Dear Embassy of Turkey —
In early 1995 as an associate lawyer at Arnold & Porter
(I was later elected a partner, and eventually left practicing
law in early 2006), I had the pleasure and honor of representing
the Government of Turkey to defend against an effort by the
Motion Picture Assn. of America to have certain U.S. government
import and trade preferences taken away from Turkey to punish
Turkey for alleged failures to enforce copyright protections over
motion pictures — especially videotape sales. I had the pleasure
of meeting two of your trade attachés in your embassy on
Massachusetts Ave.
Shortly after I was brought into the case, your Prime
Minister at the time, Ms. Tansu Çiller, visited Washington and
met with President Clinton. President Clinton issued statements
very supportive of Turkey, and I advised that in the trade
dispute, our primary argument ought not to be on the complexities
of the copyright law or on the details of video sales, but on the
larger international political priorities of the U.S. government:
that at a time when the President was praising Turkey and
promoting close ties, his own Department of Commerce would be
contradicting the President’s own broad policy if it were to take
trade action against Turkey. It was at my initiative that we
submitted and highlighted to the Commerce Dept. the President’s
own official White House statement, which I obtained from the
White House Press Office officially and authoritatively.
While I was not privy to the internal deliberations inside
the Clinton Administration Commerce Dept., the fact is that the
Commerce Dept. took no action against Turkey, denying the MPAA
request.
Since that time I have always had fond feelings towards
Turkey, although I cannot say that I have ever been there, nor
have I ever represented any Turkish interest since then. Nor am I
a Muslim (I am a mainstream U.S. Episcopalian). However, as a
partner, on a pro bono basis, I represented the Boroumand
Foundation (which you can find on-line) which provides
educational resources for persons in (or interested in) Iran who
wish to see that country become more democratic and
peace-oriented.
I am contacting you today because the actions of the
current Turkish government with respect to the Gaza fleet, and
announced possible future actions of the current Turkish
government, present the greatest threat of war in the Middle East
since 1948. I hope that you can get my message through to the
Ambassador and to proper persons in Ankara.
The entry of Turkey into the Palestine conflict is very
significant — it is the first new open national ally that the
proponents of violence have obtained since 1948 — in 62 years.
This has happened for two major reasons, the loss of the Russian
“stick” and of the European “carrot”:
(1) The weakness of Russia means that the Russian threat to
Turkey, which is historical and based in geography (the Russian
desire for warm-water ports) is the lowest it has been in about
150 years. Thus Turkey no longer feels the need to have a strong
alliance with the U.S. This first manifested itself in the Iraq
war when Turkey prevented transit of our planned northern
invasion army. Russia no longer threatens Turkey with its
“stick.”
(2) The rejection by the European Union of Turkey as a
member. Turkey has been trying for many years to become a member,
and Europe has always dallied and then said no. I do not say
whether Europe had or had not good reasons for this; but it has
become obvious that it will not allow Turkey in, for a good many
years to come. This is the loss of the European “carrot.”
There is a third, more minor (at least I think more minor)
reason, the loss of another “stick”:
(3) Greece has for centuries (ever since the Byzantine
Empire) been the historic enemy of Turkey. But Greece today is
very weak, wracked as it is by its debt crisis and the evident
refusal of Germany, France, et al., to help Greece out of it.
This is the loss of the Greek “stick.”
The Obama Administration’s anti-Jewish (and I do mean
anti-Jewish, not just anti-Israel) words and policies (I would
like to see President Obama bow to the Prime Minister of Israel
to balance-out his bow to the King of Saudi Arabia) has given the
religiously-oriented government of Turkey the opening that has
released it to pursue openly a state anti-Israel policy.
Had the Obama opening not been given, Turkey would not have
acted, despite all the other changes (items 1, 2, and 3 above)
that made it easier for Turkey to act.
I have been following the Israel-Palestine issue since 1974
when as a student at Pomona College, I participated in the “Model
United Nations – Far West” program. In 1973 the PLO had made a
big push to be admitted to the UN as a member state, and the
organizers of the Model UN Far West decided that to reflect this,
a college participating in the Model UN Far West would be asked
to “represent” the PLO. Pomona was the college chosen, and I
volunteered to be a member of the PLO delegation, and was
assigned as the PLO representative on the Special Committee for
Refugees. It was in this context that I first undertook to
research the political and sociological and legal and religious
history of this dispute.
In my opinion we are now on the verge of the most dangerous
threat of war in that region since 1948. Turkey’s open entry,
combined with the development of nuclear weapons by Iran and with
Iran under a violence-oriented government as it is, present a far
greater threat than ever before, even if Egypt sits on the
sidelines — and it probably will not just sit, as things heat
up.
If war happens, it will be disastrous not only for the
world’s Jews, but also for the world’s Muslims, because it will
trigger the entire billion-plus worldwide population of Muslims
to take an open religious stand in favor of armed conquest of
territory (the land now governed by Israel) and thus cement in
the eyes of all non-Muslims of the world that Islam, as a
religion, believes in the use of government military power to
impose religious power. The non-Muslim world, all over the world,
will react against that in a very pronounced way, which will make
it very difficult for adherents of the Muslim faith to persuade
non-Muslims to adopt their religion.
Thank you for passing this message “up the line.”
Sincerely Yours, Edward Sisson
********
Later, I followed up with
this:
Dear Turkish Embassy —
With respect to the message I sent you earlier today, a few
more thoughts:
Things are rapidly getting to the point where, if Turkey
continues on its present and proclaimed course, the only
protection for the Gaza blockade will have to come from the
United States Navy. When the subject of the U.S. Navy comes up, I
speak with some authority, as the son and grandson of Navy
captains and the descendant of U.S. Navy officers going back in
an almost unbroken line to the year 1799 (yes, 17 not 18) — and
that officer, Daniel Todd Patterson, was one of the prisoners
captured by the Bey of Tripoli in the Barbary War. My father was
a nuclear missile submarine commander; his father was an aircraft
carrier commander in the Korean War and World War II; my earlier
ancestors, or their brothers and brothers-in-law, include the
naval commander at the Battle of New Orleans in 1814-1815 (the
same Patterson, then a Commodore); the top admiral in the United
States Navy in the Civil War (David Dixon Porter); the admiral in
charge of the Asiatic Squadron when retired President Grant
visited Japan (Thomas Harmon Patterson); and the admiral who
commanded both the Atlantic Fleet and the Pacific Fleet just
before World War I (Cameron McRae Winslow). My great-uncle was
the naval aide throughout World War II to Admiral McCain
(grandfather of the current Senator); great-uncle Charlie Sisson
was aboard the USS Missouri a personal witness to the surrender
of Japan in 1945. You do not want to go to war with the U.S.
Navy.
Turkey must reverse its present disastrous course before
the Turkish government takes any more steps that will so commit
its honor and reputation to its current course, that it cannot
change direction without destabilizing its own internal respect
and legitimacy. I feel that what we are seeing with Turkey today
is similar to what was happening with Japan in the late 1920s and
early 1930s: the government is beginning to take open military
steps from which it will feel unable to withdraw.
I have recently been reading Hirohito and the Making of
Modern Japan by Herbert Bix. You can read large portions of
it yourselves, online, on “Google
books.” Just do a Google search on the book’s title and it
will pop right up.
I urge Turkish government diplomats and officials to read
from page 214 to 254. Japan’s military involvement in China arose
initially to defend Japanese civilians resident in China, who in
1927 were threatened by violent acts of China’s Nationalist
Revolutionary Army. See page 214. This led to increasing Japanese
military involvement, which triggered American concerns and
economic sanctions, that then ultimately led Japan to attack the
U.S. and begin the great Pacific War.
Turkey’s own increasing involvement in the Palestine
dispute has many similarities with the reasons Japan involved
itself in China in 1928 and after. Please learn caution from the
lesson of Japan.
Sincerely Yours, Edward Sisson
