Ottoman Dreams: Why Are Americans Surprised by Turkey’s Islamic Turn?
There is a distinct disadvantage to being an expert in certain professions and occupations. Standing too close to one’s subject, nose against the canvas, tends to lead to a loss of perspective. Clean demarcations and the multitude of critical details dissolve into an unintelligible blur. This is true of many different fields, from sports where team general managers make bonehead decisions to business in which CEOs bankrupt their companies. But it is especially true of politics where a variant of the law of diminishing returns seems to hold. With only a few exceptions, the more one professes to know, the less one understands. The closer one is to one’s subject, the farther one recedes from insight and comprehension. The reasons for this apparent paradox— apart from the usual ideological blinders — are an impermeable conviction in one’s political sagacity, historical ignorance, and an abysmal lack of common sense, which inevitably interfere with clear, perspectival thinking.
Over the last decade or so, this form of intellectual myopia was perhaps nowhere more obvious than in the West’s standard assessment of the “Turkish problem” — which was, of course, regularly and steadfastly deproblematized. The vast preponderance of politicians, journalists, academics, and talking heads, boasting an unwarranted attitude of inflated self-importance and influenced by the favonian winds of both the prevailing left-wing orthodoxy and a belief in a misnamed “realism,” sailed like the Israeli navy into a carefully prepared Turkish trap. Turkey was extolled as a beacon nation, a reliable member of NATO, a Western-leaning Muslim country, and a prime illustration of the compatibility between Islam and democracy. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan may be just another little dictator with a trademark mustache (which, at the beginning of his political career, he refused to shave off when ordered to do so by his quondam superior). But he wore a suit and not a Ghaddafi-style caftan, carried himself with dignity, and talked a consoling line to his ministerial peers in the West. Moreover, Turkey had established strong bilateral relations with Israel, even to the point of collaborating on military matters.
All countervailing signs were studiously discounted in order to preserve a cherished illusion. That Turkey refused to allow American overflights during the second Gulf War was somehow brushed aside as a mere diplomatic blip. That it launched forays into northern Iraq to attack the Kurds, America’s allies in the war against Saddam Hussein, was quickly forgotten. That Erdogan twice welcomed Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, indicted on charges of genocide by the International Criminal Court, was conveniently disregarded. Erdogan gave the show away as early as the 1990s, proclaiming that “democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off,” a revelation which had not the slightest impact on the supposed political acumen of most Western diplomats and public intellectuals.
Better had they listened to Serge Trifkovic, who wrote in The Sword of the Prophet: “If and when Turkey becomes a fully-fledged democracy, that instant it will become Islamic and anti-Western.” Even better had they read Erdogan’s celebrated 1998 poem containing the lines, translated as: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.” But, of course, our nomenklatura do not read. Turkey’s brokering of a nuclear fuel exchange with Iran to frustrate a possible sanctions consensus aimed at the mullahs’ nuclear program and its complicity in the infamous flotilla episode are merely further indications of the trajectory it is plotting.
What we are witnessing is a new and distressing, unromantic version of what Russian novelist Boris Akunin calls, in his book of that title, the Turkish gambit. As Erdogan gradually but inexorably began to move Turkey out of the Western ambit, attempting to criminalize adultery as an affront to “Turkish honor” and to overturn the ban against veiling in classrooms, working against the so-called “deep state” by arresting key officers in the Turkish army that had been rooted in the secular-oriented Kemalist tradition, and demonstrably aligning the country with the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas nexus of radical Islamic forces, those who are presumed to know something about the international arena — the “experts” — remained generally blinkered and indifferent to what was afoot.
Our State Department has a history of undermining American interests. It comes as no surprise that they misread Erdogan.
No misreading, no mistakes. US Dept of State works out of DC, /for/ Riyadh. What the House of Saud wants, the House of Saud gets.
Ever since Erdogan’s election I watched with alarm, understanding full well, that all was not kosher in Turkey land. While Israel’s leaders (prodded by the narrative scripted in Washington)pretended that Turkey was an oasis of tolerance among Muslim nations, I realized that most of their babblings were nonsense, as they wished and hoped that all was not as it seemed. While Turkey presented itself as a modern society, the fault lines demonstrating its Islamic tilt were evident way before the EU gave them the cold shoulder.
The fact that Turkey feels empowered enough to rip off its western mask, at this dangerous juncture in time, attests to their correct reading of the tea leaves.That Iran is ascendant, Islamism is on the march, and the west-with the US at its head-is in decline. Therefore, if brownie points have to be given, as to who is the more astute leaders among the pack,Turkey deserves the most cookies.
Truth, dare be told,the world is witnessing a seismic clash between east and west. BHO would do well to come down on the right side of history.In short order, Turkey and Iran(with their proxies in the wings) will initiate a clash with Israel, soon to spill over to the rest of the west.IF BHO does not step up, and clearly come down on the side of freedom, the world will never be the same.
Really – and I’m no expert!
Thank you Adina. Since you live in that area, common sense kind-of-dictates that you have a clearer picture of what is going on. We all sit here in th US watching porn, baseball and the great illusion called movies that we are TOTALLY ignorant of not only US history but of what happened aorund the world a century ago. Around Aug 2014 will be the 100th anniversary of the beginning of WWI. We have not learned lessons from that war,let alone WWII.Turkey was a big player in that one. Jihad back then and Jihad right now. The more you THINK things change, the more they have not changed at all.
We’ve been traveling from Bulgaria to Turkey since 1987. The general attitude of the average Turk to Americans is bad & getting worse. In 1987, we were considered “friends of Turkey.” People talked about how we are allies in NATO & stood up for ethnic Turks in Bulgaria.
At this time, you only saw the chador out in the back country in Turkey. Now women are wearing them all over Istanbul.
Now Turks very much dislike Americans. Instead of a smile, you will get a stone face or a glare. Idiots there believe all of the Islamic propaganda on TV shows that depict Israel killing Muslim kids & selling body parts to America. They are slowly turning their back on all of the reforms of Ataturk & want some form of Islamic gov’t which they will certainly have within the next 10 years if not earlier.
The current Islamic gov’t has jailed generals that would have temporarily taken over & prevent an Islamic Republic & they are now putting their own radical Muslim generals into power in the military.
Turkey is gone. Not only did the State Dept. completely blow it, but various administrations from Clinton to Obama have generally done everything wrong they possibly could have with the Turks. The West is now a closed door to them. Hello Iran!
I’m surprised Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism is suddenly spending hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars on slick commercials for visiting Turkey. This evening (Tuesday, 6/08/10) I saw repeated ads on CBS and ABC.
I have to ask, why would Americans visit Turkey now? The country seems to be making a terrifying turn. Recently, there have been a gruesome series of attacks against Christians of all denominations. A Catholic Priest was gunned down in 2006, three Turkish converts to Protestant Christianity were tortured with bread knives before finally being killed in 2007… In 2009, a German Tourist was stabbed to death outside of a Catholic Church in Turkey. And a Catholic Bishop was killed, his throat slit, just this week. I’m not even including attacks where Christians survived…
Again, why would any Westerner want to risk visiting Turkey as it turns toward the dark side?
Everything making Turkey attractive for Western military to suck up to them for- Bosporus base, air bases, road links, border security- makes them just as attractive and more so to the Sons of Muspellheim / islam.
Also, when will America really wake up to the fact that, just as socialists in the UK Australia and Canada have used flood immigration of unassimilable savages to achieve electoral aims and destroy the specialness of the West in world history, so now the toughest nut to crack, the exceptional USA, is now being squeezed and squeezed until it too will surely shatter.
The time to fight has arrived. As Churchill said, if you won’t fight when it was cheap and easy, if you won’t even fight when it’s expensive hard and victory elusive, you’ll still end up fighting, when your cause is hopeless.
Don’t let socialists write our future in the lifeblood of our loved ones.
Europe and the West generally seem to be intent on turning self-detruction into an art form. The latest installation: “Death by Delusion”….
This is just one more reason that our government and our play-boy president need to express, strongly, that we support Israel, have always supported her and will continue to support her. Anything else, like this waffling and apologizing by the president will give the enemies of Israel and of us, too, the idea that they can step on toes. Heard John McCain on tv the other night give an impassioned statement about America and her gifts to the world. Made me feel like I was in the real world again and not in Obama’s surreal sphere.
“How else to explain the fact that the European Union urged the Turkish government to limit the power of the secular military establishment and in so doing strengthened the Islamic parties — a political act which further weakened the Western resolve to combat the growing Islamic threat?”
Nice to see that the Europeans are going to be screwed by their own political correctness. Bravo, Europe! By alienating the Turkish secular miltiary establishment, you’ve allowed the Islamic fundamentalists to take over. Remember, Turkey is a lot closer to Europe than it is to the United States. What also makes this so much more ironic is that the Europeans have been fighting Turkey’s entry into the European Union for years. I guess they don’t mind Islamists who hate the West, so long as they stay in Turkey. Unfortunately, the Europeans don’t really seem to understand the hell they have unleashed on the world, and on Europe in particular. All they have to do is remember the Seige of Vienna of 1683. That should clarify their thoughts rather nicely.
The European elite admire the Islamist for he fearlessly fights for his cause, while the European will fight for no cause. The European knew deep in his heart what he was doing when he backed the Islamist parties against the Turkish military establishment. The European secretly desires destruction: after 100 years of socialism, socialism has won. In socialism’s drive to destroy its society in order to remake it in a totalitarian image, socialism has bred a new European, a European that believes in nothing, values nothing, despises his own people, race, religion, values, heritage, history, culture, and institutions.
If you can, visit Paris, London, Vienna, Berlin, and Oslo. Experience the food, wine, and culture. Experience first hand what your grandchildren will only be able to read about.
And who was in fear of the good ol’ Germans?
Cf. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/reawakening-german-nationalism/
another map: energy and pipeline map of eurasia, north africa, middle east
here’s the new map of the the region, in the best of all neocon worlds… according to one of your favorite neocon dingbats, ralph peters.
google text search: neocon peters “blood borders
google image search: peters “blood borders”
you think people dont see what neocons are up to?
Dummy on, dhimmi! It’s the jihad stupid. Your reward will be Sharia.
Not a Dhimmi but a Nazi like Helen Thomas. Remember, Hitler loves Muslims. The giveaway is the neo-con word.
That’s right. ‘Neocon’ – introduced by folks like Maureen Dowd to accuse Wolfowitze, Perle, Kristol and Douglas Feith of tricking the US to go to war in Iraq ‘for Israel’ is a ‘clever’ code word for ‘all bad things in the world are the result of a Jewish conspiracy directed by the modern day Elders of Zion.’
That is, it is a theory that all Jewish energy in the world is malevolent, channeled through the ‘Rothschilds’, etc., and that every Jewish patriot like the four mentioned above are agents not merely of the Mossad and Israel, but of the ‘Jewish bankers.’
The madness and clinical insanity of this very clear, no-matter-how-obscene-and-simplistic ‘world view’ was demonstrated for me by a former fellow poster on a tennis message board site, a member of David Duke’s party (as it turned out) who actually nominated Duke for President at one of the party conventions. This guy, from Mississippi, not only posted endless Jew-hating invective on this particular tennis retail site, but was also active on various 911 truther sites. I came upon him again at Hugh Hewitt’s web site when Hewitt interviewed Feith about a book that Feith had just written, and in which Douglas spoke of his disappointment of the Jew-hatred that had been directed towards him. This poster, using the same screen name he used at other sites, appeared to blast a pro-Bush poster who agree with Hewitt and Feith. That this guy exists is not really significant, that he represents the ‘world view’ expressed above, and that does not differ much from that of Maureen Dowd or many others, demonstrates just how active and virulent Jew-hatred has become.
I have not seen a single Truther – whether openly anti-Semitic or not – question the right of the US to exist should the theories of CIA, etc., involvement in 911 prove true. Yet nearly every one of these people not only denies Israel’s right to exists, but speaks about it as if it were demon spawn.
Sorry for the spelling errors. I am incensed at the utter stupidity and hatred of the human race.
No, neocon was the pejorative for Jew coined by Pat Buchanan in the late 90′s. Bill Buckley wrote an essay in the NR examining whether Buchanan was a holocaust denier and an anti-Semite. His conclusion was in the affirmative. While it is true that Jews made up a significant proportion of the original neo-conservative movement they were far from alone. An equal number of Irish Catholics were movement founders.
The original Neo-Conservative movement was started by former New Deal Democrats who rejected both the notion that socialism was the answer to all our problems and that the Great Society was well intentioned but hurt rather then helped. Neo-Conservative effectively died with the Reagan revolution and the defeat of the Soviet Union. Francis Fukayama’s “The End of History and the Last Man” can be considered the tombstone of the neo-Conservative movement. However, with the election of Obama and his attempts to revive the most radical elements of the New Deal with the results that we see in employment and his pro-fascist (red, brown and black varieties) foreign policy we made soon see the resurrection of the Neo-Conservative movement.
And into this void strides Barack Hussein Obama! Good grief!
The reason things are escalating, in the middle east and elsewhere, is the muslim world has come to the conclusion the Obama will be a one term President. We are only months away from war.
*sob*
I find no comfort in someone else seeing it.
A dead man is mourned seven days;
a fool, his lifetime.
Obama will not be mourned for seven days.
And the real proof Barry hasn’t got a Yiddishe Kop- he lives by this analect:
A good friend you get for nothing, an enemy you have to buy.
Let Turkey be Turkey. It’s good to see it returning to its roots, and to stop pretending to be Western. Of course, we’ll have to destroy them. Vienna, 1529 and all that.
“That Erdogan twice welcomed Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, indicted on charges of genocide by the International Criminal Court, was conveniently disregarded.”
Never rely on the ICC for moral judgments. And haven’t various EU states welcomed Mugabe? I won’t disregard that — I assume they’ll (again) become brutal dictatorships. No, really, I do. Like Turkey’s Islamism, Fascism (Nazism, Socialism, Communism) is EUrope.
Smart as I am, I was caught napping. Sure, I knew the Turks were reading Hitler for inspiration, killing apostates and beating women for recreation. But I forgot that any Koran thumping Turk has to do jihad to command self respect. So, all infidel lands once ruled from Istanbul must submit to Islam once again. Ambition can be a good thing, but not in this case. Do they have the guts to take on Israel? Maybe it takes a good licking to bring them back to reality.
ah.
we’re not at war now?
if we’re not at war now, where did the money go?
WW3.
Let’s face the facts – we ARE in a war. But it’s not a ‘War on Terror’ against a few ragtag misunderstanders of Islam. It is nothing less than: THE ISLAMIC WORLD WAR.
ISLAMIC WORLD WAR??
Let’s look at the facts:
Islam against:
- the Catholics in the Philippines (routine slaughter & beheadings)
- the Christians in Indonesia (routine slaughter & beheadings)
- Australian tourists in Bali (blown up…twice)
- the Buddhists in Thailand (routine slaughter & beheadings)
- the Hindus & Sikhs in India (hundreds of years battling the Islamic Jihad)
- the Jews in Mumbai (slaughtered)
- the Zoroastrians & Baha’i in Iran (virtually exterminated)
- Islamic converts to Christianity in Afghanistan (death fatwa)
- ancient Buddhist statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan (blown up)
- the Chaldean Christians in Iraq (routine persecution, slaughter & church burnings)
- the Jews in Israel (routine attacks against civilians, threat of 2nd genocide)
- the Jews in Yemen (nearly exterminated)
- S. Korean & German tourists in Yemen (blown up)
- the Coptic Christians in Egypt (routine persecution, slaughter & church attacks)
- the Christians & animists in Sudan (genocide)
- the Christians in Kenya (constant Jihadist threat from Obama’s homies)
- the Christians in Nigeria (routine Jihadist attacks)
- U.S. embassies in Tanzania & Kenya (blown up)
- the athiests in Europe (the prime target)
- the native French in Paris (torched car terrorism)
- Jews in Paris (read the grisly story of Ilan Halimi, a Jewish shop clerk who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in 2006)
- the native Swedes in Malmo (Islamic rape brigades)
- the native Dutch in Amsterdam (routinely terrorized)
- Dutch politicians (Geert Wilders & Ayyan Hirsi Ali – death fatwa)
- Dutch cinematographers (Theo vanGogh savagely murdered by an Islamist in broad daylight)
- Dutch cartoonists (Kurt Westergaard – death fatwa)
- Dutch newspaper editors (Flemming Rose, Jyllands-Posten’s culture editor – death fatwa)
- Train commuters in Spain (blown up)
- Tube commuters in London (blown up)
- Airports in Scotland (blown up)
- Jews in Argentina (blown up)
- Jews in Caracas (blown up)
- Twin Tower office workers in N.Y. (blown up – twice)
- Defense workers in the Pentagon (blown up – airliner jihad)
- Army/Navy military recruiters in Little Rock (gunned down by an Islamist)
- Soldiers in F.t Hood Texas (gunned down by an Islamist)
- Pedestrians at the U. of N. Carolina (run down with an SUV by Islamist)
- Journalists like Daniel Pearl (savagely decapitated by Islamists)
- Nick Berg, Kim Sung-il, Piotr Stanczyk, Jack Hensley, Eugene Armstrong, Paul Johnson (savagely decapitated by Islamists)
- Jewish centers in Seattle (slaughtered by Islamist Jihadist)
- Jewish centers in Toronto (slaughtered by Islamist Jihadist)
- Infidel Delta Airlines passengers (underwear bomber)
And on, and on, and on……….
It is Islam against everyone, everything, everywhere that is not Islamic.
It is Dar al-Islam against Dar al-Harb. Them against us, not us against them.
THE ISLAMIC WORLD WAR – mandated by Allah & Muhammed in the Koran & Ahadith: Bukhari (8:387) – Allah’s Apostle Muhammed said, “I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: ‘None has the right to be worshipped but Allah
THE ISLAMIC WORLD WAR – Muhammed’s legacy – it’s real.
~ The Infidel Alliance
islamo delenda est.
Well, as my old granny used to say – every cloud has a silver lining! The Turks are more and more unlikely to be joining the EU, so we in the UK won’t have to shuffle up to accommodate a couple of million Anatolian goat herders!
i have faith that we’ll get in a nuke war, the war will be bad enough that jesus will come back, and, instead of turning water into wine, will turn water into oil.
jesus will turn enough water into oil that sea level will be lowered, we can burn the oil and deposit another trillion tons of co2 into the atmosphere without causing global warming and sea level rise that will endanger israel.
in the meantime, the israelis will have to do a mossad hit on jesus and other deathwish christians who figure they have to convert jews or kill them.
when the dust settles after all this, we can start repairing the world.
good deal.
Then there’s the war between the voices in your head, eh? Yeah we’re already at war. However, this one might even get some on ya, if you’re not careful with how you position your tinfoil hat.
magic is magic.
depends on whose magic is strongest, doesnt it?
all we gotta do is have a little nuke war to find out who’s the boss.
looks like the turks have figured out that israelis and israeli americans, for all their ferociousness, are basically chickenshit.
so, the israelis and israeli americans have to start a nuke war to prove they’re not chickenshit.
what if they are chickenshit?
what if the money is the main thing?
they gonna nuke the goose that lays the golden eggs?
“Why Are Americans Surprised by Turkey’s Islamic Turn?”
This American is not surprised. I know little about Turkey in detail, but I’ve been aware of the overall trend. Meanwhile, fancying himself the Apostle of Liberty to the Mussulmen, Bush was holding hands with the Saudi despot and babbling about the magic of democracy. (Not to mention ignoring that Chavez was resurrecting South American Marxism.)
And his replacement is Barack the Lightworker.
“Why Are Americans Surprised by Turkey’s Islamic Turn?”
Because the Turkish Constitution forbids it?
Because the Turkish Army has come out of its’ barracks on more than several occasions to take the Islamist’s out and then returned to their barracks to await the scheduled election?
I rather imagine we are seeing this because the Clinton/Clinton/BushII/BushII/Obama intelligence services haven’t been encouraging enough to the secularists in the Turkish Army.
I’m afraid Erdogran has jailed most of the army officers who might have at one time opposed him. You can’t count on the army this time.
You can thank EU reforms for a lot of that as well.
Democracy IS like a streetcar; it goes where the majority rule wants it to go.-In this case islamism.
As someone wise said long time about democracy is some Islamic countries – One man, One vote, One time;
Turkey is quickly turning into Venesuela and Edrogan resembles Hugo Chavez. Things will be very interesting in the ME…
Is Turkey about to re-Islamize, restore the caliphate and restart the jihad against the West temporarily suspended in 1683 in Vienna, this time with nukes and a huge fifth column in Europe? Study Islam’s history free online with the Historyscoper at http://go.to/islamhistory
Keep up on the daily evolving threat of Islam with the Historyscoper:
http://historyscoper-islamwatch.blogspot.com/
Who does history award Jerusalem and environs to, the Jews or Muslims. Find out by scoping Jerusalem’s history with the Historyscoper:
http://historyscoper.com/tlwjerusalem.html
Obama and the Turkish Government have pretty much shown us the lies told by “Liberals” and “Progressives” for the last 75 years…
Whether we have the wisdom and courage and strength to do anything about it is now the important point…
Well, seems it’s not a question of if but when Turkey will leave NATO (I think they should be thrown out). With this in mind, I think we should remove the Turks from the F35 program, not good to arm these guys with fifth generation fighter aircraft. Also all other FMS should be stopped.
Chris, didn’t you hear, Obama has cancelled the F35 program, that’s a year after he cancelled the F22 program. Apparently its not needed even though the Russians just flew their first version of the F22 and China is rushing to copy it too.
In a public gathering in 1998, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the ruling Islamist party and current Prime Minister of Turkey, recited:
“The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers…”
These words earned him a conviction and minor jail-term for inciting religious hatred.
Ah, the good old days!
This also made Erdogan ineligible to become Turkish Prime-Minister – but the law was rewritten later by his friends.
“Why Are Americans Surprised by Turkey’s Islamic Turn?”
—
Because most Americans believe that the purpose of the nightly news is to tell them who won American Idol.
So Europe advised Turkey to restrict the power of the military establishment and thus strengthened the Islamic parties? Another explanation offered a Turk I met in March/April in Alanya(appox. ten thousand Germans have houses here, I am told). As a student the Turkish man told me(he had visited the highly respected German school in Istanbul before), he focused on the life in villages inside Turkey. In many houses he met 12 year old “brides” who already lived in the houses of their “would-be husbands, often very young boys, too). Then Germany asked for workers and many of those villagers came to Germany. Life was far more comfortable in Germany and after some years their families followed and the culture and religious tradition of rural Turkey. Money was sent to Turkey, to the families but also to religious parties. People from the villages poured into Istanbul and refused to take off their scarves. Erdogan tries to open universities to women who cover their head but our Turkish friend claimed that he watched women who did not wear a scarf in the city but readily covered their head when they entered university. That made him very furious. Religion should stay outside the institutions he demanded. However the story is less simple. Not only since the US run themselves into difficulties, the tendency of Americans to sort out the world in useful or less useful countries does increase the problems (remember the terms “old and new Europe” that annoyed all of Europe). And Israel? Do I really have to support the present Government of Israel in order to prove that I am not an anti-Semit? Or I am anti-Israel when I confess that I really dislike Lieberman(I am reading JP every day). At least for me every coin has two sides and a story can be told in various ways. Turkey is still a very modern and attractive country but they are very proud people and I would not insult them. Perhaps both, Turkey and Israel need a new government?
Interesting that you focus on Lieberman. I will not debate his views here, since they are complicated thought not nearly as right-wing as some claim. In Israel there is coalition politics. That is why there is Ehud Barak, with his Oslo legacy. You don’t seem to have a problem with Barak, who helped bring Israel to this pass by his appeasements of Arafat and his night flight from Lebanon. By focusing on Lieberman, you indicate (by omission) that you will only like an Israel that retreats.
Thus it makes sense that you ‘morally level’ between Israel and current, Erdogan Turkey, when this is grossly unfair.
It would help if you could give a non-anti-semitic reason for not supporting the current govt of Israel.
Is Lieberman more or less extreme than Erdogan? Think about it…
The above comment was written by me but somehow I seem to have forgotten to write my name on it. As there is already somebody here who writes under the nickname “Anonymous” I think I should clarify the matter(though my style of writing shows clearly that English or American English is a very exotic language to me). Anyway, I am sorry for the trouble I might have caused.
As the religious administration’s actions place the Constitution
and the country at risk, the Kemalists will gain support;
Nothing the military may have to do to prevent war can compare to
the damage done to the nation if it goes to war with Israel.
Don’t forget Erdogan’s attempt to pack the Supreme Court with his goons. The law came into effect a month ago, and there will be a referendum pretty soon. Erdogan’s attack on Israel is a nice diversion.
Read more on my blog:
hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com
The referendum is scheduled for September. What is left of the Turkisk press is trying to get the attention of the useful idiots in the EU, NATO, and US. Do they not read Hurriyet?
Does NATO even have a mechanism for expulsion?
Do the Turkish Kurds and Alevis get to vote? Turkey is an Islamic mosaic. The Kurds tend to be Sunni. The Alevis are a form of Shi’a, but not Twelver Shi’a like Iran. And the Zaza ‘denomination’ is split between Kurd and Alevi.
Erdogan may have overplayed his hand, with the followers of Gulem angling for a power play in the AKP.
basically, what’s happening here is the neocon solution to peak oil, aka the 9/11 operation, and the ensuing “global war on terror”… which seems to hinge on control of oil.
now, after five of six years of basically flat global oil production, a deteriorating situation in which ukraine and turkey seem to have turned, and one disaster after another from the israelis, the obvious solution is nuke war.
and nuke war is a good deal for the deathwish christians, who figure they’ll be sucked up out of their socks when things get bad enough.
so now the thing we have to wonder about, is: when will the deathwish christians decide to give god a hand in getting rid of jews?
or are jews just magically gonna disappear themselves in the deathwish christian end times?
Yap, it’s the Christian fault that PM of Turkey is Islamist?
Read more about Erdogan and his claims on my blog – and then come back and tell me if you knew this.
BTw, Erdogan said that there is no genocide in Sudan, because Sudanese president is a moslem, and moslems cannot do genocide. Does this sound like christian fault to you?
hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com
i dont see why you should get your panties in a wad about the turks turning when it’s become obvious that israelis and israeli americans intend to break up turkey and give part of turkey to a new kurdish nation.
what do you expect from the turks?
the deathwish christians will go along with anything israelis want, because that’s what their religious leaders have told them to do, and if israelis want to break up turkey, well… WTF?
in the meantime, it’s interesting to think about the magic: will deathwish christians succeed in exterminating jews before jews can wipe out deathwish christians?
Hm. So far, the only country that’s being losing territory is Israel. But as a death-wish liberal you cry for Turkey which has only gained territory (check out it’s war with Greece). Can you explain why? Is there any rational explanation for your idiocy – except malnutrition in your childhood?
israel’s loss of territory
*shrug*
Have you ever thought for yourself? Nothing in your latest post gives any indication that you have.
It’s amazing how you can be both so uninformed, and yet so stupid at the same time.
The war on terror is about controlling oil? Just how much oil does Afghanistan have? If you answered none, you would be correct.
Iraq has oil, but while we controlled the fields, all of the revenue was transfered to the Iraqi govt. Since then, control of the fields has been returned to the Iraqi govt.
As to your belief in peak oil, that’s as ill-informed as every other opinion you spew on us.
Tell me, is there any group that you don’t hate?
Don’t forget what it says in Turkish Penal Code, Article 301:
1.A person who publicly denigrates Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.
2.A person who publicly denigrates the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security organizations shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and two years.
3.In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased by one third.
4.Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime.
Read more on my blog:
hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com
the deathwish christians arent ready to think about who’s gonna kill the jews in the deathwish christian end times, huh?
killing muslims is a good deal.
killing jews is iffy… or maybe not so iffy, after all.
To tdiinva, you correctly state the genesis of the neoconservative moment. I was attempting to state the ‘uses’ of the term ‘neocon’ by today’s left. From what I have read and heard, it is indeed quite often a euphemism for ‘those @#^*( Jews.’
Sorry, previous post to tdiinva was from me. I forgot to enter my name.
So, according to our trolls, no matter what Iran or Turkey or the rest of Islamist loons do, it will all be Israel’s and America’s fault if actual war breaks out? Why? Jooo money and/or Christian millenarianism! Muslims, apparently, are only interested in lives of the spirit. The religion of peace could not possibly want to act upon infidels in an unpeaceful way. Newsflash! It’s the jihad stupids!
who said, a year before all this got started, that they needed “a new pearl harbor” to get it started?
you got some kind of monopoly on intelligence?
Has there ever been a time and place in history where Islam was diminishing?
Have they ever experienced setbacks in number of followers?
Does anybody know?
Anybody know this? Is there any history of Islam not growing?
Someone above said 99.8% in Turkey were Muslim. Islam has become increasingly dominant in Central Europe really fast – from like zero to 10% in 30 years.
If it never diminishes and only grows everywhere it gets a foot hole. How long time do we have left? Maybe in 2050 we’ll all be Muslim and happily so.
Maybe it’s an unstoppable mind virus. And we have already lost. We just don’t know it yet.
islam is the third iteration of the same religion.
you should expect it to replace judaism and christianity just as vista replaced XP.
progress
if you’re a luddite, you can reject all religions, and giggle.
If Islam is progress, I’ll do without it. If you actively support such ‘progress’, I will just as actively resist it.
blockquote>“If Islam is progress”
not my problem.
it’s the problem of people who surrendered their minds to religion in the first place.
Enjoy your nihilism then.
you dont have much choice, do you?
you can kill muslims, then, when it comes down to the bitter end, you can kill jews.
Opposing Jihad does run the risk of kill or be killed.
Those who don’t have much choice, if the Jihad continues, are those who don’t wish to submit to Islam. So then, the ‘choice’ that you will exercise is to surrender and submit.
Actually, I’m Jewish and have no desire to kill anyone, but also understand that adopting a ‘viewpoint’ such as yours is necessarily fatal to any prospects of a future.
Sorry, Mormonism and Scientology replaced Islam – and they were later replaces by communism and naziism.
No wonder you post anonymously. You don’t want to embarass your parents.
the problem seems to be, with you deathwish christians, is that you cant anwswer the main question…
how you gonna get rid of the jews?
One thing that constantly amazes me about most atheists. Is how utterly ignorant they are.
“vista replaced XP. progress”.
Have you ever actually tried to use Vista ?
The worst case scenario would be that the North Koreans use a new Mid-East war as the signal to launch their
attack on South Korea, giving the US a two front war to worry about.
Which would also provide China with plenty of cover to annex Taiwan.
Nothing good comes from the projection of weakness. Thanks O!
The vast majority of Turks are poor, rural, traditional and Islamic and they got their guy elected and he is governing in accordance to his primary constituents. This has always been the turbulence churning under the surface venier of the secular Kemalism form of government – it is at odds with the majority culture.
Europe was probably correct at delaying the entry of Turkey into the EU. Much easier to deal with Turkey outside the intimate legal structure of the EU. One argument for admitting Turkey into the EU is that by proximation and association Turkey would transform its culture into a secular European compatible culture…I think that is/was always a fantasy.
Given the end of the cold war and thus the end of much of what NATO was designed for particularly regarding Turkey, it will be interesting to see how Turkey’s membership to NATO unfolds. If Turkey is really an open adversary with little to no cultural affinity, we probably don’t want them as part of our umbrella defense treaty and with access to our technology, methods, strategy, etc.
We are living in interesting times.
And Greece has fallen into hedonistic disrepair. Worry about Isreal yes but at least Israel can stand up for itself. Greece is burning it’s buildings down because Germans don’t want to pay Greek pentions.
Turkey outside of NATO would be a huge mistake. The time may come but it is not now.
Who will save Greece from an agressive Turkey? Yep it’s Russia…welcome 1850 all over again.
it gets to be a matter of sanity.
if you think you’re so precious that you’re willing to wreck everything to preseve the way you think about yourself… that’s one thing.
if you’ve manipulated everything to make more money, that might be something else.
if everything’s gonna be wrecked anyhow, because we’re running out of easy oil, should we cash in on the wreck?
so, what it boils down to, is: is it sane to kill millions of people to make money?
What’s insane is the BS you keep posting.
if god is dead, what’s the next best god?
This is what too much Chomsky on an empty stomach will lead to every time. Man, I’m glad I’m not you.
is it sane to kill millions of people to make money?
Dead people rarely pay good money. Which is why Microsoft and Google are so profitable.
Is that why atheists kill millions then?
…you can kill millions of people provided that they’re not quite people.
i can see that.
how do you decide who’s “people” and “not quite people”?
what if there’s nothing left but chickenshittedness?
does that mean that whoever’s the most chickenshit, wins?
it that the theory israel is operating on?
No, I’m certainly not, but lots of online citers of Turkey as prime example of Islamic country that goes progressive have had their arguments deflated.
Know Muhammed, no peace.
No Muhammed, know peace.
It’s really as simple as that
~The Infidel Alliance
Why are we so surprised?
Because we failed to recognize Turkey for what it always was: a treasonous ally, a resolute enemy, and a despotic state to the core.
When many in the West waxed poetic about either the Kemalist autocrats or the Islamist “democrats” in turn is that they failed to realize that Kemal’s status quo relied on everything remaining just so, and that any shift would bring one side to power at the expense of the other. The world is just realizing now how utterly and completely Kemal effed up the situation in Turkey, and now we are reaping the seeds of that.
I restate what I have always felt: Turkey never has been and never will be an ally save in the most cynical and superficial sense against a force that endangers them even more than us under either the Kemalists of the Islamists. The sooner we realize that the sooner we can start taking appropriate measures.
While anonymous is so far out of touch with the real world that he doesn’t really deserve anyone’s time or comment I nonetheless would like to make an observation. After making the totally absurd assertion that Islam is the third iteration of the same religion he goes on to say that if you’re a luddite, you can reject all religion and, giggle.
I hope the self imposed’ and fiercely guarded, ignorance that he puts on display isn’t representative of a significant portion of the population.
Anyone who has studied these religions at all would know that Christianity (“I have come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it”) could rightly be considered an extension of Judaism, hence the Judeo-Christian tradition, while Islam (“kill the Christians and Jews”) seeks to repudiate the Judeo-Christian tradition and is in fact its antithesis.
The idea that in an Islamic country he could reject all religion and giggle is nonsense; he might, however, be able to reject all religions and gurgle — on his own blood as he is being beheaded for blasphemy.
I’m constantly amazed by how little your average atheists knows about the religions they claim to have disproven.
Dear Dr. Bones,
Somebody critical who is also concerned for the fate of the alone Heimatland Gottes might do a fun compare-and-contrast starring Neocomrade (fifth class) D. X. Solway, terrible infantry of Qannádî Literature, and one of those Latino Lit. “magic realists” from the wrong side of the other border.
“When snowbacks meet wetbacks, then comes the tug of war.”
“So far from V. Ye. Zhabotinsky, so near ‘the Democrat party’ !”
And so on, and so forth.
But seriously, the unhappy unhome of Bigot and Laval [1][2] has, in the fullness of time, brought forth an interesting, if perhaps slightly hubrid, neofruit in the shape of this NC5 DXS mechanism.
To talk Turkey with a Qannádî neogent of literary pretensions is enough to make a geographer’s head spin as well as her globes and astrolabes, so I’ll just notice that the snowbacks, unlike the wetbacks, do not seem to mind letting us holy-Homelanders™ grab a historically unwarrantable monopoly on the words ‘America’ and ‘American’. Just look how it has seemed good to Roger Kiddiemaster Padjaama to label this fresh slice of neobologna!
With the Solway mechanism, I fear, there is always the parochial possibility that it would not, part of the time, prefer the Party base an’ vile to forget that it is any sort of alien at all.
A misjudgment of which we shall, I trust, never be guilty.
Healthy days.
___
[1] The obit A. D. 1708 Laval is not to be confused with the died ABCE 1945 one, naturally. Father Zeus forfend such a mix-up! “I knew Pierre Laval, and he was no Montmorency!”
[2] Poor M. du Chauvin seems not to have any connection with Hyperborea West. Indeed, Big LEW, the Learnèd Elders of Wiki, suggests that Old Nick may even lack connection with the former or pre-Rovan Real World. But Father Zeus knows best.
LEW notes en passant that “Researcher Gerard Puymège … argues that the figure of Chauvin continues the long tradition of the mythological farmer-soldier or Miles Gloriosus from ancient times in Greek mythology,” which suggests tweo things to the present coarse and illiterate keyboard:
(1) that M. de Puymège (“who?”) might conceivably profit from a tourist-class ticket to Cincinnati OH, and
(2) that one may as well admit the honourable and gallant M. Jean de Martinet ( obit 1672) into the Solway Gallery of Colonialiana. Especially now that the Neos*m*tes of Tel ’Avîv have finally exhibited some proper Sea Might!
The hero of Century XI/XVII/LIV lacks Qannádî connexions, though you should bear in mind that ’twas only the Sun King himself who never set on la nouvelle France; most of his subjects appear to have been scarcely aware of the snowdump’s existence.
Great article and right on the money. On the other hand I do have a problem with writers who make-up words. I’ve checked online and in three hard dictionaries and I cannot find “deproblematized” anywhere!! Some one with such obvious writing skills and great insight shouldn’t need to make-up words to get the message across.
Ironically I just hit the spell check on this post and that was the only word in red!!
“we are led by imbeciles” is right. The Turk are hypocrites that have been blockading Armenia for over 15 years.
Great article, a thorough and insightful analysis of the Turkish problem. Obama should have it on his desk with the current intelligence report tomorrow morning. Solway’s political analysis is enhanced by his writing skill.
The tornado spin of the Sufis has returned to Turkey. Israel is not her target, Vienna is. The Turks were not stopped until they reached Varna in Poland. If I were Greece, Serbia, or Croatia I would take notice. Its a cold wind these Sufis will stir up.
what i can’t understand is how any one could ever believe that a follower of the pedophile prophet was a friend or allie.when i started reading about pisslam i realised it was a criminal enterprise of liars, murders and thieves.when i met mooslimes they confirmed my view when these bums tried to rob me i showed my gun they ran.all muzzies are the enemy of free men every where and the need to be destroyed.
“democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off.”
I have to confess that I don’t recall reading that quote anywhere previously, and am disappointed at myself as I was a Turkophobe long before he actually said it, but it is a real clincher.
It also perfectly expresses the attitude of Islamists all around the world, who are riding the democratic rails merely to get to where they want to go. Once they arrive, the rails will be torn up, since the journey to an Islamic state is intended to be only a one-way trip.
As a German I never was and never will be in support of Turkey becoming part of the EU. Now I dispise the EU as much as I do the UN. However, American’s claim that Turkey is the most important European Ally that we have is erroneous. Turkey never was or ever will be another European country. It was always islamic till Atatuerk and what we see now is a reversal to what it once was. So it should come as no surprise except to those who have no idea about world geography and populations.