Looking for Constantinople and Rome.

Catholic, Orthodox theologians agree on first new text since 2016

This is huge.

It's a long document, we'll just skip to the conclusion.

Conclusion

5.1 Major issues complicate an authentic understanding of synodality and primacy in the Church. The Church is not properly understood as a pyramid, with a primate governing from the top, but neither is it properly understood as a federation of self-sufficient Churches. Our historical study of synodality and primacy in the second millennium has shown the inadequacy of both of these views. Similarly, it is clear that for Roman Catholics synodality is not merely consultative, and for Orthodox primacy is not merely honorific. In 1979, Pope John Paul II and Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios said: ‘The dialogue of charity … has opened up the way to better understanding of our respective theological positions and thereby to new approaches to theological work, and to a new attitude with regard to the common past of our Churches. This purification of the collective memory of our Churches is an important outcome of the dialogue of charity and an indispensable condition for future progress’ (Joint Declaration, 30 November 1979). Roman Catholics and Orthodox need to continue along that path so as to embrace an authentic understanding of synodality and primacy in light of the ‘theological principles, canonical provisions and liturgical practices’ (Chieti, 21) of the undivided Church of the first millennium.

5.2 The Second Vatican Council opened new perspectives by fundamentally interpreting the mystery of the Church as one of communion. Today, there is an increasing effort to promote synodality at all levels in the Roman Catholic Church. There is also a willingness to distinguish what might be termed the patriarchal ministry of the pope within the Western or Latin Church from his primatial service with regard to the communion of all the Churches, offering new opportunities for the future. In the Orthodox Church, synodality and primacy are practised at the panorthodox level, according to the canonical tradition, by the holding of holy and great councils.

5.3 Synodality and primacy need to be seen as ‘interrelated, complementary and inseparable realities’ (Chieti, 5) from a theological point of view (Chieti, 4, 17). Purely historical discussions are not enough. The Church is deeply rooted in the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and a eucharistic ecclesiology of communion is the key to articulating a sound theology of synodality and primacy.

5.4 The interdependence of synodality and primacy is a fundamental principle in the life of the Church. It is intrinsically related to the service of the unity of the Church at the local, regional and universal levels. However, principles must be applied in specific historical settings, and the first millennium offers valuable guidance for the application of the principle just mentioned (Chieti, 21). What is required in new circumstances is a new and proper application of the same governing principle.

5.5 Our Lord prayed that his disciples ‘may all be one’ (Jn 17:21). The principle of synodality-primacy in the service of unity should be invoked to meet the needs and requirements of the Church in our time. Orthodox and Roman Catholics are committed to finding ways to overcome the alienation and separation that occurred during the second millennium.

5.6 Having reflected together on the history of the second millennium, we acknowledge that a common reading of the sources can inspire the practice of synodality and primacy in the future. Observing the mandate of our Lord to love one another as he has loved us (Jn 13:34), it is our Christian duty to strive for unity in faith and life.

This doesn't resolve the schism, but it's really edging up on it.  The Pillar notes that in the head of the Greek Orthodox Church had his way, the schism would likely end immediately.

We're getting pretty close.

The final break, more or less, between the Catholic and Easter Orthodox Churches can somewhat be dated to 1453, making it only a few decades older than the start of the Reformation in 1517.  We've written in regard to the collapse of the Reformation here recently, and here's an example of how that's playing out.

Conservative Anglicans Call for Break With Archbishop of Canterbury Over Same-Sex Blessings

African bishops have emerged as leaders of the church’s conservative wing

African bishops are indeed the leaders of the conservative branch of the Anglican Communion, with the Anglican Communion's conservatives being very close in their outlook to Latin Rite Catholicism.  Indeed, the theological point they assert is that they are a separated church, like the Orthodox, a position that Rome does not agree with.

Anyhow, it's interesting to note that as the Reformation more and more collapses due to the seeds of individuality it inserted into Western Culture in the first place, the more conservative branches pull more and more towards Catholic orthodoxy, something liberal Catholics may wish to take note of as they sometimes try to tack in the opposite direction.

What's wrong with Russia? It was never part of Rome.

By Ssolbergj - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2992630

SPQR Senātus Populus que Rōmānus.Translated, the Senate and People of Rome.  The motto of the Roman Empire, whose legions marched under that banner in service of its Emperors.

"I will burn other people's villages with a cheerful smile."

"It ain’t a war crime if you had fun."

"Behind us, there is a house on fire. Well, let it burn. One more, one less."

Russian wall scribbling in liberated Ukrainian territory.

What's wrong with Russia?

People have been asking that question for years, maybe centuries.

Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. 

Winston Churchill

No, it's really not.

What it is, is something it isn't.  It was never part of the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire was the most extensive expression of the Greco-Roman world and their culture.  The Greeks had commenced the work that Rome would end up finishing, or rather the Catholic Church would end up finishing, well prior to Rome's rise, however.  The great Greek philosophers came into being prior to even the expansion of the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great, infusing its culture with the outlook of the Western world.  Under Alexander the Greeks spread throughout the Mediterranean region, but the Romans picked it up, and the Greek world view, and massively expanded it.

Indeed, the influence of the Greeks and the Romans was so extensive that a student of early Christianity can't help but be impressed by the extent to which Christ and his disciples lived in a Judea that had been heavily impacted by the Greeks. The version of the Old Testament that is quoted in the New Testament pretty clear is the Septuagint, the Greek version.  Most, maybe all, of the New Testament was originally written in Greek.  Thoughts expressed in the New Testament are such that there have been those who have speculated that they could not have been expressed in Hebrew, had Hebrew remained the language of the Israelites, and that therefore Divine Providence was at work.  Early Christian Church fathers applied Greek philosophy to their understanding of Theology.¹ 

The Romans built on what they obtained from the Greeks, and they built the concept of a multicultural empire.  Rome started off a city state monarchy but in the end, it was a multicultural empire in which anyone within it could become a Roman citizen under certain circumstances.  Its unifying features was a uniform legal code and two languages, Latin and Greek.  You could be a cultural German, but if you could learn Latin and adhere to Rome's legal code, you had a chance to be as Roman as an Italian born in Rome.

The Church, and there was only one, came in and added the concept that there was only one moral code for everyone in the world, and your status and culture didn't trump that.  It also came in with a strong ethos of support for the plight of the poor and the equality of everyone before God.  Real women's rights came in with the Church, and the end of slavery was made inevitable by it as well.  The supremacy in religious matters of the Roman pontiff pointed out that even the government was subject to the Natural Law, and that it didn't create it.

We are all Romans.

The influence of Rome spread well beyond the Empire, even during the Roman age, and that was through Christianity.  Rome made it all the way up to the Teutoburg, but not beyond that.  Christianity did, however.  It may have taken the Northern Crusades to bring the Poles in, but brave missionaries to bring in the Scandinavians, but they did.

In the East, the Baltic was part of the Greek world, and hence the Roman world.  St. Andrew the apostle travelled into what is the southern Ukraine, via the Black Sea, and preached at least in Scythia.  Some maintain that he saild the Dneiper and preached in Kyiv.

Ukraine was the subject of missionary work in the 800s.  St. Cyril and Methodius, brothers, passed through Ukraine during their missionary work.  Western Ukraine, which is where the Ukrainian Catholic Church has its presence today, was Christianized first.

St. Cyril and Methodius.

Under St. Vladimir The Great, a Kyivan king claimed by both the Ukrainians and the Russians, the Kyivan Rus were firmly brought into the Church.   But of note, Vladimir had been born a pagan and converted to the Church (again, there was only one) in 988 after traveling to the West and studying the non-pagan religions. He died in 1015 at age 57.

Now, 1015 is a very late date.  St. Andrew had been in the region in 55AD.  St. Cyril and Methodius in the late 800s.  But as late as 988 paganism still existed in the lands of the Rus.

And in 1054, the Great Schism commenced.

Now, the Rus did take to Christianity, of that there can be no doubt. But the Great Schism put their Church outside the Latin world to some degree.  Islam was already on the rise, and the Byzantine Empire would fall in 1453.  In 1448 the Russian Church obtained de facto independence, although in 1439 history nearly took a different course with Russian Orthodox representatives recognized Rome as the head of the Church at the Council of Florence. Sadly, their union was prevented from taking effect.

So basically, the Russians were on the edge of the world. The Great Schism, the collapse of the Roman Empire, and then the collapse of the Byzantine kept them there.  Ukraine had been part of the Greco-Roman world, and to some degree, it remains so, especially the further west in Ukraine you go.

And this matters.

Outside of the Moscow elite and a very small urban elite, Russia is one great big blue-collar country.

Fiona Hill

Russia definitely has a cultured development and the Russians are a great people. But they're a people where western concepts have never taken root, including the concept that power devolves from the people, and not the other way around. Even those who have attempted, and there have been many, to change that, have uniformly failed.

It's a culture that has developed great works of art and literature, while remaining insular and focused on itself.  Outside of Russia, everyone is some sort of odd stranger, and the Russians have, from time to time, imagined themselves as the archetype of Slavs.  The culture has a hard time not accepting that to some degree.

And it's a rough place to live in part because of this.  People die young, often due to conditions and alcoholism.  Male deaths outstrip women's by quite some margin.² Brutality and acceptance of horrible conditions exists where it has departed elsewhere.  Russia's military retains an ethos of cruelty that stems back to ancient times and manifests itself in horrific ancient behaviors. 

And hence, there's really no mystery.  

Russia wasn't part of the Greco-Roman world.

Ukraine, however, was.

Footnotes.

1. There's a common myth that Islam preserved the works of the Greek philosophers, and Christians got them from them.

In reality, Islam got the texts of the Greek philosophers from Chaldean Christians, who had preserved them.  Latin Christians did get them from Islamic Arabs, but it is important to note that Islamic Arabs got them from Chaldean Christians.  

As it happened, Hellenized Islamist theologians were later dismissed and regarded as heretical in Islam.

2.  As an odd expression of this, it's often frequently noted that younger Russian women are disproportionately beautiful, before age and conditions change this at a rate not experienced in the West.   It's been seriously suggested that this is due to natural selection, as the population of women always exceeds that of men, thereby giving physically attractive women a heightened competitive genetic advantage.

Wednesday, August 30, 1922. The End of Greek Anatolia.

Young women photographed on this day in 1922.

A press photographer photographed a group of young women on this day in 1922.  None of them appeared as flappers.

The Turks won the Battle of Dumiupinar, bringing the Greco Turkish War effectively to a close.  As a result, this day is celebrated as Victory Day in Turkey.

This brought about the millennia long presence of a significant Greek population in Anatolia, one which had persisted even in spite of the Ottoman Conquest.  In no small part, it came about due to Greek greed which had sought to expand Greek control beyond what was initially logical, during the immediate post World War One period during which such efforts were effectively supported by nearly all of the Allied powers, and during which France, the UK, and Italy contributed troops to the effort.  Indeed, Italy seized islands for its own from Turkey.

Had the Greeks not overreached, they likely would have been supported longer by the Allies, which grew tired of the war and ultimately pulled its combat troops out of it.  Greece proved insufficiently strong to hold what it had taken against the revolutionary Turkish forces which had overthrown their own government, which had entered into a putative peace, and which fought the war well against long odds.

The war would result in a tragic mass population transfer of Greeks from Turkish lands, many of whom would relocate far from their homes in other lands, such as the United States and Australia.

In Ireland, the results of a recent peace continued to operate oddly.

Due to the odd nature of the treaty between the UK and the Irish Free State, a Second Irish Provisional Government was set up due to the assassination of Michael Collins, even though power was being transferred to the Dail.

Wisconsin Governor John J. Blain urged President Harding to ask Congress to take over the coal mines in order to abate the problems the long-running coal mine strike was causing and threatened to cause.

In Pennsylvania, a monument to George Washington was dedicated.

 Taft College was founded in California.

Dreams of Past Glory

Last week I published an item here that showed a new map for Greece, published in 1920, which depicted the portions of Anatolia it believed it had separated from Turkey.  Cultural Greeks did live in those places, but they went far beyond those areas where Greeks were the majority.

And Greek troops went far beyond those places.

Italians took a set of islands off Anatolia as well.

Italy had already taken territory from the Ottomans by that time. More specifically, they'd taken Libya in 1912 as a result of the Italo-Turkish War.  Italians, in the form of Romans, had governed Libya at one time, but hadn't since the collapse of the Roman Empire.*  If a person wished to be more generous, Greco Roman culture hadn't governed there since the Byzantine Empire had been pushed out in 647, although at least one Christian city remained as late as the 1400s at the absolute latest.

Basically, both powers were asserting claims to territory they hadn't actually governed since 1453.

Yesterday we looked at the French conquest of Syria.  The French had been very influential in Syria. . . up until the 1190s.  At least that claim was there, however, which it really wasn't for Algeria which the French started colonizing in 1830.

What the heck, however.


*Italian immigrants would ultimately make up 20% of the Libyan population.

May 16, 1920. The Canonization of Joan d'Arc

A doodle of Joan d'Arc by Clément de Fauquembergue on the margin of the protocol of the Parliament of Paris from May 10, 1429, two years prior to her death.  Clément de Fauquembergue was the parliamentary registrar and the news of the her victory at Orleans had just reached Paris.  The doodle is the only know illustration of her done during her lifetime.

On this day in 1920, Pope Benedict XV canonized Joan d'Arc, the 15th Century peasant girl who lead French forces in a revived effort to recapture lost grounds from the English after hearing voices commanding her to act for the French crown.  She ultimately paid for her efforts with her life, being burned at the stake after being falsely convicted of heresy, a charge now universally regarded as absurd and which was itself reversed in 1456.

Even no less of figure as Winston Churchill regarded Joan as a saint.  That the illiterate farm girl was able to gain access first to the French crown and then the army in the field commander was and is proof of her divine mission. With the army, she offered advice to its noble commanders which was frequently taken and French fortunes against the English in fact reversed and their army started to do remarkably well.

She is believed to have been born in 1412 in a region of Lorraine that retained loyalty to the French crown during the Hundred Years War, a contest between the Plantagenets, the Norman rulers of England, and the House of Valois, the rulers of France, over who should rule France. The house she grew up in and the village church there still stand.  As those who have ready Henry V know, the English long maintained that they should rule both kingdoms and they often regarded France as more important than in England.  That contest commenced in 1337 and featured a long running series of campaigns.  Trouble in the French royal family had been taken advantage of by Henry V who had been able to greatly expand the amount of English controlled territory in the 1415 to 1417 period.  By 1429, when Joan commenced her mission, half of France was controlled directly by England or by French duchies that were loyal to England.

The English commenced a a siege of the FRench city of Orleans in 1428, a town that was a holdout in its region for the French king, Charles VII.

Joan began to have visions in 1425, at which time she was 13 years old.  She identified the first figures she saw as St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret, who told her to drive the English out of France and take the Dauphin to Reims for his consecration.  At age 16 she made demands upon a relative to take her to see the crown which were received with scorn.  Nonetheless she was taken to Vaucouleurs where she demanded an armed escort to the royal court, which was denied. Returning the following year, she secured the support of two soldiers and their urgings and support she was conducted to the court after she reported the results of a distant battle she had not been at two days prior to messengers arriving to report it.  She as then escorted to the court disguised as a male soldier as it involved crossing hostile Burgundian territory.  At that time she was 17 years old and Charles VII 26.

She secured permission to travel with the army, which was granted.  Everything she used in the mission was donated to her, including the banner that she used.  She never used any weapons in battle but rode under her banner. She did, however, gain access to councils of war and was listened to. As noted, the fortunes of the French reversed in this period.  The siege of Orleans was broken by the French and Reims taken. The Dauphin was crowned as a result in Reims.

After a brief truce between the English and the French she was captured in battle in 1430 and put on trial for heresy.  Heresy being a religious offense, she was tried by English and Burgundian clerics, but the English officers oversaw the trial.  The trial was irregular and conducted without religious authority and without the individual commissioned to find evidence against her being able to find any.  Her conviction hinged on her having worn male clothing when under escort across hostile Burgundian soil.  She was convicted by this tribunal of heresy and burned at the stake in May 31, 1431.  Her executioner later greatly feared that his service in this role would result in his damnation.

In spite of her death, the dramatic reversal in French fortunes continued on and by 1450 the English had been pushed off the continent.  In fact, French borders surpassed their current ones, as France's resulting borders included what is now part of Belgium, a not surprising result given that Belgium is a multiethnic state.

A regular canonical trial to examine the first one's propriety was convened in 1455 and reversed the conviction in 1456.

She's been a popular figure ever since her death and in any age the nature of her mission is hard to deny.  Illiterate and born in a region separated from the retreating French royal lands, she nonetheless managed to convince the French crown and the chivalric leaders of its army that she had a divine mission, something that was aided by her knowledge of things that she could not have known but for her commission.  Under her, in spite of the fact that she was a teenage girl with no experience in military matters, French military fortunes permanently reversed.

It's no doubt her youth and gender that have caused her popularity to remain outside of France, but she is a saint whose nature should cause moderns to pause.

MKTH photograph of the statue of St. Joan d'Arc in Notre Dame de Paris.

She was not, as some no doubt imagine her, as some sort of proto feminist teenage leader in an age of male patrimony and would not have seen things that way.  She was singularly devout and saw her mission as a religious one.  She was known to be opposed to the heresies of her era and Islam. She was intensely Catholic and caused the army she lead to be adherent to the faith.  The war for control of France changed from a contest between two royal families to a war with religious overtones and even, as viewed from a modern eye, as one involving nationalism in an early form.  Her modern fans would do well to take note of her mission and the fact that its impossible to imagine it without crediting the divine voices that she attributed it to.

And indeed, her mission did have impacts on the religious map of Europe in ways that would not be possible to appreciate at the time of her execution at age 19 in May, 1430.  England was pushed off the continent in 1450 by which time Henry VI was king. That same year he was forced to put down a rebellion against the crown in England.  In 1533, a mere 83 years later during a period of time in which events often moved slowly, King Henry VIII would take the formerly devout England away from the Church and marry his pregnant mistress Anne Boleyn, bringing the Reformation to England in a personal effort to generate a male successor through a fertile female. The following acts would result in crown licensed theft of church property, murder and decades of strife and war.  While France would fall to secularism in 1790, its position up until that time remained stalwart.

Today In Wyoming's History: October 14. Columbus and Duke William make the scene.

Today In Wyoming's History: October 14:

October 14

Today is Columbus Day for 2013.



1066. Duke William of Normandy defeats King Harold Godwinson as the Battle of Hastings.  The result of this battle would bring feudalism into England and result in the birth of English Common Law.

The Bayeux Tapestry depicting the vents of October, 1066.

And its Columbus Day for this year, 2019, as well.

At least in my part of the country Columbus Day doesn't mean much, other than Federal offices are closed.  In some parts of the country there are protests regarding what ultimately occurred with the arrival of European Americans in the New World, again, and this time to stay.  Indeed, in some localities it is Indigenous Peoples Day.

Columbus was working for the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, of course.  They were having a big year, to say the least.  On January 2, Granada, the last Moorish kingdom in Spain, had surrendered to them, having failed to receive aid from any other Muslim power.  In an odd sort of way, Granada's experience was therefore similar to that of Constantinople, the seat of the shrunken Byzantine Empire, in 1453, some forty years earlier, which had failed to secure the support of other Christian powers against the Ottomans.

Columbus' expedition is typically claimed to have sighted land on October 12, 1492, but that date was on the "Old Calendar".  Using the "New Calendar", that date is actually October 21, 1492.

It's also the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, one of the single most important dates in English history and the history of the English speaking peoples.  Perhaps the single most important date.  Saxon England entered the feudal world and English met French.

"shortsighted and irresponsible."

So says Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Donald Trump's stoutest defenders, about Trump's decision to betray the Kurds and leave them to the mercy of the Turks.

And it is an outrage.

To be clear, I opposed the United States intervening in Syria militarily.  This isn't because I think the Baathist regime there is nice. Rather, I was, I think realistic about the nature of the combatants there.

When the civil war broke out in Syria, the United States, both its population and its government, Americanized it in their minds.  To us, all revolutions against are by the good guys against the bad guys.  Indeed, it's summarized that way in the 1960s movie The Professionals, with the follow up line by Burt Lancaster's explosive expert characters adding; "the question is who are the good guys and who are the bad guys."

Well, it's not that simple.

In Syria there was one main westernized force set for overall control of the nation, realistically, and then there were Islamist theocrats.  One or the other was going to be the one that prevailed.  Trouble was, the westernized force their was the government, and the western ideology it had adopted was fascism.  Fascism is a western creation, and the Baath Party are fascists.  Indeed, the Middle Easter fascist party, the Baath Party, is the most successful fascist party of them all by some measures as its been in power far longer in various places, principally Iraq (formerly) and Syria, than any other fascist party was anywhere else.

The prime opponents of the Syrian government were Islamic radicals who sought to impose a theocracy. Oh, sure, there were other forces, but they were disorganized and inept.

Really effectively intervening in that situation would have required creating a Syrian rebel force out of something while also wiping out the Islamic elements.  That would have required the commitment of thousands of troops, probably 20,000 or more.  And it would have required a long occupation.

We weren't going to do that and it was obvious from the first.

Instead, over time, when we realized what was going on there we supported efforts to quash ISIL and support regional rebel forces where possible. In the meantime, Russian backed Syrian forces with quite a bit of support from actual Russian troops of one kind or another (not officially Russian, but clearly supported by the Russians and made up of Russian military men) crushed the rebellion.  Overall, our small scale intervention was much more effective than I would have supposed, although the winner overall is the Syrian regime which is now closer to Russia than ever.

And then there are the Kurds.

The Kurds are claimed to be the largest ethnicity in the world with a distinct territory that lacks a state. Their territory is spread over Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran. All of those nations have suppressed the Kurds. Right now, probably ironically, the Kurds are best off in Syira and Iraq.

That's about to end in Syria.

The Kurds deserve a country. They've long demonstrated that and they're fairly politically adept and cohesive.  By and large, politically, the Kurds would make most American politicians wince as they're on the Marxist end of the scale without being full blown Communists.  They're basically what we hoped the Castro lead Cuban revolutionaries would be and what we still like to pretend the Spanish leftist combatants, who were really Communist, in the Spanish Civil War were.  They've been fighting for political independence for decades.

Now they're running a quasi state in northern Syria where they successfully threw off the Syrian government and defeated ISIL.

Let me note that again, they defeated ISIL.

Central Intelligence Agency map of Kurdish regions.

And they're running their own state, uneasily and quasi officially, within the Iraqi state.

The number of American servicemen in norther Syria, supporting the Kurds, is quite small.  The exact numbers are likely unknown publicly, but President Trump claims its only fifty men.  Maybe, but at least as of a couple of years ago there were at least 4,000 Special Forces troops in Syria and additionally there was a small contingent of U.S. Marine artillerymen. Indeed, at one point American troops and unofficial Russian troops engaged each other with the Russian unit being utterly destroyed.  And this doesn't include the air contingent.

If its small, does it matter?

It certainly does. The map tells the reason why, as well as the history of the region.

American troops in the Kurdish region keep the Turks from going into that area.  The Turks would, and now will, as the Kurds are there.

Turkey is a patch quilt country created in part by ethnic cleansing.  The Turks invaded Anatolia during the 15th Century, completing their conquest of the Greek Byzantine Empire in 1453.  Coming out of Asia Minor, where many of the Turkish culture remain, the Ottoman Turks ruled from Constantinople until the Empire fell under the stress of the Great War.  At its height it threatened Europe before being contained by efforts in the 1500s which coincided with the Reformation and which constituted the one thing that fractured Christianity could agree upon.

The Ottoman Empire was just that, an empire, a conglomeration of peoples and nations which, in its case, were ruled by one nation, the Ottoman Turks.  The Empire was vast, stretching into Europe and over North Africa, but unable to spread into Asia Minor, ironically, where the Turks had their ethnic base.  Even on Anatolia the population was far from uniformly Turkish, but included substantial populations of Greeks, Armenians and Kurds.  World War One changed that.

During the war the Turks slaughtered gigantic numbers of Armenians in what may be legitimately be regarded as the first ethnic holocaust of the 20th Century.  Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the surrender of the Ottoman state to the Allies, the Greeks intervened in Anatolia and proved to have a grasp that exceeded their reach. In the areas of Anatolia that they occupied, atrocities occurred against the Turkish population, often the majority in these areas, that were both horrific and inexcusable, and which are now largely forgotten. This caused the Turks, who beat the Greeks in the Greco Turkish War, to do the same to the Greeks in the areas that they came back into control of, as they did so, and in the peace the Greeks were basically expelled.

The Kurds and the Armenians remain, and the Kurds have been fighting for their own country ever since.  The Turks want no part of that for the reason that the map makes plain.  If the Kurds secure their own country, Turkey will be considerably smaller.

Well, so be it, and the same for Iran, Syrian and Iraq.  Putting aside all old rights and wrongs, the Kurdish part of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran is Kurdish. A Kurdish state should be there.

But we're pulling out, and the Turks are coming in.

And by coming, let's be clear. They intend to invade northern Syria to deal with our allies the Kurds.

That is what Graham had to say:

Lindsey Graham

✔@LindseyGrahamSC

 · 6h

Replying to @LindseyGrahamSC

The most probable outcome of this impulsive decision is to ensure Iran’s domination of Syria.

The U.S. now has no leverage and Syria will eventually become a nightmare for Israel.

Lindsey Graham

✔@LindseyGrahamSC

I feel very bad for the Americans and allies who have sacrificed to destroy the ISIS Caliphate because this decision virtually reassures the reemergence of ISIS. So sad. So dangerous.

President Trump may be tired of fighting radical Islam. They are NOT tired of fighting us.

1,284

7:49 AM - Oct 7, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Exactly right.

The Kurds have been our allies and now we're betraying them.

Flat out betraying them.  We're literally stepping aside so that an enemy of theirs, Turkey, can put them down.

And in doing so, we're doing that by way of what appears to have come about in a telephone call between President Trump and President Endrogan.

In fairness to Trump, he signaled a desire to pull out of Syria earlier, and was backed down by opposition within the GOP and his own administration.  He apparently returned to his earlier views in his phone call with the Turkish president.

And that president, Endrogan, is an Islamist himself, the first one to really rule Turkey since the fall of the Ottomans (and they weren't terribly Islamist in their final years, even though the Turkish Emperor claimed the title of Caliph).  Those following Turkey have been nervous ever since Endrogan came to power as he's sidelined his opponents and seems from time to time set to take Turkey in a non democratic, Islamist, directly, and away from the strongly secular government it had featured (not always democratic by any means) since 1919.

That's not a direction the Kurds would go in.

And beyond that, while I didn't think we should go into Syria, once you do, you have an obligation to the people who you are allied to, and who are allied to you.  Graham, who has been a strong supporter of Trump, is exactly correct.  We're abandoning our allies.

We have a history of doing that. We set the South Vietnamese up for betrayal with horrific results.  Our messing around in Cambodia lead to a Cambodian disaster in a country we never intended to become directly involved in.

Now we're doing that in Syria.

That's disturbing in and of itself, but the President's reply is disturbing as well.

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over...

8:38 AM - 7 Oct 2019

• 7,567 Retweets
• 21,692 Likes
• 
  

15,382 replies7,567 retweets21,692 likes

Tweet text

1. 1. Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 37m37 minutes ago
      

      ....the captured ISIS fighters and families. The U.S. has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. It is time now for others in the region, some of great wealth, to protect their own territory. THE USA IS GREAT!

First of all, let's deal with the blistering absurdity of the proposition we'll punish the Turks if their invasion gets out of hand.

What the crud would that mean? An armed invasion is out of hand in the first place.  When you send in an army it's not the same thing as a local church coming to your door and asking you to convert or something.

Secondly, we haven't ever "obliterated" the economy of Turkey.  If that's a reference to Iran, well we've badly damaged the Iranian economy, but the regime there is still keeping on keeping on and probably diligently working on acquiring an atomic bomb. The economy of North Korea is a rampaging mess and has been for a long time, but it's Stalinist court is still in power and they have the bomb.

And using the phrase "great and unmatched wisdom" is amazingly inept for a man who must know that there are those who seriously question his mental stability.  That this came about by way of a phone call, where the individual in question is already in trouble due to a phone call, is stunning.

Of course this may mean nothing more than Trump has returned to his isolationist view of the world, one in which the consequences do not so much matter as long as U.S. troops are involved.

If that's so, or in any event, this decision is flat out wrong.

May 15, 1919 The Winnipeg General Strike, the Greco Turkish War commences.

A more localized strike in Winnepeg, Manitoba  that commenced a few days prior spread to being a complete working class strike on this day in 1919.  It would become one of the largest sustained labor strikes in Canadian history.

The world was slipping into an economic depression, one now largely forgotten, and surprisingly brief, but in the immediate politically tense post war situation, a serious event indeed.

Also serious, Greece landed troops in the Smyrna, on the Turkish coast.

Greek troops landing on Smyrna.

An intent to land had been declared the day prior and the action was supported by the Allies.

The city had a large Greek population as did many areas of Turkey at the time.  Like many of the European states prior to the end of World War Two, Turkey contained significant ethnic enclaves including Greek ones, reflecting that Turkey itself had once been a Greek speaking and culturally Greek domain.  It's primarily Greek status had ended with the fall of Constantinople to the invading Ottomans in 1453 but large Greek populations remained.

The Ottoman Empire itself had come to a near end with the Central Power defeat in World War One. The Allies were sympathetic to national claims in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire was being dismantled.  As part of that, Greek claims in Turkey were received sympathetically.

With in a few days, the Greek beachhead in Turkey would expand to the entire province that the city was in, a significant expansion of the operation.  

The landing is the practical starting date for the Greco Turkish War, a war that initially had strong Allied support and which supported extensive Greek claims in Turkey.  Indeed, the war effort was aided by the fact that other Allied powers, including Italy and the United Kingdom, occupied parts of Anatolia and Turkish islands off of the Turkish coast. The initial goals were to partition Anatolia leaving the domain of the Turks much smaller than is presently the case, and which would have not only left a very large portion of it under Greek control, but which would have also left substantial coastal island areas under Italian control, but also some areas under Armenian control and possibly even the creation of a Kurdish state.

In its greatly weakened state Turkey did poorly in the war at first and this vision of a diminished Turkey appeared likely to come into existence.  A treaty to that effect was drafted between the warring powers but neither Greece nor the Ottoman Empire ratified it.  The war would spark support of the young Turkish nationalist who displaced the Ottoman Empire, which fell prior to the war concluding.  The year after the war's full conclusion the Turkish parliament would abolish the caliphate, and the political regime that had come into existence in 1299 would end.

By that time, the Turks were on the advance in the war, which Turks regard as the Turkish War of Independence.  Rather than the treaty that had been negotiated but not ratified, the end result was much more favorable to Turkey which achieved its present borders.  As part of that treat, a massive population exchange was entered into in which Greece and Turkey exchanged their respective ethnic populations and approximately 1,000,000 Greeks whose homes had been in Anatolia left it.  The practical result was, therefore, that a Greek population that dated back to the Byzantine Empire was effectively nearly completely removed, although small Greek populations remain in Turkey to the present day.

In Philadelphia, a Military Police unit paraded, including its mounted officers.

I just can't muster up any concern over . . .

Game of Thrones.  I'm totally disinterested.  It strikes me, frankly, as just flat out silly and a little dim.

Why watch a pseudo Medieval England when you can read about the real one?

Alfred the Great's father AEthelwulf.  Why did his young son take office over his elders?  Why did Alfred go to Rome as a boy?  Why did Alfred's parents name him "Advised by Elves".  Why do people watch a goofball television show with an actress who is hopelessly clean in a Medieval setting and looks like an albino?

I also can't muster up any real interest over UW's most recent president Laurie Richards being demoted back to professor.

I really ought to. And I did care when Sternberg was demoted.  It seems to me that Richards did a good job, but I really can't muster up a snit about it.

Old geology lecture hall at the University of Wyoming.  I've noted before that I have an ambivalent relationship with my two time alma mater that I don't have with my first one, a community college.  Indeed, post public schooling warm feelings, I have stronger ones for that college and the Field Artillery training school at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, for some reason.  I really have no idea why.  Perhaps that's why I recall can't muster up a snit about the current UW president situation.

And I'm also disinterested in the scandal in which Felicity Huffman and Lori Loghlin are accused of paying bribes to get their children into competitive private universities.  I'm generally disinterested in actors and actresses anyhow, and frankly I have always simply assumed that baksheesh is an element of getting into the big dollar schools.  Wasn't this always obvious?  It seems to me to be pretty clear, but perhaps I was naive in thinking this was a scandal as society at large is. . . well apparently naive.

Mabel Normand, actress.  She died at age 37 in 1930.  I just like the photo.