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No Yorgo! You should not fight for France

by Hakkı Öcal

Sep 07, 2020 - 12:05 am GMT+3
by Hakkı Öcal Sep 07, 2020 12:05 am
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Whatever the Rothschilds were aiming for when they made Emmanuel Macron the president of France, wasting Greek boys and changing political geography was probably not their main goals. Many French imperialists have noticed the vacuum in European Union leadership for almost two years, especially after the Brexit, infights in the German coalition and the governmental inexistence in Italy, but nobody would have thought that Macron would be using Greeks to attain EU leadership and destroy NATO.

A 42-year-old, energetic and yappy president is a role model for those who dream about the old imperial past, but the realities of the 21st century are too harsh to allow them to keep dreaming of bygone days. When I think about the situation, a historical anecdote from the Ottoman palace comes to mind:

The royal navy returns defeated from a campaign, and the sultan questions the admiral about why it lost. The poor man, knowing that one small disagreeable word could cost him his head, starts by saying that there were several impediments that led to the defeat.

“Count them,” shouted the sultan.

“One,” the admiral said, “the powder ran out. Two... ”

The sultan interrupted: “It is OK. You don’t need another reason for the loss when you run out of powder.”

So, there are multiple reasons for the impossibility of French leadership in Europe:

One, France doesn’t have the funds the position requires. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has tons of money thanks to the cheap euro policy she forced the EU to follow for the past decade; so, she can pay the ransom for any country she wants. She practically bought every port, station, logistics corporation, airport, etc. Those that Merkel didn't buy are being purchased by the United States.

Like the Ottoman sultan, we don't need any other reasons to say that France is not capable of EU leadership. But European leaders have been annoyed by Macron’s overreach, his veto about accession applications of some European countries, his push for a European army instead of NATO, his dismissal of many EU commissioners and handpicking French and Francophone bureaucrats for EU positions. Charles Michel, a Belgian politician, who has been shamelessly saying that Turkey should be given “rewards and punishments” because of its policy in the Aegean Sea, is now serving Macron as president of the European Council. European analysts have been accusing him of overreaching and not talking to other European leaders.

We can count many other actions of Macron that have been vexing not only Europeans but also the U.S. Last year, Macron let Russia back into the Council of Europe and said Russia must be invited back into the Group of 7.

Even if she is weakened internally, Merkel is still strong externally and does not want the Rothschilds’ boy to steal the leadership of the EU. Macron sees the only way to do it is to sabotage Merkel internationally. Greek adventurism seems to be the right tool to do it because Merkel simply wants to quell Greek ambitions. Last month, Merkel spoke with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Both sides agreed to get together and talk. However, Macron called Mitsotakis and Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi the next day, and the two countries signed a maritime deal to unite their exclusive economic zones – even though they do not have neighboring maritime borders. Merkel has been deceived in her international role.

Greece, egged on by French provocations, tried to interfere with Turkey's oil and gas exploration ship – an attempt averted by Turkish warplanes. This close call for a skirmish prompted NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to call on both sides to establish mechanisms for conflict prevention in the region. Turkey was readily looking to reach the negotiation table and thus accepted NATO’s call. Greece first accepted it and announced later that it was not going to discuss anything with Turkey.

Strangely enough, the same day France announced it was sending its aircraft carrier to the Eastern Mediterranean. Guess what, Mitsotakis was on the phone with Macron right after Stoltenberg’s statement.

Macron must be thinking that this will show Europeans and Turkey who is the boss in Europe – not Merkel, not U.S. President Donald Trump, surely not U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but him.

Macron cannot fill those shoes because, as the whole world knows, he doesn’t have the financial support to maintain his threat of war by just keeping an aircraft carrier in the region. But Greece can.

It's not that Athens' treasuries are brimming with money, but they have a politician at the helm of the Greek ships whose great-grand uncle had sent the Greek army to invade Anatolia 101 years ago. Then-Prime Minister Eleftherios Kyriakos Venizelos sent 100,000 Greek soldiers to their untimely deaths. Mitsotakis was named after Venizelos but unfortunately, their similarities do not seem to end there. Kyriakos seems willing to take the same reckless route and risk Greek youth, like his namesake.

But times have changed. Young Greek men now know that Turkey is very much willing to sit down and discuss how to share oil and gas in the Mediterranean. They do not have to fight for a French leader who wants them to die for his zealous ambitions of European leadership. The former Kyriakos had been acting on the provocation of the British; the latter seems to be willing to sacrifice them for the French.

But I hope Yorgo knows better.

About the author
Hakkı Öcal is an award-winning journalist. He currently serves as academic at Ibn Haldun University.
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