Cold Turkey

Israel braces as US-Turkey crisis erupts

Turkey recalled its ambassador to the US Thursday as already-strained relations frayed further following a congressional committee vote recognizing the Armenian genocide.

* Bush tried to prevent it:

Bush urges rejection of Armenia genocide resolution

“This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings.” Evidently kowtowing to the Turks is the right response. By Tabassum Zakaria for Reuters

* You see, even when a sucker like George Bush tries not to offend his ‘allies’- there are immediate repercussions:

“This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings,” Bush told reporters at the White House.

GWB: Selling out for crumbs

*

Turks irked over genocide bill, recall US ambassador for talks

The Turks are irked. Wipe off that smirk. They think we’re jerks, for this genocide work. They will sulk and they may cry, and we will know the reason why: we’ve told the truth about their past, and so their deceptiveness can’t last.

“Turkey recalls US ambassador for talks,” by C. Onur Ant for Associated Press /Link

*

Fitzgerald: Note to Turkey:

“Get Stuffed!”

Before 

*

Note to the Turkish government:

1) The Cold War, or at least the First Cold War, is over. It is no longer 1950, or 1960. There is no longer a need for Turkey’s help in confronting Russia, which, while it has reverted to unpleasantness and despotism, is not the menace it once was. And Turkey is not quite so important a place for listening-posts and other bases.

2) Turkey was seen, not quite correctly, as a staunch ally against Communism, because, you see, “Islam is a bulwark against Communism.” American policymakers liked the Turkish generals, with their stolid soldiers (who fought in Korea). But they failed to realize that they got along so swimmingly with those Turkish generals not because they were such good Muslims (and therefore positively bulwarkish against Communists), but because they were not — because they were in fact “modern Turks,” bearers and preservers and protectors of the Kemalist legacy.

 After

*

Context: Let’s hope that someone will emerge with a clear mind that can lead the ousting of Turkey as an ally and friend

For Al Qaeda’s network Turkey is a haven for its sources of funding. Turkish networks, along with Russians’, are the main players in these fields; they purchase the opium from Afghanistan and transport it through several Turkic speaking Central Asian states into Turkey, where the raw opium is processed into popular byproducts; then the network transports the final product into Western European and American markets via their partner networks in Albania. The networks’ banking arrangements in Turkey, Cyprus and Dubai are used to launder and recycle the proceeds, and various Turkish companies in Turkey and Central Asia are used to make this possible and seem legitimate. The Al Qaeda network also uses Turkey to obtain and transfer arms to its Central Asian bases, including Chechnya.

http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/

*

TURKEY: THREATS, VIOLENCE AGAINST CHRISTIANS ON UPSWING

* Of course the Islamic government of Turkey lies and denies everything, in spite of mounting evidence: President: ‘There are no attacks targeting Christians in Turkey.’

LOS ANGELES, October 5 (Compass Direct News) – Turkish Protestants have reported increasing attacks and threats in recent months despite claims by President Abdullah Gul this week that Christians in Turkey are not targeted. The threats have increased since two Turkish Christian converts and a German Christian were tortured and killed at Zirve Publishing House in Malatya on April 18. Soner Tufan, director of Radio Shema, a Christian station in Ankara, said that since the Malatya murders, at least three times a month men have come to the station’s door and threatened workers. In Antalya, Antalya Bible Church pastor Ramazan Arkan said that he is pursuing four court cases against a construction worker who began threatening church members in May, and one member of his flock was assaulted after a church service in August. In spite of the murder of Catholic Priest Andrea Santoro in February 2006, the ritual slayings in Malatya, and other incidents, Turkish President Abdullah Gul told a Council of Europe gathering in Strasbourg, France this week, “There are no attacks targeting Christians in Turkey.”