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The honeymoon with a barbarianReader comment on item: Islamist Turkey Overreaches Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Jun 12, 2010 at 16:21 Froike wrote : " I'm glad some contributors brought to light the fact that not all Turks support Islamism and Erdogan's policy." Are you also happy to learn from Dr. Pipes article that "Turkey is nearly 100 percent Muslim" (the CIA Factbook says "99,8%" ) ? In other words all of them are Moslems so that one might and should suspect the difference between those who are for and those who are against Erdogan is not so much about Islam after all as they all acept Islam's notorious and nonsensical dogmas but rather about something else , like e.g. privileges of the Kemalist power elite including hefty wages and pensions for the officer corps with free housing , free health care etc. which many Turks greatly resent . > Hey...let's face it, I didn't vote for Hussein Obama. I'm quite certain that there are intelligent Americans that share my political views too.< Didn't your neighbours call you a "racist" for opposing the first non-white president ? As far as I remember Obama took full advantage of his race , didn' t he ? > The point is, and well taken, that most of the recent history between Israel, Turkey, and the West has been a positive one.< "Positive" ? Definitely , engineering the invasion of Cyprus in 1974 on behalf of Turkey by Kissinger and his acolytes and tacitly conniving at the barbarian desacration and destruction of the island's non-Moslem heritage by the "secular" Turks was a very "positive" contribution from the Turkish point of view and greatly consolidated and re-inforced the mutual trust and respect between the US and its staunch NATO ally , wasn't it ? The indiscriminate Turkish descarations and vadalisms in Cyprus include , beside typical Turkish robberies and theft of antiquities , also typically Islamic measures to assure Allah's glory and supremacy as e.g. the small fact that "around 500 churches and religious sites belonging to the Greek-Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Cyprus, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Holy Monastery of St. Katherine in Sinai, the Roman Catholic Church, the Catholic-Armenian Church, the Catholic-Maronite Church, the Jewish community, as well as the Protestant Church, along with their cemeteries have been willfully desecrated, pillaged, looted and destroyed". (Interestingly enough, not a single Moslem site was desacrated by the "secularists") And this all was done by our guardian angels of "secularism" - the Turkish army equipped to the teeth and trained by the US ! It goes without saying that without American approval and cooperation the Turks would have never dared set their foot on the island , let alone provoke a bloody invasion with napalm bombings , expulsion of population , rapes and other atrocities . The second "positive" aspect of the US-Turkish and Israeli-Turkish honeymoon I can see is also worth stressing . You may well have heard of the Armenian genocide . Well , in Turkey you go to jail for 3-4 years if you don't deny it . But one might be prone to think who outside the Orwellian Turkish republic would believe the Turkish denial lies ? Yet , how wrong this guess is ! Both the US and Israel had long supported and identified themselves with the impudent Turkish lies despite frequent warnings and protests from concerned citizens and organizations . The Turks found new powerful associate for their dirty lies and so didn't care about resolutions and outcry among the weak of this world . Through America and Israel they long manipulated the world opinion so as to play down the historical truth of repeated genocides committed by the Turks . And as Israel and merica started revising his support for the genocide denial , the Turks grew furious . And I do assure you that in the question of the denial of the genocides there is not the slightest difference whatsoever between the so called "Islamists" and "secularists" ! I hope sincerely though that now both the Americans and Israelis will learn their Turkish lesson well and will stop the self-defeating policy of supporting scoundrels that seem to serve their narrow short-term interests . A third "positive" aspect of the relations is the benefit which backward and primitive Turkey of Kemal's time received from America . Turkey build a modern well -organized army with plenty of latest weapons . And both sides were interested in this "positive" development . The Turks got arms which they could never dream of while cash made man US arms companies and arms lobbyists affluent and so dependent on teh Turkish contracts . From 1950 to 1998 Turkey bought from the US weapons amounting to the sum of $11 662 920 000 . For such a mountain of gold it is very easy to forget the Cypriote churches changed into mosques and stables , isn't it ? But , well , one might think Turkey was an outpost against evil communism after all and needed and deserved US military aid and confidence . But again it's a badly misleading conjecture ! Turkey got most of its US made weapons not during , but after the Cold War ! As the above quoted study reveals : "U.S. sales to Turkey during the Clinton era have been more than four times as large as the entire value of U.S. arms transfers to Turkey during the 34 years from 1950 to 1983." (!) Apparently very powerful protectors took care of Turkey's re-armament contracts and the story of "good secularists" that badly need weapons to save Turkey from "Islamism" , PKK or leftists was a God-sent one despite the fact that the US arms were used maily to annihilate Kurdish villages just as in 1974 the American weapons were used by the Turks to terrorize and exterminate the Greeks in Northern Cyprus , not bad Russians . > I believe we should encourage and foster strong ties with the Secular Turks, who do not support terrorism and who truly want to keep good relations with Israel and the West. < Your "secularists" are no doubt in favour of continuing "positive" relations with Israel and the US from which they have gained so much for so little for such a long time . But I suspect that also Turkish "Islamists" won't mind resuming "positive" relations on secularists' terms . Also here I can't see why they should oppose huge arms transfer from America to Turkey to use them e.g. for exterminating the Kurds as during the Clinton era or against Israel (who knows what the next Turkish provocation will involve ) . > Perhaps they can vote Erdogan and his Islamist supporters out of office? Let's pray they can.< I am afraid that in view of the above I can't pray with you at all . I don't believe in the Turkish story of good Moslem "secularists" opposing bad Moslem "Islamists" . Whoever is in office in Turkey doesn't deserve - to put it mildly - neither our trust nor our support , let alone our prayers ! 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. 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