Turkey and the Islamification of Europe

Dr. Harold Rhode was a guest on Secure Freedom Radio with Frank Gaffney yesterday. Rhode is a distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and former Turkish Desk Officer at the U.S. Department of Defense.

Turkish President Erdogan is visiting the United States right now. He’s in DC attending a nuclear talk and while he’s here, he found the time to attend the opening of a large new mosque in Lanham, Maryland. Erdogan wanted Obama to attend the opening but he smartly declined.

Dr. Rhode described the situation:

“This is a way for Erdogan to say that Islam matters, and we are going to build the largest buildings that we can and make you inferior. That’s the purpose of what he built there.”

Gaffney noted that Erdogan isn’t getting a White House visit while he’s in town and asked Rhodes about the state of U.S.–Turkish relations. Rhodes responded:

“From a Turkish point of view, and this is where Obama could do U.S.-Turkish relations a big service, in Turkey, it matters very much that meetings occur on equal levels, that means if I’m the president I should meet with the president. He can bring others but it has to be on an equal level. If you have a meeting with someone who is lower than you, which is what is planned at the moment, they’re going to have Biden have an informal meeting with Erdogan, this is a slap in the face, a humiliation to Erdogan.”

Rhodes points out that Obama used to speak highly of Erdogan but he has committed so many civil rights violations in his country that things have changed between the two leaders.

Another problem, Gaffney mentions, is the deal Turkey has made with the EU for visa-free travel between Turkey and the EU, which presents a number of problems in the region and the fight against ISIS. Rhodes expanded on this:

“Europe is basically submitting to Erdogan, the money that it is getting – if you read the details of this agreement that the EU has supposedly made with Turkey, it is shameful. It is simply a way of having more and more refugees come to Turkey… The goal is to bring more and more Muslims to Europe, to help bring about the day that Europe becomes Muslim. That is Erdogan’s goal and that is also his goal with the mosque here in Washington.”

Rhodes goes on to suggest that this is all part of a longer term goal which is simply the establishment of an Islamic caliphate to dominate Europe and the Middle East now, the rest of the world later.