" Turks give NOT ONE FIG about America's "vision for Turkey"" - Isn't it an understatement ?

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), May 19, 2007 at 11:36

Dear Mariana,

Thanks a lot for your profound analyses. You're a very knowledgeable person on the subject . I wish those irresponsible decision-makers in Washington were aware of how much damage they're doing to America's and the world's interests through their fawning on Turkey's jingoism.

> The United States of America requested transit through the territory of a NATO ally [which, incidentally, is in NATO precisely because of its location]. In response, Turkey, believing the 4th Front was indispensable, tried to extort a rather extravagant price; when thwarted, they "picked up their ball and went home." When he denied this "request," he abrogated prior pledges and responsibilities. This is not a "little thing" among nations.

> I recommend you re-read The Godfather by Mario Puzo. Pure Macchiavelli in modern day setting.

In the meantime I suggest we take a glance into what the Turkish intellectual public enjoys reading and dreaming of .

At present the best-selling book on the Turkish book market is a rabidly anti-American and jingoistic war novel "Metal Firtina" ("Metal Storm") set in the year 2007 (!) by Burak Turna and Orkun Ucar. The authors are a military affairs reporter and a science fiction writer respectively . It sold already 150 000 copies - a record number for Turkey. They started writing their book soon after the incident on July 4, 2003 happened . At that time American soldiers arrested 11 Turks who were organizing assassination of the Kurdish governor in Kirkuk .

The plot commences by depicting a lightly different incident somewhere in Northern Iraq . US troops open fire on a group of Turkish commandos . This incident is soon followed by hostilities . U.S. tanks promptly invade Turkey from Northern Iraq . The Turkish armed forces after a heroic struggle are crushed . At the same time U.S. warplanes strike Istanbul and Ancara and annihilate the two cities . In despair Turkey turns to the European Union and Russia to form a larger anti-US coalition . But it is not the EU cowardly and cynical politicians , but traditional heart-felt Turkish heroism that never gives up to foreign aggression . A Turkish patriot steals a nuclear weapon stationed by the wicked US troops in Incirlik Air Base . With help of another Turkish hero acting without any intructions from the Turkish General Staff or Intelligence , he knows how to take revenge upon the aggressors for their horrible crimes against Turkey and humanity . The agent manages to smuggle the nuclear bomb to the US and detonates it in a park in Washington . A dream of every terrorist comes true at last ! Something much much better than 9/11 is efefcted ! The U.S. capital is levelled to the ground and contaminated for centuries while freedom-loving Turkey's honour and valour is restored .

Cem Kucuk, one of the editors at "Timas Yayinlari" , the book's publisher, declared in an interview :
" The book is fiction but in Turkey everyone is questioning whether there
will eventually be a conflict between America and Turkey," ."

http://www.kurd.org/newsletters/20050224171052.html#2

The book seems by all means worth being translated into English and popularized , even filmed , in America as well .

I'd like add here one more comment . Since "Metal Firtina" is said to be the Turkish militarists' ( or 'secularists' to follow Dr. Pipes' usage ) favourite book at present , a potential imaginative translator of "Metal Firtina" might be tempted into introducing a few more than justified variations as compared to the original to make the book both much more realistic and exciting . The following changes would seem reasonable .

Long before the border incident is staged , the Turkish General Staff and Gpovernment engineers a vast anti-American coalition . Through their Islamistic superiors in the government the "secularists" manage to secure willing support from Iran , Saudi Arabia and all other rabidly anti-American Moslem countries . Russia and China access the coalition , but the EU as usually vacillates and finally takes a neutral stance . True to their official name the Turkish secularists publically profess "secularism" , stage mass demonstartions with the slogans "million moderate Turkish Moslems for secularism" , "Turkey secular for ever" , bribing the media and intimidating crtics which lull Americans into believing Turkey is as pro-American as ever . While the whole Islamic world is bound by secret pledges and treatises to 'secularist' Turkey , two nuclear bombs are bought from North Korea ; one is sold to Iran .

The plot develops further according to the ideas of Burak Turna and Orkun Ucar . However at the end when the atom bomb explodes in Washington and awe and shock paralyze America , Iran annexes Iran threatening America with another bomb in case it tries to protest . Russia reconquers the Caucasus , China recuptures Taiwan while the Moslems from the Near East declare and conduct a victorious jihad against the EU . They accuse the EU of collaborating with the Satanic American Empire , of being the breeding ground of atheism and Islamophobia . The EU is overrun and partitioned among warring Moslem sects and nationalities . Turkey is rebuilt with Saudi money as a Wahhabi emirate and the Palestinians have at last their chance to implement their final solution of the Jewish problem .

I think that if the Turkish public has a right to imagine the future according to their own anxieties , covert wishes and longings , then the public in the West has an even more justifiable right to do the same according to their own Western sensibilities.

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