Just a few comments

Submitted by Alexandros (United Kingdom), Jun 5, 2013 at 11:39

Dear Dr Pipes,

You write that Erdogan is no Assad or Kadafi, my answer to that is that he does not have to deal with armed forces like those two and in any case the Turkish state has always managed to massacre people by using unofficial armed groups. I would not be surprised if Erdogan used this way to attack the protestors and not the police. Let's wait a bit and see how these protests will end up, because if they continue, i am sure that Erdogan will not hesitate to use his Fanatic Islamists as a weapon!

Comparing the Turkish Economy with the Chinese is absolutely wrong by all means. Turkey is considered as a Democracy by some circles in Washington, but the truth is that there never was a Turkish democracy, the imprisoning of journalists is a slight example of the authoritarian Turkish state and is a tradition throughout the Turkish Republic, it is just that Erdogan has improved the methods :).

I must completely disagree with your last wish, because there are not such political forces in Turkey and never have been. The Islamists is the result of the Fascistic state under the Kemalists and now people are protesting against the Islamofascistic version. Whether they bring something new with them or behind them are the Kemalist Fascists is yet to be known.

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