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Taking a Sledgehammer to Ataturk

By George H. Wittman on 3.26.10 @ 6:07AM

How long will Turkey remain an American ally?

Stern faced, defiant yet not a little concerned, Turk generals, admirals, and special forces chiefs were led unceremoniously from police vans to constabulary headquarters. Of the fifty ranking military officers rounded up at the end of February, only twelve were finally charged with planning a coup. There was nothing unusual in the news of a possible coup -- there had been four since 1960 -- but the arrest of serving and retired military officers for planning to do so certainly was news. Suspiciously, the follow-up to this story has disappeared from the headlines.

The gauntlet has been thrown down by the Islamist civilian government of P.M. Racep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP). As a result Turkey is in the throes of political change that can alter the entire political balance in the Middle East. Since the post-WWII Truman Doctrine this one time center of the Ottoman Empire -- turned Republic of Turkey in 1923 -- has been counted on as an American ally.

Turkish forces fought courageously with the U.S./UN troops during the Korean War and joined NATO in 1952. U.S. missiles were stationed in Turkey aimed at the Soviet Union and American U-2 spy planes secretly flew out of Anatolian bases to photograph Russian sites. The role of Turkey's military in these years had been accepted at home and abroad as a guardian of secular dominance and legal process as perceived by the republic's first president, Mustapha Kemal Ataturk.

The first important break in Turkey's military commitment to the West occurred in 2003 when, in spite of enormous pressure from Washington, the newly elected Erdogan government in Ankara refused American transit through Turkey into northern Iraq. The U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division was forced to arrive in Iraq via a long sea trip through the Suez Canal and 'round the Arabian Peninsula to the Persian Gulf to land instead in Iraq's southern ports.

While the 4th ID ultimately was able to play an altered -- if still major -- role in the fighting, U.S.-Turkish relations had been hit with a new reality. Apologists for the Erdogan government pointed to the traditional animosity of Turkey to the Kurds of northern Iraq, whom Ankara did not want to benefit from a U.S. presence. While that certainly was a factor, a stronger impetus came from the new Turkish government's desire to pursue an amicable relationship with its Muslim neighbors, who were adamantly supporting efforts to prevent another "crusader" invasion of the Islamic Middle East.

The essential element of Islamic political unity had received a major boost. The sharp political division between the strongly secular military and the Islamist-oriented civilian leadership of the AKP became even more stark after the AKP's victory in 2007 with nearly 47% of the vote in the general election. At the same time as the military was growing increasingly worried about the direction of the conservative religious government in Ankara, the AKP leadership began seeing a military coup under every carpet. Matters became even more confrontational as the Erdogan government proceeded on a path to improve relations with both Iran and Syria to the detriment of the long-standing special relationship between Turkey and Israel.

As if by some form of Turkish magic, hours of tapes of a 2003 war game were recently discovered in which the military brass played out a scenario wherein a provocation would be created with the Greek Air Force, among other things, to justify the installation of military law in Turkey, nullifying existing civilian control. This "evidence" was adequate to have government prosecutors order the initial fifty arrests last month and the ultimate charges against the twelve chosen leaders.

The colorful name of the supposed coup operation was Balyoz, which means "Sledgehammer." The heavy-handedness of the coup charge itself suggests the same code name could be given to the government's operation. The fact that there was a seven-year gap between evidence of a coup cabal and the police roundup was immediately noted by spokesmen for the accused.

The Chief of the General Staff, Ilker Basbug, was as close to apoplectic as this studiously calm soldier could be when he charged that a "psychological campaign" was being waged to disparage the Turkish military. Underlying General Basbug's fears is the likelihood that the AKP is laying the groundwork to rescind the 1980 constitution, which has always been seen as a military-dictated instrument.

The objective would be to replace the existing basic law with a document diminishing the armed services' influence on domestic politics and opening the way for a reduction of the commitment to a secular society that was the bedrock of Mustapha Kemal Ataturk's original vision of the new republic. With the military no longer the guardian of the secular nature of the Republic of Turkey, the way would be open to greater Islamic influence in governance and law.

The arrests may inadvertently produce the exact action they were intended to block. That is now something about which the armed forces must be thinking!

George H. Wittman, a member of the Committee on Present Danger, was the founding chairman of the National Institute for Public Policy.

topics:
Turkey, Racep Tayyip Erdogan

About the Author

George H. Wittman writes a weekly column on international affairs for The American Spectator online. He was the founding chairman of the National Institute for Public Policy.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (20) | Leave a comment

mavigozler| 3.26.10 @ 8:22AM

While all Turks cringe in fear of the potential of a Turkish Al Qaeda either coming up from within the Erdoğan government or succeeding it after this government has created, purposely or otherwise, the rails upon which this sharia train might roll, Turks are also not warm to the idea that the so-called defenders of the republic's founder Atatürk, the Turkish military, will once again engage in their periodic--once every decade or so---takeover of the country to make sure, primarily, that the Turkish government allocates huge portions of the wealth of Turkey to the military, with no accountability for WFA (you know, waste, fraud, and abuse).

The last darbe (Turkish for coup d'etat) by the junta of General Kenan Evren was a bloody one, with the enemies of the military (traditionally those on the left) "disappearing," and millions of Turks want the Pinochet-like Evren to be tried for crimes committed during the years he was in power.

Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan voluntarily stepped down from power when the Turkish general staff had hinted that it was not happy about the things going on when an overtly Islamic political party (Refah, "welfare") had come to power. The Anayasa Mahkemesı (the Turkish Constitutional Court, the equivalent of the U.S. Supreme Court) is in the habit of "cancelling" (banning) political parties, as it disbanded Refah, and is thus on record as saying that there is such a thing as crimes of thought.

What the staff and readership of The American Spectator should be concerned with is the deterioriating relationship between the United States and Turkey. The so-called Armenian "genocide" is a very sensitive matter, if only because its proponents, mainly in the Armenian diaspora, have shown a reckless disregard for the truth: this thing is not at all about correcting the historical record, and it is entirely about an Armenian hatred for Turks and all things Turkish, and to use this issue to weaken the nation and bludgeon its people. That becomes readily apparent when you see proponents of this issue want to put the blame for these massacres on the Turks living today, and even those Turks not yet born. There is not a single Turk that denies that tens to hundreds of thousands (not millions) of Armenians died in a civil war that they basically started (encouraged by a Russian intrigue). But the term genocide when used to compare what happened between Turks and Armenians as to how Hitler treated the Jews goes very far beyond the pale. Jewish and Holocaust remembrance organizations typically get outraged at comparisons between mass murders/massacres and the Nazi-plotted genocide: where are they?

It was a Jewish member of Congress representing a district in California clearly populated by large numbers of the Armenian diaspora at the chair of the House committee that voted 23-22 for the genocide resolution that has so justifiably incensed the Turkish government. Just before that happened, deputy foreign minister of Israel had summoned the Turkish ambassador to a room where he humiliated the ambassador before the press, violating several rules of diplomatic protocol to express rudeness. (This junior minister later apologized, but before the press?) Israel has been unhappy with Turkey trying to be friendly with all its neighbors, and yes, that includes border states like Syria, Iraq, and Iran (no matter whether the border is measured in meters or kilometers). It's better to be on good terms with your neighbors, doncha think? Would Turkey expect the U.S. to initiate unprovoked hostilities with Mexico and Canada??

Obama has messed up this relationship with Turkey however. He had promised the Armenians to support their remembrance day officially (not just unofficially) and his position incensed the Turkey. And Israel was allowed to use a House committee in the U.S. as a stick with which to beat the Turks. Outrageous! Obama ultimately owns the consequences of this diplomatic slap-in-the-face---no, kick in the teeth---and the consequences will be severe.

I have written elsewhere that is entirely within Turkey's interest to form what I call the North-South Economic Axis: Turkey has been rudely treated for five decades in being denied membership in the European Union---it should also nullify the sell-out by corrupt Turkish leaders, like former PM Tansu Ciller---that is called customs union. Instead the North-South Economic Axis would consist of three states: Russia, Turkey, and Israel. Later other regional states could join (possibly Jordan). The Axis would only provide preferential multilateral trade relationships within the "union" and decades later would work towards goals involving common passports and a social and currency policy. Russia is looking for a club to join, as is Turkey and Israel. And I can't think of a better thing than three wallflowers to be introduced to one another.

And let's look at Turkey's support of the United States on matters of interest to (the security of) the U.S. Turkey was in line with all other nations when the United States followed proper protocol and demanded that the de facto government controlled by the Taliban extradite the criminal terrorists (yes, that's redundant!) of Al Qaeda responsible for the 11 September 2001 atrocity, a criminal act. When the Taliban laughed, and guffawed, and refused the unconditional terms, Turkey and every other responsible nation was behind the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, a legal act of war because the harboring of fugitives was seen as the Taliban making them agents of the state, a necessary condition for an act of war perpetrated by Afghanistan against the United States. The Turks still keep a contingent in Afghanistan, in support of the forces there.

But the invasion of Iraq---opposed by half of Americans (not incidentally) and also by every responsible nation on the planet for multiple, obvious reasons---was completely beyond what was necessary. Saddam had effectively been pacified---castrated---and was willing to live out the remainder of his existence being a nuisance only to his people until one of his Praetorian guard assassinated the tyrant. More importantly, as a potential consequence to an invasion, you are correct in noting that the U.S. was making it possible for a Kurdish state to form out of a significant part of the Iraq hide, and this would worry the Turks for too many reasons to list here. But also important is that Turks had a lively trade with Iraq, a trade sustaining not the regime but the Iraqi Arabs and Kurds on the street. (The sanctions pushed by the U.S. and U.K. were obtuse and absurd, and only hurting the normal Iraqi.) Yes, 9 in 10 Turks opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq, if only because it was a crime against the peace and completely unnecessary.

I know something about America and Turkey. As a native Californian who lived the first 33 years of his life in the U.S. and who married a Turk and then moved to Ankara for the next 17 years of his life, I think I can speak with some qualification of what is in the best interests of Turkey and of the U.S., and that those do not involve contradicting or mutually exclusive interests. Iran does have a right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and should be told under no uncertain terms that should it ever dare to explode a nuclear device against Israel--no matter how delivered---its own nuclear annihilation would be assured by Israel and its allies.

At one time, we all lived in fear that humanity would assure its own existence in even the best days, not just the worst days, of the Cold War. And look how that all turned out. I would suggest fearmongers about Iran take a long look at what happens when states join the nuclear club...they tend to become more careful in their diplomacy and evolve towards behaving responsibly.

Rebel| 3.28.10 @ 9:16AM

It is not Turk or Armenian Issue, this is reverse of history. Turkey has an islamic tradition without it probably would not exist. This present course wants to turn back Turkey to the total Islamic path. In spite that a very large part ,or possibly the majority of Turks has a different idea. Anyway, this is a democratically elected government and they can freely turn Kemal's cascet towards Mecca (or Tehran). Only this writer comlpletely omitted the islamic influence and all the excuses like the exclusion from the EU are humbug. Turkey like the whole Islamic world is going toward fundamentalism and it almost require to reduce or ruin connection with Israel and basically with West, and for this they will find all kind of manufactured or real reasons. This is a natural inclination of Turkey today. Depending, the strength or weakness of secular forces in Turkey the present government will go all the way with islamization. Then we'll see what happens.

Ryan| 3.26.10 @ 9:02AM

Not surprising that the first post would be from a Turk apologist. We'll probably hear from Armenians later.

Several problems with the above post:

One, Turkey isn't quite the victim in not being let into the EU. There are TONS of problems - lax traffic laws (Turkey has the rep of having the world's worst drivers); human rights issues (disabled children are shoved into substandard orphanages and ignored); lack of free speech laws (try saying something bad about Ataturk and see how fast you wind up in jail); disrespect for women (I've known several women who were missionaries who didn't exactly have an easy time...)...

Not to mention the dishonesty when it comes to the Armenians, which is only now coming to light due to external pressure - the Turks are only now starting to take responsibility for their actions.

I'm no fan of Turkey. Its power base has consistently been anti-freedom, but often that can be a long, arduous process. It's an odd place that is a mixture of Western and Eastern, a crossroads still trying to find its own identity - as it has for several thousand years.

mavigozler| 3.26.10 @ 10:09AM

There are TONS of problems

Let's address your nonsense point-by-point:

lax traffic laws (Turkey has the rep of having the world's worst
drivers): I will be the first to say that Turks do not obey the rules
of the road and are entirely reckless on the road (which I routinely use!), but
have you ever been to name-any-African-nation, where they even drive
without headlights at high speeds in the dark of night to save on fuel? And
there are many countries--name any of them---that have Mediterranean Sea
shorelines whose drivers routinely show contempt for public health and safety as
well as pedestrians. Turkey by far is not alone on this planet as having
terrible drivers. I think your problem is that you remember the one and only
time you went beyond the borders of the U.S. and got into a taxi cab in
Istanbul. I suggest you grow up.

human rights issues (disabled children
are shoved into substandard orphanages and ignored): seriously!!! you are
again saying that Turks are alone in this matter??? I suggest you take a long
and hard look at the foster children program---pick any city you like---in the
United States, where kids are warehoused for money. And Turkey has abolished
the death penalty to align itself with the EU, something it could not use to
deal with Abdullah Ocalan, the captured leader of the PKK responsible for tens
of thousands of death in a guerilla war.

lack of free speech laws (try
saying something bad about Ataturk and see how fast you wind up in jail):
you really are showing just how ignorant you are, arncha? The United States is
the only place on the planet where you can stand in front of the
White House and call your president/leader/prime minister an "f****ing bastard"
(or worse!) and not be immediately arrested....there really is no other nation
on the planet with a First Amendment. How many newspaper editors get sued or
even arrested for insulting a name-any-European-nation politician?
Plenty! While the denial of free speech by any government is contemptible,
Turkey is the least among offenders.

disrespect for women (I've known
several women who were missionaries who didn't exactly have an easy
time...): What does "disrespect" for women mean exactly??? Some
uneducated Turkish men have been following the media (film, television) in which
they get the wrong impression---again, film...television---that women from
non-Turkish cultures are "approachable," "easy," and lust-filled vixens, but
they are get quickly corrected by more educated Turks, if not the women
themselves. And don't tell me about the status of women being second-class
citizens in Turkey: Tansu Çiller was the first female to lead the country of
Turkey as its prime minister (1993-1996), and the United States has yet to see
its first female president!! I supported Hillary in 2008 when everyone else on
both the left and right were baselessly and maliciously calling
her a wh*re. Nancy Pelosi only recently became the first female to serve in the
highest position in the U.S. that any female has held.

You seem to
think you know a lot for someone who has never lived in Turkey! Perhaps you can
make additional statements to reveal just how much of an ass you
are.

Ryan| 3.26.10 @ 10:29AM

Comparing Turkey to other countries doesn't make you right.

Deflecting the issue doesn't mean that it still goes on and needs to be corrected, and that Turkey has a long way to go.

Addressing specifically:
Lax traffic laws - so WHAT about Africa? Deal with your own problems, don't point to saying "they're worse!"

Disabled children in orphanages: The conditions in Turkey are FAR WORSE than any foster home in America. I've seen the pictures and spoken to women who have gone over and worked firsthand with those children. Diapered, ignored, malnourished, abused...don't point at other countries. Fix your own problems.

Turkey is NOT the least among offenders on free speech and human rights abuses. Any time someone is jailed for speaking out, it's wrong. The right to criticize government officials - even insultingly - is a right that should be enjoyed. America is one of the few places that does freedom of speech CORRECTLY.

Disrespect for women - specific instance - Turkish guards at the airport running metal bars through and ruining American women's luggage as they are going over to aid the ignored orphanages in Turkey. Islam is notorious for debasing and ignoring the rights of women, for not allowing them to have authority. One woman in power does NOT solve this problem.
Nancy Pelosi is the first speaker, but there are PLENTY of American women who arguably held higher authority than her for the past 20-30 years. Supreme Court justices; Governors; Senators; Secretaries of state and other cabinet positions...etc...etc...
Turkey has no room to talk.

Don't point fingers. Deal with your own issues.

Success does NOT come from deflection - it comes from taking responsibility for your own actions. Turkey's problem is its outward blame and "woe is us" attitude. You will NOT succeed in that manner as a country.

mavigozler| 3.26.10 @ 10:47AM

You had the audacity and unmitigated, outrageous gall to say that Turkey was unfit for EU membership--if not imply as well that it was unfit to be called civilized--- because of a few problems you could enumerate, problems found everywhere in the current membership of the EU, if not the entire planet. I mean, are you serious???? You say that TR is unqualified to be in the EU because of its reckless drivers???? You know nothing of say, Greece, Italy, Spain???

And yes, conditions for children in foster homes and elsewhere in the United States are every bit as bad as the places for orphaned children in Turkey! I have seen the mess in Turkey and in the United States.

And here is where you make your major error: yes, I can agree that Islam, as well as Christianity and Judaism and every other superstitious absolutist belief system on the planet debases women and other groups. The women who have held and routinely hold high office in Turkey--Ciller has by far not been the only one---hold those positions not because Turkey is an Islamic country, but because Turkey is a country that just happens to be populated by Muslims. Turks are proud that their country is laik (secular), and they routinely point it out to its visiting tourists, whether or not they happen to be imbeciles such as yourself who seem to have no awareness of reality.

And no one is making a two-wrongs-make-a-right argument to say that Turkey's defects should be tolerated: if you think so, point out what statement I made where I actually said it is okay for Turks and Turkey to be dreadful. I am pointing out that your apparent qualifications for EU membership would mean reducing the number of member states down to say, 3 or 4. If you don't make a sound argument, you should not expect to your nonsense to go unchallenged.

Ryan| 3.26.10 @ 11:15AM

Gall all over here.

Greece and Italy are pretty bad, but the traffic issue is simply one of many corrections that need to be made.

Conditions in orphaned homes are NOT worse in the US. We DON'T routinely strap kids to beds, keep them in diapers, neglect, abuse, and ignore them as policy. Turkish orphanages - particularly where the disabled are concerned - ARE far worse and are a blight upon the country.

Christianity has done FAR more in aiding women's equality than Islam ever has. Christ's main followers were women; He gave far more attention and acknowledgment to women than the culture allowed at the time; Paul's statement, "husbands, love your wives" was RADICAL thinking for the time.

Turkey still has a reputation that to be Turkish is to be Muslim; if that were NOT the case, then Hagia Sophia needs to be restored as a museum with the paintings removed over the Christian icons. It's the one example that Islam still rules in Turkey.
Christians are still persecuted there, violently - particularly converts. It is still allowed to martyr converts (maybe not legally, but culturally).

Turkey has an identity problem, no matter what the tour guides say. It has internal conflicts with its controlling Islamic heritage seeking to maintain some sort of control (particularly culturally), yet has a substantial desire to join the west.

You made the "look who's worse" argument. If that is your starting point, then you imply that the status quo for Turkey is tolerable.

It isn't. Neither is much of the abuses in Europe of what Americans hold as our 1st amendment rights, but Turkey is a step behind even those.

mavigozler| 3.26.10 @ 11:33AM

While I am now persuaded that you are completely ineducable on what place Turkey holds among nations, and I was thus about ready to ignore any more pointed anti-Turkish prejudice of yours, I could not help but catch that one word of your mention of Paul of Tarsus, the first Jerry Falwell/Jimmy Swaggart/Jim Bakker of his time.

Indeed, it is the 6 or 13 "books" of Paul that really do point to all that is wrong with Christianity. The history of Christianity with its persecution of women and Jews and scientists, its justification of human slavery, and pretty much every other evil done in the name of Jesus Christ---it should actually be in the name of that charlatan Paul of Tarsus---can be laid at the feet of Paul.

Somehow, given all the other prattle and nonsense you have posted to this page, I should not at all be surprised that you put in a good word for Paul, whereas many other truly wise men knew what kind of creep he was. While I have no problem with Christ--he seemed like a well-intentioned person perceptive of what is good about humanity---there is every reason for thinking minds to put a distance between themselves and that shyster Paul. The Bible will become a more palatable tome when the entirety of his claptrap is excoriated from it.

Ryan| 3.26.10 @ 11:47AM

Was Christ merely " a well-intentioned person perceptive of what is good about humanity?"

I would debate that. Christ saw and came for precisely what was WRONG about humanity - its sin and separation from God. "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the fullest..."

If humanity was "good," we wouldn't have needed someone to point out that hatred was murder, lust was adultery, and that man was guilty in the eyes of the Law (God's law here, for clarification).

Those aren't Paul's words. They are Christ's. However, Pauline critics pretty much just selectively point at certain parts of his letters and ignore the entirety of what he wrote in context. None of what he wrote conflicts with Christ's teachings about humanity and its need for a saviour.

Honestly, please take a step back and look at Turkey through the eyes of the rest of us. Turks are understandably proud of their nation. However, many of us view Turkey as attempting to cling to put on a veneer of respectability with the rest of the world while not really dealing with its internal problems. Of course, that could be said about many nations, but to escape the third world and to truly be successful, Turkey HAS to get out of certain roots.

David Davidian| 3.26.10 @ 9:40AM

What is taking place in Turkey could have been predicted decades ago when in response to Soviet influence, especially in rural regions, Turkey’s state-run religious institutions began ratcheting up Islamic rhetoric. Islam cannot simply be turned on and then off upon demand. The result: a generation later, AKP takes over in Turkey and is consolidating it power today. Saudi Arabia engaged in a similar experiment when it began pumping up radical Wahhabism in their schools in reaction to events such as the 1979 seizure of Mecca’s Grand Mosque. It should not be surprising that most of the 9/11 terrorists where from that realm. To come full circle, Saudi Wahhabists supply text books to Turkish schools in Germany and other places.

Mustafa Kemal’s Turkey could not have existed without the forced removal and extermination of its indigenous Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian populations. Raphael Lemkin, the lawyer who coined the term
genocide, stated, "I became interested in genocide because it happened
to the Armenians; and after the Armenians got a very rough deal at the
Versailles Conference because their criminals were guilty of genocide
and were not punished." see 1949 CBS TV interview with Quincy Howe.

Dave| 3.26.10 @ 9:44AM

Turkey was a valuable Cold War ally. But it looks more and more like Ataturk was just a blip, a ray of sunshine in an otherwise cloudy Islamic world.

Our interests are permanent, our friends are not. Turkey does not want to be our friend anymore.

Patrick Berry, USAF, (Ret.)| 3.26.10 @ 12:10PM

There actually was a fifth attempted Coup, which I, while on temporary assignment from Det. 2, 5th Mobile Communications Group, Shaw AFB, SC, was instrumental in stopping.

I received a Commendation from the 5th Allied Tactical Air Force (NATO), and a nice cover letter from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Pentagon.

General Kenan Alp, Commander, 5th ATAF, was challenged by his Vice-Commander, at the close of NATO exercises, 1972. With all weapons live, a military coup by the Vice-Commanding General, was a distinct possibility.

I entered the Command Bunker, 2 minutes after Noon, on Saturday, when exercises had supposedly terminated . As I pushed through the swinging doors, I immediately faced some 80 rifles held by oscars(draftees), 40 on each "side", from behind their up-turned tables and chairs.

I asked if they had not yet received the FRAG message ending all exercises, and ordering all weapons back to the ammo bunkers.

With both general's permission, I dashed off to the AN/TGC-27 Crypto van, frantically contacted my US commanders, on our dedicated hot line, and retrieved the 12 page message, in Teletype duplicate.

At 8 minutes past the noon cease fire deadline, both Generals were reading them. The Vice-Commander turned white, all Oscars put their rifles on safety, and I retreated outside the bunker.

Last I knew, the vice-commander and fellow collaborators were "retired with extreme prejudice".

Talking with other retired Military veterans, over the past 40 years, I have heard many similar stories of American Servicemen being in the exactly correct place and time to save a nation or a people.

There are probably a couple instances each year, of American military personnel stopping an action or coup in a foreign nation, that never makes it into the news media.

America's Pentagon and State Department do not usually air the dirty laundry of our allies, and the many actions of our people go un-mentioned.

My Official Commendations merely mention that I was instrumental in "restoring Communications"!

Frog in Uniform| 3.26.10 @ 2:09PM

Well, I don't give a rat's ass about crushing your feelings, Mister Mavigozler but, for us french, Turkey means bad news, always did, always will.
We should never forget that it was Europe's worst enemy for centuries. We still nickname you The Pillage People... Turkish raiders would kidnap children along the coasts of Spain, Italy and France, so they would become soldiers or sex slaves. Turkey made a mess of Southern Europe including Sicily, Sardinia, Albania, Austria and the Balkans. Turkey has an uninterrupted history of violence, genocides, anal rapes, and massacres where people would be impaled or skinned alive, or sodomized on church altars like in Constantinople (from those dark days, we still have the slur:"Va te faire voir chez les turcs!" or "Get the special treatment from the turks!") OK, that was then, but should we "move on"? We have close to 1 million turks in France, they may not be as hopeless as most immigrants from North Africa, but they are far from being peaceful model citizens, they own the heroin and arm smuggling trade, they are the privileged intermediaries between our domestic underworld and the former soviet republics mafias, their values are medieval to say the least as there are more episodes of honor killings among them than among all other muslim communities combined (the tunisians being the most tolerant) and as I wrote earlier, their admission (sponsored by the traitors Chirak and Sarkozy but also, alas, by the US for strategic reasons) in the European Community, is a disaster waiting to happen because there is no way our economies and our culture can absorb 80 million muslims on top of the 56 million we already have, not counting the million of turk speaking citizens from the former soviet republics that are automatically granted a turkish passport by the turkish constitution.
Then, there is the little matter of the Armenian Genocide, that contrary to what Mister Mavigozler claims, was a real, planned, physical elimination of an estimated 1,500,000 disarmed innocent people. To this date, and I'm not sorry to contradict you Mister M., it is forbidden to speak or write about this genocide in Turkey, the sentence being 3 years in a turkish prison (far from being Gitmo, have you seen that movie "Midnight Express" by that limey poofter leftist director Alan Parker?) and there is also the matter of Cyprus, that independant, greek speaking island, member of the European Community, invaded by Turkey and claimed as turkish territory... So the more agitated, the more turmoil there is, the more military plots are uncovered in Turkey, the better we feel. What is bad for Turkey is good news for Europe.

Judas| 3.26.10 @ 10:35PM

There are certainly problems that Turkey has to deal with, and it is true that some of these do exist even in European nations, and to an extent in US as well. As a DC resident, I can tell you that signaling is almost illegal here in the nation's capital. However, make no mistake about what I am saying here, i.e., Turkey has a looong way to become a civilized nation particularly when it is seen behind a warped window in Europe. Turks living there is not a good statistical sample of people living in Turkey. In early 60s-70s, Germans in particular needed the labor force and many villagers in rural areas of Turkey moved into Germany. They felt alone as they were very foreign to almost everything in Germany, so Islam and its radical quarters saw the opportunity to glue this ignorant crowd and isolated them from the modern life style in Germany. That and the Germany's laziness to ignore the problem of integration, amounted to the situation today and similar outcomes in other countries where Turks are islamized much and much more that those in Turkey. Indeed, for those commentators that did not have the wealth or desire to visit Turkey may be surprised to learn that in Turkey, wearing turban or religious figures is forbidden in schools, hospitals, public places etc. It is so much secular beyond your imagination. Thanx to Ataturk. I am afraid I should say "it was" as I fear the AKP's effort of systematic agenda aims to make Turkey much less secular, perhaps not as like how it is in Iran, since dynamics of Turkish society may never completely go as backward as in the declining years of Ottomans. Perhaps I should not be optimistic even in this prediction as the threat is serious and I agree with the author that its implications can be very disastrous in Middle East.

But many of what is discussed here has nothing to do with the article, which unfortunately is almost always the case when it is about Turkey. Genocide claims, Armenian funded, acted and spoken (all actors have heavy accents and caves shown as prisons are the caves in Malta) Midnight Express, hundreds of years of hatred, twisted facts about Cyprus immediately took over the main intent of the article. If I read it right, it is about erosion in secular, Kemalist regime in Turkey by AKP's systematic campaign that is destined to clash with secularists. I for one was hoping that army would show more deterrence and stop the judicial madness that holds 50-60 intellectuals, army officers, staunch seculars who are against Erdogan's party without any credible evidence. Some of them are in prison for over 18 months without any shred of proof. It is so laughable that "AKP raised" judges seemingly ignorant of law and justice, can imprison who they want on the bases of anonymous emails and accusations of unknown identities that are not even made known to defenders. This massacre of judicial powers is certainly very dangerous and yet another tactical move to silence the people's reactions. No-one dares to raise voice even though majority agrees that these fancy "sledgehammer, Ergenekon, Cage" coup plot claims are made up by AKP circles to weaken the power of military and staunch defenders of Kemalist regime and is totally a set-up to at least put a question-mark on ordinary Mehmet (Joe) that respected army generals may be nothing but corrupt citizens and what not. They seem to be achieving it, as the nation is becoming a police state where people are afraid to say anything that will disturb the AKP government since they can be prosecuted just by voicing their opinions. Indeed, contrary to a commentator here, in today's Turkey if you curse at Ataturk, you may have a chance to excel in AKP's ladder, if otherwise against AKP, you may be put into the prison with no hope of a just trial.

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Wayang Kulit| 3.29.10 @ 12:37PM

1. Recall what the Constitution of Turkey (particularly article 175) says.
2. Armenians yesterday, Kurds tomorrow.
3. Most of us red-blooded Americans could do with a lot fewer Communists, in Turkey or anywhere.
4. When one considers that the first city in Anatolia predates (probably) even agriculture itself, you have to take the long view in considering events in Turkey. It is to be expected that sentiment would tend to swing back from secularism after the end of the Caliphate. There are always plenty of usurpers.
4. The chief pretender finds the most support within Imami Shī‘ism. Turkey has a border with Iran; it even has a ten-mile or so border with Naxçıvan. Sorting through the ethnic, linguistic, religious, and national hodge-podge is best left to Turks, but Greece and Georgia are not likely to go nuclear and attack just to uncover an Imam anytime soon. Ben Türkler iyi biliyorum umuyoruz.

Crusader| 3.29.10 @ 1:13PM

turkey is a sh1thole. the people are ignorant and lazy.

Michele San Pietro| 4.2.10 @ 11:28AM

Turkey is definitely going toward religious fondamentalism, it still oppresses the Kurdish minority, and it keeps denying the Armenian genocide. I think the free world doesn't need Turkey.

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