by Summary:
The prosecution of Mehmet Hakan Atilla has further strained relations between US and Turkey.… A US judge sentenced Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a banker at Turkey's state-controlled Halkbank, to 32 months in prison on Wednesday after he was convicted earlier this year of taking part in a scheme to help Iran evade US sanctions.... The case has further strained diplomatic relations between the United States and Turkey, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned it as a political attack on his government.… Prosecutors had sought a sentence of about 20 years for Atilla. However, Judge Berman said before imposing his sentence that the evidence presented at trial showed Atilla was a minor player in the sanctions-dodging scheme, and "at times a reluctant one at that," largely
Topics:
Mike Norman considers the following as important: Iran, Turkey, US economic warfare, US sanctions
This could be interesting, too:
The prosecution of Mehmet Hakan Atilla has further strained relations between US and Turkey.… A US judge sentenced Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a banker at Turkey's state-controlled Halkbank, to 32 months in prison on Wednesday after he was convicted earlier this year of taking part in a scheme to help Iran evade US sanctions.... The case has further strained diplomatic relations between the United States and Turkey, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned it as a political attack on his government.… Prosecutors had sought a sentence of about 20 years for Atilla. However, Judge Berman said before imposing his sentence that the evidence presented at trial showed Atilla was a minor player in the sanctions-dodging scheme, and "at times a reluctant one at that," largely
Topics:
Mike Norman considers the following as important: Iran, Turkey, US economic warfare, US sanctions
This could be interesting, too:
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The prosecution of Mehmet Hakan Atilla has further strained relations between US and Turkey.…
A US judge sentenced Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a banker at Turkey's state-controlled Halkbank, to 32 months in prison on Wednesday after he was convicted earlier this year of taking part in a scheme to help Iran evade US sanctions....
The case has further strained diplomatic relations between the United States and Turkey, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned it as a political attack on his government.…
Prosecutors had sought a sentence of about 20 years for Atilla.
However, Judge Berman said before imposing his sentence that the evidence presented at trial showed Atilla was a minor player in the sanctions-dodging scheme, and "at times a reluctant one at that," largely following orders from his supervisor....
The Turkish president has repeatedly condemned Atilla's conviction, most recently on Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television...
"If Hakan Atilla is going to be declared a criminal, that would be almost equivalent to declaring the Turkish Republic a criminal," Erdogan said.Anyone taking bets on how long Turkey lasts in NATO?
Middle East Eye
Turkish Banker Sentenced to 32 months in US Prison for Evading Sanctions
See also
The major debate taking place is over where one goes from here. There are two distinct schools of thought, one of which basically asks whether continuation of what is essentially a unipolar world, supported by US power, in which the United States continues to be able to assert its vision of world global good order. This has been defined by Washington as a mixture of expansion of liberal democracy plus more-or-less free trade.…
The alternative view is quite different, asserting that Washington’s blow against Iran will ultimately be a Pyrrhic victory for Donald Trump as the blatant interference in what was a universally accepted largely successful treaty in which Iran was fully compliant will produce a global backlash against American interests.I would say that they are both correct, to a degree. Washington still has enough clout to enforce its will, however, unpopular. But the US leadership is fast burning through its political capital, and American soft power is decreasing quickly, reversing a longstanding rising trend as the US in growingly perceived as the global bully.
Increasingly also, the US is becoming viewed as a rogue state which believes it is so exceptional and powerful that it is above the law and can do as it pleases in the world, recklessly trampling the interests of other states and peoples. That is unsustainable without war.
Strategic Culture Foundation
Will Trump"s Pyrrhic Victory End with America"s Role As Global Bully?
Philip Giraldi, former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer, now Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity