* Victor Davis Hanson still has hope. But its time for contingency plans:
Hardly Turkish Delight
[Victor Davis Hanson]
I thought (and wrote to that effect) that both the gratuitous and toothless Senate resolutions calling for the de facto trisection of Iraq, and condemnation of Turkey for the century-old Armenian holocaust were unnecessary barbs that would only inflame an already anti-American Turkey.
BUT we should confess that much of Turkish anti-Americanism is ill-founded and derives from their own ongoing fights between Islamists and Attaturk Secularists and has nothing to do with anything the United States has done. Recent polls reveal that Turks are among the most anti-American and anti-Christian peoples in the world, the latter fact not surprising to anyone who reads deeply of the 500-year history of Hellenic-Ottoman relations.
A second point: by and large the United States has treated Turkey well. We support its entry into the EU; we tried to be fair in the Cyprus dispute (despite the Turkish brutal invasion in 1974); we offered a lot of money to use bases to supply the invasion of Iraq; we advise the Greeks patience in the face of constant Turkish overflights in the Aegean. We were a good ally in the Cold War, and kept the Soviets doing to Turkey what it did to Eastern Europe.
Again, nothing really justifies the elemental hatred that the present generation of Turkey seems to exhibit for America, or the perverted manifestations of anti-Semitism or things like the mega-hit, anti-American film and subsequent TV series Valley of the Wolves (replete with murderous American soldiers and an organ-harvesting Jewish doctor).
Where does that leave us? I believe we need to cool the resolutions, continue to talk nicely to Turkey, send out diplomatic peace-feelers, assuage Turkish wounded pride, hope for the best—and start making immediate contingency plans for a possible dramatic break from this erstwhile critical Nato ally.
And that would mean backup plans should it become necessary to abandon facilities inside Turkey, and seek closer relations with Armenia, Kurdistan, Greece, Cyprus, and other regional neighbors. Perhaps both sides have been clumsy, but there are developments going on in Turkey that are far larger than inept diplomacy, and we should quit denying the danger, or despair that without the old Turkey we are adrift in the Eastern Mediterranean. We are not.
We should never promote such divides, but recognize the current course of Turkish politics is not necessary ahistorical, but may in fact be a natural reaction against the historical aberration of Attaturk’s secularism, as European Turkey begins to become overwhelmed, demographically and culturally, by anti-Western, anti-globalization Anatolian Islamism, and thus begins to replay the historical role of the Ottomans-whom, contrary to current orthodoxy, I don’t find to have very been positive for civilization as a whole.
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Blaming the Jews in Islamist Turkey
* You knew that was coming, didn’t you? Or were you just wondering why it took so long?
The Islamist regime of Turkey blamed the Jews today for that US House committee resolution condemning the Armenian genocide in 1915.
In an interview with the liberal Islamic Zaman newspaper on the eve of the resolution’s approval Oct. 10 by the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said he told American Jewish leaders that a genocide bill would strengthen the public perception in Turkey that “Armenian and Jewish lobbies unite forces against Turks.”
Babacan added, “We have told them that we cannot explain it to the public in Turkey if a road accident happens. We have told them that we cannot keep the Jewish people out of this.”
The Turkish public seems to have absorbed that message.
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Turkey update:
Turks bomb Kurds in Iraq using US-made attack helicopters.
“Turkish Troops Bomb Suspected Rebel Positions in Iraq,” from AP:
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships attacked positions of Kurdish rebels along the rugged Iraqi-Turkish border on Wednesday, the country’s official Anatolia news agency reported.
Several F-16 warplanes loaded with bombs took off from an air base in southeastern city of Diyarbakir, private Dogan news agency and local reporters said.
U.S.-made Cobra and Super Cobra attack helicopters chased Kurdish rebels some 3 miles into Iraqi territory on Sunday but returned to their bases in Turkey after a rebel ambush killed 12 soldiers near the border, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Hanson makes some good points. However, the Turks’ anti-US feeling is no surprise. It’s typical now that the big, bad USSR is no longer around as a threat. Europe is the same. Of course in this battle against Islamania it doesn’t help that the US continues to send out mixed signals-like telling the world how peaceful the Koranic ones are while evidence shows otherwise on a daily basis.
I think it sounds like the Turks are “reverting” – politically and otherwise. In a way it seems inevitable. I think we are going to see a lot more polarization, and some countries who the US calls “allies”, are going to show their true colors.
why not build bases in Kurdistan? the Turks are getting more radical as time goes on. i wish we would bomb thier armored columns as they cross the border, but we won’t. in a few years, they will be kicked out of NATO, denied EU membership, and will ally with the Russians or the Iranians. WE DON’T NEED THEM. iam all for Greek rule on Cyprus. we are at the beginning of ww 3.
Easing Turkey out of NATO is something that I have been looking forward to for a long time. This is the same Turkey, or Turks from the East, who destroyed the seat of Eastern Christendom, and scattered Greek Chistians from their land.
Russia of course would love to see this happen as well. An Orthodox Christian society and culture, with its origins in Byzantium, it will just bide time till the moment is right for it to get back Constatinople, and restore Santa Sophia. We can hope..
When thier is enough F-22 Sqdrns., and the JSF comes online, that may be the time the US will strike. Air supremacy will be immediate, and these planes will blow a hole in Iranian air defense for the rest of the air armada to strike. I really don’t think they need to wait for the JSF, as Bush&Co are near the end. We will see where our “allies” stand. The more i think of Bosnia and Kosovo, the more I want US troops out. Maybe the Serbs had the right idea. If not for Incirlik, I think the US would tell the turks to f-off. We cannot abandon the Kurds, so why don’t we pay the PKK off to continue thier ops somewhere else…like Iran? The moslems all over the world are killing non-moslems where they have a majority. Its time to put the danger in perspective. It is real. They will not stop. We must fight back. One question is: will Russia defend Iran? We are on the verge of a much wider war. Oh, by the way, B-2′s are being fitted to carry the 30k lb. MOS. Massive Ordinance Penetrator. Wonder wat thier gonna do with them?