Analyst: I have never seen a media addicted to militarism like Turkey's

1 183

The goal of Ankara in the Azerbaijan-Armenia clashes is to have this crisis continue through October, if the two sides adhere to the calls by the global community for dialogue (which basically EVERY country supports, except Turkey), then Ankara's ruling party will lose out.

You can watch the media in Tehran, Russia, China and every country and see calls for stopping the fighting. Only Turkey has sought to encourage it and had its media do militarist coverage and statements suggesting military cooperation, boasts about drones etc;

This is the evidence that Ankara was trying to fuel the clashes and encourage Azerbaijan in the offensive. Every country in the world basically wants less tensions and less conflicts after years of conflict in Middle East. Ankara is almost alone in how it uses media to push this.

Every month Ankara has fueled a new conflict and tensions, from Idlib to the Greece border, to Libya, northern Iraq, the Eastern Mediterranean, etc. And it constantly operationalizes the pro-government media and online social media nationalist army to celebrate conflicts.

It is a constant addictive dripping of the drumbeat of militarist slogans and videos of "neutralizing terrorists" and drone strikes from Libya to Idlib... the constant march of uniforms. It creates a cycle that feeds itself and has real world consequences for civilians.

For Turkey the goal is that this will continue to simmer for weeks, just like the February 2020 'open the gates' with Greece during the Idlib [crisis], or Watiya in Libya in May 2020, campaign in northern Iraq in June 2020, or with Greece and the Oruç Reis in August and September.

Some pro-Ankara commentators have accused me of inventing this... but all you have to follow is the tweets of those same commentators and see how every month they push Ankara's narrative of the need for a new conflict. It's not like it's secret. It's open propaganda.

I follow media from the Gulf to Russia and Iran everyday, it's basically my main work, and there just is no media in the world like Turkey's media in terms of pushing new conflicts and militarism everyday, like an addiction. That's not to say Iran's media doesn't push it too.

Seth J. Frantzman is an Oped Editor and Middle East affairs analyst at The Jerusalem Post and Executive Director at the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis.

The views of the author does not necessarily reflect those of Greek City Times.

Guest Contributor

This piece was written for Greek City Times by a Guest Contributor

Copyright Greekcitytimes 2024