Post by Origanalist on Oct 5, 2014 5:34:28 GMT -8
This guy is the gift that keeps on giving....
In comments yesterday at the Kennedy School, Vice President Joe Biden said the United States’ biggest problem in the Syria war has been their allies, singling out Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Biden said those nations had “poured hundreds of millions of dollars” into trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad and in the process had created a “proxy Sunni-Shia war” in the region.
“The Turks, we’re great friends and I have a great relationship with Erdogan that I spent a lot of time with. The Saudis, the Emiratis, etc., what were they doing?” Biden added.
Incredibly, the vice president also claimed the US had been trying but “could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying” the various Islamist rebel factions inside Syria.
Absent in Biden’s comments is the massive amount of money the US poured into Syria backing the exact same groups, for the exact same reason. Biden sought to portray the calamitous failure of Syria over the past years as someone else’s fault, and a lesson the anti-ISIS alliance has learned.
Biden said those nations had “poured hundreds of millions of dollars” into trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad and in the process had created a “proxy Sunni-Shia war” in the region.
“The Turks, we’re great friends and I have a great relationship with Erdogan that I spent a lot of time with. The Saudis, the Emiratis, etc., what were they doing?” Biden added.
Incredibly, the vice president also claimed the US had been trying but “could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying” the various Islamist rebel factions inside Syria.
Absent in Biden’s comments is the massive amount of money the US poured into Syria backing the exact same groups, for the exact same reason. Biden sought to portray the calamitous failure of Syria over the past years as someone else’s fault, and a lesson the anti-ISIS alliance has learned.
news.antiwar.com/2014/10/03/biden-accuses-saudis-turkey-of-starting-syria-proxy-war/
Sauron must have been displeased with such loose lips...
Biden Apologizes to Turkish President
ISTANBUL — A diplomatic rift between Turkey and the United States was patched over late Saturday after the American vice president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., officially apologized to Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for remarks suggesting that Turkey helped facilitate the rise of the Islamic State terrorist group.
In remarks at Harvard University on Thursday, Mr. Biden said Mr. Erdogan had admitted erring in allowing foreign fighters to cross Turkey’s border into Syria, eventually leading to the formation of the group, also known as ISIS and ISIL.
Mr. Biden’s spokeswoman, Kendra Barkoff, said in an emailed statement that the two leaders spoke by phone on Saturday. “The vice president apologized for any implication that Turkey or other allies and partners in the region had intentionally supplied or facilitated the growth of ISIL or other violent extremists in Syria,” Ms. Barkoff said. “The United States greatly values the commitments and sacrifices made by our allies and partners from around the world to combat the scourge of ISIL, including Turkey.”
Earlier Saturday, Mr. Erdogan had demanded an apology, saying he had never made any such remark to Mr. Biden. “If Mr. Biden has said such a thing at Harvard, he needs to apologize to us,” Mr. Erdogan told reporters here.
Mr. Erdogan, despite widespread evidence to the contrary, denied that Turkey’s long, porous border had enabled thousands of militants to cross onto the Syrian and Iraqi battlefields since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. “Foreign fighters never crossed into Syria from our country,” Mr. Erdogan said. “They would cross into Syria from Turkey on tourist passports, but nobody can claim that they have crossed with arms.”
www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/world/europe/turkish-leader-demands-biden-apology.html?_r=1