire. Locked-up shops and businesses have black stamps on their walls reading in English and Arabic: “Office of General Services.”
The stamps are from the Islamic State tax collection department.
In one neighborhood, pro-government fighters took down a large iron frame at a traffic circle where the militants used to execute residents, hanging them up as in a crucifixion and then shooting them. In another enclave, they found an Islamic State prison where detainees were tortured and a grave that contained nine bodies, Darat said.
The militants are now entrenched in several large urban neighborhoods and in the Ouagadougou conference center, which Gaddafi once used to host African Union meetings and other international summits.
Al-Dollar, a residential enclave so named because of its opulent mansions, has become the primary front line. Militia fighters have taken over the empty houses, moving in mattresses and supplies, and setting up rooftop firing positions.
Roads are blocked by stacked shipping containers that mark the boundaries between the Islamic State and the militiamen. Signs read: “Danger. There are snipers.” And two days before the U.S. airstrikes began, a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a house, steps from Darat’s command center. On Friday, pieces of the assailant’s body were still on the ground.
The U.S. airstrikes have helped Darat’s men to some degree. He said that last Monday, he coordinated with the Misurata military operations room working with the U.S. forces to call in a strike on an Islamic State sniper’s nest in a house. And on Wednesday, he asked for an attack on an antitank gun. In both cases, he said, “our American friends” struck the targets.
Only 10 mortar rounds have landed in al-Dollar since the U.S. campaign began. The week before, the enclave was regularly struck by tank fire, rockets and other artillery. Now that has all disappeared. The Islamic State fighters are keeping a low profile, apparently waiting out the air campaign, Darat said.
Still, on Thursday, a militant sniper killed a militia fighter here. And on Friday, a bullet from an Islamic State position hit a nearby mosque, prompting the militia fighters to return fire with heavy machine guns.
What Darat wants most is to cross the main road, less than 200 feet from his command center, and push farther into Islamic State territory. On the other side of the road, the militants control a hospital complex and a hospitality center once used by Gaddafi to host dignitaries.
But the area is sown with land mines and booby traps.
And Darat is running out of mine specialists. His best engineer was killed recently when he tried to move a corpse. Islamic State fighters had planted a bomb under the body. Many of Darat’s remaining mine specialists are either traumatized or unwilling to push forward into Islamic State territory.
He recently considered sending 1,000 sheep across the road to get blown up by the mines–and clear the way. But he decided that would be too brutal, he said.
And as U.S. airstrikes keep targeting Islamic State weaponry, there could be an unexpected consequence. Darat’s intelligence operatives have noticed more militant fighters moving at night. And that, he fears, could make his goal of crossing the road more complicated.
“Now, Daesh knows they can’t use so many heavy weapons against us without the Americans attacking them,” Darat said, using the Arabic acronym for the group. “They will plant even more land mines. They are running out of options.”
Livrando-se dos Arrependimentos
http://anchor.tfionline.com/pt/post/livrando-se-dos-arrependimentos/
Se apenas …
Você à s vezes sente que se apenas pudesse voltar no tempo, refazer seus passos, e desfazer os erros, as coisas seriam muito melhores. Se apenas pudesse aplicar o que sabe agora nas situações passadas, poderia reverter as experiências dolorosas e possivelmente mudar o curso da sua vida. Mas a verdade é que essas situações—inclusive os erros—fizeram de você a pessoa que é hoje. As circunstâncias mais dolorosas e difÃceis lhe dão força e maturidade. E você aprende lições inestimáveis através de seus erros. Os erros também o ajudam a ser mais humilde e portanto mais amoroso, com mais empatia pelos outros e melhor capacidade de entender as dificuldades que enfrentam.
Então, em vez de arrepender-se do passado, seja grato por tudo o que lhe ensinou.—Jesus, falando em profecia
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Todos cometemos erros, temos dificuldades e até nos arrependemos de coisas do nosso passado. Mas você não é os seus erros ou suas dificuldades, e está aqui AGORA com o poder para moldar seu dia e seu futuro.—Steve Maraboli
Ainda não é o fim
Se alguma escolha que você fez parece ter produzido um resultado ruim ou diferente do que previa, lembre-se que provavelmente ainda não viu o resultado final. O que parece ser uma pedra ou uma serpente ainda poderá vir a ser pão ou mesmo uma refeição completa. [1] Orson Welles certa vez disse: “Um final feliz depende do ponto em que você interrompe a sua história.” Ou, como alguém disse: “No final tudo dá certo. Se ainda não deu certo é porque ainda não chegou ao final.” Esse princÃpio é certamente verdadeiro para aqueles que amam o Senhor e buscam a Sua orientação, pois Ele prometeu sempre resolver as coisas para o nosso bem no final.[2]
É natural olhar para trás e se lamentar de algumas das coisas que fizemos ou gostarÃamos de ter feito de forma diferente. Deus entende e Se solidariza. Mas é um erro ignorar as coisas boas resultantes dessas experiências, tais como a sabedoria, maturidade e todas as lições aprendidas que ajudaram a moldar o nosso caráter e nos preparar para o futuro.
Ao pensar no passado, faça um esforço consciente para contar suas bênçãos. Lembre-se de tudo o que é “verdadeiro, honesto, justo, puro e amável” que também compõe a história da sua vida.[3] Graças a Deus pelas boas decisões que você tomou no passado, bem como aquelas que Ele vai ajudá-lo a tomar no futuro.—Maria Fontaine
A cidade do arrependimento
Um empecilho significativo para se viver no presente é o arrependimento. Ele suga a energia da pessoa e a deixa com muito pouco que lhe permita fazer qualquer coisa positiva.
Meu amigo Dwight Bain me enviou algo chamado “A Cidade do Arrependimento” que conta a história:
Na verdade eu não tinha planejado viajar este ano, contudo quando vi estava fazendo as malas. E lá fui eu, temendo fazer aquela viagem. Era outra viagem de culpa.
Fiz minha reserva nas linhas aéreas Quem Dera eu Tivesse. Não fiz checagem de bagagem—todo o mundo leva a sua própria bagagem nessa empresa. Tive que arrastar a minha pelo que pareciam quilômetros no aeroporto da Cidade do Arrependimento. E dava para ver que pessoas de todas as partes do mundo estavam ali comigo, envergando com o peso das malas que levaram.
Peguei um táxi para o Hotel Último Recurso, e o motorista fez a viagem inteira de ré, olhando para trás, por cima do ombro. E lá encontrei um salão onde o meu evento ocorreria: o Baile Anual da Autocomiseração. Quando me registrei, vi que todos os meus velhos colegas estavam na lista de convidados:
A FamÃlia Ter Feito—Poderia, Gostaria e Deveria.
Ambas as Oportunidades—Perdidas e Desperdiçadas.
Todos os Passados—eram muitos para serem contados, mas todos tinham uma triste história para contar.
Sonhos Destroçados e Promessas Quebradas também estavam lá, juntamente com seus amigos Não Me Culpem e Eu Tinha que Fazer.
E, claro, horas e mais horas de entretenimento seriam dadas ao renomado contador de histórias A Culpa é Dele.
Ao me preparar para encarar uma noite realmente longa, percebi que alguém tinha condições de mandar todas aquelas pessoas para casa e acabar com aquela festa: eu.Bastava eu voltar ao presente e dar as boas vindas ao novo dia!
Se você já se viu embarcando num voo para a Cidade do Arrependimento, entenda que é uma viagem que você mesmo marca, e que também pode cancelar a qualquer momento—sem nenhuma penalidade ou multa. Mas você é o único que pode fazer isso.—John C. Maxwell[4]
Admita sua necessidade
Consigo ver dentro de seu coração e sei de seus arrependimentos. Anseio livrá-lo de todo o peso e remover toda a dor e mágoa que lhe causaram. Você precisa entregar seus arrependimentos a Mim; peça ajuda.
Estou perto dos que têm o coração quebrantado e salvo os contritos de espÃrito.[5]Não tente esconder de Mim nem de si mesmo a mágoa em seu coração. Não tente fingir que não está lá. Eu já sei de tudo sobre você, e isso não muda o Meu amor por você em nada.
Você acha que merece carregar o peso da culpa e do remorso, mas não é para ser assim. Você cometeu erros, mas Eu morri justo para remover os seus erros e pecados dos seus ombros. Peça-Me para perdoá-lo, e Eu tanto o perdoarei como o livrarei do peso e do fardo do arrependimento.—Jesus, falando em profecia
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Irmãos, não penso que eu mesmo já o tenha alcançado, mas uma coisa faço: esquecendo-me das coisas que ficaram para trás e avançando para as que estão adiante, prossigo para o alvo, a fim de ganhar o prêmio do chamado celestial de Deus em Cristo Jesus.—Filipenses 3:13–14[6]
Publicado no Âncora em julho de 2016.
[1] Ver Lucas 11:11–13.
[2] Romanos 8:28.
[3] Ver Filipenses 4:8.
[4] Failing Forward (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2000).
[5] Salmo 34:18.
[6] NVI.
The Shot Heard All Over the Country
On June 28, 1914, the Austrian heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, visited Sarajevo, the main town of Bosnia, then an Austrian province.
Three young Serbian inhabitants of Bosnia had decided to assassinate him, in order to achieve the attachment of Bosnia to Serbia. They threw bombs at the car of the archduke. All three failed to harm him.
Later on, one of the assailants, Gavrilo Princip, chanced upon his intended victim again. The archduke’s car had made a wrong turn, the driver tried to reverse, the car stalled, and Princip shot the duke dead.
That was “the shot heard around the world”. This small incident led to World War I, which led to World War II, with altogether some 100 million dead, to Bolshevism, Fascism, Nazism and the Holocaust. Yet, while the names of Lenin, Stalin and Hitler will be remembered for centuries, the name of Gavrilo Princip, the most important person of the 20th century, is already forgotten.
(Because he was only 19 years old, Austrian law did not allow him to be sentenced to death. He was sent to prison, where his death from tuberculosis went unnoticed in the middle of World War I.)
For some reason, this insignificant person who made history reminds me of an insignificant young Israeli named Elor Azaria, whose act may well change the history of the State of Israel.
The facts of the case are quite clear. Two young Palestinians attacked an Israeli soldier with a knife in Tel Rumaida, a settlement of extremist Jews in the center of Hebron. The soldier was slightly wounded. The attackers were shot, one died on the spot, the other was severely wounded and lay bleeding on the ground.
What happened next was photographed by a local Palestinian with one of the many cameras distributed by the Israeli human rights association “B’Tselem” to the local population.
The crew of an Israeli ambulance was treating the wounded soldier, ignoring the seriously wounded Arab who was lying on the ground. Several Israeli soldiers were standing around, also ignoring the Palestinian. About 10 minutes later Sergeant Elor Azaria, a medic, appeared on the scene, approached the wounded Palestinian and shot him point-blank in the head, killing him.According to eye-witnesses, Azaria declared that “the terrorist must die”. Later, on the advice of his phalanx of lawyers, Azaria claimed that he was afraid that the wounded Palestinian had an explosive charge on his body and was about to kill the soldiers around him–an assertion clearly disproved by the pictures which showed the soldiers standing nearby obviously unconcerned. Then there was a mysterious knife which was not there at the beginning of the clip and could be seen lying near the body at the end.
The film was widely distributed on social media and could not be ignored. Azaria was brought before a military court and became the center of a political storm that has been going on for weeks. It is splitting the army, the public, the political scene and the entire state.
Let me interject a personal note. I am not naive. In the 1948 war I was a combat soldier for ten consecutive months, before being severely wounded. I saw all kinds of atrocities. When the war was over, I wrote a book about these atrocities, called “The Other Side of the Coin”(in Hebrew). It was widely condemned.
War brings out the best and the worst in human nature. I have seen war crimes committed by people who, after the war, became nice, normal, law-abiding citizens.
So what is so special about Elor Azaria, apart from the fact that he was photographed during the act?
We all saw him on TV, sitting in the military courtroom during his trial, which is still going on. A childish-looking soldier, seeming quite lost. His mother sits directly behind him, cradling his head in her arms and stroking him all the time. His father sits nearby and in the intermissions shouts abuse at the military prosecutor.
So what is so special about this case? Similar acts happen all the time, though not on camera. It’s routine. Especially in Hebron, where a few hundred fanatical settlers live among 160,000 Palestinians. Hebron is one of the oldest cities in the world. It existed long before Biblical times.
In the center of Hebron there is a building which, according to Jewish belief, houses the graves of the Israelite patriarchs. Archaeologists dispute this claim. Arabs believe that the tombs belong to venerable Muslim sheiks. For them, the building is a mosque.
Since the beginning of the occupation, this has been a place of continued violent strife. The main street is reserved for Jews and closed to Arab traffic. For soldiers sent there to guard the settlers, it is hell.
In the clip, Azaria is seen shaking hands with somebody immediately after the killing. This person is no other than Baruch Marzel, the king of the Tel Rumaida settlers. Marzel is the successor of “Rabbi” Meir Kahane, who was branded as a fascist by the Supreme Court of Israel. (Marzel once openly called for my assassination.)
During the trial it was revealed that Marzel plays host every Saturday to the entire company of Israeli soldiers guarding the settlement, including the officers. This means that Azaria was exposed to his fascist ideas before the shooting event.
What makes the case of the “shooting soldier” (as he is called in the Hebrew press) a turning point in the history of the Zionist enterprise?
As I mentioned in a recent piece, Israel is now rent into diverse “sectors”, with the rifts between them growing ever wider. Jews and Arabs; Orientals (Mizrahim) and Europeans (Ashkenazim); secular and religious; exclusive orthodox and inclusive “national religious”; male and female; heterosexual and homosexual; old-timers and new immigrants, especially from Russia; rich and poor; Tel Aviv and the “periphery”; Left and Right; inhabitants of Israel proper and the settlers in the occupied territories.
The one institution which unites almost all these diverse–and mutually antagonistic–elements is the army. It is far more than a mere fighting force. It is where all Israeli youngsters (except the orthodox and the Arabs) meet on equal terms. It is the ‘melting pot”. It is the holiest of the holy.
Not any more.
This is where Sergeant Azaria comes in. He did not just kill a wounded Palestinian–named, by the way, Abd al-Fatah al-Sharif. He mortally wounded the army.
For some years now, a secret endeavor of the “national-religious” has been going on to conquer the army from below.
This sector was once a small and disdained group, since religious Jews by and large rejected Zionism altogether. According to their belief, God exiled the Jews because of their sins, and only God has the right to allow them back. By appropriating God’s task for themselves, Zionists were committing a grievous sin.
The mass of religious Jews lived in Eastern Europe and were destroyed in the Holocaust. A number of them came to Palestine and are now a secluded, self-sufficient community in Israel, taking huge sums of money from the Zionist state and not saluting the Zionist flag.
The “national-religious”, on the other hand, grew in Israel from a small, timid community into a large and powerful force. Their tremendous birthrate–7-8 children is the norm–gives them a large advantage. When the Israeli army conquered East Jerusalem and the West Bank, studded with holy places, they also became assertive and self-assured.
Their present leader, Naftali Bennett, a successful high-tech entrepreneur, is now a dominant member of the government, in constant competition and conflict with Binyamin Netanyahu. The party has its own education system.
For decades now this party has been engaged in a determined effort to conquer the army from below. It has pre-army preparatory schools which produce highly-motivated future officers, and is slowly infiltrating the lower officer corps. Kippah-wearing captains and majors, once a rarity, are now very common.
All this is exploding now. The Azaria affair is blowing the army apart. The high command, still mainly composed of old-timers, Ashkenazim and (comparative) moderates, put Azaria on trial. Killing a wounded enemy is against army orders. Soldiers are allowed to shoot and kill only if they are in immediately danger to their lives.
A large part of the population, especially the religious and rightist sectors, protested loudly against the trial. Since the Azaria family is oriental, the protesters include the bulk of the oriental sector.
Netanyahu’s acute political nose immediately scented the trend. He decided to visit the Azaria family, and was only held back at the last moment by his advisors. Instead, he called Elor’s father, and conveyed his personal sympathies on the phone. Avigdor Lieberman, before his appointment as Minister of Defense, personally visited the courtroom in order to demonstrate his support for the soldier.
It was an open slap in the face of the army command.
Now the army, the last bulwark of national unity, is being torn apart. The high command is openly attacked as leftist, a term not far removed from traitorous in current Israeli discourse. The myth of military infallibility lies shattered, the authority of the high command profoundly damaged, criticism of the Chief of Staff is rampant.
In the contest between Sergeant Elor Azaria and the Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Gadi Eizenkot, the sergeant may well win. If convicted at all for blatantly disobeying orders, he will get off with a light sentence.
Killing a defenseless human being has turned him into a national hero. His was the shot that was heard all over the country. Perhaps all over the world.
Erdogan Seizes Failed Coup in Turkey as a Chance to Supplant Ataturk
By Tim Arango, NY Times, Aug. 7, 2016
ISTANBUL–President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has always had ambitions of surpassing Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, as the country’s most consequential figure.
Now, a failed coup may allow him finally to do that.
For years, Mr. Erdogan, an Islamist, has celebrated great moments of the Ottoman past when Istanbul was the seat of the Islamic caliphate, and played down Turkey’s secular history established by Ataturk. With last month’s failed coup, he now has his own story, and he has wasted little time propagating his own set of events and symbols to cement the narrative in the national consciousness.
A bridge over the Bosporus that was seized by renegade soldiers has been renamed for the civilians killed there. A square in Ankara, occupied by tanks as the military tried to take power, has been renamed as a symbol of democracy. Numerous street names have been changed to honor those who died defending the government.
Pro-government news media outlets have published thick volumes about the coup, celebrating the victims as national heroes, and the state broadcaster is making a documentary. Statues and monuments are planned, and next July 15, the first anniversary of the failed coup, will be a national holiday.
The conspirators have their place, too. Far on the outskirts of Asian Istanbul, on a plot of gravelly land near a dog shelter, graves have been dug for felled coup plotters in what is being called “the cemetery for traitors.”
All this in barely three weeks. Mr. Erdogan’s purpose is to ensure not only that nothing is lost to history, but also that this latest chapter in Turkey’s history will be largely owned by his Islamist supporters. In doing so, historians and analysts say, he has found an opportunity to celebrate what he has long called the “New Turkey”–a modern nation that emphasizes Islam and is a break from the country’s secular past.
Kerem Oktem, a Turkish historian at the University of Graz in Austria, described it as “a narrative of an Islamist defense of democracy.”
The narrative is one of heroic defiance in the name of Islam, against foreign powers, including the United States, that Mr. Erdogan and others have darkly suggested may have been mixed up in the coup conspiracy. But there is a twist: In Mr. Erdogan’s telling, the coup was led not by the old secular elite, but by followers of Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric who heads a rival Islamist movement and lives in self-exile in Pennsylvania. (There has even been talk in some pro-government newspapers of converting Mr. Gulen’s childhood home in Turkey into a public toilet.)
The coup attempt, and how it was defeated by crowds of Erdogan supporters and even some secularists who flooded the streets to stand up to the soldiers, has already been referred to as Turkey’s second war of independence. The first one, led by Ataturk, followed the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I and was at the center of constructing a Turkish identity centered on secular and nationalist principles.
“The A.K.P. government had already been searching for new commemorations to mark what they define as the New Turkey,” said Esra Ozyurek, the chairwoman of the Turkish studies program at the London School of Economics, using the acronym of Mr. Erdogan’s political party. “President Erdogan expressed how he did not think commemorations of the Turkish Republic reflect the whole Turkish, Ottoman and Muslim history he saw the new Turkey building upon.”
Under Mr. Erdogan, the government has angered secular Turks by canceling several celebrations honoring Ataturk–citing various rationales, like a mining accident and an earthquake–while it has commemorated historic Ottoman victories and the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.
The coup, though, “seems to be the perfect grand event, complete with martyrs and great popular support,” Ms. Ozyurek said.
Now, Mr. Oktem said, Mr. Erdogan is trying to create a new narrative of a Turkish Islamic identity “that reaches beyond” what Ataturk built. Other analysts say Mr. Erdogan is essentially using the coup events to create a founding myth of an Islamist Turkey.
“We’re getting stories, just like the war of independence,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a Turkish columnist and analyst. “Individual stories of martyrs.”
Mr. Erdogan’s own story on the night of the coup, of narrowly escaping as he fled a hotel just before coup-plotting commandos arrived to kill or kidnap him, is already being compared to a famous story about Ataturk, who during the battle of Gallipoli supposedly missed death when his pocket watch deflected a bullet.
Never mind that the story has been contradicted by subsequent reports suggesting that Mr. Erdogan left his seaside hotel hours before the commandos arrived. The bit about the narrow escape has already been welded into the popular account, and is likely to endure in history.
“In terms of myth making, these stories are very important in the imagination of a nation,” Ms. Aydintasbas said. She called the quick efforts by the government and its media outlets an exercise in building a new “national mythology.”
Ms. Aydintasbas said it often seemed that the entire founding narrative of her country had been rewritten in a matter of weeks. She added, “The nation has been redefined as the people out in the streets resisting the coup on the night of July 15.”
Sports drinks aren’t ‘recharging’ your kids. They’re just pumping them full of sugar.
As temperatures heat up and we sprint to the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, sports-drink marketing is at a fever pitch. Coca-Cola, owner of Powerade and Vitaminwater, is the longest continuous Olympics sponsor, and the company is clearly onto something. Kids across the globe aspire to be as fast, strong and skilled as Olympic athletes, so marketing Powerade as the drink of an Olympic winner is certainly a gold-medal strategy.
Commercial sports drinks were initially designed for athletes who, like the Olympians, train and sweat so vigorously and for such prolonged periods that they sufficiently deplete their bodies to require the rehydration and calorie replenishment these drinks provide. But here’s the thing: The elite athlete market is tiny, and our kids, even the most athletic ones, are not part of it.
Powerade and Gatorade wouldn’t be in big business if the only people who consumed their products were those who actually needed them. When these companies expand their markets to include all children who play sports, parents who believe the hype that their kids need to replace electrolytes and adults who think they are making a healthy choice by skipping the soda in favor of a “recharging” sports drink, the companies are suddenly pole-vaulting into money.
The sports-drink market was recently estimated at a whopping $6.81 billion. Kids and adults want something to drink besides water, and they want it to fulfill the righteous promises of rehydration and replenishment. This is why companies such as Honest Tea and Greater Than have entered the market with healthier sports drinks that are lower in sugar and free of artificial food colorings, and why Dr Pepper recently bought 11.7 percent of BodyArmor for $20 million.
Are these new drinks actually healthy? And will kids drink them? I did a blind tasting of six sports drinks (Honest Sport, Greater Than, Aspire, BodyArmor, Gatorade and Powerade) with my boys and their friends. Then I drilled into the nutrition facts and ingredients list for each product. Here’s what I found:
To my dismay (but not to my surprise), the kids blindly chose Powerade and Gatorade as their favorites. After all, these varieties are the sweetest and the most chemically engineered to cause consumers to come back for more. Next, the kids unanimously voted for all three Honest Sport flavors, followed closely by Aspire. They said they might choose water over the flavor of Greater Than and probably wouldn’t drink BodyArmor.
Just because the big brands want us to drink their products and consumers are buying them, it does not mean the facts have changed:
•The American Academy of Pediatrics concludes that “routine ingestion of carbohydrate-containing sports drinks by children and adolescents should be avoided or restricted … Water, not sports drinks, should be the principal source of hydration for children and adolescents.”
•Kids and teens rarely, if ever, lose enough electrolytes during their athletic endeavors to require extra replenishment. Sodium is the most common electrolyte lost in sweat, yet most Americans get more than enough sodium from their diets.
•Many sports drinks contain as much sugar and as many chemicals as soda.
•Some sports-drink bottles contain 2 or 2½ servings, so the grams of sugar listed on the nutrition facts panel may need to be multiplied.
•Kids do not lose vitamins when they sweat, so Vitaminwater and vitamin-enhanced drinks are unnecessary.
Water paired with a banana, orange or clementine is undeniably a better choice than any sports drink. These fruits are higher in potassium and many other minerals and vitamins than commercial drinks. The natural sugars in these fruits travel into the bloodstream at a steady rate, unlike a manufactured sports drink that causes blood sugar and insulin levels to skyrocket or that delivers a dose of an unhealthy artificial sweetener. No child benefits from 20-plus grams of added sugar and chemical flavorings after a one-hour game.Turkey: US Shouldn’t ‘Sacrifice’ Alliance Over Muslim Cleric
Dennis Edwards: Will the US put in jeopardy their relation with Turkey to save Gulen? If the US doesn't allow the extradition of Gulen, will it's action further push Turkey into the arms of Russia? Will all this move the pieces in the direction that Bible Prophecy seems to indicate, which is a Turkey-Russian alliance and an eventual invasion of Israel with the help of Iran?
Turkey’s Erdogan: I Want to Reset Russia Ties From Clean Slate
Dennis Edwards: Remember what we learned in Bible Prophecy class. Turkey will be one of the nations which will join in with Russia and Iran in the eventual invasion of Israel predicted in the Bible to take place sometime shortly before the coming of Christ.
In Ezekiel 38 King James Version (KJV) we read,
1 And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal (Russia), and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(Germany and Eastern Europe) (Does this mean that eventually the European Union will have a military alliance with Russia?) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, (Turkey and Armenia) (Turkey has one of the strongest militaries in the Middle East.) and all his bands: and many people with thee.7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.
10 Thus saith the Lord God; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
13 Sheba, and Dedan, (Saudi Arabia) and the merchants of Tarshish, (UK) with all the young lions thereof, (USA, Canada, Australia) shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil? (For some reason the American alliance can only complain and not intervene militarily.)14 Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord God; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?
15 And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army:
16 And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.
17 Thus saith the Lord God; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them?
18 And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord God, that my fury shall come up in my face.
19 For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel;
20 So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.
21 And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord God: every man's sword shall be against his brother.
22 And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.
23 Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord. (Is this the famous battle of Armageddon?) (Revelation 16:16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.)
