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Wednesday, December 21, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let-
ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be
no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday.
To the Editor:
I would like to respond to Chuck
Humphries Letter to the Editor (The Nugget,
December 7).
I live in Crossroads. I have ridden my horse
past the McKenzie Gravel Pit (Highway 242)
for many years while people were in the gravel
pit shooting. Recently, I have been walking on
the same Jimerson Trail while people were
shooting.
I have never been afraid and have never
heard any bullets whizzing past me. Actually,
I think that anyone that could shoot from the
gravel pit into Crossroads or any place outside
of the pit should deserve some sort of medal.
I have stood in the gravel pit. There is a
very high barrier of dirt around the pit. The pit
is also surrounded by a thick forest.
The gravel pit has been there for many years,
long before Sisters Trails Alliance ever showed
up. It has always been a shooting area, even
before the firewood man used the gravel pit.
How I wish that the U.S. forest could be
managed by the U.S. Forest Service instead of
the Sisters Trails Alliance. STA has no con-
cept of private property rights. They think that
all of the land (public and private) belongs to
them. They want their trail to go right through
the middle of Crossroads for their bicycle
events. I want them to leave Crossroads and
the U.S. forest alone.
Sharon Thorkildson
See LETTERS on page 9
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Rachel
Marsden
American Voices
PARIS — An off-duty
Turkish police officer gunned
down Russia’s ambassador
to Turkey, Andrey Karlov,
Monday at a photo exhibit on
Ankara’s John F. Kennedy
Street, just across from the
U.S. Embassy. The assail-
ant, a member of the riot
police, positioned himself
right behind the ambassa-
dor, fired several shots at
close range, and then ranted
about Russia’s involvement
in the anti-jihadist operation
in Syria.
This incident is symbolic
of the chaos that plagues
Turkey and permeates its for-
eign policy. Is Turkey fight-
ing jihadism or sponsoring
it? When it comes to fog of
war, Turkey is the ultimate
nation-state smoke machine.
The shooting fell on the
eve of a trilateral meeting of
Russian, Iranian and Turkish
foreign ministers to address
the Syrian conflict.
“We are convinced that
those who planned this bar-
baric act aimed to undermine
the process of normalization
of Russian-Turkish relations,
mainly in order to prevent
effective counterterror-
ist measures in Syria,” said
Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov.
History suggests that
Turkey is hardly going to
allow rapprochement with
Russia or any other country
to deter it from having all
kinds of wild affairs on the
side — including with terror-
ist groups.
Turkey has managed to
convince Russia and the
United States that it’s a key
partner in the fight against
terrorism, all while assist-
ing the Islamic State and the
Gulf states that sponsor it.
Turkey is supposedly
America’s “friend and ally”
in the region. Turkey’s
Incirlik Air Base has served
as an operational hub for
U.S. and NATO to kill ter-
rorists, even as U.S. Defense
Department’s “Syria Train
and Equip Program” trained
local fighters in Turkey,
adding more tinder to the
conflict.
Turkey has also sought
better relations with Russia,
now that Russia has estab-
lished itself as arguably
the most influential foreign
power in the region via the
Syrian conflict. It wasn’t
always so.
In December 2015,
shortly after Turkey shot
down a Russian fighter jet
on the Syrian border, the
Russian Defense Ministry
conducted a show-and-tell
of oil smuggling routes to
Turkey. The smuggled oil,
which Russia claimed was
being bought primarily by
Turkey, funded Islamic State
terrorists to the tune of a
reported $3 million a day.
In the past year, Turkey
has been both friend and
nuisance to Europe, threaten-
ing to unleash a wave of up
to 3 million Syrian migrants
upon Europe if the European
Parliament didn’t cough up
more of the 6 billion euros
it pledged through 2018 to
fund Turkey’s Syrian refugee
camps.
As part of a deal with
Europe that was struck earlier
this year, Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
secured an agreement to lift
visa requirements for Turkish
citizens traveling within the
European Union, provided
that Turkey met a set of
benchmarks. As of today, the
restriction remains. A French
official close to the deal told
me that Erdogan has failed
to meet certain basic condi-
tions and is using antiterror-
ism efforts as little more than
a convenient pretext for his
own questionable political
agenda.
Erdogan also managed to
get the European Union to
agree to “re-energize” nego-
tiations for Turkey’s inclu-
sion in the EU. Great, that’s
just what Europe needs right
now: a new member with an
elusive agenda, questionable
allegiances, ambassador-
killing jihadists embedded
in its security services, and
a recent coup d’etat attempt
that has yet to be reliably
explained.
Turkey has positioned
itself at the center of the
global war on terrorism by
telling every player involved
what it wants to hear. Allying
with Turkey is like dating
a cheater. Anyone who’s
been with one knows that a
cheater is only loyal if there
are no other compelling
opportunities.
Russia’s ambassador per-
ished tragically in a chaotic
house of mirrors — one that
will continue to impede any
hope of lasting peace and sta-
bility in the region.
© 2016 Tribune Content
Agency, LLC.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.