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Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Hardly Turkish Delight [Victor Davis Hanson]
I thought (and wrote to that effect) that both the gratuitous and toothless Senate resolutions calling for the de facto trisection of Iraq, and condemnation of Turkey for the century-old Armenian holocaust were unnecessary barbs that would only inflame an already anti-American Turkey.
BUT we should confess that much of Turkish anti-Americanism is ill-founded and derives from their own ongoing fights between Islamists and Attaturk Secularists and has nothing to do with anything the United States has done. Recent polls reveal that Turks are among the most anti-American and anti-Christian peoples in the world, the latter fact not surprising to anyone who reads deeply of the 500-year history of Hellenic-Ottoman relations.
A second point: by and large the United States has treated Turkey well. We support its entry into the EU; we tried to be fair in the Cyprus dispute (despite the Turkish brutal invasion in 1974); we offered a lot of money to use bases to supply the invasion of Iraq; we advise the Greeks patience in the face of constant Turkish overflights in the Aegean. We were a good ally in the Cold War, and kept the Soviets doing to Turkey what it did to Eastern Europe.
Again, nothing really justifies the elemental hatred that the present generation of Turkey seems to exhibit for America, or the perverted manifestations of anti-Semitism or things like the mega-hit, anti-American film and subsequent TV series Valley of the Wolves (replete with murderous American soldiers and an organ-harvesting Jewish doctor).
Where does that leave us? I believe we need to cool the resolutions, continue to talk nicely to Turkey, send out diplomatic peace-feelers, assuage Turkish wounded pride, hope for the bestand start making immediate contingency plans for a possible dramatic break from this erstwhile critical Nato ally.
And that would mean backup plans should it become necessary to abandon facilities inside Turkey, and seek closer relations with Armenia, Kurdistan, Greece, Cyprus, and other regional neighbors. Perhaps both sides have been clumsy, but there are developments going on in Turkey that are far larger than inept diplomacy, and we should quit denying the danger, or despair that without the old Turkey we are adrift in the Eastern Mediterranean. We are not.
We should never promote such divides, but recognize the current course of Turkish politics is not necessary ahistorical, but may in fact be a natural reaction against the historical aberration of Attaturk's secularism, as European Turkey begins to become overwhelmed, demographically and culturally, by anti-Western, anti-globalization Anatolian Islamism, and thus begins to replay the historical role of the Ottomans-whom, contrary to current orthodoxy, I don't find to have very been positive for civilization as a whole.
10/23 07:20 AM
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/articles/2005/1116turkey_taspinar/taspinar20051116.pdfTerrorism, at best, is defined locally and within the framework of domestic grievances. Turkeys focus on the PKK, in that sense is a national concern and creates no solidarity with Americans who instead tend to focus on the al-Qaeda threat. Quite the opposite, Turkeys concern about the PKK is often accompanied with conspiracies about American support for Kurdish nationalism that only exacerbate anti-Americanism.
On the other hand, it would be misleading to blame the power mass media for the current scale and scope of anti-Americanism in Turkey. Similarly, blaming the unilateralism of the Bush administration would be reductionist. How can one otherwise explain the fact that George Soros, a Democrat financier-philanthropist who loathes the Bush administration, is almost equally reviled in Turkish circles? Turkish distrust of the United States does not discriminate ideologically.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39186Nearly two-thirds of the Turkish public named the United States as their country's greatest future threat, a recent Pew Global Attitudes Project survey has revealed the highest percentage of any Middle Eastern or Islamic country polled.
Dr. Emre Erdogan, a political scientist and founding partner of Infakto Research Workshop, says that this is "a result of intensifying terrorist activities of the PKK" an armed militant group founded in the 1970s also known as the Kurdistan Workers Party which has found increasing support since the Iraq war began.
The Turkish people "perceive the US as responsible for the worsening situation," said Erdogan in a World Public Opinion (WPO)/Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) analysis of the Pew results.
The "increasing terrorist and political activity of the PKK" is seen to be "under direct supervision of the Northern Iraq Administration and the US," and the Turkish media "continuously present evidence for this [US-PKK] collaboration," said Erdogan.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/...nbul_protests_curse_the_pkk.html?hpid=topnewsYoung people gathered at a statue of Kemal Ataturk, Turkey's secular founder, and unfurled a banner reading, "Americans Murder Your Darling Mehmet. (Mehmet is a common male name in Turkey and synonym for Soldiers.)
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bstephens/?id=110010769The Ankara government has been pressing the Bush administration to hit PKK bases for at least four years. The administration has responded with a combination of empty promises of future action and excuses that U.S. forces are already overstretched in Iraq. For the Turks, who contribute more than 1,000 troops to NATO's mission in Afghanistan, U.S. nonfeasance is a mystery, if not an outright conspiracy.
UK, Turkey sign strategic partnership
http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-20/0710235892181107.htm
- We will extend bilateral trade
- establish British-Turkish joint universities
- cooperate in pipeline and energy politics
- create Industrial zone in Basra (Iraq)
- deepen intergration into EU
- make cultural exchange programs.
- deepen security and intelligence cooperation
- coordinate counter-terrorism activities
and many many more.
Both our countries regard vice-verca as "strategic partners".
And this phrase is worth its ink on the paper written. Unlike to other "allies".
So roomy you either go on playing "schizophrenic" English-Man diametrically against your countries stance, or just stop spamming at me.
I can not take you seriously.
Turkey is a tool for the west, you are being used as a pinch bar against the rest of the Muslim world you ignorant, childish fool.
Turkey is a tool for the west, you are being used as a pinch bar against the rest of the Muslim world you ignorant, childish fool.
http://www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page13591.asp
Mr. Einstein, so UK as biggest EU-lobbyist before Italy, Spain and Scandinavian countries is supporting Turkey on EU accession because the west is useing Turkey against the rest of the "Muslim world".
Also UK is supporter of Turkish-Iran energy cooperation.
Because UK will itself profit from this via energy cooperation with Turkey.
UK backs an Iran / Turkey gas deal
http://www.gas-guide.org.uk/blog-uk-backs-an-iran-turkey-gas-deal-63.html
British energy companies and Turkish companies will invest in Joint-Venture into gas fields in Iraq.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article1512222.ece
Next step is setting up joint-venture Industrial Zones in South-Iraq from UK and Turkish industry companies.
Establishing joint universities and so on. Whole range from security, energy, economy, intelligence, culture.
This is no usage in meaning of ownage.
This is cooperation to multiply both countries interests in the region by working together.
And now please stop with spam. I am expactant of what Americans have to say to my posts.
Whew! For a minute there canavar had me thinking our British cousins were abandoning us. I thought you blokes had found yourselves a new best friend and would be taking the side of the Turks in all matters international.
Your thoughts are not that what i said.
Turkey and UK cooperate well.
There is no equation that everything is dependent on USA. In this clarification either UK or Turkey can make what they want in their bilateral relations, and actually we do for centuries.
Allthough my sentences were made on a US message board, it was related to an English man who thinks trying to piss me in every post he makes.
I just tell him, that he acts schizophrenic diametral to his own Nation's stance.
And now enough, i think roomy got the message, that he has heavy knowledge gaps about Turkey-UK relations.
Murdering, child molesting bastards.
I have been saying for years that there will be a trifecta. (if you want to call it that. in Iraq There is no way that they will come up with a tripower government. and Since this is about turkey, I have also stated that the final results will be a kurd nation made up of northern Iraq, and several other portions to include part of Turkey.Watching Carnavar change over time, I must say I'm unsurprised at what is being found here:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmE5NTRjYWViOTMxMDI4Mjg4MjM2ZGY3ZTZhYmUzMmE=
Watching Carnavar change over time, I must say I'm unsurprised at what is being found here:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmE5NTRjYWViOTMxMDI4Mjg4MjM2ZGY3ZTZhYmUzMmE=
You are under my niveau.
Fuck off.
