Then things started going to hell for him. Maybe karma really exists.

He was about to do a major deal with Syria for some sort of federation agreement, then he switched 180 degrees and became the front line for regime change. When the leaked wire taps started flowing in December, the bloom was off the rose. The guy was on tape using his son as a bag man. Erdogan must stay in power to avoid prosecution. Ironically, the constitutional reforms passed by his party are the very one's he's violating all the time. Guy's over the cliff, imho.

Just something I read today about Syria's long ago known of and ongoing water crisis:

Children that aren't even involved will suffer.

Isn't water a resource?????

I mean it is a river, a rather large one at that. Do they have mega-reservoirs?

Good question. Here's part of the answer:

"Turkey controls the Tigris and Euphrates headwaters, as well as the reservoirs and infrastructure of Turkey's Greater Anatolia Project, which dictates how much water flows downstream into Syria and Iraq, the researchers said. With no coordinated water management between the three countries, tensions have intensified since the 2007 drought because Turkey continues to divert water to irrigate farmland." Bloomberg BusinessWeek Feb 13, 2013

"The Euphrates River has already shown a substantial change due to a partial completion of the GAP. All planned dams on the Euphrates have completely been built and while complete irrigation has not been implemented, this already has negative effects on Iraq and Syria concerning water quantity. Between 2000 and 2001, and since 2008, there have been a series of severe droughts in the region, dramatically reducing water flow to Iraq and Syria. Since April 2009, the Iraqi government has communicated official statements to Turkey to release more water from the Euphrates.

"The storage capacity of the constructed five dams on the Euphrates within Turkey is about 90 cubic kilometers while the annual mean flow of the Euphrates River is approximately 32 cubic kilometers. The planned capacity of the dams in the Tigris River Basin is 20.5 cubic kilometer, and the annual mean flow of the Tigris is approximately 17 cubic kilometer at the Turkish-Iraqi border. In other words, the water storage capacity of the existing and planned dams of the both rivers is more than enough to cease water flow for a long period of time." Kurdish Herald, Sept 2009

I live in a wetter place but it seems like 32 cubic kilometers is not much. I bet the Wisconsun River drains more.

Anyway, if I was Turkey I would think twice about topping off all these new resevoirs and dams. The recent history proves that they may not be up to snuff.

NATO be damned.

All this tells me is they are willfully trying to provoke a strong reaction and if you get it, it is because you wanted it and I don't give a shot if they gas you and in fact, I will consider it as if you took the actions yourselves against your own people.

So which other treaties should be ignored?

(On second thought, I agree with your position. The us has been a terrible ally for generations. What is one more betrayal?)

If they get attacked in retaliation for water hoarding then I believe any wound would be self inflicted.

Thanks for the thread, Purveyor.

It's used all over the world. Water wars, happened here in the west 100 years ago. It's happening in China, Bangledesh, India, and many more places. Not really sure why this is news and the other places are outright ignored.

In India there are army outposts on rivers that have been cut off of Bangledesh.