“I did it before, I would do it again” says President Donald Trump.
According to the Turkish foreign office spokesperson’s statement, Turkey will respond in the same way to the USA in compliance with the principle of reciprocity if the financial sanctions, expected to pass in the US Congress next week -as a proactive measure, Trump got a similar bill prepared as a presidential bill; he has already signed it, but keeps in cold storage for the time being- are carried into effect, and we will see what effect our sanctions against the USA would have if any.
I am sure many of you know what the list of sanctions of Trump’s bill include. If the bill, prepared by the US administration to be submitted to the Congress, is approved in the Congress as it is, this may even put President Tayyip Erdoğan’s meeting with Trump in the White House on November 13th in danger.
Washington behaves as if everybody is stark raving mad indeed…
During the period of undeclared sanctions which Trump refers to when saying “I did it before”, the US dollar had risen up sharply against the Turkish lira.
When did that happen?
Trump reveals the time of the event through his words: “Pastor Brunson was kept in prison in Turkey, and I had done it in order to get him freed.”
Those days, it was often said that ‘a secret finger caused the Turkish lira plummet against the dollar’, and ‘outside forces’ were blamed for this. We now learn through Trump’s confession, almost two years later, that those claims were true indeed. Trump threatens Turkey with doing the same again: “If Turkey does anything that I consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey.”
I was watching CNN television a short while ago. I saw that the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo keeps repeating the same threat.
[In my opinion, Trump makes a big deal about his role when he boasts about himself. His twitter messages had an insignificant role in the plummet of the Turkish lira that time.]
I hope that our government take ravenousness of the Americans into account, and we have some real preparations, besides the statement of “We will respond in the same way, and impose sanctions on the USA, too.”
Brunson says: “My dream came true.”
Pastor Andrew Brunson, who was often mentioned in the US president’s threats voiced when the Turkish military operation was launched doesn’t sit around, but talks to television channels claiming that he had “seen these present-day developments in his dream when he was in prison”.
He says he saw the dream in December 2016. . .
“In the dream, Turkey, Iran, and Russia began to move together in a very dark alliance” he tells. According to his story, he woke up from the dream sweating and gasping for air. He later told his wife, Norine, during her first visit to him in prison: “You have to get me out of here before my dream comes true.”
People whom Brunson told about his dream did not believe his dream could ever come true, pointing out a number of disagreements between Turkey-Iran and Turkey-Russia, tensions between their respective policies. Two American diplomats among them told Brunson: “This cannot happen, because national interests of Turkey require this country to remain in the Western alliance.”
Brunson now says that his dream came true. . .
I wouldn’t be surprised if we soon see photos of Trump and Brunson together in the same frame in international media.
The reason why I consider this likely is this: Brunson lived in our country for almost 20 years, and he was in prison during the last two years of that period. He tells his experiences in Turkey in a book titled, “God’s Hostage: A True Story of Persecution, Imprisonment and Perseverance”.
The book has hit the shelves in bookstores just these days.
The publisher uses on the book cover a picture of Brunson holding a small cross in his hand. . .
When their books come out, authors go from one television channel to another in order to increase sales of their books. It is hard to imagine a better timing than this one for the promotion of Brunson’s book. This is why he shares his dream publicly these days.
More than one dream, as a matter of fact.
The pastor has another dream to tell, too.
According to Pastor Brunson who appeared on Fox-TV, Trump’s favorite TV channel, what is happening nowadays will cause people to question things that they have never questioned, and turn to Jesus, which will make work of Christian missionaries easier in Turkey. “You will see that this will happen.” says Brunson.
Turkey has been carrying out a cross-border operation to wipe out the terrorist elements on the other side of its borders, but, as you see, anyone who has a score to settle with Turkey such as Brunson takes a stand against the country.
At a time, Haluk Şahin had written a book titled “It’s not easy to be a Turk”. He is right, indeed.
We ourselves make things difficult for us, though.
ΩΩΩΩ
[Translated by Bernar Kutluğ from the the article appeared in this site’s Turkish section on October 12, 2019]
