Sunday, October 5, 2014

Biden's Apologies to Turkey and UAE by Yasmine Bougacha (5th pd)

     This hours-old article explains how vice president Joe Biden had to make some personal calls to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates in order to apologize about his accusatory statements. Biden made these comments at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, stating how the United States' Middle Eastern allies are partly, if not fully, to blame for the strengthening of ISIS. To be exact, Biden told the Harvard students that,"They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad. Except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world... we could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them..."  Turkey and UAE took offense and ordered an apology from the vice president, otherwise, Biden will become "history" to  Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (President of Turkey.)
     It is easy to see where both sides are coming from, especially when dealing with one of the most hot topics of the world. On Turkey and UAE's side, like anyone's side, would not appreciate anyone accusing them to be working with the enemy, even if they could improve their tactics. And on the United States' side, if they want to accuse Turkey for having weak and open borders to these extremists and accuse UAE for supplying weapons to them, then it could be viewed as being hypocritical because of their weak borders to the drug cartels and illegal immigrants coming from Central and South America and supplying weapons and funds to Israel's attacks on Palestine. In the end, it is just a matter of both sides opening up their big mouths and making a big deal about something small. If they really want to work on stopping ISIS together, then they need to put these petty problems aside and get to work.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/05/politics/isis-biden-erdogan-apology/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

1 comment:

  1. In these crazy times, especially with the strength of ISIS, it easy to want to point a finger at someone. I think that Biden should have received more evidence before making such accusations, but I respect that he took the initiative to apologize.

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