East & West

Submitted by Kevin Synnott (United States), Apr 6, 2009 at 17:03

Yasemin,

Turkey has been a bridge between the East & West for several hundred years. Kemal, your first president saw different role for Turkey in the modern world and created a different course for it. It has been a very successful course for Turkey.

Turkey has no reason to fear Israel. Israel attacks no one without provocation. While the fighting and dying has been going on in and around Israel for about 60 years, that is not the only 'war' in the world. A great deal of killing and suffering goes on in the Sudan. Over 3 million people have died since the present government took control in 1989. Over 4.5 million have been driven from their homes. There have been tens of thousands of rapes and other acts violence committed.

That doesn't seem to attract any attention. No one seems concerned about the death and suffering. Can you supply an answer to that?

Some members of the Islamic faith are at war with those they live alongside. In Africa the Islamic government wants to create a pure Islamic state in the Sudan, there is killing in Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, the Congo, Rwanda, and a couple other places.

There are Islamic radicals attacking the Buddhists in Thailand, and Hindus in India, the Catholics in the Philippines.

Animists/Pagans, Buddhists, Christians (in Africa & Asia, it is just not the white ones. Hindus, Jews, and other Moslems. Which group do they live in peace with? No other nation, religion or people have that record. Why is this?

"All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke, English philosopher.

How long can good men watch evil and do nothing, before they become evil?

I agree with Our Country at Peace, the World at Peace. I wish everyone else agreed as well.

"The absence of war is not necessarily peace." -US President Kennedy

I am glad my country is secular and I intend to work to keep it that way. I don't want anyone telling me which church to attend nor how to worship. If I decide I no longer like what is happening in a certain church, I wish to be able to find another church or just stay home.

Like you I do not want to see Turkey lose its secular society. I think women should be able to choose their own clothes. if women do not want to wear the burkha that's fine, but they should not be beaten. If they want to wear it of their own free will, that's fine with me.

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