Turkey's Islamist Party's victory in the democratic election may spell the death of Kemal Ataturk's secularist legacy.
Turkey’s ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) nomination of its foreign minister Abdullah Gul to the country’s presidency to replace a secular incumbent in April set off a political standoff with the secular military. The staunchly secular army, apprehensive that Mr. Gul’s election may undermine Turkey’s secular and democratic principles, issued a veiled threat of coup. Their main cause of concern lies in Mr. Gul’s public display of piety and his wife’s donning Islamic headscarf. The same applies to Gul’s more religious boss, Prime Minister (PM) Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his wife.…
Article comments
26 - RJ
#24
Great post, Franco. The MSM has been doing their best to ignore this issue, but the facts are still getting out there via talk radio and the interwebs.
This really is one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen, politically, in my lifetime. An overt attempt by a major American political party to drive a wedge between the United States and a longtime NATO ally, in the middle of a war, purely for political gain.
Nancy Pelosi, for all the many botox treatments, and all of the expensive facelifts, appears ever more a hideous monster as the weeks go by...
27 - REMF
"Nancy Pelosi, for all the many botox treatments, and all of the expensive facelifts, appears ever more a hideous monster as the weeks go by..."
- RJ Elliott
Is she worse than "5 deferments" Dick Cheney...?
28 - Franco
#23 " RJ
I've been reading this all day today and it is making me sick.
I know you know too exacly what the new Congress is doing.
It's telling that so many don't. Or worse, won't admit it.
But none dare call it treason...
29 - Franco
#26 " REMF
Yes.
30 - Dave Nalle
The comments here from RJ and Dave show that when anybody in the American government tries to do something decent or good, some call it treason, and others call it stupid. Realpolitik is the art of sweeping unspeakable evil under the rug, eh, Dave?
Ruvy, I made a one line comment about the political opportunism of the democrats and didn't say anything about the genocide issue, so count me out.
As has been extensively explicated here, several things are true.
• The Armenian genocide was a terrible thing and the Turks should have been held accountable for it 60+ years ago. At this point an apology ought to be sufficient.
• The democrats are making use of it now purely for political advantage. They haven't cared about it before this, so only the current political climate explains their sudden interest.
• Whatever the reasons, pissing off the Turks right now would be bad for Bush and the war in Iraq, but who it would REALLY be bad for is the Kurds and the Iraqis for that matter. Do the Kurds deserve to be fucked over as they have been by the Turks and the west and everyone else for just about as long as the Armenians have?
So put aside the political issue and consider this question. Is recognizing the suffering and death of millions of Armenians almost a century ago so important at this point that it justifies the suffering and death of millions of Kurds and Iraqis.
I don't have a great deal of respect for those who think of genocidal warfare as a political tool or collateral damage for their ambition.
Dave
31 - bliffle
I don't remember people being this upset at Turkey when they wouldn't allow Bush to invade Iraq from Turkey in 2003.
32 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
What you navel-gazing Americans all seem to forget is that the world no longer revolves around the smelly waters of the Potomac and the congressmaggots who meet nearby adding to its pollution.
Pelosi's Armenian resolution is not of particular relevance here. What is, is whether the present system of Turkish governance will last or will it undergo yet another permutation similar to the revolutions in 1878 and 1912?
That is what this article has dealt with - and that is what you have all singularly ignored....
33 - Dave Nalle
Ruvy, as sometimes happens, events overtook this article while people were still commenting on it.
Dave
34 - Clavos
"The playing of the Armenian genocide card at this moment in time is strictly a back-door effort at curtailing US involvement in Iraq by cutting off supply military access routes for the war through Turkey."
Quoted for Truth.
There's no question that it's a cynical, purely partisan attempt on the part of Pelosi and the Dems to frustrate the Administration.
That it likely will help to destroy 80+ years of progress in the world's most democratic and progressive Muslim country, as well as lose the US a valuable ally nation, seems not to be of consequence to them.
Also of apparent little consequence is the fact that it was not the Turkey of today, but rather the Ottoman Empire which committed the atrocities, and that they took place before the vast majority of Turks alive today were even born.
35 - Franco
#32 " Ruvy in Jerusalem
That is what this article has dealt with - and that is what you have all singularly ignored....
You included Ruvy, so do tell...
Whats your perspective from your neck of the woods.
Will the present system of Turkish governance last or will it undergo yet another permutation similar to the revolutions in 1878 and 1912?
36 - Franco
#26 - RJ
Thanks RJ
I have seen MSM reports come out in the last 24 hours claiming that al-Qaeda in Iraq has been badly crippled as a result of the surge. This is not good news for the Demarcates.
It is a welcome sight to see some MSM counter insurgency taking public news moves against Congress’s scheme.
37 - Martin Lav
Two faced Republican scum.
I thought your party stood for principles and what's right from wrong?
While Bush entertains the Dali Lama on the White House lawn, while giving the finger to the Chinese.
China must not be strategic militarily.
The only issue I have with this thing, is that the Democrats are too chicken shit to pull the plug outright on BushCo. and cut off funding for the war.
"At this point an apology ought to be sufficient."
Wow, that ought to do it....
38 - Clavos
"Two faced Republican scum."
Thank you, martin, for that cogent and effective assessment.
Classy, too.
39 - bliffle
"I have seen MSM reports come out in the last 24 hours claiming that al-Qaeda in Iraq has been badly crippled as a result of the surge."
Share a citation, please.
40 - Martin Lav
How did Al Qaeda get in Iraq?
41 - Dr Dreadful
bliffle, #39:
I tried to help you out. I had a quick look at half a dozen major news websites, including a couple which are more than likely to be sympathetic to the Bush admin., but nothing leapt out.
Unless it's tucked away inside some other story. You'd think it would be big news, though...
42 - bliffle
Franco and RJ tend to quote from neocon editorials, not news sources. But they claim that as "MSM".
43 - Dr Dreadful
Well, two of the sources I checked were the London Times - a Murdoch paper - and Fox News.
Fox, especially, has been claiming vociferously that the "surge" is working pretty much since before it even began. Yet even there, nothing.
44 - Dave Nalle
The demise of al Qaeda in Iraq has been pretty well known for a month or so. That the MSM is just picking up on it would be typical.
However, it's not that the surge is working, even though that may be what the MSM is saying. The explanation is more complex and has more to do with changes in strategy than with number of men on the ground. And those changes could have happened without the surge.
dave
45 - Dr Dreadful
That the MSM is just picking up on it would be typical...
...it's not that the surge is working, even though that may be what the MSM is saying...
The MSM isn't saying anything - that's our whole point. Franco and RJ appear to be making this up out of whole cloth so that they can say, "See? Told you so - we were right all along."
46 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
"Whats your perspective from your neck of the woods.
Will the present system of Turkish governance last or will it undergo yet another permutation similar to the revolutions in 1878 and 1912?"
My own perspective is this. The "secular" system that has worked in Turkey for eighty four years or so is about to change - whether that change will be immediate or not, I cannot say. But in my opinion, the CUP is about to be overturned, and Turkey is definitely headed for a more Islamic state, and this will heighten tensions in the region - just some more powder on the keg leading to a big blowup soon....
47 - Martin Lav
Did anyone notice that MSM totally missed the Turkey drug smuggling connection to Haliburton's subsidiary Brown and Root?
This could be part of BushCos. refusal to hold the Turks to account.
As the Bush Secretary of Defense during Desert Shield/Desert Storm (1990-91), Cheney also directed special operations involving Kurdish rebels in northern Iran. The Kurds' primary source of income for more than 50 years has been heroin smuggling from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Iran, Iraq and Turkey.
Having had some personal experience with Brown & Root, I noted carefully when the Los Angeles Times observed that on March 22, 1991 a group of gunmen burst into the Ankara, Turkey, offices of joint venture Vinnell, Brown & Root and assassinated retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant John Gandy.
In March 1991, tens of thousands of Kurdish refugees, long-time assets of the CIA, were being massacred by Saddam Hussein in the wake of the Gulf War. Saddam, seeking to destroy any hopes of a successful Kurdish revolt, found it easy to kill thousands of the unwanted Kurds who had fled to the Turkish border seeking sanctuary. There, Turkish security forces - trained in part by the Vinnell, Brown & Root partnership - turned thousands of Kurds back into certain death.
48 - alessandro
While it sounds logical, reversing the Turkish alliance in favour of Kurdistan and Armenia seems unrealistic and implausible - to me anyway. I believe bliffle posited this.
Part of what makes Turkey crucial is its geographical location (it is a fixed ally in many ways) and that it is secular and democratic (shared political values).
Not only that, it is a sizable economy and a proven reliable ally looking to join the EU. Both the U.S. and Turkey still could use one another. That said, alliances are made to be dismantled as history often showed - if we go the realpolitik route.
In this light, the proposal by the Democrats is incredibly irresponsible and should be taken for what it is at face value: frivolous partisanship.
No one doubts Turkey needs to address the Armenian massacre but I fear the Democrats are shamelessly showing their poor sense of timing. Turkey is an important country on the terrorism front.
If this is their idea of "progressive" international diplomacy then the attacks on them about being "failures" and "losers" is justified.
It is too bad Turkey's progress as a secular Muslim state has gone right over the heads of most of the Muslim/Islamic world. Once again lending credence that they have only themselves to blame for most of their troubles.
49 - Martin Lav
I think its not about Iraq, but Iran. The Dems think if they can piss off Turkey it will hinder any effort to bomb Iran.
50 - Dave Nalle
The MSM isn't saying anything - that's our whole point. Franco and RJ appear to be making this up out of whole cloth so that they can say, "See? Told you so - we were right all along."
I heard it on the local radio morning show on Monday when they had an expert on from Stratfor.com and were treating the al Qaeda decline in Iraq as pretty much established fact.
I've been hearing about it for weeks on some of the more 'direct access' sites I frequent, like Iraqi blogs and military sites, so I assumed it was generally filtering into the MSM.
So, when I heard this suggestion that it was the MSM outside of Fox was not acknowledging al Qaeda's failure in Iraq, I did some checking. In fact, the MSM is picking this story up accross the board, including left leaning media.
Here's the article from The Washington Post. Here's coverage in Rolling Stone.
The issue appears to be whether al Quaeda is totally destroyed or merely crippled and whether it's time to publicly announce that they are neutralized or if it would be wiser to wait and see if they can reestablish themselves.
Meanwhile, non MSM sources are saying that al Qaeda is redirecting their own efforts, pulling out what's left of their key elements in Iraq and focusing elsewhere.
Dave
51 - Clavos
"Meanwhile, non MSM sources are saying that al Qaeda is redirecting their own efforts, pulling out what's left of their key elements in Iraq and focusing elsewhere."
"Elsewhere" being....where?
Iran?
52 - Dr Dreadful
Well, the Rolling Stone 'coverage' just cites the Washington Post piece and then kicks off their own discussion on it.
I didn't spot that story when I went to the WP's website - I see that it was published yesterday, so it may have been taken off the home page by the time I looked for it. I also haven't heard or seen anything in the broadcast media or on the web. Everyone seems more preoccupied with the Turkey/PKK/Iraq situation at the moment.
I'll keep watching. We'll see if anything more pops up.
53 - Dave Nalle
Pakistan and Sudan seem to be high on al Qaeda's relocation destination list right now, Clavos.
dave
54 - STM
Turkey is heading for Christmas dinner
55 - Franco
#46 " Ruvy in Jerusalem
Thank you for your perspective. I hope your wrong. For both our sakes.
For me, there are way too many issuse going on with Turkcy to even take a guess.
56 - Franco
#49 " Martin Lav
I think its not about Iraq, but Iran. The Dems think if they can piss off Turkey it will hinder any effort to bomb Iran.
A good argument could be made to support that thought. But the Dem.’s want the troops out now, and Iran and Afghanistan is where are.
57 - Franco
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Some Democrats appear to be wavering
58 - RJ
"I have seen MSM reports come out in the last 24 hours claiming that al-Qaeda in Iraq has been badly crippled as a result of the surge."
Share a citation, please.
WaPo:
The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.
...
There is widespread agreement that AQI has suffered major blows over the past three months. Among the indicators cited is a sharp drop in suicide bombings, the group's signature attack, from more than 60 in January to around 30 a month since July. Captures and interrogations of AQI leaders over the summer had what a senior military intelligence official called a "cascade effect," leading to other killings and captures. The flow of foreign fighters through Syria into Iraq has also diminished, although officials are unsure of the reason and are concerned that the broader al-Qaeda network may be diverting new recruits to Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The deployment of more U.S. and Iraqi forces into AQI strongholds in Anbar province and the Baghdad area, as well as the recruitment of Sunni tribal fighters to combat AQI operatives in those locations, has helped to deprive the militants of a secure base of operations, U.S. military officials said. "They are less and less coordinated, more and more fragmented," Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, said recently. Describing frayed support structures and supply lines, Odierno estimated that the group's capabilities have been "degraded" by 60 to 70 percent since the beginning of the year.
...
"AQI is definitely taking some hits," the official said. "There is definite progress, and that is undeniable good news."
59 - RJ
Pelosi Wavering on Armenian Resolution:
ABC News' George Stephanopoulos Reports: According to Congressional and Bush administration sources, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now unlikely to bring a resolution which would label the deaths of Armenians in a conflict more than 90 years ago as "genocide".
Pelosi, as recently as Sunday on "This Week", has repeatedly said she would call the controversial but nonbinding resolution for a vote despite the opposition of the Bush administration and warnings that it could damage U.S. relations with Turkey.
President Bush called Speaker Pelosi on Monday night and asked her to pull the bill. But Congressional sources say that Pelosi is telling House members that she will not bring the bill to the floor without majority support.
At least seven House members have withdrawn as co-sponsors of the bill and several more are expected to follow. Key Pelosi ally Rep. John Murtha, D-Penn., is also lobbying against a vote.
Key House members continue to canvass members but don't expect a vote this year.
60 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I don't give a rat's ass if Pelosi is wavering, waving or revolving, or if she has finally found her groove. The Democrats (and the Republicans, too) can all burn in hell for all I care. I'd like to know what you guys think about where TURKEY is headed?
Or don't any of you have the ability to see beyond your own borders - or your navels, for that matter?
61 - alessandro
The Armenian lobby is pretty strong. I doubt Pelosi did this solely out of the goodness of her heart.
"Why are Armenians eating lasagna?" Les Nessman.
Counterinsurgency expert and theorist David Kilcullen explained on Charlie Rose in an engaging interview how the surge was strategically meant to work and according to him it has made headway.
62 - Dave Nalle
I thought we'd already established that Turkey was going to hell in a handbasket or perhaps to thanksgiving dinner.
In Turkey, just like Iran, it comes down to nationalism vs. islamism. Right now it looks like the Islamists have the upper hand, but that's happened before, and the intense nationalism in Turkey has generated powerful resistence. I imagine that's likely to happen again, but crap like what Pelosi is trying to do with the Armenian genocide is just designed to push the nationalists over to the same side as the Islamists, which is the worst possible outcome.
dave
63 - Martin Lav
I wonder what's driving Turkey more toward Islamism? Could it be their perceived "war on Islam" that's contributing to this?
64 - moonraven
According to the Turkish Parliament, Turkey is heading directly toward an attack on kurds in Iraq.
Seems pretty obvious.
The kurds can be the Armenians of the twenty-first century, apparently.
65 - SeeBeyondNavel
A NATO member ideally positioned to serve as a bridge between the West and the Middle East, Turkey's secular constitution and economic progress should have made it an example for other regional states to emulate. Instead, Turkey has been aping the blighted regimes of the Arab world:
* Exploiting the population's disgust with government corruption, Islamists gained power through the ballot box - and immediately started dismantling the secular legacy of Kemal Ataturk.
* On the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Turkey stabbed the United States - its only dependable ally - in the back, denying passage to our troops in the fateful illusion that Ankara could save Saddam.
* Turkey strangled its (always faint) chance of membership in the European Union with internal repression, ludicrous prosecutions, farcical legislative efforts to Talibanize society and its stubborn denial of the Armenian genocide.
* Instead of winning Europe's approval, the government-sponsored anti-American hate speech poisoning Turkey's media only strengthens European convictions that Turks "aren't our kind."
* Impatient to send Turkish troops into Iraq to attack the PKK (a radical Kurdish group with a terrorist past), Ankara might face a startling military embarrassment, further alienate Washington - and finish off its last prayer of EU membership. (The Europeans just want excuses to keep Turkey out - and Turkey has a genius for providing them.)
* Despite the potential for a mutually beneficial relationship with Iraqi Kurdistan - where Turkish businessmen make substantial profits - the Ankara government obsesses about preventing the emergence of a Kurdish state. Betting on Iraq's Sunni Arabs (who despise the Turks but use them), Turkey has set itself up to lose big if Iraq dissolves.
* With its mischief-making in Iraq, cloak-and-dagger monkey business with Syria and failure to appreciate Iranian deviousness, Turkish foreign policy is in a self-destructive shambles unrivaled since the foundation of the modern Turkish state.
All of this leaves me in sorrow, since I spent decades arguing that Turkey's strategic importance required us to be patient as this land of enormous potential found its way to the future.
For an enthusiastic visitor to Turkey for three decades, it's been heartbreaking to watch its society and economy come to life - only to fall prey to Islamist vampires.
With Salafism - the Saudi brand of radical Islam - biting into the Turkish political jugular, the joke is that the despised Bedouins of Arabia have finally conquered the "Ottoman Empire." The most primitive and backward form of Islam is increasingly at home in the heartlands that had formed the core of the most powerful Muslim state for five centuries.
Now the question isn't whether our old ally can overcome its internal difficulties, but which of its troubles will overwhelm it first. Will the Islamist destruction of Turkish culture continue, or will a rumored military coup plunge the country back into another period of internal violence and political stasis?
For Washington, it's all bad news. The march of punitive Islam (punitive, above all, to Muslims) continues to feed on wild-eyed anti-Americanism - but a military coup could lead to a misadventure in northern Iraq similar to Argentina's Falklands debacle.
Last week's murder of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink (in which Islamo-nationalists cynically employed a 17-year-old assassin who could only be charged as a juvenile) laid bare the divide in Turkish society: 100,000 Turks turned out to protest the barbarous killing, but the government barely shrugged, since the demagogues now command far greater numbers.
Turkey's educated elite is in much the same position as Germany's elite during Hitler's rise to power. Imagining that the Islamists would sputter out, progressive Turks failed to act. Now Turkish civilization - so great for so many centuries - is unraveling the way Germany's did in the 1930s. Turkish intellectuals made the classic error of underestimating the common man's capacity for hatred and lust for blind revenge.
As for the spectacularly virulent and dishonest anti-Americanism in the Turkish media - we need never have a "Who lost Turkey?" debate: The Turks lost it for themselves. Instead of maturing into the Western culture of responsibility, Turks succumbed to the Arab world's culture of blame.
Having looked down on Arabs for centuries, Turks are now becoming functional Arabs, reclining into fantasies of greatness as surreal as a Sufi mystic's hashish dreams. Ataturk's revolutionary vision for a modern Turkish state - betrayed by his own corrupt successors - is fading into the reality of yet another retarded Muslim satrapy.
An even more accurate parallel case than 1930s Germany is today's Pakistan. Turkey is on the way to becoming another extremist-poisoned garrison state held together solely by its military.
On my last visit, I got a madman's lecture from a Turkish customs officer on the resurrection of the Ottoman Empire. But instead of returning to that empire's undeniable glories, 21st- century Turkey appears determined to replay the miserable Ottoman twilight.
I wish we could save Turkey. But we can't. That's up to the Turks. CRO
Ralph Peters'
66 - moonraven
More foolishness.
The threat to the US as a country in the world today is NOT Islamism.
It is the US government.
Happy landings.
67 - SeeBeyondNavel
Trying to answer Ruvy in #60 above.
I guess we could all just let the Middle Easterners Arabs, Turks, Kurds, Persians etc.....just wallow in their centuries, but I believe people that are in ours (like say Israel) might be a little nervous given their geographic proximity.....
68 - Lumpy
There's something inherently ridiculous about Turks of all people complainimg about government corruption at this late date and given that they pretty much invented it.
69 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
At comment #65 - thank you very much for your detailed analysis of Turkey's possible future. It is a lot more specific than Dave Nalle's quip that the country would be little more than Thanksgiving dinner, but it appears to say the same thing.
In fact, you seem to say much that Almagir Hussein says, but with a western, American slant to it.
And our leaders, stupid lap dogs that they are, will be kissing Turkish ass along with Arab ass.
Sigh.....
70 - alessandro
Someone brought up the Kurds and Turks. Yes, Turkey should be dissuaded from attacking and potentially causing a massive problem - and probably a genocide. The Americans should not let this happen. They already let the Kurds out to dry once after the first Gulf war. It's a tricky one for sure.
71 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
And why should the American government do anything that smacks of decency, Alessandro? If they did, they wouldn't be true to themselves....
72 - Dr Dreadful
I say bring back the Byzantine Empire.
73 - moonraven
And the Bossanova.
74 - RJ
Pelosi FAILED