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Americans dreams and Turkey's plansReader comment on item: A Critical Moment For Turkey Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Jul 22, 2007 at 06:19 Dear James Vesce, Thanks you very much for your reply and kind words. > The pressing, current Turkish issues have included secularism versus Islamism, and also some competition for which brand of Islamism we prevail if Islamism is inevitable in Turkey. > The Turkish issues have also included the often-incompatible demands of security versus economic prosperity. In this realm of competing issues the secular military has taken the lead in demonstrating a willingness to move against the PKK terrorists in Iraqi Kurdistan while Erdogan's Islamists have been able to stabilize the economy and win support in the business sector, particularly among Anatolians. Erdogan's Islamists have been accused of being "soft on terrorists" whenever the military has been more willing to control the PKK. As far as the Kurds - be it those from the PKK or any others -are concerned , the Turks -be it "secularists" or "Islamists" - know no different points of view at all. Turkey is for Turks only and for no one else. If the Kurds don't want to become the "mountain Turks" as the official dogma make have them into, they have the choice between forced Turkification or extermination. In Turkey there is not a third choice for a national minority. Now it seems from what you say that the US is damn bent on helping the Turkish miliarists carry out another genocide. By the way, even if they do and with America's blessing exterminate the Kurds in Iraq, it will solve no Turkish internal problems. I say that bearing in mind the developments in Turkey in the wake of the successful Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. At that time it was again America that created all the necessary conditions for Turkey to apply its favorite tool of genocide, of ethnic cleansings, of wiping out a numerically and technically inferior enemy (the Turkish militarists would never dare start a war with an equal foe). The national euphory lasted for a short time though. Political murders (in thousands per year), corruption and economic stagnation brought victorious Turkey on the verge of a civil war which was only prevented by a military coup d'etat of 1980. > 200,000 troops have massed on the Turkish-Iraqi border, and both the military and the government have declared their readiness to invade Kurdistan in Iraq to defend Turkey from PKK terrorists. If you know Turkey's history, you might notice that all Turkey's wars (including the siege of Vienna or the Armenian genocide) were all waged to "defend" something ... "Islam", "freedom", "teritorial integrity", "honour", "save the Turks from genocide" etc. ... The Turks , if you listen to their own words, have NEVER been aggressors... Sickening Turkish lies as ALWAYS - readily bought by dupes worldwide. > Is that small Syrian incursion into Lebanon an echo of the small Turkish incursion into Kurdistan a few weeks ago? Are these Muslim countries "testing the waters" to see what reaction the US and Israel and NATO will show, if any? Exactly. > The American government has condemned a Turkish invasion of Kurdistan, naturally, but in other statements we have acknowledged that the US military has been unable to control the PKK, and we acknowledge that the Iraqi police and military have been unable to control the PKK. The PKK has been labeled a terrorist organization by the US, and by others, for years. And are the Americans so forgetful or stupid or ungrateful as not to mention that the Kurds are the only friends of America in the region ? Turkey is deeply anti-Semitic and anti-American. The Kurds are surrounded by implicable enemies eager to physically exterminate them. Their only hope is America (and Israel). And now America will betray them not to admit its defeat in Iraq, its impotence towards Iran, its incompetence and corruption and ignorance of its ruling class. Who are the Kurds for America, anyway ? Who were the Polish Jews in the early 40-ies for America? > We respect Turkey's right to defend themselves from terrorists. Don't you want to say something about America's respect for Turkey's oppression and discrimination of its national minorities and its open despise for human rights? Turkey is a totalitarian police state, one of the most oppressive regimes in the Near East. Yet America prefers not to see it. What America does see though is the violent reaction such a barabarian behavior of Turkey provokes among its oppressed minorities. > Turkey has asked the US to explain why PKK terrorists have been using American weapons, and the US does not want to be seen as sponsoring Kurdish Muslim terrorists. Ask Turkey what its "Grey Wolves" were doing in Azerbaijan under Abulfaz el-Chebey and later on, what its military advisors and mercenaries and weapons were doing in Nagorno Karabakh or in Chechnia? Ask them about the secularist "Turks" were so eager in reconstructing mosques in Kosovo ? If you wish I can provide you with more material of Turkey's hectic sponsoring of Pan-Turkism across Central Asia with money, spies, weapons, subversive groups. America is as usally clueless, isn't it ? It still lives in the dreamworld of having a "great ally" against the evil Soviet Empire, doesn't it ? > It is almost a sideways approval of a limited invasion when our military states that the Turks had enough military resources to provide for Turkish security before the build-up of forces occurred, sort of like saying that the 50,000 or so troops they usually post there would be enough, and such a smaller invasion would be more easily tolerated by us, and Turkey shouldn't need 200,000 troops. At his point it is almost as though we're dickering over the size of Turkey's invasion, rather than dickering over whether there will be an invasion. It is a shameful intrigue to hide the betrayal of the Kurds under the decent hijab of diplomacy. I am not sure if you can magine what a (limited or not) Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan will mean? The Turks will butcher anyone they come across according to the old saying : " Kill them all ! Allah will take care of those who were innocent. " and to their notorious genocidal traditions. > If the US wants somebody to engage the Iranians right now, it would be terrific if that privilege fell to the Turkish military. That would be a real good reason to "stand aside" while Turkey deployed their military assets. Turkey is the nation most likely to block an Iranian attempt to grab the lion's share of territory in Iraq, if such territory were up for grabs. This is your hope, dear friend. At the same time Turkey is playing its own game. Instead of fighting an equal enemy (the Turks never do that) , they might rather prefer to share the swag with teh Iranians. And what America will do if it turns out the Turks cheated the US? ...My answer is "Nothing"! > We're in the situation of having to pick between greater and lesser evils, and between more or less immediate threats, and between potential threats. We don't have a lot of good choices, but we have to choose. Experience teaches that America usually chooses a greater evil as long as there is no visible short0term gain . It is unable to think in the long run. But what is a lesser evil in the short run turns out to be a disaster in the long run. Remember Afghanistan! > Do the Turks expect their military to be in conflict with our military? I think not. With congress calling for withdrawing our troops from Iraq, Turkey expects their invasion to be "allowed" by the US. The Turks are too cowardly to confront America in the field. They prefer to erode America peacefully. It's more effective and costs less. > Congress will never approve sufficient military resources for the US to take on the Turkish military because Turkey actually has the biggest and most capable military force of any Muslim country in the Middle East. American-Turkish relations are important, as are Turkish-Israeli relations, and the Turkish military has consistently been willing to talk to Israel and the US during the same period of time when Erdogan's Islamists have pulled Turkey away from the US and Israel. Besides, Turkey has invested so large sums in bribes and buying politicians and journalists. There so many pro-Turkish vested interests in America that America will never start a war on Turkey even though national interests of America made it inevitable and necessary. Well, who in America remembers the Chester hoax? (It was one of the biggest hoaxes in history (1923)where the US was the dupe and Turkey the winner.) > We've asked the nations surrounding Iraq to take a more active role at maintaining peace in Iraq. It would only stand to reason that they'd move some troops into the regions where they'd "take a more active role in keeping the peace". Hey, it's the Middle East. Peace looks different there than it looks like here. If you mean "peace", I agree. If you mean "betrayal", I don't. > When all the dust settles later this fall, Israel may very well still be intact. All the attention is likely to have gone into determining the fate of the splinters of territory that used to be Iraq. The US military may have had a nice opportunity to retreat into rural regions of Iraq, and to have redeployed into positions far from the fighting in Baghdad. We probably should be moving some of the millions of tons of equipment we have over there out of the cities and into the desert, and we should prepare to either destroy it or give it to somebody we want to have it when we bring troops back to the USA. > When it's over, Turkey may have attacked Iran's nuclear sites. Or maybe Israel will have done it. Maybe we will have done it. With all the planes and missiles flying around, it's going to be hard to keep track of whose missile actually wiped out Iranian nuclear sites, and everybody except the Ayatollahs will be glad it happened. Once it's over and done, we can have a congressional commission study it for a couple of years. Or Turkey can become Iran's ally after a common conquest of Iraq. It may buy some of Iran's nuclear technologies and still pretend to be America's friend while planning its next move against America and the West. Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". << Previous Comment Next Comment >> Reader comments (265) on this item
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